#also i really like the concept of sailor red.

[bloop-bl00p]

Are the suffering and consequences in the room with us?

For a place that is supposed to be Hell, there’s little to no effort into showing that these people are punished. Not necessarily by the Hellborns, I very much like the approach of “Hell is other people” but the writers failed at showing us this aspect. Vivziepop's version of Hell feels more like L.A. painted in red. And that’s disappointing.

It’s still a messed up place but outside of episode 4, there’s no real investment in making sure we understand that this is HELL. We see people do drugs yet we see nobody in a zombie-like state on the street. The closest we had was a randoe in Happy Day in Hell but it was a joke.

This is something very blatant with HH, most of the time, when something serious is presented it’s a joke (Sexual assault, drugs, etc...) It’ll depend on whether you're Viv's favorite character or not.

*cough*

Sir Pentious was not.

*cough*

You also see this in how they approached the crimes committed by characters, most of them did messed up things but Charlie never tries to address these despite being the one supposed to care about redemption.

Vaggie participated in genocide, she was angry but for one episode only, and her rant to Alastor was too light-hearted to be taken seriously (again a joke). Rewatch the scene, with an Alastor that doesn't give a damn, the funny music in the background, her goofy facial expression and tone, that’s not taking it seriously narratively.

Alastor was a serial killer and took pleasure in torturing his victims. Currently, he’s a cannibal and slave owner, Charlie does nothing about it. I’m not asking her to free Husk and Nifty we don’t know if she really can, but she could have had a conversation asking Al to not torture people during his stay at the hotel or treat his employees like humans and not pets.

Angel Dust was part of the mafia. From what we’ve seen he isn't against killing people, in fact, he seems to like it.

Every time we see him fight he’s smiling and enjoying himself, it’s said in the pilot that he’ll never miss an opportunity to help Cherry fight in those turf wars of hers. But his problem is druUuUUugs (this is an issue but that’s the only thing pointed out.)

That’s even more noticeable with the cannibals… who are nice? Whoa… you’re saying that the people whose whole culture is to jump you at your most vulnerable, tear through your flesh with teeth and hands just to feast on you in the middle of the street are actually silly guys and gals who like meat a bit too much. How charming ☺️

She was more annoyed that guts and blood went into her eye than anything.

There isn’t enough effort to showcase the horrors of living in a place where your only chance to survive is to be physically stronger and a good manipulator. When we’re shown something awful like “murders or cannibalizing someone” it’s presented as quirky, and funny, and nobody really mentions it. Aren't we supposed to believe that Hell is a bad place as a whole? Is Extermination really the only thing we have to worry about?

What’s the point of adding concepts like forced labor, addiction, and an unfair hierarchical system if you’re not going to show the viewer the horrendous reality of these things?

Vivziepop needs to pick a consistent tone for her series, there’s nothing wrong with joking about murders and EdgyyYyy humor, but that makes the audience detach from the reality of these things and they will have a hard time caring for a character the second they are portrayed as bad. Especially when the transition between funny and serious is from one episode to another.

“Angel and Husk are suffering!!!!!”

The characters that are supposed to be addicts are sober every time we see them on screen. We see Husk drink alcohol directly from the bottle and rather than showing that the toxins are affecting his body by making him sluggish and/or on the verge of vomiting he’s still able to stand still and hold a conversation perfectly. Even if Husk drank like a sailor, there’s so much alcohol your liver can take before eventually letting it affect your system.

But maybe we could use his addiction in a way to reinforce the fact that he isn't free.

Think of it like this, show a few scenes where Husk is excessively drinking experiencing bad hangovers, and not doing his job correctly as a whole. Vaggie complains about this to Alastor saying that til now he has done nothing significant to help the hotel and the employees he brought aren’t even behaving properly. She threatens him saying that he might get kicked out if this continues.

To that, Alastor could later threaten Husk saying he better fix his drinking habits or he’ll broadcast his scream or whatever. Later Husk would still be drinking but you could have little details of Alastor side-eyeing him and him just letting go of his bottles. He’ll still be sluggish but he’ll make sure he’s sober enough to keep The Radio Demon happy.

We never really felt like Husk’s movements were controlled by Alastor, he was just brought into the hotel without his concent, that sucks, but he can still converse normally with the others. In the Pilot, he insulted Deer Boe in his face with no repercussions. A few more scenes like the one in episode 5 to reinforce the power dynamics between him and Al wouldn't kill.

And Angel Dust how many scenes do we see him do drugs yet his body is able to take it all?

He’s supposed to be an addict, there are few mentions of him hiding things in his room but it's all talking! Talking is not bad, you can talk, but it’s boring and holds NO substances when there isn't SHOWING. Imagine this:

Charlie is worried because it’s been an hour and Angel hasn't come back to the Hotel, she knows his schedule as a sex worker is extremely busy but she usually knows when he comes back and he didn't respond to any of her messages.

Before she could go out to search for him, Cherry burst out into the room, a beaten and knocked out Angel on her shoulder. She was barely standing herself as she was also injured, with many cuts freshly bleeding mainly on her arms and face.

Charlie and the other help her get Angel to his room to tend to his wounds and Cherry’s. When she asks for an explanation Bomb explains that Angel couldn't buy his usual stash of drugs at the local store he went to anymore, as it got plundered right after the end of the extermination, the owner was killed and the shop was vulnerable to thieves.

Angel was looking for a very rare type of drug, made in the Gluttony ring, usually, the things made there take you quickly to cloud nine practically knocking you out in the process. The store he bought it from was the only one with prices affordable enough for him.

He eventually found a gang that was willing to give him a very small portion of drugs in exchange for money. Except that he didn't have nearly enough for what they were asking but he still went with it just after his work in one of Val’s clubs, already a shitty idea since he was exposed to many illicit substances when working with the moth so he wasn’t clean.

Obliviously the gang didn't accept a slip payment and tried to rob and take advantage of him. Cherry stepped up, fought a bit, and escaped with Angel, thanks to her smoke bombs, before things could get too serious. She goes on a small rant about how she and Angel are friends and they mutually help each other, when her wounds are patched up she leaves not before asking Angel to call her when he wakes up. Before she could go Charlie proposed to her to stay at the hotel but Cherry refused stating that there were people in the street who probably needed her help, but she might send people to Charlie’s hotel if she felt like they couldn’t survive in the street.

There’s probably a lot I could fix with this story but that’s just a quick example. What did I manage to convey without blatantly saying it? Angel Dust isn’t in a great financial situation, his addiction is so bad that he’s willing to put himself in danger just to get his hand on the strongest dope and Hell is a fucked up place. I didn't say it I showed it and since you’re smart you understood the subtext.

Some will say that there’s Extermination, but first, we just learned that they can fight back and they have a year to prepare themselves so the stakes are lesser.

Second, it’s surprisingly easy to get angelic weapons.

Someone like Striker managed to get multiple angelic weapons to kill Stolas and a rope that neutralized his powers.

An imp, the cockroach of the society, either his killing business is extremely successful or Carmilla’s prices aren’t that high. And don’t go tell me “Stealaa bought it!!” that’s never implied or stated.

Plus the angel leaves these in the open, I’d say it’s quite easy to get one of those right after an Extermination, nobody was surprised Vaggie has a spear so it feels like it’s common for someone to have them.

[youkaigakkou-tl]

The TRUTH behind the soul pieces

Preamble: I started writing this expecting nothing, but I actually found something??? not clickbait???? gone right???

Warning: the expected reaction of reading this is “damn. I’ve never seen someone grasp harder at straws” and “I dunno about this one chief”

So. "The soul pieces aren't exactly what we're told they are" is an idea I've had for a while now. (I wouldn’t even call it a theory, it’s just a passing thought.) Not that "they're manifestations of Haruaki's traits" is wrong, but I think there's more to them than immediately obvious. I just haven't talked about this much because even I don't fully buy into it and it kinda verges on horoscope-type confirmation bias territory. It’s kind of a, I THINK there’s more to it but I don’t know what exactly is more.

A brief recap

First one shown is his "worldly desires", animal trio vs Seiryuu.

Second is his "freak athleticism", that Kurahashi's team and Ebisu just ran into.

With just these two he runs off to find Sano

Third is his "cowardice", found by Sano's team and Byakko, which gets away and hides in Sano's pocket.

Fourth is his "memory", originally found by Hijita's team and Genbu, which gets picked up by Genbu and then the whole Heian flashback happens.

And last is his "intelligence", which for some reason is also the one that can use his exorcism power.

So immediately a couple details stood out to me.

Why is "memory" here?? I wouldn't call that a trait exactly??

Also, when it first broke apart and flew off in five directions, it's specifically pointed out that it's "like a five pointed star" (even though it's not really if you look at the actual locations on a map lol)

And the sticking point, if it was as clean and simple a split as “Haruaki’s traits”, why do the traits bleed into each other? “Athleticism” is into sailor uniforms too, and “Cowardice” and “Intelligence” are pretty quick by themselves. Also, even without his “Memory” at the time, he remembered that conversation with Seimei in ch87.

The five pointed star detail, considering everything in the arc heavily relates to the Four Gods and Seimei's star, which relates to Wuxing, almost begs to be referencing that too.

What is Wuxing?

Wuxing, five elements, five phases, gogyo, whatever other name for it: I’ve talked about it briefly in my Kyoto arc analysis

(Wait. Is this actually all I mentioned regarding Wuxing in that analysis???? This tells you nothing!!)

(Tbh I think I had a longer explanation about it but I cut it because I thought it was irrelevant)

Wuxing 五行, roughly translated as five elements or phases, is a concept that comes from Taoism. The five elements are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water and describes the interactions between them. Here’s the wikipedia page if you really want to get into the details.

The “xing” means movements/moving, and the entire concept of Wuxing comes from the five classical planets’ (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) movements affecting… things? In general? (It’s horoscopes)

In fact, the names of those five planets in Chinese and Japanese are tied with the Wuxing:

Mercury = 水星 water star

Venus = 金星 metal/gold star

Mars = 火星 fire star

Jupiter = 木星 wood star

Saturn = 土星 earth star

You’re taught these as a kid but not the reasoning behind it (because it’s hella irrelevant lmao) but I guess it kinda makes instinctual sense? (Venus = yellow, Mars = red, Jupiter = stripes, like tree rings?? Saturn = brown. Mercury = it looks like there’s rivers? idk how much detail they were seeing in the BC times)

And just to sate curiosity, the planets that were discovered after telescopes were invented are just based off the English names

Uranus = 天王星 sky god star

Neptune = 海王星 sea god star

Pluto = 冥王星 underworld god star

By the way, this is also why the days of the week are named after elements in Japanese; it’s not actually the elements, rather it’s referring to the celestial bodies: those 5 planets + the moon and the sun. It’s the classical Chinese system that Japan adopted around the 5th century AD, and they haven’t changed it since then. (Chinese uses stuff like “weekday 1” for monday now.) And China itself adopted the Greco-Roman system of the 7 day week, days named after celestial bodies around the 4th century AD, which is also why the planets and days line up if you look at the English and Japanese names now.

Would be crazy if they independently decided to have 7 days in a week and name days after celestial bodies and assigned the same planets to the days huh.

(Also, TIL from looking at this chart that the sun (taiyang) is indeed called that because it’s the “great yang star”, and the moon is called the “great yin star”, you know, like yin-yang)

I’m remembering why it’s so hard to research and write about this stuff now. Everything is so inextricably connected to everything else its hard to talk about one thing in isolation. Thanks for indulging my astronomy tangent I love astronomy.

(I always got saturn on da mind when I think about Seimei cus of this art…)

The only useful part of this essay

So. Wuxing. Here’s a pretty standard diagram of it so it’s easier to visualise

There are five types of processes Wuxing describes:

Generating: Wood feeds fire

The reverse side of generating: Fire burns wood

Regulating: Wood grasps earth

Excessive regulating (destruction): Wood depletes earth

The reverse side of regulation (exhaustion): Earth rots wood

And here’s a full list of it, from wikipedia

With this in mind, you’ll notice that it pops up all over the place in Kyoto arc!

If we take lightning as aligned with metal (because Byakko = metal = lightning user), this is the regulating interaction of metal -> wood

Metal cuts wood, but wood also dulls metal

Water… nourishing wood….???

Water destabilizes earth

(“This is just pokemon lol” WRONG!! Pokemon types and every other element system in videogames came from Wuxing!! (Or Godai))

Back to the soul pieces

So you see, it’s incredibly tempting to connect the five soul pieces with the five elements of Wuxing. It’s basically begging for it. The Wuxing has been associated with lots of things that come in sets of five, including things like senses, tastes, smells, emotions, mental qualities, periods of one’s life, body parts. It has applications in divination and traditional chinese medicine after all. If there was a clear, 1-to-1 match between the soul pieces and the elements, you bet I would have talked about it more by now. But the connections are tenuous at best, and even I don’t really believe it. They might, probably, just be the traits we’re told they are. So this really is just to humor myself, and maybe someone can glean something more from this.

Let’s lay out the things surrounding the soul pieces:

“Desires” was at Arashiyama (a bamboo forest) and Seiryuu was present, both associated with Wood

“Athleticism” was at Ginkaku-ji (silver pavilion), none of the four gods were present, no obvious element associations here.

“Cowardice” was at Mount Kurama (mountain = earth?), Byakko was present (metal?)

“Memory” was at Kiyomizu-dera (clear water temple), and Genbu was present, water association

“Intelligence” was at Kinkaku-ji (gold pavilion), and none of the four gods were present initially. (gold = metal?)

The other thing I’ve yet to mention is all the soul pieces seem to be of different points in Haruaki’s life. (Well. Four of them at least.)

“Desires” and “Athletics” seem to look and act younger (as much as you can tell with chibis…), both wearing simple t-shirts, and “Athletics” t-shirt and shorts look like what Haruaki wore as a kid in the Miki arc flashback. Adding on to that, we’re constantly told how into sailor uniforms Haruaki was as a little kid (literally whenever his childhood gets brought up: Mamaaki talking about it in ch8, him saying his first cry as a newborn was “sailor uniform” in ch43, the ch51.5 extra) (ok to be fair. his sailor uniform fetish gets brought up at every opportunity. but i feel like it’s Pretty emphasized here) Also I feel like “Desires” especially talks like a kid.

Meanwhile “Cowardice” and “Memory” are dressed the way he currently does, and “Cowardice” seems to parallel the way Haruaki was at the start of the series. It’s Sano’s team that runs into him, he acts like how Haruaki did early on just amped way up, and he ends up hiding on Sano.

IQ-kun… still don’t know what to make of him and how he fits into this lol

Put like this, doesn’t it almost seem like, in the order they appear, they represent points in Haruaki’s life too?

Or, this could all be nothing, because they’re all wearing the same thing in the jacket for Volume 14.

So anyway, from this angle, it seems like Desires and Athletics line up fairly cleanly with Wood and Fire respectively, but Cowardice, Memory and Intelligence are a little murkier. Cowardice only somewhat lines up with Earth, and both Memory and Intelligence could align with Water, while Memory could also be Metal. (I dropped the quotation marks bc they were getting distracting)

Here’s a diagram to illustrate.

(See it’s kinda, pick-and-choosey, horoscope-type shit)

Immediately a couple problems arise. First and most majorly is the horoscopey-ness of it all. And then there’s the matter that, if the four gods represent four out of five of the elements and earth is the outlier, wouldn’t it also make sense if IQ-kun as the outlier would be assigned that?

There’s also the possibility that the first four are a set, and IQ-kun makes up the “yin” to the rest of Haruaki’s “yang” (But then what would the first four correspond to individually? idk….)

We’re getting nowhere with this analogy, so let’s look at some adjacent philosophies in sets of five, just for fun, and see if they line up any better.

Traditional Chinese Medicine

This one is the most related to Wuxing, there are five main “organs” in TCM that have associated Wuxing elements. They might be called the same names as the anatomical organs, but they’re actually more like concepts only roughly correlated with locations on the body. This is stuff codified thousands of years ago before modern knowledge of the human body, mind you.

Heart (fire): stores the “aggregate soul” (the mind)

Spleen (earth): governs transportation of qi and blood, and governs muscles and limbs

Lung (metal): stores the “po 魄” (physical soul)

Kidney (water): responsible for willpower or fear

Liver (wood): governs free flow of qi, blood and emotions. Stores blood, which stores the “hun 魂” (ethereal soul)

(The wikipedia page I linked has more in depth descriptions)

And if we sorta line up the attributes…

Desires = Liver/wood

Athleticism = Spleen/earth

Cowardice = Kidney/water

Memory = Lung/metal

Intelligence = Heart/fire

Something like this? It doesn’t line up particularly nicely either, and certainly doesn’t line up with the first theory…

But reading up on this actually brought something useful to my attention: the concept of “hun” and “po”

See, there’s this Chinese compound word “hun po 魂魄” that generally just means “soul”, but if you get really semantic they’re two different types of souls?

The “hun” is the yang-aligned “ethereal soul” typically understood as the wits/mind of a person, whatever constitutes the personality, and is the part of the soul that leaves the body on death.

The “po” is the yin-aligned “physical soul”, sometimes described as the “baser animal spirit” of a person, and is attached to the body.

This could explain why Haruaki’s soul is also Seimei’s soul, but also Seimei is in the underworld?

This scene I got real hung up about in my Kyoto arc post?

It lining up and being a reasonable explanation is one thing, but whether sensei is deliberately referencing a property of Chinese linguistics that doesn’t have an equivalent in Japanese kanji is another thing. And honestly, I could see Tanaka “I’ll have to read up on Chinese history, but off the top of my head Byakko and Seiryuu are from 4000BC and Suzaku and Genbu are younger” Mai could and would do it. (Good god, what I wouldn’t give to see sensei’s notes. Yohaji fanbook explaining every cultural reference PLEASEEEE IM BEGGINGGG)

Godai

Godai (“the five great (elements)”), while also a thing with five elements that features prominently in Japanese culture, differs from Wuxing in that it originates from the concept of Mahābhūta in Indian Buddhism, and features Fire, Water, Earth, Wind and Void. It’s a more inert definition and describes the elements as building blocks, contrasting with Wuxing which is more concerned with the balancing and interaction between the elements and the changes they cause in each other.

Godai also isn’t ever depicted as a star (and Wuxing is only depicted as a star as a byproduct of all the arrows denoting the interactions, sometimes the 5 elements are arranged like the 5 side of a dice with lines connecting everything) and is typically depicted as a Gorinto, a stone structure.

In order from top to bottom, it goes Void, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth, and represents the structure of the universe in Buddhism.

So. Attributes and if they line up any better.

Earth: unmoving, stability

Water: fluidity, adaptability, motion

Fire: passion, power, energy

Wind: growth, freedom

Void: the spirit? thought? there’s not really a clear description of this one. To begin with, originally in Buddhism, it’s just said that “from void emerged air, from air emerged fire, (etc)”

I could see wind = Memory and void = Intelligence, but the rest… I dunno man

The five aggregates in Buddhism

And now, following the thread back from Godai, to the Buddhist concept of Skandhas, or the “five aggregates of clinging”, described as the five factors that make up a sentient being’s personality. (Hey, this sounds like it could be onto something here!)

The five aggregates are:

Form or matter: the material form of a person

Sensation or feeling: the five senses + intellectual sensation, and the feelings that occur whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral

Perception: cognition and recognizing what has been previously noted

Mental formations: dispositions, or something that motivates a person to take action (or sometimes described as the influences of a previous life?!)

Consciousness: cognizance, or the base that supports experience, sometimes translated as mind, intelligence or life force

Wait… This kinda… lines up…? No way…?

Form = Athleticism

Sensation = Cowardice

Perception = Memory

Mental formations = Desires

Consciousness = Intelligence

This… kinda works? They all basically line up and it’s not too tenuous, and there’s enough matching details in the descriptions of the five aggregates that it’s kinda scary…?

I’ll be real, prior to writing this section I hadn’t actually read the descriptions of each of them too carefully (I had the tab open and roughly noted the descriptions kinda worked) and I entirely expected to end this essay with a “in conclusion: no conclusion i learned nothing lol” but there’s actually something here????

And Tanaka Mai is known to reference Buddhism a lot, so this could entirely be intentional…??? I’m kinda shaken rn tbh

I mean, I guess I should have looked to Buddhism first considering sensei’s track record, what with how the arc opened with Haruaki getting put under a waterfall to get rid of his worldly desires, and how 3 out of 5 locations were Buddhist temples, but Buddhism concepts usually use their Sanskrit names and I don’t know how to google for that… (making excuses. classic)

Um. Hope you enjoyed reading this and that you learned something? Here’s all the relevant wikipedia pages if you want to go down your own rabbit hole:

Wuxing (Chinese five elements)

Godai (Japanese Buddhism five elements)

Mahābhūta (Indian Buddhism five elements)

Hun and po (two concepts of souls)

Skandha (five aggregates that make up a person)

Twelve Nidanas (didn’t mention this one, but it’s related to skandhas)

If you read all this you should read all my other long rambly things too if you haven’t, they’re all under the #rambles tag 👍

[fly-pow-bye]

The Lost Blossom Shampoo Commercial Part 3

I was already following Hook Up Animation on Instagram because they post old promos and even newer promos like that amazing one they did for Cartoon Network's 30th anniversary. I opened up Instagram and the first thing I see is that they posted a compilation video of various promos they did featuring the Powerpuff Girls. Since I have learned recently from someone at Hook Up that Hook Up Animation worked on it, I had reason to believe I was about to see at least the clip I saw in the Rogan and Toonix reels. It's not the full spot, but about 9 seconds in, there it was.

My 10 year old mystery is technically not fully solved, but at least we get to see more of it. More after the break.

One thing right now: this compilation is essentially an AMV of various clips from promos and commercials they worked on set to the Powerpuff Girls theme, and none of the promos and commercials are shown in full. However, we do see quite a bit more of the commercial I called the Lost Blossom Shampoo Commercial, and I can say one of those words is technically wrong, as it's not just Blossom.

We get to see the setup of the commercial, with Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup looking in the mirror with their bad hair day. It would have been wrong to just have Blossom even if she would have the most impressive hairstyle for a hair product ad. I did suspect that Bubbles and Buttercup should appear as well considering there's three superhero mascots at the end of the commercial. Three Powerpuff Girls, three Showerpuff Girls.

Having Bubbles and Buttercup in this commercial also means that the almost Sailor Moon-esque hair transformation scene Blossom got also happens to Bubbles and Buttercup as well. I can at least do a quick GIF of Buttercup's.

Bubbles gets one too, but the clip of Bubbles is a little too short and I couldn't really fix it like I tried to do with Buttercup. Each of the girls do get different effects. Bubbles gets a wind-like effect, possibly representing the spiky haired mascot, and Buttercup gets the combing cream, representing the long red haired watery mascot.

Now with the appearance in this compilation, this is how much of the commercial we have now.

We went from just under 3 seconds to 7 seconds of what could be a 15 or 30 second commercial. I should point out that even with all of these different reels, we have exactly zero seconds of audio from this commercial, as the reels and compilation plays these clips over stock music and the English Powerpuff Girls' opening, respectively.

I did joke about what the rest of the commercial would be like, and that obviously wasn't going to be accurate. Thanks to having the intro, I can make a good summary of what it actually could be:

Professor Utonium sees the Powerpuff Girls in dis-tress, yadda yadda yadda, the Powerpuff Girls' hair gets restored to their usual glory thanks to the power of Hidratacion Intensa. Warning: baby shampoo will still not give your baby superpowers.

Much like that Seinfeld episode, the yadda yadda does hide what could be interesting: what did the Professor do? Does he pull out the brand new hair products, spawning those superhero mascots to help out Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup? Or...did he create those superhero mascots? Have I stumbled upon the most obscure Powerpuff Girls in any officially-sanctioned media before I made that article about Bittercup? There's only one way to find out, and I wish I could find that way.

One commercial I could find because Cartoon Network themselves uploaded it is this O Movimento Cartoon PSA. Yes, we know, there's already a well hated episode with this exact concept, but the live-action/animated hybrid style looks really cool. Maybe if the CW show used that, maybe it would have been greenlit! Or, maybe not.

< Part 2 - ? >

[docholligay]

Do you think having such a personalized and detailed headcanon makes it harder to enjoy fic about the show/game that's written by others?

I mean sure, probably.

But unfortunately things I adore, for people named Doc who are me, fall into one of two buckets:

The character work and plot in this show are incredible, I find myself turning it around in my mind like a rotisserie chicken. I constantly discover new things about the show/book/game or the characters in it. I do not read fic about this, because why would I? Every answer I search for is in the text. I want to talk about this with someone, but about what is THERE, not what could be there. Ex: The Haunting of Hill House, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Piranesi, Bioshock:Infinite, Watership Down, Yellowjackets, among others.

The concepts of this could be amazing but are handled so fucking badly so consistently, in a shocking contrast to how INCONSISTENT the character work is, that all I want to do is steal it and make it better. All i want to do is turn it into something that doesn't suck ass when you look at it too hard. So I am going to take it SO seriously, and I am going to develop the rich inner lives for these characters that they lack, with intense backstories and families and motivation for how they got to be the person we know, or know sometimes, in certain episodes or shorts. Ex: Sailor Moon and Overwatch are the biggies here obviously, this is actually not an emotion I feel very often. I don't have intense backstories and extra-textual feelings and ideas about most of the stuff I read and watch, these two are just my Spiders Georg.

So! The odds on me being into something in the correct way to make me want to Seek Treasure Elsewhere but also I have a chill enough attitude about how the characters are that Any Dream Will Do is almost nil. I do not in ANY way mean this in a shady way, but I mostly read published adult fiction for entertainment and not fanfic. I am very picky about my fanfic. So, "plus these two new red and blue girls into Starbucks" often won't work for me, because the reasons to have Haruka and Michiru meet in a coffee shop are completely different from any of the reasons Fareeha and Angela might meet in a coffee shop, and so many of those types are archtypical plug and play stuff. Honestly, I have skated the idea of making a cheat sheet of fanon archetypes of various characters and buying a typewriter to sell 100-200 word 'quick fic' at cons with my sister. That's how common it is to use these archetypes. This is not a criticism! At all!

But, to take the two couples above, I have read so much BORING SHIT about both HM and FA that I could throw up. Lesbian couples have a lot of very milquetoast writing about them, and a lot of meet-cute which isn't really my bag.

But there are authors I love! @oathkeeper-of-tarth was and is one of the best harumichi writers out there and we don't even have all the same headcanons. The rare occasions @verbforverb decides to grace me with "Jewish Mercy I don't Have To Write" I pop a can of bubbly in the tub. And on both fields of battle @keyofjetwolf has stuff I've had bookmarked for years, and there are some things even within Rei's backstory and history that we disagree on.

Actually, to that point what I like is good writing. You can write me into believing nearly anything. There are things I believe about Amelie when I'm reading @lemon-embalmer's stuff that when I go back to my own world, aren't true, but when I'm in her world who the fuck cares, I'm having a great time. EVEN MORE to the point, I read @moonlight-frittata's stupid sun and moon lesbian League of Legends shit and I would rather shoot myslef than know ANYTHING about the game, but unfortunately she has a beautiful turn of phrase and plot flow to her work that I just....read anyway, because it is good. Fucking @tallangrycockatiel had me like 25 pages or so into a story before I was like, "OH SHIT, IS THIS SLASH??? WAIT I DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT BOYS' LOVE!! NO!!" *hits next page* And I still could not care less about that podcast and would never listen to it, and if I did I would be massively disappointed because to my mind, her John and Arthur are the actual article, and whatever the fuck is going on in the source material can eat my dick.

So, yes, I DO think that having a very particular point of view is going to mean I back out of a story where like, "Lena stepped out of her Chelsea flat, custom leather high heels clicking against the step" sometimes, or, you know, "Haruka put down her copy of War and Peace, each meticulous note codified by a color-coded tab. Blue was for historical references to research, green for character analysis, yellow for themes, blah blah blah*" But I am actually shockingly open minded in what I will read, often to the point that I'm reading stuff from SHIT I DO NOT LIKE OR CARE ABOUT, because the quality of the writing is excellent. So, also no.

*I met someone who read books like this and I suddenly realized what the literary equivalent of 'knowing someone is a serial killer' was.

[floralcavern]

Rambling about character design

I could talk hours about this topic

This will include examples of my own characters and characters from media!

I personally love when people take the concept for their character and incorporate things like: Backstory Personality Etc into their design

For example! I have a character who’s a spider monster. And you can still incorporate spider like details into her without making it to obvious. Liiiike, the sides of her bangs cut down and curve inward, resembling spider pinchers

Also, clothes help a lot with this as well if you want things like subtle character design

Shape language is also great. I have a character whose main shape is hearts. I gave her high pigtails to resemble the shape of a heart. But she’s also a villainous character, so if she’s in the middle of battle and the wind is in her hair, her pigtails fly up and resemble the shape of horns

(ALSO WEAPONS OMG!!! So, i gave her two weapons. A bow and a staff. I gave her the bow for two reasons. One, to represent Cupid (not the heart themes). But also to represent her personality. In her regular civilian form, she’s very distant and reserved, always keeping people at an arms length. That’s what the bow represents. But for her staff, which is used for violent bludgeoning, it represents her villainous persona, where she’s extremely violent and forward. The reason why in this story i wrote for her, she’s the only one to get two weapons is because every other character who is a hero uses their personas to amplify and be the person they want to be. But with this character, neither her civilian nor her villainous character are who she really is. Weapons can do so much to tell you about the character)

This guy explains it better than I can

One of my favorite character designs is of Ahiru from Princess Tutu. She is heavily based on Swan Lake, The Swan Princess, and The Ugly Duckling. In her regular form, her hair puffs up at the front in order to represent bird plumage.

But in her transformed appearance, her underpart of her hair is white to represent feathers and a transformation, her tiara looks like a broken egg shell

Small details like that can go a long way with telling people who your character is and can indirectly take someone’s brain to a certain idea or image.

And silhouettes are hugely important as well!! Recognizable silhouettes can do so much to get both you as an artist and your characters to be so iconic. Even for basic human designs, you can do so much. An absolutely iconic example of this is Sailor Moon. Her whole silhouette is basic and normal,

but one simple aspect of her, her hair, can tell the viewer immediately who the character is

Colors too are huge! An example of a good and recognizable color scheme is what I call the pixel rule

When you see these pixel, does a certain character come to your mind? Are those colors in the order making you think of someone?

If you said Mabel Pines, you’d be correct!

Ok, let’s get a bit trickier.

What about this one? It’s a bit longer, meaning there’s more complexities to her design. But do the colors in that order make you think of anything?

Recognizable color patterns can do so, SO much. And that’s not even talking about color theory!!

I’m not nearly skilled enough to talk about color theory, but I’ll do the basics. Warm colors can make a person think of comfort, safety, and kindness. An example is Anna!

Her colors are heavily summer based to contrast:

Elsa, who has cool colors. Cool colors can make a person think distant, cold, and reserved.

But warm colors don’t always automatically mean a safe and comfort feeling. An example is Toilet Bound Hanako. This series is known for prioritizing warm colors 24/7

It makes the environment seem cozy and comforting, but the series knows how to use this safe feeing of colors to its advantage.

This image is still warm, but with the dark colors and eery shades of red-pink, it no longer feels comforting or safe.

At the moment I can’t think of anything cool colored that manages to subvert expectations as well, but it definitely is possible.

Anyways, thank you for listening to my rambles ❤️

[laylaswriting]

Bloodstream Chapter IX. - Pirate

MASTERPOST | Ao3 | Wattpad Title: Bloodstream Chapter IX. - Pirate Pairing: Killian Jones x fem!reader Word count: 1.6k Warnings: none Tags: drama, angst, mutual pining/tension Synopsis: Hook confronts reader about last night's events. A/N: I'm sorry I made you guys wait for so long. I got very insecure about this story and was not sure if I'll even publish the updates. The story will follow reader's story more in the future episodes and will include more backstory, so I'm sorry if that's not your cup of tea. I hope you'll still enjoy ❤

The next morning, she woke up with a terrible headache, like thousands of hammers were banging on her brain at the same time. She slowly blinked her eyes open to see her crewmates still sound asleep. It was still fairly dark; the sun didn’t rise above the horizon yet.

She decided to take a breath of fresh air, hoping it would ease the unpleasant feeling of being hangover for the first time in her life. She slowly walked onto the deck where she could only see Mr. Smee at the wheel. She nodded his way and he mirrored the gesture but they didn’t speak a word.

The chilly morning breeze caused a shiver to run down her spine as she stepped to the railing of the Jolly Roger, looking out at the seemingly endless sea. The first rays of sunshine shimmered on the water’s surface, painting the dark blue ocean in all shades of red and orange.

She heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching the deck, coming from the captain’s cabin. She didn’t turn for a second – her feelings were all so mixed in her head. She wanted to confront him, to ask him all the questions she had in her mind. She wanted to earn some kind of reaction out of him. But after a short while she turned towards the sound of the voice, straightening her back before she spoke.

“Good morning, Captain.”

“Morning sailor” he replied with no emotion on his face. She mirrored his expression. “Don’t you have tasks to take care of?”

She opened and closed her mouth before she replied with a nod, averting her gaze from him.

“Then I recommend you get to them if you want to stay on the ship.” Without anything else left to say, he headed towards the quarterdeck to take the wheel from Mr. Smee, who then started with his daily tasks. His words cut through her skin and straight to her heart.

She headed down to the small kitchen area and started to organize the things in there. She kept stock of all the food they had – therefore she knew they had to stop by somewhere to get more supplies soon. Their food wasn’t going to last much longer.

That knowledge and his words from this morning settled in her brain and the fear of being abandoned in a random town made her worry grow by the moment. Would he really do that?

That night on the quarterdeck he said he wouldn’t just toss her out from the crew. But what if he changed his mind? What if she really was more of a burden than a useful addition to the crew? The thoughts in her head were so loud she didn’t even notice that Ribs entered the small kitchen only when his huge hands landed on her back in a gentle pat. At least he meant it to be gentle.

“You’re early, little man! Couldn’t sleep again?”

“You know it” she replied with a sad smile. He smiled back at her and grabbed the biggest pot off the ground. They didn’t speak much after that, but it wasn’t an awkward silence. It was a comfortable, warm silence between friends where they felt good in each other’s company without the need to say anything.

The days went by mostly the same – she thought. It was strange, the thrill and excitement of life as a sailor - a pirate -, washed away by the monotone daily tasks on the ship. She didn’t mind it per se, it just felt odd to think about how “normal” as a concept can change for a person so fast.

Chatter and the sound of footsteps filled the air as everyone else was getting up after a long night out and started to perform their duties. She said hi to James who also was battling a violent headache after one too many sips of rum last night. She chuckled and helped her friend out. Mr. Smee and the Captain were barking orders left and right at the crew, they needed to change directions and align the sails.

As she was pulling on the rope, she suddenly felt a hand wrap around her own and pulled with her. For a second, she didn’t register who it belonged to but after she saw the rings on his finger and his black shirt, her heart skipped a beat.

“I want to talk to you” he said in a low voice. She only replied with a nod and after she fastened the rope to its spot she followed after him into his cabin. Her heart stammered against her ribcage as she sluggishly moved towards the cabin. She hasn’t stepped a foot in there since that night.

It looked and felt the same, the smell of old parchment, paper and leather filled her nose as she stood against the door. He was looking at a map on the table, but she knew he wasn’t really paying attention to that. Nobody said a word for what felt like eternity.

“Look, I-“ she started, not knowing exactly what to say but he interrupted her.

“That song. You said your mother taught it to you?” He looked up from the map and she felt his eyes pierce through her soul. Lately she didn’t afford the luxury to make long eye contact with him, because every time she did her heart dropped into her stomach and this time was no exception.

“Well, she didn’t teach me. She just sang it to me when I couldn’t fall asleep as a child. I was very small when she died” she said, making a pause and swallowing hard to keep her tears at bay. “It’s one of my only memories of her.” There was a moment of silence after her reply, Hook just stood next to the table and stared at it.

“How did she meet your father?”

“What’s going on?” She asked and crossed her arms. Hook mirrored the gesture as he looked at her without saying anything for a moment. This whole scene was so strange – she thought. What was going on with him?

“Your mother. Was she a sailor? Your grandfather maybe? Where did she learn this song?”

“What? No. My mother, she lived all her life in our town.” Her heartbeat fastened at the implications behind his question. She got more confused by the second and just wanted answers about all this. What was so special about this song? “She could’ve heard it from some travelers.”

“That’s very unlikely.” He shook his head. “Your father lived there all his life as well?”

“Yes.” Her patience was growing thinner by the second.

“Maybe he lied.”

“What are you implying?!” She snapped, putting her arms on her hips while her eyes were throwing daggers at Hook. “That my father is a liar? That my mother was a pirate?! Because of one song?” She almost spat the word pirate, which made him close the gap between them with huge leaps and the next thing she knew was his arm next to her head, his body almost flushed against hers.

“Now-now, is being a pirate so bad?” He sneered, raising his hook next to her head. She felt her hand tremble and she wasn’t sure if it was because she was scared or because his presence made her head spin. “The lady didn’t seem to mind all this time, freeloading on my ship, eating my food, sleeping in my bed!”

His voice was roaring and it echoed back from the walls. He put his hook under her chin and lifted her head to match his gaze. His eyes were piercing into hers and she wanted to avert her look but she couldn’t. She was so angry at him – but she was also scared. Scared of being alone, losing her family once again. Losing him forever. No matter how angry she was at him or how distant he was, in the back of her mind she knew she wanted him close.

“That is not what I meant” she breathed as her heartbeat rose to the skies above.

“I’m sure you didn’t, love. If it’s so awful for you here, feel free to hop off next town. Shouldn’t be more than a few days.” He stepped away from her and opened the door of his cabin, signaling for her to leave. She swallowed the lump in her throat and headed to the deck with quick steps. Some curious sets of eyes were glued to her, but she paid no attention to them. She felt nauseous from the events that just unfolded, tears prickling her eyes from being so overwhelmed with emotion.

She stood next to James and leaned against the railing, gripping it so hard her knuckles turned white.

“Are you alright?” He asked as he put one of his hands on her shoulder.

“Splendid” she replied when they heard a voice coming from the quarterdeck. It was Hook.

“Get to work lads, we are headed towards a port at full sails! If all goes well, we should arrive in a day or two!” He gestured at the crew with his good arm and put his hook on his belt. His eyes scanned the deck and they lingered on her, his gaze piercing through her skull. James squeezed her shoulder and she averted her gaze.

The captain then left the quarterdeck and went back to the cabin, slamming its door behind him. She let out a shaky breath then went back to her duties. She was preparing to say goodbye to her friends once they hit the shore.

[panthera-tigris-venenata]

Do you have any favorite Descendants headcanons?

Yes! This is absolutely a permission to share an absurd amount of them, right? (Say yes, please-)

Anyway. Canon is a suggestion and so is Rise timeline.

Uma and Harry have been married pretty much since Ben's coronation. They... Kind of got drunk along with every other Isle kid and decided to get married, as you do. It's legal. They don't remember a thing.

Neither does Harriet. CJ however knows and is just waiting for the best opportunity to tell her brother. The Lost Revenge crew also knows, mostly, but just assume that the Captain and first mate also know. Which would make sense.

The mother of the Hook siblings was a siren (that bloodthirsty type that lures sailors to their deaths) and Captain Hook was completely in love with her. He was also completely blind to all of her murder attempts.

As a result, the Hook kids think that murder is a love language. Like, yeah. Mama tries to kill papa from time to time. That happens. It works for them.

They are having fun.

As is Ursula. She watches Hook family drama (tm) as a telenovela and used to take baby Uma with her. This might or might not be how Uma and Harry met.

None of the Isle kids knows how death works. This would be because Hades decided that Isle kids and their still-alive siblings are too much headache to deal with, especially while on vacation, when technically, the Underworld is a problem of his younger brothers.

CJ Hook treats the Underworld like a bus station. Hades has resigned about when she was ten and now lets her take the Cerberus for a walk from time to time.

The Isle kids regularly try to make s'mores over Hades' hair. The only one who ever got Hades to cooperate was Anthony Tremaine, while looking after his baby cousins, who really wanted the s'mores. That would be because he actually asked. (And Hades felt his suffering on a deep personal level. Younger siblings.)

The Tremaines have the only neutral territory on the Isle. You see, if you fight by the Tremaines, you'll get kicked out of the hair salon and you won't get your hair done. This threat works because the Isle kids are vain as fuck.

Anthony Tremaine/Harriet Hook/Ginny Gothel. Mutually destructive threesome.

Audrey Rose and Anthony Tremaine are vibing. They bonded over fashion, their horrible grandmothers, and Auradon's disaster finances.

Audrey is generally vibing with the pirates, as she deserves.

Aro ace Audrey Rose.

Freddie and Celia Facilier and Marya Rasputin are basically half-demons from a different end of the spectrum.

Freddie can walk absolutely quietly even with all the gold trinkets CJ gives her.

Uma and Freddie wore ninety percent of the Isle gold at some point or another. The last ten percent is still locked in EQ's vault and the Isle kids are very much trying to break in.

Uma just. Feeds people to the sharks. That's a thing that happens. She also doesn't necessarily bother to kill her hostages before that. (Harry very much supports this. He might drag some hostages to her, too. Murder is a love language and all that.)

Claudine Frollo was adopted by the Hook siblings and is a part of the Lost Revenge crew. She is a bitter bitch and I love her.

She is also wholeheartedly convinced that the Lost Revenge is a cult, and she is right.

The de Vil cousins couldn't give less of a fuck to the rivarly between Uma and Mal.

Evie has already mentally killed Cruella in about forty six different ways. She is counting.

De Vils, Hearts and Hooks argue over who wears red the best. They can and will kill over it, but that's fine. Death is a social construct.

Fairy Godmother sealed off Jane's magic.

On the Isle, Mal misses the concept of wings, freedom, something that she has never had.

Evie has social anxiety due to ten years spent alone with her mother.

Mal can be controlled by a laser pointer. As can CJ. And Harry. Yzla and Zevon. Marya Rasputin. Begrudging Uma and Harriet. Technically, Claudine Frollo, who will start praying and backing off and will never touch the surface with the laser dot again. De Vils and Faciliers know this and they are having a blast. (Carlos will just shine a laser pointer away from him when he wants to work on his trinkets and it works.)

Alice accidentally fell down the rabbit hole on the Isle and consequently kidnapped a kid. That kid happened to be a twin sister of CJ Hook. (Alice and Ally's ages don't match. This works ✨)

There is a reason why there are three schools on the Isle. The reason is: „You could never pay me enough to deal with more than one sibling at time, now fuck off.“

If I remember anything else, I'll add?

[peachiecure]

Character introduction: Larissa/“Cure Jump”

~Basic info~

Name: Larissa Frausto

“Alter Ego”: Cure Jump

Age: 13

Birthday: September 22

Hair color: Brown (w/ red ombré as “Jump”)

Eye color: Brown (Blue as “Jump”)

Larissa is a girl from another world who happens to visit from time to time. She holds the ability to transform into a magical girl known as “Cure Jump”. She is a side character in Project: SFA.

Larissa is a very shy and awkward person. She often is seen to be either panicking, not able to put out words or trying her best to do what is asked of her. Coming from another world, her surroundings here seem to fascinate her in a way as if she has been observing from the outside for a long time. In her free time, she seems to like to draw and play video games.

Her “Alter Ego”, Cure Jump on the other hand is much different in personality. She is strong willed, brave, leader-like and overall a joy to be around… she fights with the power of fire, along with a few other new tricks up her sleeve that she learns from Mario as they protect the kingdom at times. Though… there seems to be something behind those blue eyes of hers.

For more information on Larissa & Cure Jump, including more details and voice claims, please visit the side blog @nintendoprecure for her intros there~

A Precure? What’s that?

For my non-precure fans here, it’s a magical girl franchise. If you’re familiar with the concepts Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura, it’s pretty similar. Hopefully you don’t need to know that much about the franchise to understand the concept. A lot of precure fans like to make OCs, and that is where Larissa is from. So yeah it’s another project of mine. Larissa transforms and fights for what’s good with the power of her transformation device! (Which is a 3DS aha) She pops into SFA every now and then. You don’t need to dive deep into my other project though to understand her role in SFA, so I hope she is still a fun character to SFA’s overall story and lore. Just know that she pops in every now and then, helping out the best she can!

~Relationships~

Mario: “O-oh— I need to talk about Mario? U-um— he… he talks much more than I imagined… I’m so used to hearing reused voice lin— I MEAN from what I’ve heard from others!! He’s very nice!! I’m… I’m not good at socializing… at all. He seems to care about me though… I-I just feel that I’m to… incompetent to be standing by his side. He always tells be how I do such a good job as Jump but… I’m n— I mean, yeah I’m… Jump… but— sigh, never mind.”

Peach: “I could cry. I gonna cry. I-I can’t just cry?… she’s everything to me… seeing her in front of me physically of course I’m going to cry!! SHE’S MY FAVORITTTEEEE…. MY QUEEN…. And she’s so nice to me too I’m crying. I-I’m sorry I’m crying. I can’t help it. Little kid me prayed for moments like this… oh my gosh—“ (the rest is incoherent, we cannot understand her through her sobbing)

Sweetheart: “Finding out that Peach and Mario were married was one thing… but finding out they have a child… was something else entirely. I didn’t know how to process that information— my ship— I mean I’m very happy for them!!! Sweetheart herself is a very sweet little girl… well… she’s currently 10 but her behavior is very pure. Sometimes I think she looks up to me like an older sister which… I-I am an older sister in my family but I— I don’t feel like one. I’m cowardly, but she somehow finds the good in me when I’m around and wants to do things with me… her parents have explained the… situation with her powers, so I do have to keep an eye on her just in case anything happens.”

Luigi: “… I like Luigi, he… he really understands me when I can’t really get words out of my mouth… or… or when Mario drags the two of us somewhere impulsively as we’re both worrying… it is also surreal seeing him talk in front of me… oh my good they’re real the Super Mario Bros. are real and they’re in front of my oh my god. I’m gonna explode….”

Daisy: “Daisy has so much energy that she really overwhelms me— but not in a bad way! I really like her I’m just… I-I just like to take things slower and stuff. She’s a wonderful princess! She really cares about her friends and she would definitely fistfight a god for them!…”

Rosalina: “Mario brought me to the Observatory once and… it felt very weird to be able to breathe in space— where I’m from you— you can’t do that you’ll die. I got to meet Rosalina and the Lumas, and I really had a nice time with her. She’s gentle and made sure I felt comfortable and safe in her home… even read me a few stories from her iconic storybook that surely the soundtrack— I mean the music that so happens to play around when she reads— has not made me cry! Not at all!—“

Flame: “Flame is a new face I met upon coming here. I’ve never heard of his Kingdom at all. He seems like a nice kid who just wants to have fun with his friends. He-he’s very panicky, like me, so I— I relate a lot with him. He seems to always fight with Aqua and… I can’t blame him on that. Aqua… is… something… I just find it a bit odd how he always does what Sweetheart says?… I-I hope he’s only doing that because he wants to be a good friend…”

Aqua: “… C-can I tell the truth?—I-I don’t currently like him. I hate sounding mean but— he reminds me of someone from school with his spoiled attitude and I just can’t stand how he constantly arguing with Flame… there’s still a-a lot I don’t know about him, so I am open to change my view on him. It just seems like he isn’t willing to tell anything besides what he wants us to hear… and I don’t want to pry… I won’t say it to his face though, that’s just mean… he hasn’t really DONE anything to hurt me yet so I wouldn’t talk back… not like I ever would in the first place… he’s royalty…”

Toadsworth: “Toadsworth started calling me Master Larissa after one battle and… I cannot get used to the title. I am no master at… anything. Unless it’s crying, I’m… very good at that… ahaha… ha….”

~Rumors~

“Yeah I’m… I’m not related to the Mario Bros… I-I don’t know why that’s such a popular rumor… I’m not even Italian… ahaha… w-wait who thinks I’m related to Mario—? Is it because of my brown hair?— o-or how I’m small?… I’m simply just learning alongside him… because of Ju— because I’m a magical girl!…”

And that’s it for Larissa’s intro! Next will be… well, a certain jester…

[drops-of-moonlights]

Hello! Thank you for answering my earlier question! I love the attacks for Sailor Sun and how they parallel Sailor Moon's themes of healing and light. Is Dark Brocken Sceptre meant to be Brocken or Broken? I thought the throughline of jewels and stuff like mantles, (land)slides, and eruptions were really cool! Thank you for answering and have a great day!

it's Brocken, after the Brocken Specter effect! my concept of Sailor Earth, based on her origins as Mio, keeps some of that darkness-aligned power and this is how it manifests! This also comes directly from ReStart, where during the Fiore arc I need to get to posting the timeline for that one too damn the Inners (as she's one of them here) get weather-related spells. (for curiosity's sake, they are Blue Blizzard for Mercury, Red Firestorm for Mars, Green Thunderbolt for Jupiter, and Golden Parhelion for Venus, and Silver Moonbow for Moon)

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

hi it's mermay and i'm thinking about sirens. i'm gunna do some looking of my own (at seadragons, probably) but can you think of any fish that look like their tails/features would make a cool mermaid?

Hello! I've actually answered a similar question before, here is my answer to that one:

But since your question is a little different, I'll feature some unique fish species you could find inspiration from!

The rockmover wrasse! Here is an adult, the juvenile is a little wilder:

Crazy patterns! Should go to good use :)

Eels! Just any type of eel, really. They come in such varied shapes and sizes, and have various abilities too! If you're the type of person who likes to give merpeople the features of the fish they're based on, just imagine a moray eel merperson with two jaws! Or a ribbon eel merson whose tail sways like a ribbon while swimming. I'd suggest looking into eels!

Electric eels too! Despite the name, they aren't actually eels at all, so I'm mentioning their genus separately here. Long fish that sense things with electricity and can generate it, even being able to cause prey animals to stop or start swimming with careful shocks... need I say more?

Here's one that could have many ways to be interpreted as a merson. Stargazers! They're ambush predators that hide in the sand, only having their eyes and mouth showing. I'd like to see how those would be interpreted as merpeople.

Mudskippers! The semiaquatic fish that live most of their lives on land.

Another one that walks, frogfish! Many species not only have a lure, but also walk along the bottom of the seafloor. How's that for an interesting merson challenge?

I don't think I've ever seen a merson who looks like a billfish, as in like a swordfish, sailfish or a marlin. The particular fish here is a sailfish!

I don't see some reef fish often, either. How about a moorish idol?

Perhaps the similarly-shaped butterflyfish?

Oh hey, maybe mandarinfish! That's one colourful guy :)

Deep sea fish are always a treat, too. They look very otherworldly compared to the fish we see often in everyday life! My personal favourite is the barreleye, but any friend from the deep is a friend indeed. The stoplight loosejaw who has a private red flashlight, the cookiecutter shark who sneakily bites chunks off bigger animals, bristlemouths with their large jaws and tiny teeth... I recommend looking into fish that have photophores, aka light-producing organs! They're fish that glow in the dark!!! Extremely cool and mysterious...

Lanternfish are a good example of this, I think. They're thought to be the most abundant group of vertebrates, they're deep sea-living, they have photophores, they migrate vertically in humongous schools that literally look like false bottoms to sonar.

Deep sea anglerfish are a classic, old but gold. Seldom used in merfolk! I've tried tackling anglerfish merfolk myself before, I'll feature my concept sketches below for possible inspiration... though they contain artistic nudity, so I'll only feature them under the cut.

And there you have it! I got kinda carried away, I'm sure no one minds. Have a fun Mermay! I'm gonna draw some art for it myself, but in the meantime, have this fish ramble :)

Once again, artistic nudity under the cut. Just some cartoon tits. Completely nonrealistic nonoffensive unreal cartoon bazookas, just wanna put them away from a direct line of sight because my blog isn't for art most of the time.

Her first initial concept on the left and some additional ones on the right. Anglerfish of all kinds use lures to trick prey, so I wanted to mix the lure aspect with mermaids to create a siren that lures in sailors with her human half and eats them with her fish half. The human half has working eyes, vocal chords and lungs to first spot sailors, then call and sing to them, but besides that all the other organs are in the fish half. No doubt similar merple exist, but this was my take on it! It's a lot of fun to be creative, I recommend just going with the flow and doing what feels the most natural or coolest. You've got this!

[dwcmarshalarts]

hey dwc! or is marshal ok? second ask ive sent you want but wanted to learn about it in your one piece i recall in the background seeing a UN blue armband with white cross which is your stand-in for the red cross which is pretty neat more recently you make an improved rank system however there was one issue i noticed, in that piece with the armband i recognised that the soldiers (enlisted) had different rank badges (in another older piece too) and was wondering if you could share a similair explainer for those too! officers granted are cool but its always neat to hear more about the military proletariat that make up the 99%, especially when they're the critical backbone like sgt's, and was wondering how you approached warrant officers if you went with a more american or british style (fellow worldbuilder here for a more cold-war era setting with some retro-futuristic undertones: not throwing shade but hearing about the enlisted is pretty cool, especially since i wanna know how the poor enlisted sailors, marines, soldiers & airmen get treated within the confines of the icc's military) additionally: in one of your other pieces for a comission i rememeber some destinctly british styled uniforms and was wondering if those were one-offs for that comission or those were the "space british" in the westminster area of the icc

being of (nominally) british origin / brought up in a country that uses the same rank insignia i've always had a soft spot for it and like to hear about our shared representation across space thats normally overlooked for more american influences i intend to ask in the future so prepare yourself for 8 trillion character long asks :ppp hope your having a good day <3

Many questions, but good ones nonetheless. Thanks, to start off with, your attentiveness to detail and dedication to following along enough to notice these things! Let's break it down one by one.

What about the rank system?

I'm presuming you mentioned this:

These are indeed enlisted, non-commissioned officer ranks. They also appear in similar, but different concept here:

As my story focuses on mainly commissioned ranks, I haven't really had much time to do/focus on the enlisted as much, as they (so far at least) have only had occasional appearances. Whenever I get to the meat of Season 2 and 3, they'll be featured more prominently.

That said, I haven't really nailed down the Enlisted rank system as much. Though I'm working with a friend to formalize it!

What about the Warrant Officers?

So, funny story. Years ago when I was much younger, I was obsessed with Civil War History. Still am, though maybe not to the same degree. I learned the command structure of commissioned ranks through reading the Orders of Battle and whatnot. To my surprise, that order has largely remained the same to this day, down to the insignia per rank. That's the springboard I jumped off when I set about assembling the ICC's Armed Forces, Ground Forces in particular.

The thing is, I'd overlooked Warrant Officers- since their institution was entirely predated by the 1860s by a whole 30-something years. As a result, I haven't really thought about where they would be. In my head, a lot of the specialist jobs held by them though would be taken by lower ranked Commissioned Officers (Junior or Senior Lt's.) But it'd make sense if they were around as well.

In any case, I have a clear idea for where we could see them pop up in Xever's story.

Treatment of the Enlisteds

The Interstellar Cooperation Circuit isn't the Galactic Empire. The I.C.C. is indeed geo/stellarpolitically predatory, but it generally treats soldiers within its ranks *fairly* alright, and not as disposable pawns like the Imperial Military/Stormtrooper Corps/(insert evil empire troopers from x sci fi series here). Mileage varies between the branches though.

Ground Forces I don't have any exact numbers, but the Ground Forces would by far be the largest branch in the Circuit military. The name "Ground Forces" would seem to imply they'd be analogous to modern "Armies." While they're largely inspired by that, and you'd be able to trace their in-universe lineage to them, they actually handle plenty more than just literal ground operations. The official name of Ground Forces is "Terrestrial Operations," which refers to any military action taken on a planet's surface. While this does predominantly consists of traditional, ground-based combat, this also does include terrestrial/surface navy and planet-specific air power components. Ground Forces's mission is long-term accomplishment of the Circuit's Foreign Policy objectives and spearhead of most terrestrial missions.

That all said, that means they have the most severe case of logistical sprawl. On the books, the Circuit has rules and regulations that protect individual servicemen from harsh treatment, unethical conduct, etc. The basics. But, especially for units in further off parts of the ICC reach, supplies can be short.

On top of all of this, Ground Forces are expected to handle a myriad of different climates, environments, and exposure to various degrees of colonization, urban development, etc.

There'd be no simple answer to how Ground Forces enlisteds are treated, as inner-system bases closer to the Circuit core would be better off than outposts in the peripheries, etc.

ICC Navy The ICC Navy, in sharp contrast to the Ground Forces, is proportionally better funded, better equipped, and frequently paraded.

Originally having started off as a glorified Merchant Marine, the ICC Navy eventually take from domestic Naval forces and became a formalized Military Branch some time in the 23rd century.

Since protection of Interstellar Trade and the power of keeping commercial lines open, as well as inter-system border security and Circuit defense was what allowed for Ground Forces to operate at all, the Navy became increasingly crucial. Life aboard the Circuit's fleets was, by comparison to the barracks on dingy outposts, a little bit more bearable. For Naval personnel, they didn't have to worry about the rocking of traditional, terrestrial boats, nor did they have to worry about favorable weather conditions. Their equipment didn't break down as easily, and outside of the rare, pre-war battery exchanges, any fighting that was done by the Navy was handled by the Naval Marine- which were significantly better equipped and trained than the Ground Forces, largely due to their much smaller size and specialized focuses.

Before the Second Galactic War in 2365, the ICC Navy expected such little, major combat that higher ranking officers frequently attended work in their dress uniforms instead of combat fatigues, as the job was largely more management than direct operations.

The Voidfarers The runt of the litter and the most recently added branch to the ICC's military, the Voidfarers are the ICC"s dedicated, independent starfighter corps. To separate them from Navy starfighters, the Voidfarers have "permanent" bases on planets or orbital stations, and their mission is less to engage in any potential heavy combat (unless directed to support Naval operations), and more to plug in the gaps not covered between the obligations of Ground Forces and Navy, such as protection of trade routes where sending a large naval vessel wouldn't make sense, or providing air support where Ground Forces may be lacking. As such, the Voidfarers have the least amount of resources, but are designed to function without too much support outside of hardware maintenance. Voidfarer units are usually quite small, and sparsely positioned, so a large part of the Voidfarer identity is how rare they are compared to the bigger two branches.

Day to day life for Voidfarers can comfortably be considered mundane- for even disparate/far off postings, action is seldom had.

Commonwealth of New Westminster

The British-inspired military uniforms you might be thinking of, while used in a commission, are indeed in-universe designs.

The history here is that the CNW was an area of space largely settled by Commonwealth Nations (predominantly the UK) during early space colonization in the 20th and 21st Century. Instead of steadily forging their own identity like Greksil (the crucial ICC Founding Member), they more closely followed their Old Earth institutions and still regarded the reigning monarch as their Head of State. During the First Galactic War between Old Earth and her colonies against Greksil and her allies, the CNW sat out, and when the war was over, served as the refuge for an escaping Royal Family when order on Old Earth began to collapse.

Ever since then, the CNW has been on a largely independent streak- partaking in interstellar deals while still refusing to kowtow. When the ICC was formed, they waited a couple decades to join, and would only do so on the conditions that they maintained a high degree of autonomy, including their own separate currency and military while also helping train and organize the nascent Circuit Armed Forces.

Hope that clarifies some things!

[konjkitkatty]

Your ocs are all so interesting! What was the thought process behind them?

Ah you’re so sweet!!! I rlly do try to make my characters interesting and likeable, i’m v glad u enjoy them!! As for my process behind them, SURE! None of this is going to be coherent but i’ll try to walk u thru it! It’s a long read so it’ll all b under the cut!

I’d been meaning to make COTL ocs for a while ever since i saw just the VAST amount of variety in follower forms, but I wanted to make them meaningful, yknow? Not just a random follower but smthn w story, intrigue! Inspo didn’t strike until I’d reached the post game and found out abt the bishops’ quests. And i was very disappointed with it. OKAY. I GET why they’re unguarded, they’re hidden away in the deepest crevasses of their respective realms, and I GET IT. I do, i swear, I SWEAR i get it. I do. but cmon, its so underwhelming and I hate it so much. That’s when I thought up of the guardians as like an entire concept, and thus the time to create COTL ocs was upon me!

Kitty was first- they were easy as the design was just my sona in the COTL style give or take a few minor details. OBV I updated them and made them more unique (the spikes, the tail, the eyes, and the massive personality shift to that of an envious follower desperately searching for approval from SOMEONE) but using my sona as a template helped out tremendously in the process. I don’t recommend doing so…

Bat, Dove and Bear- unlike Kitty- were all created with their enemy forms in mind, The Archer, The Summoner and The Guardian. Kitty just kinda fell into the awkward scamp/swordsman role naturally, and it was fitting. First guardian meant they wouldn’t b too strong normally.

Next was Bat because I was REALLY excited to draw the summoner enemy. They were kind of made to be Kitty’s opposite, youngest/oldest, become bug/reject bug sorta thing. Bat’s first draft was a moody bug with big red eyes and a few screws loose upstairs, if u catch my drift. I thought they were too much like Chemach in their expressions, the way they spoke and regarded the lamb, even the way they hung and thrashed about in their webs. so I kept playing around until I remembered BATS exist, and then had the phenomenal idea of making the spider’s guardian a bug eating wrathful BAT instead. I still got to have the cool head limbs in his final form, but NOW instead of just making them bug arms which is eh, i could make them SKELETAL WINGS. With their many eyes and wings he gives the vibe of an angel to me, which I think is pretty cool all things considered.

Next I did was my prideful Bear, and I always knew she was gonna be exactly like Kallamar in the sense that she would have the LEAST changes design wise from boss to guardian to follower. She was the only actual GUARDIAN enemy to be a guardian, and given how actually agonizingly tough those fkers are to fight i figured she deserved it. Originally she was a brawler who utilized hand to hand combat to directly contrast with Kallamar’s many weapons, but once the sailor theme got thrown in I figured giving her a weapon would b better. I decided on a pirate’s sword made out of the crystal growths in Anchordeep- a pretty and sparkly object a pirate would love, but a weapon that’s honestly probably not great against another aword, but she’d never say that out loud. Her sword is better because she’s the more skilled fighter. She also got to use the mask as a shield because I wasn’t sure what to do with her hands OR the mask. Dove was the only other one with one of them and uhhh… well….. yknow…..

Dove was the last and honestly the biggest migraine i’ve ever had designing an oc for a game in a WHILE. She’s very simple, she’s just a chubby Morning Dove- that’s so easy to work with actually. I’ve drawn birds, but not COTL birds. so she. was. a. NIGHTMARE. Bird followers are honestly just so awkward looking in this game, I really couldn’t figure her follower form out until I used OTHER birds for reference (Clauneck, Kudaai, Chemach, Klunko, and especially Haro.) I’m still not entirely happy with her, but given the circumstances I think she turned out the best she would ever be. I just wish smthn more was going on w her… everything, yknow? Feels like smthn’s missing w her. I still find her boss form incredibly cool though- I love how all the gold and stuff she’s overindulged in gets stuck in her throat/chest and makes all these gross lumps, it’s my favorite visual thing about her. I try to do lots of visual storytelling, and that sucks bc its no fun to just tell people what to look for and what it means, so you kinda have to hope these details get noticed and are interpreted right. Anyways yap session over.

That’s all my thoughts!!!

[silicon-tmblr]

Gaaaahhh still busy! Most of my deadlines are next week though so after that I'll hopefully have more time to uh. not forget about social media

In the meantime, I thought I'd share some of my concept art for pregame/post game casual outfits for the DRV3 cast + some sprite edits!

Commentary under the cut! (it went on for so much longer than I expected...)

Tenko's concept was "stylish", since she looks so so cool in her blazer + cardigan pregame school uniform! Part of in-game Tenko's actual design concept was the keyword "unfashionable", so I wanted to subvert that with her pregame concept. My iteration of pregame Tenko is a huge people person who's best friends with virtually everyone at her school, so I think her more fashionable friends picked out this outfit for her! Of course, she's still wearing the cutesy blue bobble hair ties that she has in her pregame school uniform; I imagine that's an accessory she chose for herself, so she and her in-game counterpart aren't so different in that regard.

Kaede's pregame concept was drawn from the face her headshot makes in her early design concepts: a cool, determined face with a sidelong stare. Playing off of some fandom interpretations a bit, I gave my design the keywords "looks like a delinquent". More incidentally than completely purposefully, I took some inspiration from kogyaru fashion with the loose socks and short skirt (pregame Kaede's design notes actually point out the short skirt in the uniform, so I thought to interpret it as Kaede's personal choice). I also decided to keep the music note hairpins, even though they only appear in ONE of her pregame sprites (and nowhere else in the pregame + flashbacks)... they were also pointed out in the artbook, okay. The red ribbon on her arm is the tie of her sailor uniform.

Shuichi's pregame concept stems from my headcanon that he actually attends a school with no dress code. The nice blazer he wears in the pregame? Completely a personal choice. It's why he gets away with wearing the hat. So of course, outside of school, he still wears a blazer. It's not supposed to be the same one, just a more "casual" one from the same brand. Look, he's... wearing a sweater underneath the blazer, that means it's casual, right? (the sweater is probably 15,000 yen. there is a nice dress shirt underneath it.)

Angie was designed with the keyword of "studious". She has a prim and proper look with her collared long-sleeved shirt, high socks, and her knee-length dress (okay it might kinda stop short of the knee in the art but. I usually draw it knee length now). I was so sad that they got rid of the super-cute center parted bangs in her concept art because the straight bangs were "easier to draw", so I gave her the center part she deserves. She doesn't really pick her own clothes and just wears what's given to her, but I think she actually likes the pink dress a lot.

Kirumi's concept was "something a typical little girl would wear". She ended up looking like a classic princess from a western fairy tale, which... well, it tracks. The puffed sleeves, one piece dress, and uh. the shoes. low heels? flats with heels? (I tried a search and I got "ballerina heels" so I'll call them that) the ballerina heels were definitely design elements drawn directly from the prompt. Her concept was inspired by the cute little bow on her headband in her pregame uniform... I imagine pregame Kirumi loves cute things like bows and baubles but is too shy to wear anything flashy.

Korekiyo's design is meant to be stylish as well! The artbook commentary for his pregame uniform makes note of his modern attire and how he'd probably be popular with girls, so I moved forward from there. I don't think he'd be the MOST stylish guy, at least not in his casualwear (I'd reserve that for Rantaro, I think), and he'd keep his best outfits for the best of occasions. So here he's wearing something that I feel might be a bit off-kilter from what might typically be considered stylish. Or maybe it is perfectly stylish, I dunno. I don't really know anything about fashion. What I really like is the ponytail his hair is in; part of his hair actually sits in a loop while the rest goes through normally as the ponytail.

Kokichi's full outfit is a light gray pullover hoodie with brown jeans. I wanted to keep the loose-fitting aspect of his in-game outfit and riff off of his image colours, white and black (combined into gray, plus a purple tint). His neck is still not very visible in this outfit, much like in-game and even in the pregame with his high-collared uniform. I imagine pregame Kokichi as being rather aloof and free-spirited when it comes to clothing, versus in-game Kokichi's inventive and meticulous, yet equally free-spirited "style". He has a scarf that's black on one side and white on the other, but he only wears it when it's cold out.

Keebo's outfit is very much based on his in-game design, what with the wide, tall collar and green colour scheme. He's a human here! Since his right eye is covered in the pregame uniform by his hat, I played off of the "heterochromatic V3 character" idea — but with Keebo, not Kokichi! It's not super obvious, but his right eye is green while his left eye is blue. I also gave him a smaller ahoge and his hair is more of a pale blonde than a sheer white. I'm planning to make a Dnaganronpa style design sheet for human Keebo sometime hehe

Maki's full design is a long-sleeved red sweater with a tank top underneath. Her sleeves are rolled up halfway, and she's wearing gray sweatpants with this ensemble. It's an easy-to-move in outfit that facilitates her favourite hobby: parkour! Also getting into random street fights and actually being something of a delinquent (unlike Kaede, who only looks like a delinquent). I actually took some of these design elements from a "Maki ripoff" character I designed for something V3-related quite a long while back... but that's a long story :)

[mymahoujourney]

What is a Magical Girl and How do I Become One?

Disclaimer:

This is inspired by @laluneestclair 's post about becoming a magical girl. I decided to post about this topic as well so you all can have a better understanding of what I am personally doing to achieve my goal. I also thought it'd be fun to provide information too!

What is a Magical Girl?

A Magical Girl is a girl who has been chosen to protect the world from evil. They possess magical abilities usually given to them by companion creatures, however they can be obtained any other way too. These girls usually live an ordinary life; however, in the presence of danger, they can transform into a magical girl to fight monsters and the forces of evil. Magical girls aren't always girls, too! There are also magical boys & enbies, they just aren't as common. Magical girls were originally shown in fiction, and there are incredibly popular shows like Sailor Moon & Cardcaptor Sakura that portray magical girls! However, unbeknownst to many people (and the whole point of this post, and my whole blog) there are magical girls everywhere! You just can't see them most of the time, however it is 100% possible to become one. You may be thinking, "but that's crazy! It's not possible to be a magical girl!!" But I can assure you, there is much more to the world than us humans can comprehend at the moment. We only use 10% of our brains so we have no idea of what we are truly capable of.

How do I Become a Magical Girl?

There are mainly 2 methods to becoming a magical girl. Though magical girls are all united and work together, there are also different communities based for each method. The 2 methods are:

The Spiritual Method

The Chosen Method

The Spiritual Method

This is a method I see used by many people in the mahou shoujo community. I know some people this has worked for as well! You can basically manifest becoming a magical girl.

You can read about manifesting here; (https://psychicelements.com/blog/magical-manifestation-technique/) ; however I will be talking about how I personally go about this. I introduce to you... subliminals!

What is a Subliminal?

Subliminals are affirmations layered over with music, white noise or sfx to manifest your desires (for example, a subliminal on manifesting red hair.) In this case, we'd use magical girl subliminals. Subliminals are in no way required, the human mind is totally capable of manifesting without these!! All you truly need s belief & intent. There are many magical girl subliminals on YouTube. Your subliminal playlist refers to the playlist you use for your subs (it's in the name-).

The Steps to Becoming a Magical Girl, Using This Information:

In this side of the magical girl community, we call the different steps to becoming a magical girl "shifts."

Fantasy Shift: This is the planning stage for what kind of magical girl you want to be! Wanna be an idol mg? Go for it! Wanna be baking themed? Cool concept~ Wanna be a witchy kind? I love that idea! The options are endless. But be prepared, there is alot of scripting (writing what you want) for this stage so be prepared to have very tired hands...

Mental Shift: This is pretty much the same as the fantasy shift, however this time you really need to imagine yourself as a magical girl. Help anybody in need, pick up garbage, be kind to all etc. You should be in the right mindset!

Phantom Shift: This is when you start feeling yourself becoming a magical girl. For example, you might feel yourself wearing your outfit or holding your weapon even if it's not there. These may also occur during meditation; by the way, meditation is very good for this kind of stuff!!

Physical Shift: The stage where you achieve full results and transform! There is lots of meditation, time & dedication needed for this stage.

You don't need to use those steps or any subliminals of course, however I put them there as they are very useful. In conclusion, anybody with the desire to become a magical girl is 100% capable of transforming into one! This may sound cliché but it's true; all you need is to believe in yourself and you can achieve anything!! <3

The Chosen Method

Typically, magical girls are usually portrayed as being seen as worthy and thus scouted by some sort of cute companion. This is not as heard of in real life aside from fiction, but it is actually possible to be chosen!! All it takes is to have a good heart and you may perhaps be recognised by this cute creature that is looking to scout. An example of a magical girl who was scouted is @magicalgirldiaries !! They have lots of cool stories so totally go check them out.

As I stated, the ones who scout magical girls are the companions or familiars. They come from a different plane, and scout magical girls to fight evil. They are usually very friendly & welcoming, and they look for people who are kind-hearted.

Conclusion

Becoming a magical girl is 100% possible, and all it takes is persistence and believing in yourself!! I believe that anyone is capable of being whoever they want to be, no matter how crazy it may seem. Trust that whatever you wish for will come true someday. ☆彡

[alex-multiverse]

Dumb concept for a magical girl

So, yesterday i decided to watch "The magical revolution of the reincarnated princess and the genius girl" and after realizing that anis is "a little messed up actually" i wondered, has there been any darkness themed magical girl that wasnt a villain? (Only one i kinda know is sailor saturn but i really dont know any other so please feel free to tell me if theres any non-edgy MG show with darkness as a main power going on)

SO, i decided to try to come up with something: A sailor moon-ish ripoff magical girl concept except the main girl's main powers are darkness and demon themed and shes the hero. Also totally not heavily inspired in persona 5 because i cant help myself

Note: this is all made for fun and kinda sorta goncharoved a whole ass franchise while i was at work today, enjoy

SUMMARY :D

Our protagonist is a 16 year old girl named yosuru yoruhime (because pun names are fun) who one day can turn into a magical girl by quite literally making a deal with a devil to protect her best friend from an angel-like monster. Armed with a trident, and using shadows to bind the creature, she killed the monster and saw it morph back into a girl (she was a bully shown earlier in act 1 of the episode), something something using darkness to purge corrupting light from her heart.

(shittyly made concept art of mc yosuru, drawn in paint)

were this made into a show, it would be a 24 episode season that slowly introduces the side characters, which include the other 4 members of her entourage of magical girls themed around other monsters (ie, a fire girl that is a red oni while theres also an ice girl that is a blue oni) and her bestie who ends up being manipulated into turning an angelic magical girl and ends in a gay magical girl fight a la symphogear. most of the show would be a monster of the week scenario with slow hints of the big bad group themed after the inner circles of angels, the monsters are "angelized" people who get so deluded in their self righteousness they turn into people who think are allowed to smite anyone who disagrees and can turn people into a mob that adore them. Most of the non fight part of the show would feature yosuru doing stuff like, being lazy at school, getting sent to detention, going to her friends important events and being gay with her best friend/future rival Gabrielle

(even more hastily concept art)

around episode 15 there gabrielle should be introduced as a "rival" for our group, and on the course to the end of the series it should have a "best friend girl/crush is betrothed to some anime man who is obviously evil and she has no real choice about it but she doesnt want to be there" plot. which most of the climax before their fight revolves around them in an aquarium school trip that ends with yosuru revealing her identity on accident to her and leads to the fight

something something 3 episodes before finale they fight except not really because yosuru cant harm her bestie, and ends the fight crying over her in a hug, and in the finale they join forces along with the other side girls to kill the giant monster version of the fiancee who was the true mastermind of the whole operation with a light/darkness magic combo. final scene of episode ends with a kiss during tanabata in summer, and a season 2 stinger in the post credits....

THEMING

The overall theming of the whole series is about the repression of the individual for the sake of societal order and the conflict that lies within, with yosuru being a vigilante that constantly fights monsters who want to make the world bend to their wills and how everything should work, and how we should never bow down to anyone else's desires but ours, and live our best lives with the ones we love.

also, like, magical girl yuri guys. its not that complicated

OTHER DETAILS

The gang are the typical 5 men gang, with a fiery bancho girl with a heart of gold, a sarcastic icey bookworm that is tsundere for the bancho, A straightforward thinking gun user (a la mami from madoka) and a hikikomori lightning girl who is both fascinated by the gun girl, and also dumbfounded (basically the dynamic that yusuke and futaba have in p5, but with lesbians) And of course all their names are pun names:

Yosuru yoruhime

Gabrielle hikariyama

Himeko atsui

Honsuki kanrei

Yumi ite

Kairo denki

AND for autenticity's sake, i also made them 4kidz names for funsies:

nancy nightley

gaby highgraces

Hestia Heatmore

Libra colden

Carol electra

(Yumi doesnt get one because im not smart enough to make "bow shoot" into a pun name in america)

I could come up with more stuff but i would have to come up with it first.

Anyway please enjoy the mad ramblings of a man who liked symphogear and has a fondness for the tropes of magical girl stuff

(Special thanks to @lolapinta for also enabling my brainrot a bit)

Thanks for reading

[mattdillon]

20 questions for writers

tagged by @chejuu, tyty

1. how many works do you have on AO3? 195. i orphaned some old works but they're inconsequential. i also had a storied career as a teen on ff.net but those are all blissfully deleted <3

2. what's your total AO3 word count? 963,052 words.

3. what fandoms do you write for? the outsiders mainly and whatever fandoms i decide go into the blender with it. i also had a stint in grease: rise of the pink ladies.

4. what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

fire in the sky — not a surprise as this is my longest fic and the one that's being updated regularly over almost five years.

alpha major — i think people like this one bc it's outsider pov and reader blind. it's also the most stereotypically omegaverse

this is your heart (can you feel it?) — soc au my beloved!!

sits before us, scattered into ash — one of the first fics i ever put up since i came back to fandom, thought i feel the rust whenever i read it

it is not enough to be dumbstruck — trojan horse ass fic that i adore.

5. do you respond to comments? always! i do have a huge backlog that i've only recently cut down on and i'm slowly getting to it.

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? a little less conversation (a little more action) is probably the most heart wrenching thing i'll ever write.

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? though i never laid a hand on you is my personal favorite in this regard because the possibility of love in the future is sweet to me.

8. do you get hate on fics? lmfao yup and they got their little assess suspended by ao3.

9. do you write smut? If so, what kind? yes lmfao. i wish i could write more but my brain is like "but we have plot!" it's mostly kinky, loving sex so sue me.

10. do you write crossovers? all the time!

11. have you ever had a fic stolen? nope

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? nope!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? not really no.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship? dallas winston/ponyboy curtis you will always be #1 in my heart.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will? i finish all my wips eventually but i think the hardest one right now is sempre la stessa storia cause i have to semi go back to the drawing board and don't you look good in red? because i kinda don't care about steve randle but i think the concept should be out there.

16. What are your writing strengths? i can do long form fic pretty goddamn well, i'm good with character voices, i'm good with scene setting.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? i sometimes can only do longform, i think my smut can be improved, and sometimes i'm too occupied with established relationships

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? that's fine.

19. First fandom you wrote for? sailor moon, lmfao.

20. Favourite fic you've written? i think a little less conversation (a little more action) is my magnum opus but a fic i'm fond of currently is this is your heart (can you feel it?) cause soc au my beloved.

tagging anyone who wants to do this!