#But I thought that a drawing like this would be conveyed better than if I'd done this in Firealpaca

[lady-zephyrine]

Had to do another one of these.

Not a single thought is currently residing in their head.

[tj-dragonblade]

I SEE YOU HAVE A TAKE ON MER HOB MAY I HEAR ABOUT MER HOB

YOU ABSOLUTELY MAY, even if it took me longer to respond than intended, oops. But! Mer-Hob is slowly turning into a different fic than originally imagined last year. Which is fine, and good, because what I'd originally imagined just wasn't working. I think I can confidently place him back on the wip list now with a better idea of the shape he'll have moving forward. And for you, thank you for your patience, here is their freshly-drafted first kiss scene:

"Dream?"

Dream glances to where Hob sits beside him, tail fin drifting idly in the water near Dream's bare feet. Dream had brought chocolate, again; the delight Hob had displayed the first two times was something he wanted to see again, and again, and again. He wanted to find every way possible to bring joy to Hob, to make that warm smile light up, to bring his laughter bubbling forth.

The chocolate has been finished, though, and Hob sounds…tentative; Dream's brow creases. "Yes?"

"I've got a question for you. Or. Well. Not so much a question, as something I'd like to tell you." He's tilted his head slightly, is toying with the lowest spine of his ear-fin. "It's. It's—I've been trying to tell you, like I would another mer, but I don't think you get it. And why would you, culturally, you've got no way to know if I don't explain it first right? So I thought, maybe I should just. Try it the human way?"

Dream is perplexed, not sure he entirely follows what Hob is trying to say, but then Hob is leaning closer, leaning in, as if he means to—

His lips touch Dream's, and Dream's heart stops as his brain catches up. Hob. Is kissing him—

Except it's not exactly a kiss, has none of the common elements aside from two pairs of lips in contact; Hob is very still, holding that touch for another instant, and then he pulls back.

Dream's heart thuds in his chest, tripping faster; he can feel how wide his eyes are and how his mouth has fallen slightly open, but all he can see is the hopeful uncertainty in the warm depthless brown of Hob's eyes.

"I'm sorry if I didn't do it right. But a kiss is how you say you like someone, right?"

"I. Yes." Dream is drowning in the instant-replay inside his own brain. Hob. Had kissed him. Hob had kissed him. Hob had kissed him—

"Well. I like you. And I think maybe…maybe you might um. Like me too?"

Dream manages a nod. "Mmhm." His heart is racing.

"Well!" Hob looks delighted if still nervous, and his tail flicks up in the water with a splash. "That's good, then! Brilliant! Okay!" He smiles, all warmth and happy energy. "Okay."

"Merfolk do not kiss, then?" Dream is slowly processing, still catching up, still circling helplessly around the bright spot of Hob kissed me, Hob LIKES me.

"Not many, nope. And I've never. But I've seen enough humans and human stuff to get the idea. Did I do it right?"

"Right enough. However." Boldness surges up in Dream, riding the bubbling tide of joy curling higher within his chest. "Can I. May I show you, what observation alone does not perhaps convey?"

"Of course," Hob says, curiosity in the tilt of his eyebrows, and Dream leans in.

It's soft, sweet; he fits his lips gently to Hob's and presses, brushes them together and apart and together again, aching with the fulfillment of this long-held wish. He is kissing. Hob. And Hob is kissing back, tentatively matching the movement of Dream's mouth on his, and Dream is dizzy with it. His hands yearn to hold, to touch; he brings one up and lets his fingertips flutter lightly to rest on Hob's cheek, away from the delicate spread of his ear-fin, away from the curve of his neck where his gills are tightly sealed. And when Hob reaches carefully to touch him in kind, Dream's heart soars.

A long moment passes before he ends the kiss at last; he draws back just enough to see, to watch Hob's eyes blink slowly open.

"Oh," Hob breathes, voice full of softness and wonder, and his beautiful eyes shine warm with the same.

~ Mer-Hob wip tag for the other recent chunk and some older little bits that may just wind up orphaned

[krispdreemurr]

Hey so don't worry about replying to this,

I just wanted to say sorry about sending that ask. (The Gerson Hammer Granpa one)

I have a lot of friends who don't do art because they don't think they're good at it and even if it's bad I still like to see it. Even if I could make a better drawing I wouldn't have the same ideas, but also it should be something you enjoy doing.

Like I got into doing art because I was bad at writing, and I didn't like doing art either because it looked bad but I wanted to make stories and I liked doing it more than writing.

You've probably got a lot of random advice and getting a load of that kinda sucks and can kill motive pretty easy so my bad. I liked the drawings you posted after and I'd watch the 3/4 view amv. But also don't do that unless it's something you actually like doing and would find fun.

My hands are also kind of shaky, I also use the "Kris Dremurr art therapy technique" I'd get around it by doing all the tracing over lines on top of lines bit in pencil and then going over the outline I like in ink. Heavier pens with the weight in the tip help but you probably know that if you've been dealing with mobility issues for a while.

i hope it is ok that I did reply to this, bc this was very sweet and thoughtful and I appreciate it!

honestly basically exact opposite trajectory of yours; i wanted to draw comics or whatever as a kid, but found out that while i could write pretty well and improve there art was a Much harder uphill battle for me, so I learned to convey the things I wanted to convey through prose as best I could

i'll probably always doodle a bit, I really do just draw a bunch of 3/4ths Kris Dreemurrs and I have tried my hand at a few "convey one frame of an animatic idea" or whatever drawings, but right now I feel like with like my wrist aching a lot and the amount I'd have to figure out making a like 3-4 minute long video is Not something I am capable of right now, especially when I know I'd hate the majority of the final work. i do appreciate everyone being very kind, but yeah the flood of advice did get to be a bit like "yes i know basic how to draw i just Find It Hard"

yeah I've def inked over things in the past when I did want a more consistent line, altho still runs into the "redo a line 40 times" thing lmao

thank you again for circling back, and for Getting It. i know if I put in a lot of time and energy I could probably improve, just I would rather dedicate that energy rn to the things I have more fun with

[pikahlua]

Hey pika, random question ramble.

Hori often changes up how he draws Izuku, especially during fights, where he turns from little baby man to Shonen Protagonist. Is it possible that OFA has given Izuku a bit of AllMightification in terms of how he's drawn? Is he just so strong now he gets to be sharp angles and sleek lines, rather than round and all cheeks and tears and smiles?m? Or is it just Hori's style adjusting as the manga progresses?

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. The art style tells as much a story as the text so perhaps you could offer some insight.

Please look up Doylist vs Watsonian literary perspectives lol.

Horikoshi's drawing style changes for two reasons:

His art just gets better over time

His style changes to reflect the mood of the scene

It sounds like you're talking about something that is the result of reason #2. Horikoshi draws his characters all silly during funny scenes and all pretty during serious scenes and all normal during normal scenes. You have to find a noticeable departure not just from the mood but from the regular art style of MHA in general, like with All Might or Dark Deku, to identify something that may have in-universe meaning like that.

I would say Izuku is drawn so well right now because it's important to the emotion the scene is trying to convey. Horikoshi is putting extra time and effort into the panels that he wants to convey the most emotion. I don't think it's a reflection of anything happening in-universe like Izuku getting an "All Might form."

[meoproject]

Yeah. Well. Val knows Beriith is tall compared to her, but she lacked context as to how tall Beriith is compared other members of his race. And. Hm. Yeah. Beriith is tall, even compared to his own kind. Not, like, unnaturally so? but tall enough for other goets to note it as a significant feature of his.

I also never draw Val's and Beriith's actual height difference unless it's a full body picture :') she's just lunking around several Scully boxes so she can fit in the frame better.

(the map also isn't a representation of any region in the story/world, i haven't made any maps for the world so i had to whip up something map-like for this piece.)

(also Goet language isnt like. a real conlang and not even a real cipher, its just nonsense, i should redo the font too.)

BONUS!

One significant Beriith feature that I can't really convey well is that he speaks with a noticeable accent. I've thought about phonetic accents a lot (thanks to another of my projects which has a character with severe speech impediment of not having lips) and since the balance of fun and annoying is quite delicate, I don't really write them out unless I really have to, and even then I'd downplay it. Beriith's accent isn't meant to be to thick anyway.

More accent talk under cut for those interested.

If we take "middle common" (the language Val and Beriith speak with each other) to be non-diegetic "English", Beriith has, in comparison, fairly flat intonation, and he trills his Rs and has some trouble with "ng" sounds and Ws, which he generally pronounces more like Vs. He also pronounces "th" sounds leaning towards Zs, which sorta runs into the slight logic bomb of "wait, doesn't his name end in 'th', but the watsonian explanation is, of course, that transliteration of his name from Goet to middle common isn't perfect and the h just implies a sightly softened t sound :) (the doylist explanation is, of course, that I decided the name before figuring out how accents work, but if you explain it away, it's not a mistake, just worldbuilding!)

As mentioned before, Beriith's accent isn't thick or anything, definitely not Hollywood-thick, but everyone who hears him speak either knows where he's from or wants to guess where he's from (though you can know but looking at him, Goets are distinct enough, but you know what I mean.)

Val, by the way, speaks the most generic middle common imaginable, like only a step or two below news casters; that's by design (of her parents). They sent her (and her siblings) to a school that specifically taught middle-common without any strong regional accents to give her the most easily-understood accent imaginable. Her family are big into business, mostly in export/import, so her parents figured out having children with neutral, easy to understand, "trustworthy" way of speaking would be the best. Yes, this means Val's parents have a completely different accent than she does, and Val speaks their variation of Elvish with a middle common accent. It does cause some bitterness, Val is kinda... not okay with it, but since her studies are all in middle common anyway it's kinda... whatever, not good but could be worse, but her younger sister is especially upset with not really knowing Elvish that well.

Val is fluent in three languages, middle common, high common (it's occasionally used as a language of magic studies, it's kind of an older version of middle common, or rather a version that has more in common with the older version of the language and branched out a bit differently) and Elvish. Beriith is fluent in like five languages and conversational in several more and "can sort of understand" in many more.

(this wasnt the vignette i was talking about earlier but i needed to get this out of my system.)

[josefavomjaaga]

Hortense about "Les Pestiférés de Jaffa"

This is an add-on to this post, in particular to the wonderful answer by @orsuliya about Gros being angry at Bessières and depicting him in this embarrassing way as a way of revenge. I wanted to reblog at first but this translation did get kind of long, so I thought I'd better put it in its own post. Here is what Hortense has to say in her memoirs about that very same painting, and in particular about her brother’s reaction to it. - However, I believe Hortense places this scene somewhat earlier, during the Consulate, even early in the Consulate, a rather short time after the battle of Marengo and after Gros had returned from Italy to Paris (which happened somewhen in 1801?).

As I had often heard [Napoleon] and those who had accompanied him talk about his visit to the plague-stricken people of Jaffa, I thought there would be a fine picture to paint on this subject. Gros, who had just arrived from Italy, was in the Tuileries one morning. I told him about my idea. He approved it and painted a picture that has remained one of his masterpieces. It was exhibited at the Salon.

At which point editor Hanoteau adds a footnote about the painting:

Gros, who had just completed a mission to Italy to select the works of art granted to us by the peace treaty, exhibited the Pestiférés de Jaffa at the Salon of 1804. This painting is now in the Louvre. The sketch is in the Château de Chantilly.

(I wish Hanoteau had also talked about the probability of Hortense - of all people - having given the idea to this painting. In my opinion, it's much more likely that the painting was officially commissioned, and that Hortense is only drawing all attention to herself, as usual.)

But here comes Eugène:

My brother arrived one morning, highly irritated with the painter who had depicted the general's aides-de-camp following him and holding their handkerchiefs to their mouths. "No one better than I," he told me, "can know how this visit went, since I was there, along with the general's other aides-de-camp. We were certainly not at our ease, but would we have had so little control over ourselves as to show any fear when the general, in order to reassure the army, showed such courage and exposed himself so much?" I had great difficulty in persuading my brother that painting was necessarily an imperfect language, that it could only express an idea in a certain way, and that, in order to convey the courageous action of the main character, it had been necessary to indicate a different feeling in the others and, consequently, to sacrifice them. All the First Consul's aides-de-camp shared my brother's indignation against the painter and I had great difficulty in bringing them back to the necessities of art.

Eugène: We didn't do that!

Hortense: [improvises a 15-minute speech about the goals and limitations of art and the artist's obligation to sometimes tell a small lie in order to convey a greater truth]

Eugène: Yeah, but we still didn't do it!

If Eugène really was that angry, my first thought would have been that the guy behind Napoleon was him - but that guy clearly does not look anything like him at all. But interestingly, Hortense claims that Napoleon's aides in Egypt (of which Bessières was not one) felt that they were shown in this offensive way.

So, if the person Gros had depicted really was supposed to be Bessières - did they not recognize him either without his powdered hair? Just like us? 😋

[ultraericthered]

So Pocket Monsters Gen 9 Edition, or Pokémon Horizons, has aired 34 episodes this year, enough episodes to asses its quality thus far. And honestly, from the writing, the animation, the sound, the pacing, the ideas, and the characters including all the Pokémon themselves, this seriously might just be the best that PokeAni has ever been. It's already a far superior series to Pokémon Journeys, is at least on par with Sun & Moon, and on a technical level can be called better than even the Gen 1 era (The Beginning) of the original series! And it should go without saying that it's far stronger than anything PokeAni had to offer in Gens 2 through 6, where I strongly believe that the stuff that sucked about those series' always ended up outweighing the stuff that was solid in them in the end, sorry but not sorry.

And then there's Liko, who I could go on and on about why she's such a breath of fresh air and works fantastically as the lead of this series. But I won't, 'cause...that's sort of what this hot take concerns. With Liko being the first full-time main protagonist in a PokeAni series who is not Ash Ketchum (I say "full-time" to say Jimmy and Alain don't count here), it will naturally stand to reason that I'd think to draw comparisons between her as she's starting out and Ash in the Indigo League arc of the original series back when he was starting out. Not just trainer experience and battle-wise, but as characters.

So when I compare the two, and think on it deeply, as unbiased and objectively as I can manage, this is the conclusion I come out with.

Don't get me wrong, I would gladly and without a hint of hesitation take Liko any day over Ash from any of the Gens 3 through 8 anime, and that includes Ash from SuMo and Journeys who I actually liked! I'm beyond thrilled to have Liko as the protagonist of the current series instead of Ash, who'd really needed to be retired ages ago.

But neither my love for Liko nor my nostalgic adoration for Indigo League really factor into this. Between OG Ash and Liko, I find the former to be the slightly yet significantly stronger main protagonist than the latter. And it's primarily for a reason I couldn't even quite convey into thoughts or words until out of the blue, Suede returned to Youtube with a new video that just put it into clear perspective.

"Average kid who's really nice and sweet yet painfully average is going about his regular life when he suddenly recieves the CALL TO ADVENTURE through no fault of his own, usually through some kind of power that puts him above others. He's reluctant at first but through friendship or world-shattering stakes, he's won over, starts enjoying himself...." Switch the gender around and this describes Liko almost verbatim. She's much closer to what was usually the norm for young male protagonists in adventure anime, and I get the sense this was a deliberate choice similar to what was done with Avatar Aang and Avatar Korra, where the succeeding protagonist contrasts with the preceeding one. And that's another area where Liko works so brilliantly: she had to work up the courage to allow herself to be drawn into a new life by the call, as opposed to boldly but recklessly jumping at the call well before it had even actually come for her like Ash did after turning forever 10 years old.

However, there's another area of interest for Liko's character VS OG Ash's that Suede missed. Shall we call it the "Chosen One Factor?" You all know what I'm talking about, the trope in stories where the protagonist has been predetermined by fate to be the main character and to have a great big adventure where they realize their destiny, and usually due to the single factor of bloodlines; that they're related to someone big and important, so they must carry on that big and important family lineage in their own way. In Pokémon Horizons, it could not be more subtle that Liko comes from the blood lineage of Lucius the Ancient Adventurer, meaning that everything that has now happened to make her a trainer didn't simply just happen to her: it was destined to happen. It was, as Thanos would say, inevitable. And I in no way mean to suggest this is an inherently bad trope, that Horizons is doing it poorly with Liko, or that it's any worse off for doing it. I'm only saying that we see this thing done so frequently.

Ash Ketchum at the start of the original series, meanwhile? He's nobody. His father was a deadbeat who prioritized Pokémon training over raising a family. His mother gave birth to him while still very young and has to be both self-sufficient and a good parent to him all on her own. The last name "Ketchum" means jack shit to anybody in-universe. In fact, it's his chilhood friend/rival Gary who's the special somebody around town; he's the one with the big important family lineage, being the grandson of Professor Oak. Ash...is just a random 10 year old kid who's very passionate about Pokémon. More than that, the kid starts off as an absolute loser. He oversleeps and misses his chance to pick out one of the three Kanto starter Pokémon to be his first Pokémon partner. The Pikachu he's given doesn't get along with him at first. His sendoff party is dinky and low key compared to what Gary got. He has trouble dealing with the sort of low level wild Pokémon that most newbies would take down and/or capture in no time. He always thinks he knows what he's in for and what he has to do and has to be as a trainer who aspires to be "the world's greatest Pokémon Master" yet ends up missing several basic steps any new trainer has to take and has difficulty understanding information that could help him make those steps. His own Poke' Dex throws shade at him for being a "stupid traveler". This kid is a dense, thick-headed, ignorant boob and on top of that has got a heavily flawed personality. An absolutely disatrous little shithead, and I just fucking love him for it. In a sense he's actually quite like a younger precursor to Re:Zero's Subaru Natsuki, a young male who starts off with all the entitlement that a super special awesome and exceptional main character would feel is warranted only to find that the world does not exist to owe him anything and that he will have to struggle, suffer, learn, adapt, and perserve while being entitled to nothing because in truth there is absolutely nothing super special awesome and exceptional about him: he has to put in the work to make himself special, awesome, and exceptional. In its original conception and understanding, To Be A Master is about what's earned, not owed.

Now, as PokeAni dragged on and on and on and on AND ON with Ash still in the lead role, they messed up this initial setup with many occasions that seemed to contradict it and convey to us that actually yes, our main character IS a truly special boy because he just loves Pokémon more than any other mere mortal in this wourld could ever love Pokémon, that the world does exist to owe him shit and in fact mostly revolves around what he and his merry band of friends do, he encounters all the mythical and legendary Pokémon, he beats all the bad guys and shuts down the regional evil teams' evil plots, and he competes in all the Leagues of all the regions until he ends up the first ever Champion of one of them by winning its first ever League Tournament, and from there he gets to become the World's Strongest Master just like that. And while those major victories were legitimately earned and very rewarding to witness, it's a terrible shame they had to come after years of canon twisting Ash's character and function in the world of PokeAni inside out multiple times ad nauseum, and it had the unfortunate effect on many in the fandom, male fans especially, where they got overcome with this entitlement regarding the character, dead set on wanting to live vicariously through his experiences and project onto him as a power fantasy, wanting and expecting a consistently growing character who only gets better, smarter, savvier, more badass, more mature, and more respected the Poke' World over with each regional quest undertaken, and throwing hissy fits when the anime, due to various factors, did not deliver. This is what made the retiring of Ash's character and his replacement in the lead role by Liko such a sensible and positive direction for the anime to take and why I'm so, sooooo damn glad it's been taken.

So all in all, Liko >>>>>>>> Ash Ketchum for most of the anime, but the OG Ash Ketchum we had in Gen 1 >>>>> Liko in Horizons.

But both are superior to the player character of Scarlet & Violet.

[spareparts-vn]

Hi! I'm really enjoying Spare Parts. I really appreciate how it has so much heavy drama, but it never feels oppressively dour or meaningless. There's plenty of more comedic or otherwise lighter moments that don't feel out of place, too. Can I ask as a wannabe writer myself, do you have any tips or processes for writing such effective drama?

thank you! i'm very bad at giving writing advice. i've written and deleted this post half a dozen times already. it's pretty hard to lay my thoughts out since my process is so tangled up in my brain's very specific eccentricities. so here's some extremely scattered thoughts that loosely connect to how i write "drama," which in my mind is just an extension of any compelling relationship between characters.

1) "iteration" is my main thing. write a bad draft, then edit it to be better, then edit it to be better, then edit it to be better, then erase the whole thing and write another bad draft that's slightly better, then edit that one to be better, then edit it to be better, then do that 100 more times until you have an epiphany that ties it all together. it's not very efficient but it helps me identify what works and what doesn't so i can hone in on what's interesting to me. in the context of drama, that means i can write out an argument between two characters and ask myself if it hits on anything compelling. if it doesn't, i scrap it, but if there's some feeling there that i want to flesh out, i can restructure it to pivot around that.

2) similar to the previous one, but i try to start broad and narrow my focus over time. taking two characters' relationship as an example, i'll start from the most generic interpretation of how they relate to one another and start adding nuance/complexity over time. i think of it like a life drawing, if you've ever taken a class for that. you want to start with the gesture of the pose first, then start to fill in shapes and values until the foundation is solid. you go around the whole drawing adding details in bits and pieces, rather than focusing on one body part and fleshing it out to completion first. you can slowly choose where to exaggerate shapes or darken shadows to add a little more visual flair to it. in telling a story, these details can often play out and develop through the course of the narrative.

2.5) this is an aside, but during my brief stint in art school, i once turned in a self-portrait for a life drawing assignment that i was really unhappy with. i spent so much time working and reworking it that it looked really smudgy from all the erased lines, but i was too stubborn to start drawing on a new piece of paper. i was very anxious about turning it in for critique, but the professor surprised me by saying that he liked the ethereal quality it had from all the eraser marks. that there was something interesting in how obvious it was that i'd redone it so many times, allowing the evidence of previous attempts to leave traces in the final image. that comment always stuck with me. i think of life, and art by extension, as additive in nature. you can't completely erase the past, so as time moves forward your canvas become more and more dense with information, even if it's been scrubbed away. relationships are the same, which i try to convey when writing my characters. the longer you write them, the more friction and drama will naturally fall out of them. so don't be afraid to start simple, you might surprise yourself with the sort of feelings that appear without you realizing it.

3) i try to imagine a person who would become psychotically obsessed with every possible pairing of characters. what would they find interesting in this dynamic? how could i give them something to chew on? how could i surprise them, or entice them to think about their relationship deeper? in spapa's case, there's obviously a lot of interplay between the most central characters, but i have internal dossiers on every obscure pair of characters that most people won't think about. but that means i'm going to write more about them and flesh them out, so the web grows more complex and interesting. (i've developed a fixation on a secret ship that i'm hungry to explore, but probably won't get the chance to for a while. i'll leave you to speculate on what that is.) every character's growth and experience is shaped by their relationships, so tugging on those threads can reveal things about my characters i hadn't realized before. and sometimes those threads are connected to sticks of dynamite, which explode. and then you get lucy and melanie yelling at each other, even though their first interactions don't really suggest they'd end up there.

4) i'm the type of person who struggle to resist cracking a joke when i think of one, no matter how inappropriate the timing is. i've seen some critique of spapa that jokes occasionally feel misplaced in really serious scenes, but personally, i think they're important! people are complicated and can have multiple modes of thought/expression at once. sometimes when you're in the middle of the biggest sobbing breakdown of your life you'll think something stupid and mundane that snaps you back to reality for a second. sometimes you're having the best day of your life and you'll suddenly remember The Incident and have to just brush it off. i try to reflect those sorts of weird moments in my writing.

5) i lean a lot on my experience in writing fanfic/doing roleplay of characters/ships that i'm interested in. taking the dynamic that's presented in the source material and bending it to suit my interests more, or to flesh out ideas that i want to explore through them as a medium. every now and then it helps to take a step back and assess what parts of my story i've built i feel are most compelling or could use some more attention. what scenes i would write fanfic of, and how i can place them in the story itself or build up to something that paints those scenes in the reader's mind. i just love characters. they're little toys i can make do anything

6) i guess overall my approach is very naturalistic/holistic. i let characters develop themselves and create drama on their own, just by being complicated little animals and thinking about them a lot. then i can take those shapes they make and mold them into something more refined. i try to treat everything as a piece of the whole. let the threads get really tangled up and leave a lot of time for exploring what those knots look like and how you might try to de-tangle them. but meanwhile there's other knots forming too. there's no getting it completely organized but you learn a lot about the mess while trying to pull it apart. the process is essential. the end product should reflect that process in whatever ways feel appropriate. imo

i don't know if Any Of This Shit makes any sense or is helpful. like i said, i've rewritten this several times already, and i've gotta do other stuff today, so hopefully you could pull something useful out of it lmao

[akehoshimystar]

Chapter 3

Shinobu: One Oracle?

Kiho: It's a simple form of fortune-telling where you draw a card and decipher the answer.

Tarot and oracle are technically different things, but let's leave out that complicated stuff.

Shinobu: Wow, seems like it would be easy to join.…. Crap! I forgot I had to call Mika-nee about a customer.

I'm off for a bit, you two enjoy yourselves~

With that, Aizawa-kun left for the staff room, and the store fell silent for a moment. After a long, not short, but just the right amount of time, Kiho-san spoke again. As always, there's not a single moment of awkwardness or stagnation in the conversation he leads.

Kiho: It says in the document that we need to discuss how to incorporate flowers into this fortune-telling.

Ito: About that... I was thinking of making bookmarks with flowers with positive meanings to hand them out at the end of the fortune-telling.

I think I can ask Ichikawa-kun to do the illustrations and design, and I've already found a few candidates for the printing store.

Kiho: Ah, that might be good. If you prepare several types, I can convey the fortune-telling results in a more connecting way.

Would you mind if I choose the flowers for the motif myself?

Ito: Eh? Not that I mind, rather, I'd be very grateful... but I don't intend to make it that much of a hassle for you.

Kiho: Don't worry, it's not a hassle at all.

Due to my previous job, I am quite familiar with flower language.

Ito: (His previous job made him knowledgeable about flower language? .....A florist, perhaps?)

Kiho: If you don’t mind, allow me to take over the work related to the bookmarks, including cooperating with Ichikawa-kun. I'm sure there is a mountain of other things you have to do, Ito.

Ito: (...I feel a bit reluctant to increase the work of someone, especially Kiho-san, who is almost like my boss.)

(Flower language is an important part of this project. It's definitely better to have someone who knows one or two things about it take on this task than for me to look for it with my superficial knowledge.)

In that case, let me take you up on your offer. Thank you so much.

Kiho: That settles it. But why bookmarks?

Ito: I initially thought about postcards, but I also didn't think there was much use for them.

Of all the practical things, paper bookmarks were the cheapest to make.

Kiho: I see.

Ito, do you dislike things that are not practical?

Ito: Eh? I wouldn’t say that..... Let’s see.....

It's fine if I receive it myself, but when I think about giving it to someone else, I tend to remove it from the options.

Kiho: Why would that be?

Ito: ……Uhhh...

(Is he trying to read my mind right now?)

Kiho: Sorry, you don't need to think too hard about it. I was just wondering. So, is there any particular reason?

Ito: I can only think of obvious reasons like there being a certain number of people who would find it annoying to receive one...

Probably nothing in particular.

Kiho: Oh yeah?

Kiho-san gave a somewhat vague response before gently closing the conversation. But he still seemed to be asking, “Really?” with a smile. Maybe Kiho-san was wondering how I would answer that question. But in the end, he didn't check the answer.

The reserved seats for the event were all booked shortly after it was announced.

The day before the event, just when I thought preparations were going smoothly and I would be able to greet the day without any problems…

The “unexpected event” happened.

Ito: Good morning.....Ah.

(He’s on the phone.)

Yuzuru: ………Yeah, I can take your place for lunch today. I should be able to start without any problems, I will head there right away.

Then, I'll talk about the details later tonight.… No, not at all. I'm sorry, but I can’t say that I’m not grateful. Sorry for bothering you even on your day off.

Any time is fine, so please get some rest for now. Thank you for your cooperation.

Yuzuru: Phew... Good morning. Sorry for causing a ruckus early in the morning.

Ito: Is it an urgent job?

Yuzuru: The ST Dept. has suddenly been tasked with an agent job. I was discussing that matter just now.

This is an ongoing personal guarding job that strictly requires Yu’s presence, and is also an irregular request.

He wanted me to take his place until tomorrow night.

Ito: ….! Don’t tell me Nina-san can't attend tomorrow's event?

Yuzuru: As you may have guessed. 

That being the case, the only kitchen staff left will be Yashiro-san.

I'll have to think about it a bit.

Ito: ...I see what happened now.

Yuzuru: I wish I could have taken your place. But that is proving to be difficult.

Ito: That's true...

If Kise-san is going to take Nina-san’s place in the kitchen, someone else will need to take his place. At Aporia, which operates with a small but elite team, each person's role is already heavy.  Kise-san’s position and work, which covers the whole team, are rather special. Not something that can be easily replaced.

Ito: (But the kitchen shifts are always shared between Kise-san and Nina-san. Is there any other staff who can do the cooking...?)

Yuzuru: If I manage to adjust other matters, I think I can ask Ai-san to help out around the dining area.

And maybe I can secure some time to help out in the kitchen.

Either way, we'll need a full-time person. And that’s why I asked Tomose. 

Ito: Eh?

(.…..Did I mishear something? Just now, I think I just heard a name that didn't cross my mind even once.)

Yuzuru: As for the menu, I have some time tonight, so I think I can teach it to him.

Ito: …..Currently, Nina-san is responsible for most of the cooking work.

It may not be much, but I'd like to help out a little more.

If you don't mind, please let me join in too. As long as you don’t find me a bother. 

Yuzuru: No way! Not at all. That would be great. But it looks like we'll be meeting a little late today. 

We'll have to come early tomorrow, so please don't push yourself. 

Ito: You don’t have to worry about that. I'm actually grateful to be able to review what we sell.

By the way, excuse me for asking this. Just to confirm...

The one who is in charge of the kitchen...

Yuzuru: .....? You heard it. It’s Tomose.

Onda Tomose from ST. Dept.

Ito: …..! (So my ears weren’t playing a trick on me!)

Chapter 4>>

[freelanceexorcist]

So I'm a-speculatin' again. I was bored, and you know how these things go.

Wouldn't it be funny if any of my crazy shitposts end up actually happening? Maybe some of my dad's talent rubbed off on me. He was a wizard when it came to guessing the twists and endings to stories. My mom never let him live down spoiling the ending of The Sixth Sense in the middle of the movie.

Anyway, on with the show. Under a cut for spoilers and length.

I’ve had the feeling lately that Ever Crisis’ First Soldier story doesn’t take place in the prime timeline of Remake. There are a couple of things that lead me to think this.

First, there's a retcon that Sephiroth was given a picture of Lucrecia and knows she's his mother but was given the wrong name. But what if it wasn't actually a retcon?

What if in another timeline Sephiroth having at least a picture of Lucrecia made his story progress in a different way? In the original game timeline, which I presume Crisis Core takes place in, him not even knowing what his mother looked like was a big deal. It's probably a big part of why he so quickly cleaved to Jenova. He didn't have anything to compare her to. What if the past change that the end of the Whispers enabled was for Hojo to take at least a little bit of pity on the kid and give him a picture of his actual mom?

Another one that may or may not be a whiffed translation has Sephiroth saying that he’s one of Hojo’s SOLDIERs. That implies that he wasn’t the only one produced by Project S. Him knowing how different he was contributed to his isolation and feelings of otherness. What if there were others in this new timeline who were like him? Yes this could absolutely be a localization brain fart that conveyed something that wasn't intended.

I mean, even if they thought he was a Cetra at first, it would make sense for them to engineer more than one of them. It’s not smart to put all your eggs in one basket. What if he got sick and died? What if he ran away? What if someone kidnapped him and put him in hiding? Then it would be back to the drawing board and all those years wasted.

So they made some more. The heir and the spares if you will. But that would mean that Sephiroth wasn’t so damn alone growing up. There were others like him. And like him, they were all repurposed as SOLDIER when the Promised Land Finder thing didn’t pan out.

They could be his half-siblings or the product of incentivized (or let’s face it, forced because this is Shinra we’re talking about) pregnancies. I actually had a fleeting idea a while back for an AU where Shinra pulled off a secular version of the “crisis pregnancy center” scam where they lured abortion-seeking pregnant women in then pulled a bait and switch with “if you continue the pregnancy, we’ll take care of all your needs, pay you a stipend then pay you handsomely to give the kid to us for adoption once it’s born. You just need to undergo regular ‘medical care’ (wink, wink). Don’t worry about those visions of your kid murdering everyone, that’s just pregnancy brain messing with you.” The women who changed their minds at the end and tried to escape with their babies were, of course…dealt with. *makes knife slash gesture across throat with thumb*

There’s also the potential difference of “recreate the Cetra” not being a thing in the first place. What if creating child supersoldiers who are better able to withstand mako infusions was the objective from the very beginning? If any of the original First SOLDIER game lore is in play, the program began fifteen years before the events of Sephiroth’s chapters in Ever Crisis. Shinra stopped giving mako treatments because they were killing the potential SOLDIER applicants and they went instead with the P-0 SOLDIERs who got their skills and strength through Training from Hell (warning: TV Tropes).

If I was a human rights-violating psychopath, I'd say that it would make more sense to mass produce kids who already have the ability to tolerate a lot of mako infusions than to expose the company to the PR nightmare of a bunch of deaths.

It just makes sense for there to be more than just one if Sephiroth was such a successful outcome. It makes sense for there to be a small army of Sephiroths trained up, indoctrinated and ready to make short work of all of Shinra’s enemies worldwide.

Anyway, I feel like I kinda veered off track, so I’ll wrap this up by saying what if Ore Sephiroth is Baby Seph all grown up and his life turned out quite a bit differently?

If you've stuck around this long, thank you for reading!

[eastgaysian]

28 29 e 45… for the bald her’s gate critters :>

28. What do they tell people they want? What do they actually want?

oh this is a fun one. lemming: tends to downplay any of his serious wants or needs, and mostly expresses things that are half-joking and kind of frivolous: 'i'd kill for a hot bath, a cold beer, and a clean set of clothes right now, my hair has never looked so awful.' his most deep-seated desire is to feel comfortable and secure among other people, to be wanted not because of something he can do but just for who he is.

dak-wai: tends toward expressing practical needs, if pressed for 'wants' would go I don't deserve a bedframe. they're upfront about their desire to be free of the influence of the parasite + their urge and have full control over their thoughts and actions. more than anything they want to feel like A Person and be treated like A Person by other people.

ephros: tends to focus on the most immediate and pressing problem, without thinking much about the long-term: 'my first priority is getting this parasite out of my head, anything else can wait.' his biggest desire is a sense of security and control, being both financially comfortable and assured that the people he relies upon/cares about wouldn't even dream of leaving him, though this isn't something he could consciously articulate

29. How do they respond when someone doesn’t believe them?

lemming: if he's lying, he recovers quickly, tries to redirect attention away from any areas of doubt/suspicion and work in some subtle flattery to smooth things over. if he's telling the truth and not being believed he starts listing out The Facts in a logical order with increasing frustration dak-wai: if they're trying (and failing) to lie to someone, they hit them with a -_- stare and insist they're telling the truth in a completely flat tone until whoever they're talking to either gives up or starts to get hostile. in a lot of situations they kind of don't care though, unless it's 100% necessary for them to achieve whatever task they're set on, they'll just leave a conversation that goes badly. if you're wrong about me that's your problem (is haunted by the thought of someone's misconception about them for the next week) ephros: starts to get real condescending whether he's lying or telling the truth, subtly implying it's Unbelievably Idiotic not to believe/trust him but really, the joke's on him for having expected any better, it's just really disappointing is all

45. What’s something unimportant / frivolous that they hate passionately?

lemming: the easiest way to irritate lemming is to act a little too full of yourself - he's aware he can be overly sensitive with this and tries not to let it show, but that doesn't stop it from getting to him. He makes an exception for being vain though that's fine. he gets it. dak-wai: small talk, verbal stalling, most little social niceties that don't convey any real information. they do not like talking to people and they do not want to draw conversations out any longer than necessary. get to the point. ephros: minor factual inaccuracies. he can't not be pedantic about something he's knowledgable about, which tends to be either hyperspecific botanical knowledge or, weirdly, military history

[kyrodo]

I had words that I would think up, basic search terms that would reflect what I'm feeling or what I'm thinking. Like dark furryart or emo furryart or miserable furryart, etc. Usually I put both together or I'd put furry instead once I exhausted the search, or wolf, cat, etc. And this was a habit I got into very close to when we started "communicating" that I eventually turned into a subtext medium that would most likely only make sense to me. Something I was privy to doing a lot of.

Partly due to uncertainties I myself had but also because I'm a very openly private person. Meaning I don't always necessarily want people to look too hard into what I'm thinking or saying, but I still wanted the emotion or thought expressed somewhere that would be translatable if someone really cared to. So there usually was some kind of pattern to it that could be reverse engineered, but the level of obscurity I made worse and worse. Like with my fa favorites. And sometimes I'd have periods where I try to bury whatever message they contained with art that either was objectively good, or expressed a particular imagery or theme. The flute thing for example. I used to do the same with my retweets. And having a stalker in a way validated those habits, because otherwise no one had any chance of finding whatever meaning I was trying to convey. Since these emotional expressions through art that I couldn't personally draw was also a way to destress as an alternative for someone who couldn't draw with the same level of consistency and saw it as more of a chore when actually trying to draw myself.

Much like how my head canons when I wrote were an alternative for someone who used to be a roleplayer but had nowhere to do that anymore. These were adjacent actions that I could do instead. And at the time I found any level of comfort I could find through things like that and just let myself indulge in it. No matter where ot would lead me I was not in the mood to put a stop to it. I thought I was going to be stuck at peloton forever even though I went to school to be a game programmer. My back was going bad because of it. I didn't know what future physical complications I would have if things continued and things were not looking good for me on any front, socially, physically or career wise.

So I didn't care if people understood what I threw out there. But I made art in the most alternative ways possible. I formed stories with my rants and my likes and favorites. Like a collage but with even less effort. I just wanted whatever was on my mind to be pushed out there in any form, understandable or not. But without the added benefit that someone was at least trying to understand it, that form of destressing would've meant nothing. So I kept coming back hoping you wouldn't stop checking up on me. The feelings obviously played a part in that too, but there were multiple reasons I couldn't just up and leave permanently. All the people that consoled me, that I described these things to directly didn't end up doing the same thing themselves. They listened and that was it. And I guess that was for the best honestly. I probably would've lost some friends that way. You on the other hand didn't count as one.

With you I actually had a reason to revisit all these random moments in my life. Since you weren't there it meant I had plenty of content to get through while waiting for my mind and emotions to stabilize. All the better if they related poetically in some way. A small comfort perhaps but at least it was you and not someone I knew. If I was going to lose someone to my ramblings, I'd rather lose someone I never had. Even though I was half-assedly trying to burn nearly every bridge so I could start over, you bore the brunt of it instead of them. I'd rather lose a stalker than my friends, even when I was actively trying to discard them. Becoming this alternative conduit for my stresses that would allow me to probably be able to get back to my friends later, you played your role extremely well.

So about this mastermind you were trying to take down, where the fuck is he?

The extent you went and still managed to get the short end of the straw, it's fucking hilarious. Imagine a world where people talked out their problems and set boundaries there instead of hacking each other like dipshits. You skipped way too many fucking steps. You didn't even fucking try.

And I to this day struggle to understand the world of expectations that you enforce or how anyone would survive in it. All I understand is that as long as you don't like someone for any reason, they are completely and utterly fucked whether it's fair or not. You're white and you're doing stuff like this and what the fuck do you want me to call this? If you're trying not to be lumped in with bastards like those you're doing a great fucking job. You are doing absolutely everything right.

Am I the only one who looks at every subtext you ever shared and appreciates how fucking ironic it is? Oh wait, you conveniently forget every single thing you do. So I guess it never happened.

You can bet. Not a single person in my life will ever get away with the same kind of shit you tried to. If they try to gaslight and pretend they never did anything, and they just retweet things or they just meant it as a joke, I will fucking end them. Because this is so fucking toxic, it is so easy to be taken advantage of because of this, and I am fucking done. I will never let anyone harass and hurt me under Red's nose again no matter how they try to fucking do it. I will not give anyone free reign to make my life a living hell again!

Whenever there is a bad actor anywhere in my life I'll yeet them off the fucking stage. There will be no beating around the bush or pussyfooting. I am not afraid to cut people off when they prove to be a waste of oxygen. Less drama, more getting back to my fucking life. I don't care what way they try to guilt trip me or what posts they share trying to pretend I'm a bad person for blocking someone. I'm not gonna wuss out of cutting someone out that tries to hurt me ever again. Especially when they're doing the kind of shit you were doing like actively harassing me with memes and subtext. Why wouldn't I want them gone?

I don't understand how people can see posts about whatever shit they do online while they're actively being the picture perfect stereotype and not do a single thing to change their behavior. It isn't a problem for me, so what the fuck is yours? I am alone in my witnessing of all this and yet I have so much social leverage now that you're completely fucked. Because I put so much effort into ensuring I do everything right after a social conflict and you do everything absolutely fucking wrong. I didn't spend the last few years sitting on my thumbs. What about you asshole?

Not once did I ever pull the kind of shit you did just because I didn't like someone. It's not my character trait. Because I'm not a total bitch. For you though that's the only reason you need to hurt and abuse someone. You are an actual fucking psychopath and you don't belong in society. What hurts the most is the stupid fucking kaleidoscope I had on you for a while that appears to be greatly misguided and undeserved. If I'm "not hard to love" what's that make you?

I only let people betray me so many times. I found a better king. Not once did I ever see Choskey cuss when he's angry. Not once have I ever seen him truly mad. I never feel like I'm walking on eggshells around him. He is softer than you in so many fucking ways. Cuter. Sweeter. A bit of a ditz at times but I can live with that. I can't deal with you. I can't deal with people who want to "kick someone's teeth in" or whatever the fuck. Who want any sort of target that they can hate on mostly just for clout and not because they actually genuinely care. Get fucked. Also, heard you like fallout boy lyrics. Thanks for the memories asshole.

There's only so much shit you can put people through before they snap, don't ever test that limit again. No more of this edging between friend and enemy. You've already lost my respect but the least you could do is not justify it further.

Instead of choosing to let the dust settle when the book closed, you chose to re escalate things for no other reason than to get back at me and I will never let you forget that. You made choices and none of them had a fucking shelf life. How the fuck are you going to shut me up now. If hacking me and blackmailing me is all you had then you chose the wrong fucking person. Here's an idea, how about the next time you have a problem with someone you fuck off!? Who knew it was that fucking easy!? It's not hard asshole!

I can poke so many fucking holes in every little thing you did and you couldn't even debunk my allergies. I'll never get over how much you fucking shat yourself when all that time you could have just talked to me in the first place. That is the most pointlessly tragic shitshow I've ever had to witness in my life. And frankly I don't know why you didn't know any better. I don't know how you failed so fucking hard.

Must do wonders for the ego huh? Damn am I fucking glad I'm not you. I walk away from that heavily scarred but I didn't have to hide shit. You got an entire social world to collapse on you because you spent no more than a hot minute when it comes to considering revenge. What kind of whiny little shit would take things as far as you did!? That's what you get for crying wolf. You fulfilled your own stupid prophecy. You got fucking wrecked asshole.

[marypoggers]

What is your Hogwarts house?

Sorry for a bit of a harsh reaction, I don't really like antagonising people over different opinions about media, but I have to nip this in the bud.

I have literally never enjoyed harry potter in my life, I've always thought it was one of those things that everyone says is "really good" and "revolutionised media" but then when you actually give it a try its boring or badly made.

That and even if that wasn't the case, I think that the author has made some poor choices on what she uses her resulting money and fame to do. If I recall correctly, She said something to the tune of "any enjoyment of [her] works is endorsement of [her] political views". So, even if I had enjoyed the books when I read them, to answer your question I'd have to make the active choice to endorse someone that has made it very clear she wants my friends dead or miserable. To be entirely honest, I'd have to choose to stop loving my friends, and I'm not going to do that for a stranger on the internet.

While I do prefer to follow Death of The Author when it comes to my interpretations of the media (unless something specifically prompts the thought of "what was the author thinking when they wrote this" or the book is literally meant to be the author conveying an experience from a closed group), DoTA is hard to enact when the author is screaming from the rooftops abhorrent things about the people you love and claiming anyone consuming her creations tacitly agrees with her.

I hope this question came from a place of love for the media or a curiosity about someone you encountered online, I hope you're just a person on the internet looking for someone to share your love of a story with, and I hope you one day find those people, but I cannot be this person for you, and I think you may be better off finding a different story to love.

Unless you'd like to tell me otherwise, I'm going to choose to believe you asked this with friendly intentions, and that you meant no offense. But I want to draw the line in the sand here. If you would like to talk about a story which wasn't written by an author with bad intentions towards my friends we can do that, if you want to share your love for something made by someone who loves more than they hate we can do that.

I hope you find your people anon, and I hope the well you all drink from isn't poisoned by an author who hates more than they love.

[TLDR: I didn't enjoy harry potter as a kid, I though it was boring and overhyped. Now that I'm an adult, I don't enjoy harry potter because the author has chosen to align herself with bigots masquerading as feminists.

While under usual circumstances I don't endorse being mean to someone over preferences in entertainment I am choosing to draw a line in the sand. I hope whoever sent this anon just wanted to share their love for a story, but I recomend they pick a different story or a different person to share it with.]

[quantumlogician]

A radiant flower jumped at him, smacking him against an optic before falling down on a shoulder and rolling over the front into his lap. An offended servo raised to cup where it had been thrown, the only injury an emotional jab, before it reached out to gather the flower into his servo. Always more concerned with what's around him than himself.

" For what we do, it is important to maintain morale, " he lectured him, " it keeps us focused, hopeful with purpose. I rather be happy at a miserable job than counting the nanokliks praying for a fault to give way and crush me underfoot. "

Their work held importance for both the world above and below, but Megatron was not going to pretend like their individual contributions amounted to anything grand. As many as there are grains of sand, as expendable as energon wrappers. He had this feeling inside that he was meant for something more — like there was a calling to answer, adorn his wings, and take flight.

It could also be a delusion. His primitive node deluding him with imagined comfort to motive him cycle-to-cycle. He ebbs with these thoughts near weekly that it would be maddening for anyone else that didn't carry the conviction he did.

None of that mattered right now. His friend was speaking.

" If you polished and primed yourself up to his standards, you'd end up looking real ugly, " he laughed, already imagining the surely full purple-and-greens Magnus had picked out for Orion. Ink black helm, varying purple everything else, and accents of navy blue; a copy-paste of himself to further confuse everyone on which brother was who. " And you'd look stiff. Too stiff. I'd confuse you with a statue. "

And, to his surprise, by the Gods Orion did try it. Megatron's optics snapped to attention, soaking in the transient display, locking it to memory before it escapes him forever.

Servos wrought free of nature's vines, clasping the cheek guards of the other in a rare draw of connection between them; full optic contact without the heady turns or convenient shadows to obscure their looking at each other. " You can be such a convincing liar that you'd fool Primus himself, but what's unspoken in your soul will always sit right against your mask. You already know it, Orion, you see it everyday. "

While he did certainly hold him, if not to catch the lopsided tug of lips and barely conveyed show of dentae, Megatron knew he was chasing a ghost into the shadows of a graveyard. But, that's okay. He released the other to sit back properly in his spot with his servos suspending into the open space of his lap, having grown tired fidgeting with surface details.

" You aren't fake like them. I doubt you could pretend your intentions if you tried, so on that account, any attempt you'd have at a show-stopping display would be a thousand times better than what the usual politician might pan out for the outlets. "

" And for the record, " he drops his helm away, chasing the shadows of twilight, " I don't mind being strange. "

"I am the reason why you are strange, of course."

The answer was nearly instantaneous. It was easy because while it was said with humor, it was only half a joke. Orion was not oblivious to the fact that many others didn't like him— some most likely due to what Megatron had said about people judging him based on what they knew of his brothers, or simply because of his higher upbringing; others, he also knew, didn't like him because Orion had earned himself their dislike. He was not afraid to admit that. More often than not, it was on purpose. It wasn't enough for him to simply be neutral about those that he didn't connect with, he needed people to like him or hate him, and would manipulate situations to achieve one or the other, depending on how each outcome would benefit him. No middle ground.

The problem was that he barely connected with anyone and so, about half the people he knew didn't like him.

By association, they stayed away from Megatron too.

Orion's optics rolled. Megatron could be so annoyingly humble. "When have I ever 'just said' anything?"

He gazed down at his own servos— once spotless, now marked by labor—, remembering the day they met, when they promised to stick together, watch each other's backs. When Megatron made Orion feel like maybe being a miner wouldn't be so bad.

He'd been WRONG, but that doesn't erase the fact that for even just a few minutes, Megatron made him feel hopeful.

"You make people feel like there's something better to look forward to, even when they have no reason to," Orion pointed out, picking up one of the bioluminescent flowers and flicking it at Megatron. "And you do it all the time, not just when 'passion blesses you'."

Orion vented in amusement, laughing as just talking about Ultra Magnus' lectures seemed enough to make Megatron yawn. For someone who loved to act like a drill sergeant, his second oldest brother really was the loudest boring mech in all of Cybertron and most likely also in the colonies. But Magnus had one thing going for him, and it was that he is very fun to mock. Orion didn't waste time, seating himself as Megatron just described: staring ahead, hands neatly folded, his chassis forward.

When his processor registers what Megatron just said: that it would be nice to see Orion smile; Orion deflates abruptly, caught off guard, playing it off by lying down, pretending to actually care about the sky now. The stars are nice, he'll give them that. But the sunset is still overrated.

"Magnus doesn't tell me to smile," he corrected. "He tells me to 'look respectable'. I don't know what that even means to him, but I haven't achieved it yet."

As he gazes up at the stars, watches them twinkle like far away lights, Orion imagines that they are just much smaller versions of the camera flashes that caused him such an optic-sore. Megatron's words repeat in his mind, and he gives it a try, smiling for the 'cameras'.

"I feel like I look like an idiot," he said, the smile still plastered on his face. "I hate when the Senators show up smiling on the bulletin board. They always look so... fake. You'd think someone who reached such a position would be better at lying, but they are incompetent even in that regard."

[movedto-ph7soy]

🍓 style analysis: nana komatsu / hachi (NANA) 

❗❗EDIT 10/9/24: i've moved to @ph7soy, where i'll be posting all my original content from now on ᨐฅ

welcome to the first entry in my style analysis series- where i take a different fictional character for each entry and take a look at their fashion sense, as an exploration on how fashion plays a role in forming a character's personality & overall identity. in other words, it's a deep dive into the intersection of story & style. today we're starting off with nana komatsu (who we'll be affectionately referring to as hachi from here on out) from NANA, my favourite character from my favourite manga of all time.

NANA is a manga very near and dear to my heart. i could spend all day talking about why, but i'd say one of the biggest reasons is for how ai yazawa (the creator of NANA) uses fashion as a means of storytelling. in NANA, clothes are not just a typical character design element, but are instead a visual narrative tool used to convey a characters' personality, as well as to express their traits and feelings. today i've chosen hachi for the style analysis because i'm fascinated by the subtle changes to her style syncing with her character development over the course of the story. also, i think her style is just super cute. so let's get into it! (⚠ anime & manga spoilers ahead)

🍓

overview

if i only had one word to describe hachi's style, i'd say feminine- think frills and lace details. she's all about babydoll silhouettes, pleated skirts, knit cardigans, ballet flats, and generally embodying shoujo fashion from the early 2000s with a good balance of cute and classy. hachi's fashion sensibilities lean more towards the modest side, as her dresses and skirts are usually around midi-length, and mini skirts are often paired with extra layers like tights or leggings underneath. it's a very good girl chic look, which fittingly leans in to her innocent personality. hachi is very stylish and clearly puts a lot of thought into picking her outfits everyday, as she's not afraid to occasionally experiment with different styles every & to use fashion as a key means of expressing herself.

in terms of colour palettes, hachi's wardrobe has a bit of everything- warm hues, earth tones, soft pastels, which all work together to capture the warmth and sweetness of her character. she's definitely more attuned to light colours than dark. this suits her personality better too, as light coloured clothing is said to convey feelings of friendship, fun, compassion, and approachability. fabric-wise, hachi likes to keep it light and airy with materials like chiffon and tulle; switching to warmer fabrics like cashmere and wool for cold weather, giving her outfits a vintage feel.

we can see that hachi pulls fashion inspiration from various aesthetics and fashion trends across different decades. she definitely incorporates her love for vintage fashion in her style, particularly with elements we've seen her wear before like mod dresses, neckerchiefs, pearl necklaces, long fleece trim coats, and brown platform boots. you can also see it in how some of the pieces she wears feels so unique, like a surprise gem you would find in a vintage boutique while thrifting. in dressier looks, hachi's girlish charm and allure is slightly reminiscient of 1960s it girls, like twiggy and sharon tate. she draws from a lot of 60s-inspired elements- the romantic parisienne style, and a bit of vintage preppy chic.

scarves and bandanas are a vintage essential as well as one of hachi's signature accessories. they have tons of versatile styling options, plus the potential to be dressed up or down. we've seen her wearing one scarf (exhibit A) multiple times over the series. the babushka scarf version has to be my favourite, it's very hepburn-esque, who i 100% i could picture hachi having a poster of in her childhood bedroom. i also think that having characters re-wear pieces we've seen before is generally just a cool subtle styling detail, which adds to the realism of NANA's 10/10 worldbuilding. the scarf's many appearances styled in different ways also goes to show how hachi enjoys being creative with her outfits, loves the pieces she owns and wants to get as much use out of them as possible.

hachi's style also incorporates a touch of influence from the kawaii lolita subculture, particularly modern offshoots like larme-kei. lolita is french rococco-inspired with a focus on cuteness, and has its origins in early 2000s harajuku street style- which is also where mori/kogyaru fashion originates from; hachi's go-to style during her high school years (see: her modified school uniform, miniskirts, fuzzy legwarmers). both of these movements were heavily pioneered by j-fashion magazines of the time like FRUITS, Olive, Larme & CUTiE, which were mainly popular with teenage girls and young women, and hachi is no exception. her fashion sense is also heavily inspired by famous japanese celebrities and style icons like risa nakamura.

if we had to really narrow it down, i think hachi's style can be best described by otome (lit: maiden) fashion. known as one of the predecessors of lolita fashion, this style was very popular among young girls in the 70s-80s and is heavily centered around embodying all things traditionally feminine. sweet, cute, girly, and romantic are all common descriptors of the style, which pulls influence from 60s mod fashion (which, as we've seen, has prevalent elements in hachi's style). think tons of layering, pattern mixing, longer hemlines, and mary janes/flats, all of which we frequently see in hachi's outfits. we also see that she takes elements from modern lolita fashion like frills, bows, ribbons, lace, tights & stockings, and incorporates them into her own personal style as more understated outfit details; making it more wearable on a daily basis while still being a tribute to one of her sources of style inspiration.

now that we've explored what makes hachi's personal style unique to her character, let's dig into how her style is influenced in relation to how the story progresses and how her character develops. and just for funsies, i'll also be styling a casual everyday outfit that i could picture hachi wearing for each story arc. let's go!

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i. art school

i'd describe hachi's style here as the most youthful, which makes sense considering she's freshly moved to tokyo to study at an art school. we see her sporting a face-framing pixie cut, which gives her look a bit of edge, but not too much as she still retains her signature soft girl style to balance it out. also, can i just say: super farmer's daughter vibes when paired with a bandana! jeans were having a moment too- during this era, hachi was often seen wearing a pair of bellbottom flares or baggy jeans, creating a casual and easygoing look which really leaned into the artsy college student fashion. this would also mesh well with her then-best friend junko's more bohemian/indie, woodstock-inspired hippie style. the short hair paired with her experimentation on androgynous silhouettes definitely accentuates her gamine facial features, lending to a cute boyish look.

all these style elements are in direct contrast with the hyperfeminine looks of her high school years, back when she'd opt for skirts over jeans and long, styled hair; showing how hachi underwent a pretty drastic style change whilst adapting to the new environment in tokyo. at the same time, it could also hint at hachi's approach to self-expression & using fashion as a coping mechanism to deal with major life changes. dressing more casually to blend in with the college crowd is one of many indicators on how easily influenced hachi can get, which is pretty on-brand behaviour for someone with a tendency to seek validation from others instead of oneself.

so let's get into the first look i've picked out for her: layers on layers on layers baby! for this outfit, i took a lot of inspiration from hachi's first day of class outfit. i tried to be consistent with her theme of 70s-inspired prints and silhouettes during this phase, but also wanted to incorporate a modern y2k touch since we know that younger hachi (before fully developing her unique & personal sense of style) is more of a trend chaser, and what could be more early 2000s than a blouse + dress + jeans combo? accessories-wise, i wanted to pick out unique-looking pieces that had a lot of charm, as i was really going for that 'flea market finds' vibe since she obviously wouldn't have been able to afford any designer yet on a college student budget. also please notice the gorgeous vintage floral print ballet flats- i was so excited when i found it, i thought it screamed hachi!! they look so comfortable to walk in on top of being cute, it's the perfect shoe to slip on for a long day of classes without sacrificing style.

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ii. apartment 707

during this time, we see hachi start to embrace feminine styles again. she lets her hair grow out and we see her back in skirts, dresses, and all things girly, which is why her otome fashion influences shine through most here. she wears tons of pieces in floral and polkadot print, as well as flowy babydoll tops which are very y2k-girl-next-door-reminiscient. we also see her starting to wear vivienne jewelry (the pearl choker, the dainty silver orb earrings), likely as a result of nana's influence (who she heavily admires and looks up to) & wanting to emulate her style. hachi's outfits here seem to have more colour and print, which i believe is reflective of her mental state here; happy, confident, and surrounded by support. good vibes all around, her environment at this time encourages her to take more risks in not just decision-making but also in her fashion choices.

in general, this era is where hachi seems to be getting a better hold on growing into her own personal style. she's still open to trying out different styles every now and then, but we can see there are some style elements that really stick and appear most often in her outfits. she's also seen here experimenting with all kinds of different hairstyles- french braids, pigtails, twin buns, the half-updo. to me, i think all of this signifies how hachi's style development runs parallel to her identity formation and how she grows as a person. at this point of the story, hachi believes she's finally found a place where she fits- within this ragtag but loving cast of unique characters.

so the second look was a little more of a challenge to work with- that's because hachi's style during this era doesn't subscribe to any one specific aesthetic or subculture, but more like a bit of everything, and her outfits can differ a lot between episodes. the goal here was to go for a casual daytime outfit, and i ended up super proud of the colour coordination in this one! i've styled hachi in a frilly vintage floral print chiffon slip dress that's almost reminiscent of the strawberry dress of 2020, but with unique details that give it much more character. i gave hachi a cream-toned vivienne crossbody purse, a scarf to balance out the salmon pink of the dress accents, styled as a neckerchief, some strawberry hair clips to match, and of course i had to include her much-spotted pearl orb necklace too. the highlight of this look are definitely the shoes, which are maison margiela tabi ballet flats- something i could 100% picture hachi wearing if NANA were set in the context of modern day fashion trends.

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iii. motherhood

as time passes, we also see how hachi's fashion sense has slightly evolved into a classier, more refined version. more adult, if you will. this occurs when hachi decides to move out from apartment 707 and starts getting serious with takumi. not only did her living situation change, but as did her lifestyle, and with that, her fashion sense too. her style here simplified and took on a more mature look. she started prioritizing function over form as she cut down on layering and accessorizing. she would also opt for longer, flowier silhouettes and comfortable styles, often wearing simple dresses or aprons over a basic shirt-skirt combo. i really like how the change in style here - which pulls a lot from the 50s-suburbia housewife trope (think frilly aprons, puffy dresses, flared skirts, modest hemlines) - feels like a sublte detail to show how hachi settles into her new role of motherhood, expressed via clothing choices.

as a whole, this period of her life signifies the drastic 180° change from spending carefree days of young adulthood, to taking on the role of mother/wife in a nuclear family unit. it's the most major life change she's ever had to experience at this point, and it's expected that her style evolves alongside this. she's seen wearing noticeably less patterns or colour during this time, which could hint at possibly representing her inner feelings- the bleakness of spending her days in a mostly-empty home, and the isolation of being separated from the friendships she once surrounded herself with daily. thankfully, we do eventually see her return to dressing fashionably again after the timeskip. however, it's extremely important not to gloss over this period of her life as it portrays how she must have felt having most of her agency taken away overnight, with her style being all she had left as a form of control.

so last but not least is the final outfit, which was tough styling as there was comparably less material to go off, but i based it on the few going-out looks we get to see hachi wear post-takumi. rolling with the 50s-inspired looks, i've styled her in a coral short-sleeve button down dress. for the outerwear i picked a long checkered overcoat, which nicely complements the dress in addition to being a going-out staple for classy ladies everywhere. since the outfit is mostly harsher silhouettes, i decided to keep the colour scheme light to balance it out. while i was going for 'stylish mature woman', i still wanted some youthful elements in there to maintain hachi's signature girlish look. i balanced it out by accessorizing with a headband (a prep chic essential) and dior saddle bag, both lime green for a pop of colour and contrast. and of course, i had to incorporate the iconic neckerchief too as it doesn't get any more vintage-looking than this. the final piece to tie it all together are a pair of classic miu miu ballet flats- chic and comfortable!

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final thoughts

all in all, hachi's fashion sense is super girly and sweet, which i'd say directly reflects on her character's personality. hachi is an outgoing girl who wears her heart on her sleeve and has a lot of love to give. she's warm and approachable, which she expresses through her clothing choices by embodying the cheerful, down-to-earth girl next door look. her bubbly style is youthful and fresh, which personality-wise is in character with hachi's innocence and willingness to trust others. this is shown through how much hachi cares deeply about her loved ones & often (unhealthily) prioritizes their feelings over her own. however, this naïveté unfortunately leaves her a lot more vulnerable to others seeking to exploit her emotional attention.

hachi's fashion evolution over the series shows how she uses fashion as a coping tool to help adjust to life changes, capturing her emotional growth and how she matures over the course of the story. the way that hachi's sense of style develops alongside her character is so realistic. her style development tells the story of a girl who finds herself and loses herself over and over again, frequently changing jobs and wardrobes in a constant struggle to find an identity to latch onto- until she does. hachi's style story is one of self-expression & identity formation; a story that speaks to all the young, unsure girls out there who see a bit of themselves in her, trying to figure out their place in a world in a world that often decides for them.

[rennybu]

Hi there! Maybe this is a weird question, but as an artist and A D&D, I thought you might be a good resource! I'm wanting to commission a portrait of my D&D character for roll20 purposes, but I'm struggling with what refs and such I should gather for the artist. How can I make it as easy as possible for an artist when the character I'm wanting a portrait of isn't human? Would a written description suffice, or are images better? Thank you for whatever advice you have! --sincerely, a Loam enjoyer

DELIGHTFUL QUESTION, not weird at all!!! I hope its okay to publish this in case anyone else was wondering the same :']

Speaking as an artist who's done portrait commissions in the very recent past, a mix of images and written description is a sweet spot. Notes about specific features that the reference images might not show, or might not show accurately, help a lot to avoid retakes and corrections down the line.

Using Loam as an example, I have my own drawings of him I can crop and compile as reference, as well as a human model whose face proportions I like and make sure to include in case the realism is helpful at all to the artist. (The model is. EXTREMELY pale, ginger, and blue-eyed, so it really is just for like, Nose, Mouth, Jaw. FORM!) Then bolster what I've provided with additional reference - for Loam's ears, I have some pictures of cow ears saved for the overall shape and fur texture. AND all his jewelry afgkhfldKLJSHFGLSKD <3 Plus various armors, weathered fabrics, pieces of misc gear that complement and offer more options than what I've presented in my own artwork - to give the artist a range to work within, while still representing what I imagine suits Loam.

Simple notepad or Paint sketches also go a long way in conveying which details/features are most important to include in a given commission!!! Even scribbling over a reference image to be like, "this but PURPLE" is quick and easy. The power of the stick figure/smiley face with annotated doodles is never to be underestimated in communicating a bigger idea!!!!!!

SUMMARY?

Any existing artwork of the character

Any models/actors (or animals, for textures in fur/scales/eyes/teeth, etc etc) with features that are accurate to your image of the character

A simple doodle/sketch of the concept you have in mind

Written notes to consolidate the visuals you've provided and fill in any gaps that might still remain

BONUS? Links to the artist's own work depicting non-human features in a way you enjoyed seeing previously, that made you want to commission them for your character! (this has also helped me in the past with clients wanting lighting/rendering styles, hair, magic effects, etc. similar to pieces I'd done previously)

GO FORTH HAVE FUN!! i hope some of this was a little helpful :'D