#also just creatively I thought the new character idea was sick

[askdacast]

a bit of a personal ramble here...actually no I’m about to be really cringe as I kind of rant about the anxieties and issues I’ve been going through lately in a super roundabout way

but in the long ago days (by which I mean like 10 years ago) and when I was an even louder Persona fan, I made a Shadow version of my main OC/blatant self-insert Alyss Baraen and it was therapeutic to some extent

(more under the cut)

Shadow Alyss even had a cringe name and design - Gerhild, the Witch of Destiny (very long story), and was kind of a representation of my suppressed anger issues and general teenage angst at being different. One could say, a manifestation of the Id.

You can actually find that name in the really old posts of this blog but...please don’t “orz

All that was kinda based off the issues that a teenaged me knew of herself, but I feel rather ashamed to say, those issues haven’t 100% gone away, they still ebb and flow and take different forms, and I gotta smash them all the same

What I am saying is that I’ve been gnawing on the idea of re-doing the “Shadow Alyss” idea with the updated knowledge of myself now and the more recent anxieties I’ve had to deal with. And the hilarity is that the motif is completely the opposite of what I did as a teenager while somehow still being thematically the same.

Given the witch/Carmen San Diego design motifs the regular Alyss already has from the red and hat, I couldn’t help but also notice how much like a Spanish Inquisitor (insert Monty Python joke here) she looks like, and the moment I thought of that given Alyss being a very religious character, everything just completely fell into place

(Fun fact: Years ago when I was into imagining what kind of Personas my characters would have, Alyss’ was supposed to be Agustina de Aragon, Spanish folk heroine who is drawn with a big hecking cannon. It all comes full circle.)

(Inquisitor from DFO, danbooru link warning)

The Inquisitor would be all of Alyss’ self-depreciation and anxieties that she isn’t good enough at...well, anything. Mostly not being a good enough person or Christian. It’s not like she resents her faith, but she absolutely does feel like she’s been put under a microscope her whole life and she needs to scrutinize her every action as to whether it is moral or not. Chalk it up to her emotional nature and sensitivities that take her every action as reflecting on her moral character. A mistake or a failure to do “the right thing” isn’t just one bad act - it’s a stain on her very identity as someone who professes to follow God. Or a good daughter. Or a good friend. A good person.

Of course, this is a self-inflicted wound in many ways. She hates being criticized, and the expectation to always be ‘good’ or following the standards of what makes a moral religious person causes a lot of guilt in her when she does wrong, or anxiety that she might do wrong. A lot of what I imagined about The Inquisitor isn’t just the religious motif, but the motif of fear and punishment. The Judge and Executioner who instills the fear of God in sinners. A horribly apt symbol, imo, of what anxiety feels like, of that looming darkness that constantly beats down on you. The voice that says “this is ABSOLUTELY a terrible idea” even before you take a step.

Heck for extra factor on the monster of fear part, throw in the white eyes on a completely shadowed face a la Scarecrow from the later Batman TAS episodes

(this is the least disturbing picture I could find of him)

All these fear motifs are, of course, painfully ironic when you consider that not only this image is Alyss’ exaggerated idea of her faith, it’s also 100% contradictory of what her faith truly stands for. What she herself has constantly told others. That God isn’t an angry God who judges sinners, but a gentle one who forgives, and justifies not by adherence to laws, but faith in a greater power. In fact, the power that forgives and lets people not be punished for what they deserve.

And though this is a totally cheesy idea...I would like to imagine if you face the Inquisitor in a dungeon, in like a medieval-style execution grounds, you would see those crumbling old walls with broken carvings that have the words “Condemnation in Christ” on them, and then noticing the walls were broken, you’d eventually find the missing half of the wall which must be attached before the initial wall, with the words, “There is No”

Look, I’ve already spilled my guts out with this “I have a friend”-type post, I can afford to be cringe about something that means a lot to me

Especially since...it’s very obviously been weighing on my mind a lot lately

No matter whether Alyss Baraen thinks herself a “witch” or feels tormented by an “Inquisitor” the root cause is still the same - she fears that she isn’t worthy or that God possibly is angry at her for whatever sin or failure to be human/good she’s committed. And despite her own beliefs, or the love and support of others, being a clear evidence to the contrary, she finds it hard to trust that that love is real.

Many times, it’s terrifying to trust people you love, or to have any hope at all. Because what if you’re disappointed? Worse, what if you’re just plain wrong? You could say to yourself how much good you’ve done or how much people clearly love and care for you, and have it still mean absolutely nothing. Because the evidence for your imperfection, the world’s imperfection, and the hurts you bear feel so much more real than the idea that you might deserve happiness.

And the more you think that way, the more you inevitably project that idea onto a higher power, like God. Because how could it be true that He offers you all things for nothing? Less than nothing - you’re a “terrible person” who deserves to be punished, and yet He isn’t. In fact, He’s saying all’s good, you just need to do better and keep loving and trusting Him, and He’ll do the rest.

Without any obvious proof, except the life you’ve already lived, and the words He’s said.

A tall order to believe in, isn’t it?

Trust is never easy, and in fact, often seems far less logical than just continuing to remain on guard, always.

To believe in there being good and kindness in your future often seems too good to be true. And soon we start to believe it can never be true.

So I’ve spent a long time rejecting any kind of grace or kindness because I’ve convinced myself there’s no way it’s true. The truth, to me, had to be a harsh revelation of my inherent sinfulness and failure to follow God. Those were obvious ‘proofs’ in my life, after all. It could be nothing else. If I received a kind word, I must have been selfishly trying to avert my eyes from the truth, to what I wanted to hear.

But, you know.

That wasn’t the truth at all.

In my heart of hearts, I KNEW it wasn’t.

Well, no one ever said Faith was easy.

[lonelysheepling]

Recently read @queenofthequillandink ’s DPxDC crossover fic Unearthed, Reborn

I got inspired to draw character sheets for Danny, Sam, Jason, and Jazz’s vigilante personas. Here’s a link to the author’s drawings of their outfits (these were a vital reference for me when doing this so thank you so much for sharing them Quill) More commentary (like 7+ paragraphs plus 2 images) about this project and the designs below the “keep reading” line.

None of these thoughts I have for each character are in order, but I have a lot of commentary for these since this project was a lot more conceptual than my normal work. I also just like talking about my art/design process. If you ever find yourself wondering at some point why an element from the original design wasn’t included, the answer is that the removal was completely intentional and part of my grandmaster vision for this work and wasn’t because I just forgot about it entirely during the design process.

————————————————————————

Aconite (Sam)

This was the first one I sketched out, I wasn’t even sure at the time if I was going to fully commit to drawing all of them. I thought that Sam was gonna be the hardest since her description was way longer than the others, but then bird boy beat her out. I took a lot of creative liberties with her design, the bag was added bc I couldn’t figure out how to add pockets to the skirt. I was trying to avoid a joker color scheme so I had a lot of ref images that I got by searching like “purple green aesthetic” on Pinterest. The dark purple and dark forest/blueish green won out in the end. I desaturated a lot of my colors for her just to get as far away from the neon Gotham rogue aesthetic. I also added the bdsm harness over the armor to add more punk elements to her design, I know that in real life that would be very uncomfortable to wear over scalemail armor but sometimes we take creative liberties when they look sick as fuck. Also, I didn’t realize until I went to look for a reference for aconite flowers that aconite is wolfsbane! That was neat to learn! Also, the font I used for Aconite is called “zai Art School Calendar 1931”, I’ve used this a few times for other projects, it’s one of my favorite fonts. The ‘zai’ fonts the creator has are all very good.

Shade (Danny)

There wasn't much to add to this page. His outfit is pretty simple (besides the patterning). I wasn’t sure how to pull of an optical illusion pattern but I was reminded how I sometimes get an eyestrain induced headache when looking at someone wearing a patterned shirt with really thin stripes so I just leaned into the idea of a small/detailed hard lined pattern. I originally made 5 separate patterns for him and then turned them into stamp brushes in procreate. I only ended up using three of them, the one on the chest, the one on the legs, and the one on his hand. But, I imagine the patterns fade and shift when he moves, sort of like a lenticular print. I gave him constellation freckles and stylized the hair’s fade into white. The hair was inspired by how time-woods draws Martin Blackwood’s hair (linked: time-woods’s fanart of Martin Blackwood). Also put way too much effort into the teeth on the mask. I just like the chunky teeth design. Oh yeah and the font I used for him is called “Typewriter_Condensed_Demi”

Erinys (Jason)

Repeatedly ran into the issue of not having enough canvas space bc of my fervent need to thoroughly document and plan out how the wings worked. I also reversed the colors for the bodysuit & armor so the under layer was black while the armor plates were red. I only realized afterwards that I may have been inspired by the red centipedes in Rain World (linked: gif of the red centipede, don’t click the link if you’re unsettled/afraid of bugs/insects), artists subconsciously draw inspiration from other artists all the time though so I’m not like upset about it. I stand by it because it looks sick as hell. Also leaned into the magpie theming for the wings. I think the vigilante form was supposed to be reverse magpie coloring? I can’t remember, but I stuck with normal magpie coloring. The anatomy of how the wings connected to the collarbone was inspired by JayEaton’s Magpie Bridge Project. Reference image link. Link to the article the image is from. I didn’t draw the wing armor because I couldn’t figure out how to would work with the wing anatomy and I ran out of canvas space. Finally, the font used for him is “DIN Condensed” this is a default font, I would’ve used something more punk but I needed the text to be legible.

Insight (Jazz)

I did Jazz after I’d already finished the initial trio, so I had to switch to a new canvas for her bc I’d hit the layer limit multiple times on the previous one. I really do love doing that spiked under-eyelash thing with characters. Don’t know when that started. Anyway, I added the shoulder pads to her outfit to help break up the empty space. The golden eyes were a nice accent color since her design is very overwhelmingly green. Honestly the braid hairstyle and gold eyes really do obscure her identity, multiple times when drawing her I was worried that she didn’t really resemble Jazz enough. There wasn’t a drawing from the author for her so I only had the text description to go off of. I just realized that she sort of reminds me of a forest ranger and I don’t know what to do with that realization. I copy/pasted my drawing of her eyes when gold and recolored them to match her normal eye color. There were two layers for that, a hue shift and a hard light layer to emphasize the shadows.

Here’s what it looks like without the hue shift: 

It looks really cool and I’m 100% that color combo in another drawing down the line. Oh yeah and the font used for this sheet was “Euphemia UCAS”. It comes with Apple’s operating system, I use it as a neutral default text most of the time bc it’s nicer than helvetica but not overly fancy like Times New Roman—and why am I talking about fonts. ——————————————————————— Anyway, this project was very fun to work on. The alt text for this was its own endeavor, hope the folks using screen-readers don’t mind 4-5 paragraphs of description text. Also, I cannot remember for the life of me if Dani got a costume description, but if she does I’ll make sure to update this image set with a sheet for her. And to the author, QueenOfTheQuill, if you’re reading this message that I’ve left at the very bottom of this post below a read more line, thank you for the fic. It’s very good and I’m glad I caught it during my slow decent into DPxDC brainrot. I love the interactions between Jason and Tim, it’s nice seeing a revived Jason that’s not bogged down by pit rage. They definitely seem like they could’ve been good friends if not for the unfortunate circumstances that led them to meet in canon. Also, I’m sure Jazz will love interacting with Batman and Nightwing. So much psychological & childhood trauma to unpack with them. Feel free to use/share these images if you so desire and thanks again for your work.

[homestuckreplay]

rose lalonde about NRUB'YIGLITH, SHAMEBEAST KING OF GROTESQUERY: i can fix him

(page 296-306, but also just some general thoughts?)

I'm being so normal about this comic casually dropping the three best characters we've seen so far on three consecutive pages. Fluthlu, Nrub'yiglith and Oglogoth are all sick as hell. They have eyes and mouths in completely normal numbers and positions. Their line of Hot Topic clothes would sell out in minutes. I can feel my bones begin to bubble and crack just thinking about them. I cannot wait for Rose to ill-advisedly summon them.

Page 297 is INCREDIBLE with its tantalizing idea that the strife specibus was briefly a conduit for unfathomable cosmic entities. The red splattered black background is similar to the one on the blood spade page - could be a coincidence, but I have been waiting for that page to get folded back into the story. This moment of temptation combined with TG insisting the strife specibus is a permanent allocation makes me think Rose will allocate the grimoire at some future time, its dark powers able to overcome the specibus' normal rules.

On page 305, we learn that Rose is confused by a page in the grimoire depicting several windows - two fairly standard windows from mass produced public buildings, two fancy stained glass windows, and a third normal looking window that's electronic, and plugs into the wall. But surely an electronic window is just a computer? Like how we're looking at the comic through a browser window, or how the apparatus the Vagabond found (linked from page 271) has a four square pattern reminiscent of a window? And since the page relates to 'summoning practices', does that mean these zoologically dubious creatures can be summoned through a computer? Through Sburb?

I'm back on my psychoanalysis bullshit with Rose but to be fair, she started it. I think the reason she likes to write is because it's so much easier for her to carry herself off as cool and collected in words than any other way. She's mastered hiding her flaws in considered writing but not so much in the moment. Thinking about the authority and certainty in her GameFAQs compared to her 'arghs' in her messages to John. Thinking about her 'I think they are elegant' regarding the tree modus compared to her scattering her prized possessions over the observatory. Thinking about her creative writing journals as unfinished thoughts and Rose as a perfectionist who will show things to people, but only on her terms. The point? Stack modus isn't looking so bad now.

I've also been thinking about Rose being framed as Dark John. This is partly because her panels are literally shaded gray while John's are bright white (I know it's dark where she is, but it still affects the tone of her pages) and partly because of her putting on an act to seem dark and mysterious vs John putting on an act by wearing a CLEVER DISGUISE and having a food fight with his dad but most importantly, John having a favorite monster on his shirt (friendly grinning alien who loves food and helping the people of New York) vs Rose having a favorite monster on her shirt (foul patrician of misery whose mammoth belly gurgle brings the Epoch of Joy to an abrupt end).

Finally, I'm thinking about the Small Scale Adventure and the tiny video game fetch quests John and Rose keep being sent on. In a story of imminent apocalypse via procedurally generated meteors, the fact that Rose's current mission is to go get the backup generator from the yard feels so mundane and so grounded. Something about the tiny parts that make up the whole, the cosmic insignificance but also vital importance of each individual's role in a much bigger system.

Basically, I think Homestuck's good. Pretty cool that it just hit 300 pages, here's to 300 more!

[cuupidsss]

Can I request an sbg x fem reader one-shot who has the powers of winter from aespa's new Supernova mv in the phantom world, but the drawback is that she gets sick and vomits blood + she has lucky girl syndrome (which means she's lucky asf)

Or

A sbg x gn reader who is like emu otori from wonderlandxshowtime and she is the captain of the dance team + and has the fighting technique of mizuki just search up "mizuki wrestler" on tiktok.

I’m doing the second one because I’m inlove with the cute theme soo.. hope you like it ^_^

— I also added the lucky girl syndrome for this cause it fits a little, I would take your first request but it takes SO MUCH more research, I’ll find a time to do it though. ❤️

How could they truly react to you? When they had first met you their first impressions went well to say the least. You were bubbly and expressive and now or less extroverted. You were giggly aswell and it was hard to deny how you were a little ditzy sometimes.

Everyday at school you were always in a good mood, they never caught you in a bad one. At first when the phantom realm thing started they thought that it didn’t happen to you. They didn’t see you for the first or second time they went, it confused them, it truly did. You went to the sorrel weed house to? So how come it didn’t affect you.

They soon came to realize that was not the case. They saw you one day, running towards them and waving. Ashlyn was the first to react, it was only a couple minutes into the second day and you were just so happy to be here? Taylor ran towards you and you both hugged, even though you all aren’t close. Tyler and Ben were more or less standing awkwardly but Tyler looked a little upset. Aiden was just being.. Aiden? He was asking you some dumb questions and poking you. Logan looked concerned but everyone was overall okay.

You were really tired, you rubbed your eyes as they asked and harassed you with their concerned. You gave them a odd face and just shrugged.

“I don’t know! Lol?” You said with a little smile, they all suddenly had straight faces and Taylor giggled at how lost you sounded. “Those blob things were scary though!” You sounded so shocked, but not scared… at all.

You guys had been going to the realm for a couple days after this silly incident and they hadn’t really seen you fight, they all figured you couldn’t, Ashlyn decided that you guys might aswell see her parents to train. It could benefit all of you.

They were shocked, very shocked. ON HOW YOU REFUSED. Why didn’t you want to do it? It would literally benefit all of them. Tyler had the most negative reaction.

“Come on, this would help all of us! You’ll just drag us down if you can’t defend yourself!” He said something like that, practically saying you were dead weight if you couldn’t be of use. It didn’t hurt you to much, you knew what he meant to say and yet it didn’t affect you.

You decided to tell them you would accompany them, and accompany you did. When they asked one more time if you wanted to take your turn at getting your ass beat you said.

“No thank you!” And smiled sheepishly, “I already have sports I do like wrestling, I don’t need to learn anymore stuff!” The whole group went silent.

“Why didn’t you tell us that before?” Tyler asked. You didn’t hear him very well, it sounded like mumbling.

“Huh? What was-“ “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL US THAT BEFORE?” His reaction was sort of funny, but you just kind of stood there all silly and blinked sheepishly.

You and Aiden get along pretty well, but you’ve had your creative differences.

“I think it’ll look better like this!” You said, showing him the show outfit idea for your next match.

“I think you should add a bow on the chest part, like a glitter force character!” He said nonchalantly as you groaned..

“Okay, should I add glitter?” You asked, your eyes lighting up, he quickly agreed. You got for work on it immediately.

They’ve come to a couple of your wrestling matches, you joined the school club. The club wasn’t separated by genders so imagine their suprise when you took down some guy who was much taller than you with little to no effort. After the match when you met up with them the first thing you said was;

“This uniform they make us wear is so not cute! Or comfy for that matter, they only let me put some sweatpants over the bottoms. And the bottoms are so tight!” You just raged about the uniform, you looked like a sad puppy, but they you brightened up again, “were you all impressed?”

“Why don’t you do this stuff in the phantom realm?” Taylor asked with a dumbstruck face as you mimicked her and everyone went silent. Ashlyn stared at you before sighing and dismissing Taylor’s question after looking at your face.

You and Ashlyn are close aswell. The grumpy, quiet and observant with the cute, playful, ditzy one was your guys favorite stereotype. Or at least yours..?

You two are complete opposites but go so well together, the only thing she has to complain about is how you can be so, so clueless.

“What do you think, (name)?” You blinked at Ashlyn’s question and made a weird face.

“About what?” You asked scratching your neck. She stared at you for a minute befor asking;

“Are you serious?” They had just been talking about the plan and you had missed so much of it. Besides that encounter you guys get along swell.

Taylor? Taylor is your girl. Your go to bestie, your number one. She gets you, she really gets you.

“Do you like my outfit? It’s for wrestling! I have a match tonight!” She marveled at your presented outfit, you had all been hanging out at your house and you wanted to personally show Taylor your outfit, in your room while the others hangout downstairs.

“It’s so cute? How is that for wrestling?” She says, messing with the bow that Aiden insisted you add. “The bow is cute.” You deadpan.

“Yeah it’s cute I guess.” You say blushing cockily, you flip your hair dramatically as you both burst out into giggles.

Now, Logan? Logan, Logan, Logan.. how did you approach this one? Well he was a little intimidated by you, you were so bubbly, loud and creative that he just couldn’t get over how overwhelming you are.

“Logan!” You said, hugging him it was early morning and you had gotten to school early, you didn’t take the bus. You saw Logan just standing off to the side awkwardly. At first he was always put off by your affectionate nature, also how nice you were.

“(Name)?” He said, slightly hugging you back. He had seemed to have gotten used to it. It were times like now that he appreciated your personality. Ben came up beside you two and waved, you and Logan had already stopped hugging as you waved at Ben.

Ben was sweet, really sweet. When you had met Ben you were a little put off. He was kind of awkward around you, but he was also really nice to you. He never spoke, unlike you, but you seemed to get used to it just like Logan got used to you. One day you both were in the realm and you had beaten the shit out of some globs, as you like to call them. You had scrapped your ankle when you all had booked it t safety.

“Thanks Ben.” You whispered to him, while everyone conversed. He had wrapped your ankle neatly for you, you couldn’t help but smile at his generosity. He looked at you before nodding and turning his attention back to the group. He was really just shy, or was he?

Tyler was a special case. I don’t think he’d ever get used to how peppy you are. Your kind of like Aiden, it annoys him to think that.

“Tylerrrr!” You said, trying to get his attention by poking him. You guys were at lunch, you were sitting at the table together and today you had sat next to him. He had to breath in before giving you a look.

“What?” He said before looking back at his plate.

“Are you gonna eat that?“ you said, looking at his extra soda he got from the vending machine. He looked at it, he was gonna save it for his next couple classes but.. he handed it to you, without even thinking. Why didn’t he think? He just gave it to you? You took it great fully, that’s where your guys mural friendship started.

You still scare them sometimes, everyone gets scared by how reckless you are, going into battle without a second thought is dangerous. You somehow NEVER get hurt other then the ankle thing. It literally shocks them.

One time you fell out of a tree you and Aiden were messing around in and you landed on Ashlyn perfectly. You could’ve gotten hurt but you somehow landed on her in the perfect position.. how the freaky deeky?

Another extremely lucky moment was when you guys were on top of a large building and you fell off only to land on one of the window sills, somehow? Taylor had to find that window and pull you through it.

Another time you were fighting a phantom and you jumped off of a fucking refrigerator and landed your feet hit directly on top of its head as it was WALKING PAST so it was still moving!

They have never seen someone so damn lucky.

“Do you have something that makes you so lucky?” Taylor asks and suddenly everyone else started asking too.

“Yeah, even Aiden isn’t that lucky.” Ashlyn barged into the conversation.

“She’s just stupid.” Tyler says and Logan silently laughs. Ben. Sighs at the insult before you pipe up.

“I guess you could call me lucky man!” You’d say, like you’ve discovered a new species.

“Your a female.” Aiden correct.

—

That’s all I have, sorry I’m lazy and tired tday lol

[rocketkid300]

so at first I thought the JJK finale was buns. And then I was mad. Then I thought about it a bit.

I think a lot of the stuff that Gege included within the final chapter (final few chapters ngl) is CONCEPTUALLY pretty good. Trio and all students surviving? Conclusion for the CG characters? Everyone moving on from Gojo because sorcerers should work together as a community and not rely on the strongest in a flawed system? Yuuji passing on encouragement to a new CG sorcerer to represent the next gen passing on their strength? All great points.

The problem was that it felt too fast paced. We didn't have time to really let the characters breathe and settle into the new world. No emotional conversations between the main trio, not even between Yuuji and Megumi. Just. Right back to it! And my biggest gripe was probably that there didn't really feel like there was a change to the status quo. Megumi's character didn't really feel like it had a proper conclusion, and we definitely should've gotten more from both Nobara and Yuuji about the new world they're in. Just killing the higher ups and putting gakugangi up there doesn't really make that much of a difference imo. And also everything with the foreign militaries? Ofc there was a lot of stuff implied w/ Mei Mei and the NSS clan stuff, and all the new CG sorcerers and etc, but honestly we just needed more.

That's when I realized the real enemy was Shonen Jump all along. Shonen Jump has extremely strict deadlines on the final chapter; meaning that once the final arc starts, the author would have to pick a date to end the manga and stick with it. But remember what happened a few months ago? Gege got sick around the time when the yuutago chapters dropped. He was out for a month. Thats anywhere from 3-5 extra chapters we could've had.

And that... really hurts. I genuinely think even 3 extra chapters could've fixed all the glaring issues with the last few chaps. More room to have emotional conversations, more to talk about the future of Jujutsu society/cursed energy, more change to the status quo, more actually cohesive character conclusions/interactions, even maybe a Gojo acknowledgement (yes ik the point is that the future gen will move on without him but I think it's unrealistic that the students don't look back on him fondly at least). Those extra chapters wouldn't fix everything, ofc, but it would definitely make things feel more complete. It sucks from a readers perspective, because we KNOW Gege can write really well. But I imagine it sucks even more from a writers perspective.

There's a lot of debate on whether or not Gege actually cares about JJK and its characters (especially when it comes to that six eyes freak ykwim), but even if his original ideas were scrapped, I think ANYONE who works on something for upwards of six years will feel some sort of love or care towards that project. I can't imagine what it must feel like to not be able to fully execute your creative vision because of health problems and the shitty cog-wheels of Shonen Jump serialization.

Ofc, I might be reading too much into it. Perhaps his leave of absence had nothing to do with how Gege ended JJK. Maybe this was his plan all along. The more I sit with it, the more okay I feel. We've known for a long time that the JJK ending wasn't going to be perfect. And yeah, we can (respectfully) mourn what we could've had but honestly? I had so much fun. I have never ever been involved in a fandom like this and yeah it sucked like 99% of the time but despite it all I had so much fucking fun. Say all you want about Gege's skills but you can't deny that he is amazing at creating compelling characters, cool power systems and emotionally packed plots. Yuuji, Megumi, Nobara and Maki will all be oh so dear to me forever. Yeah the ending could definitely have been better, but I'm willing to give him grace. If anything, I'm even more excited for his next work.

Anyways, I think that having all these plot holes and "wasted potential" might actually be a good thing in the long run. It can be frustrating, obviously, when you look at the story all on its own, but ngl fandom works best when we can fill in the gaps on our own. I'm looking forwards to seeing what everyone's gonna make from here on out! I definitely have a LOT of things I'd want to write about, maybe even draw ooh.

Incredibly longwinded way of saying: Gege, you aint so bad after all. And yeah, I think I'm pretty happy overall with JJK. Maybe a lil miffed about certain things, but I doubt I would be the person I am today without this godforsaken manga. How amazing is that? :)

[stupendouspeanutstarlight]

An Angry Past - Pt. 1

This story starts around the time of the civil war and the reader is Jasper hales sister. It is up to you if it's biological, and anything to do with the appearance of the reader. I am writing with the idea of an afab character. I was inspired by the legend of the third wife so there is going to be aspects of that, but also my own creative liberties will be taken in this story. It is an eventual Paul Lahote story - that will become apparent in the next part. There is explicit content in this chapter, but nothing overly raunchy. Never written any smut scenes before, so let me know any comments or anything. I hope you enjoy the chapter and I hope to write more!

Jasper wasn’t himself after the war started; he became obsessed with enlisting and you couldn’t change his mind. Grabbing Jasper's arm you pleaded with him to think his options through, “Jasper, please. You can come live on the reserve with Aki and I.” 

Sighing he grabbed your hands and looked you in the eyes, his tone stern, “Y/N you’re only seventeen and with a baby on the way, the both of you can barely get on by yourselves in the tribe. I want to serve my country and I’ll be sure to send you some money back. I love you.” 

Waving goodbye to Jasper was the one hardest things you’ve ever had to do. He hung out of the side of that damn red train as long as he could; Jasper waved and waved until he was just a tiny spec on the horizon. Your husband held you as you sobbed uncontrollably into his shoulder as the train pulled out of the station and Jasper was off to war; he was too young, too innocent, but you knew no matter how much you begged he wouldn’t sit by. The colour red would never again be the same; it was the symbol of the thing that took your brother from you, the train, the rivers of blood in war. Before Aki had met you, Jasper was the only person in your life, the best big brother you could ask for.

Months later Aki had helped you through a long and nearly fatal labour; you managed to give birth to a beautiful boy, Zachary Quileute. You were Taha Aki’s third wife, at only the age of eighteen he had lost his first two to disease and childbirth. As the war continued to wage on though, tensions among tribe members grew and Aki seemed irrationally irritable. Placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, you tried to get him to make eye contact. “Love, what’s the matter?” His body remained what felt like a permanent stiff beneath your hands. His warmth radiating into your fingers in a way you never felt before, “Are you sick? You're hot to the touch and you disappear at all hours of the night.” He still remained a solid wall at your questions, the only semblance of hope you could feel in your heart was the fact he had not moved from your touch as he had done often of late. Voice breaking you asked, and hand retreating to your side, “Is there someone else?”

That is when you felt his shoulders deflate, a sniffle, and his voice crack as he turned to face you, “No my Love. I could never have another. I thought I would never be happy again until you entered my life.” He reached up to cradle your face in his palms, the feeling making you melt. “I am not sick, but I have changed my Love. With the war ongoing it has caused some new ruthless settlers to be at our borders.” Bringing your forehead to his lips, Aki released a deep sigh against your skin, “My Love, with Zach’s birth you have been exhausted and I did not want to burden you with information you were not ready to hear.” Feeling you deflate in sorrow against him, Aki quickly continued, “It is by no fault of your own dear. It is simply something I didn’t think I would ever have to discuss with you. Do you remember the legends of our tribe? The ones you hear at the grand fires we hold?”

Nodding you speak, “There are many legends of the tribe and I am learning everyday, so that I may help tell them to Zach. But my Love, I don’t know what that has to do with you changing and new settlers at our borders. We have always had the town nearby and settlers moving around.” 

“Our legends are all rooted in truth, some more than others. Settlers are something we have always had to be wary of ; you remember how it was when I first brought you into our tribe. You are different though Love, these settlers are something from legend. The reason I have changed dear is not something I wanted to burden you with, but I realise it’s pushing you away.” Pulling away from your head, Aki kisses you deeply and then takes you into his arms. In the safety of your hut, you both gaze at your beautiful son - already nearly one year old - sleeping soundly in a pile of pelts. “You and Zach are the most important things in my life, I only wish to protect you.” 

“Taha Aki, you protect and love the entire tribe and our family. I know you care so deeply and have lots on your mind trying to learn the ways to one day take your fathers role as elder, but I only wish to understand, so that I may help you.”

“Do you remember the legend of the cold ones?” As you nod your head against his chest he continues, “The cold ones are real and they cause a change in some of us of Quileute blood. I have had two wives before you, my Love, but that was some time ago. I have not lost them in recent years, but decades ago. I did not age past sixteen until around four years ago. If I had to guess, I have been on this Earth for quite some time.” Pulling back to look at your face, Aki could see the disbelief and confusion on your face. You were wrestling with an internal battle. “I know it is hard to believe having not grown up as a part of the tribe, but the man who I call my father is my elder brother. I have wanted to explain all of this to you, but when we met I had begun to age and selfishly thought we might be able to grow old together.” 

Tears broke your water line and you sat there in confusion, “Why can you not age my Love? What allows those around you to grow old and live, but you remain frozen in time?” Lifting you both off the ground, Aki leads you outside. He takes his clothes off his body and changes. Before you in place of your husband is a great white wolf. His fur is the purest of whites like the moon. Walking closer you allow the wolf to nuzzle into your side, “beautiful.”

Years had passed since you had learned of your husband's nature, he aged gradually, but he had never halted again like he had before. The threat of the cold ones had seemingly passed and your family was happy. Your son, now three years old, was curious and adventurous. He asked frequently of his uncle Jasper who occasionally sent letters, but no one had heard from in months. It was impossible to investigate on account of not ever knowing where he was stationed, but you hadn’t received that fateful letter in the mail of his death. The tribe had its struggles with the ongoing war and many disputes with settlers nearby, but it was seeming to be coming to an end. 

Two large hands grabbed at your hips and twirled you up into the air. Squealing, you kicked your legs happily at the sudden movement and laughed as your husband spun you in the air. You were placed on the ground and spun around into a deep kiss. In the middle of your settlement you embraced your husband and kissed him passionately. The hunter had just returned from a long hunting trip and many couples and families were happily reuniting. Holding your face and smiling down at you, Aki asks, “Where is my little wolf pup hiding?” 

A small and faint giggle was heard a couple feet away. Hiding behind a wagon wheel stood a small little boy giggling watching his parents. Looking around aimlessly, you pretended to not see little Zach, “Oh dear! I don’t know where he went!” Walking around slowly checking behind people, “He’s not behind Leah!” Checking behind teepees, “He’s not around here! Where oh where could Zach be?”  

As Zach was distracted watching you look around for him aimlessly, Aki was sneaking up behind him slowly and quietly. Trying not to look or give your husband away, you had to hide your giggles with your hand. That’s when Aki got distracted and stepped on a particularly loud twig causing it to snap. Jumping in fright Zach spun around to face his father yelping, “Ah!” Zach took off running, he dived under stationary wagons and tumbled around people as his dad raced behind him, “Mama! Mama! Save me! He’s right behind me!” Darting in your direction you swooped zach up right before Aki could get to him. 

Collapsing in front of your feet, Aki dramatically held his chest, “You're lucky your Mama was there little pup, I was just about to scoop you up.”

Giggling in your arms Zach stuck his little tongue out at his father, “Mama will always get me first! She’s the strongest!” 

“I will always save you from getting eaten up my little pup!” Kissing your son all over you giggle, “But that doesn’t save you from the tickle monster!” 

In the evening when everyone had finished preparing and storing the meat from the hunt, Aki and you walked down to the River after putting Zach to bed. You walked hand in hand, the world light and the sky clear. The moon reminded you of the beautiful white fur of Aki’s wolf all those years ago. You both laughed as he playfully bumped into you as you walked closer to the river. Life was calm, you were seeing that Aki was finally able to relax. As you approached the river you had an idea; letting go of Aki’s hand you began stripping to just your undergarments. You ran ahead of Aki and plunged into the ice cold water. Not long after a warm hot body pressed itself against your back. Breathing heavily into your ear Aki whispered, “You don’t know what you do to me my Love. My body reacts to you unlike no other.”

Turning in the cold water to face your husband, your body had never felt so hot and alive. He was sculpted to fit into your hands perfectly; your eyes trailed his body, igniting as you looked down his strong frame all the way to the v-line from his abs down below the water line. A burning deep in your core was driving you crazy. You put one hand at the base of his strong neck and allowed the other to trace down his chest, over his stomach and all the way down to his cock. He shuddered against you, burying his face in the crook of your shoulder. His laboured breaths matching your own. His hand came up from his sides to cup your ass, squeezing and groping. The warmth of his palms makes the goosebumps on your exposed skin disappear and your head feels light. Leaning your head back and gripping the base of his neck you guide his mouth to the sensitive spots on your neck. He travels against your skin like an experienced explorer, allowing himself to savour the taste and feel of your skin. Your body alight and electric against his. You gasp as he allows himself to suck at the skin just below your pulse point, “Aki, please baby.” 

“What do you need sweetheart? How can I treat you right” Your body shudders against his as his hot breath hits your ear. “Did you miss me while I was away? Miss how I can make you feel?” All you could do was nod against him as your whole body felt like it would melt away. It had been so long since the two of you could be this intimate together. You missed the feeling of his lips on yours, how his hands felt on your body, how good his tongue felt. You were brought back by the feeling of being lifted up and carried over to a patch of grass on the rivers bank. He lays you down gently and begins to leave a trail of kisses from your collarbone all the way to your thighs. He looks up at you with hungry eyes as his hands meet the band of your underwear. “May I?’ 

Throwing your head back in pleasure at the sight below you, you whisper, “Fuck… Please do Aki.”

Pulling the band of your underwear down slowly with both hands, Aki kisses your legs as he goes painfully slow. All the way from your heat, to your thighs, knees, calves until he reaches your feet. The underwear long forgotten Aki spreads your legs apart and makes his way back up slowly. Shuddering in anticipation you close your eyes. Suddenly you feel him stop, “Open your eyes my love, I want you to watch as I eat you out. I want you to remember what it looks like and feels like to feel so good.” You hold your eyes open as he reaches the top. You have missed how his tongue feels and how his fingers move to expertly move where you need them. Everything is pure ecstasy.

[blackknightax]

I wanted to add a Metroid character forever ago. I love the universe of Metroid and need to play more Metroid games, I’ve only played Prime 3, Prime hunters and Other M. I know, fake fan. I just never have money when new Metroid games come out. So bleh. Anyhow. Let’s get down to business!

Metroid doesn’t have a lot of characters in general, it’s a not story based series and a large part of the vibe of Metroid is being alone in space. That’s such an important part of the Metroid vibe and aesthetic and such, so characters aren’t plentiful. That being said, I somehow have only played the games that have more characters than just Samus. Shrug. That being said, Metroid probably has one character request as of recently and that is Ravenbeak from Metroid Dread. I’ll admit I don’t know about that at all outside what was shown in trailers, I wanna play it, i just don’t own it. But he isn’t my choice. I’ve chosen one of the hunters from Metroid Prime hunters! So when i first conceived this idea I had chosen Weavil. Simply because, i wanted a space pirate, but they added Ridley so i don’t need a space pirate representative anymore. For that reason, I decided i wanted one of the cooler hunters. My personal favorite was Trace but he’s a sniper with stealth abilities, I don’t think he fits into smash as well as other characters. I also almost chose Kanden because he’s a cool looking character with an interesting story. BUT instead I’ve chosen

SPIRE! Seriously, look at this guy! He’s SICK! (Note OP likes rocky stuff). Spire is a being from the species known as the Diamont. It’s a shame he was made for a DS FPS game. Seriously who thought a Metroid Prime game on the DS was a good idea? Metroid Prime hunters you’d think wouldn’t lend itself to creative move sets since all the characters were designed to be played in multiplayer but the characters were also designed to feel different in multiplayer so that gives me plenty of room for that purpose. I think he’d be a weight much heavier than Samus, maybe close to K Rool. I think he should feel like a bruiser, like a living armored tank. So let’s discuss move set! By the way, I plan to redo the first two posts to add move sets to those characters and not be so wishy washy on the DK section. That being said.

For his Neutral B he will use his signature weapon the Magmaul. In the game it’s a bit of a chargeable grenade launcher and when Spire himself uses it adds a damage over time effect and it splits into more projectiles when it hits. Obviously we’ll used both of those properties BUT, i won’t be using the charge property. Instead he’ll fire it slowly and be at the fully charged state by default. This way holding the B button allows you to change the angle at which you fire it.

For his Up B he briefly makes a platform of magma to jump off of, dropping a magma spike below him when used in the air like elwind or Sonic’s spring, and leaving a magma spike on the ground when used on the ground. This move does not induce special fall.

For his Side B his uses the Dialanch, his version of the morph ball in multiplayer. He unleashes spikes on his body and rolls in the direction you used the move in. Unlike similar moves like rollout it’s not a chargeable move and is not stopped when he makes contact, instead it does a bunch of hits, and keeps going until you reach full distance or press B again. If you hit a wall Spire will climb it, in this state he will automatically stop using the move when he gets to the top of the platform. When used in the air assuming you don’t hit a wall it does induce special fall. I see this mixing up his ledge options.

For his Down B he covers his body in magma and it hardens instantly. Now he moves even slower but every move now has 2 or 3 hits of super armor and he cannot be launched in this state, but he will fall significantly faster. But in this state even him falling does damage to opponents. Or maybe it should work like Monado Shield but i liked my idea so bleh!

I know this one is late and to make up for it I will be doing another character today so it still looks like daily posting. That being said i hope you all like this idea for a move set. I had a lot of fun coming up with this one. “Tomorrow” I’ll be doing a post that requires a small amount of research. I will probably start ending weeks with posts that require research until I have no other choice either way.

[imthepunchlord]

Ok, so I'm just gonna apologize in advance, I'm sorry, I know you're probably sick of these types of asks. I was gonna wait till call the polls were done, but since you've been talking about how you've already started brainstorming ideas, it like I should probably just say this idea sooner rather later. So, have you considered using the power system you used for your A Declaration of Love and in your old "Miraculous Fox and Peacock powers" post. I felt it would be fitting since these new powers (like the ones in that fic and post) are based on the animal's symbolism, and this setup could allow for multiple powers. Plus, these new versions of the miraculous feel much like a return to back to how we thought the miraculous would be before season two so it could feel fitting.

Nah don't worry about it. And votes seem to be slowing down for the polls, and I've been itching to get brainstorming so might as well get into it.

With these polls, and plans being made to change, I've actually been gradually rewatching Miraculous, taking notes on eps and on characters to refresh myself and it's just taking me back to that time before s2, and just how creative and fun it was to get into ML fanworks. As it gave us so little info we had to get creative.

Like, on artist who used to do really cool ML art suspected Wayzz was a Grasshopper before we got the confirmation of him being a Turtle.

And man I found I enjoyed those days more, as what a lot of people thought of was far more interesting and fun than what we got. And everything that came post s2 really kinda railroaded us and stifled that creativity.

And a lot of the things brought in were:

Frustrating, like Miraculous are more powerful for adults, which why did Fu pick 2 kids and not do anything to help even the playing field? And we got the confirmation he has 16-17 Miraculous on him, why did he release the very two Gabriel needed? Especially as, arguably, Cat's just not that necessary for facing the Butterfly. Also! There's honestly more powerful perks to misusing a Miraculous, why are they so easy to misuse? And according to Paris Special, why is it that Miraculous are willing to gradually kill off kids misusing them, but won't do anything to adults who misuse them? This is all rigged.

Pointless, like the potions, which aren't really "power ups" but just suit changes. Changes that Miraculous already naturally do as the suit comes down to the user. If someone loves ice skating and it's naturally integrated into their suit, the Ice Potion is pointless.

And just entirely baffling: the entirety of the Rabbit, and Alix, a 15 yo girl, being made to be the Timekeeper, live away from her family and friends to manage the timeline, which, why is that being given to a human? Who are going to be biased and not neutral, made worse to be given to a 15 yo who's not fully matured, and clearly we see her involving herself in the timeline which I'm not sure she should be doing as that's influencing outcomes. And why did they even think a time traveling Miraculous was a good idea? That power is so OP and can get so easily complicated you can get a headache trying to make sense of what they rolled out with it. And honestly, what does time traveling have to do with Alice in Wonderland? If they wanted to really reference AiW with Rabbit, I would've voted dream hopping, cause dreams are wild, imaginative, chaotic, and nonsensical. And that could've worked in ties to the moon as people sleep at night, and that could've been tied to healing too, as dreams can be tied to the subconscious, and you could've done something with dream influence and help people face what they're dealing with. Or if Rabbit had to be another time related Miraculous, do something with influencing the flow of time, either slowing it down so the user appears to be going fast, or speeding up the motion of the user and others and objects.

Tangent aside, I am going to be aim to dismiss and change a lot of what canon has brought in and just kinda go back to working off those old days. I am planning on working off a lot of animal symbolism and myth, and some details that Thomas has rolled out I'll consider (like Pied Piper was a Fox, which suggests Fox should have also have a power tied to hypnosis/subconscious suggestion through music). And just go back to those days where we were more creative and better worked off the possibilities with animals. And ideally do some uniqueness that's not going to have a lot of similar powers, aside from healing and mass restoration, as I feel if there's going to be any repeated powers, those would make the most sense.

I will give ADoL a reread (cause it's been years and typically when I get a fic done, it goes out of my mind as I'm not giving anymore attention to it, so I don't remember everything with it); and it's just a little funny as this is the fic that gets brought up to me the most on relating to Miraculous and kwami changes. Like, Nobody has mentioned to me that Juuno was their favorite take on the Peafowl kwami's personality before canon rolled out ditzy and emotional Duusu. Which maybe got toned down post fixing? I'm not sure. Either way, it gets brought a lot and I don't remember everything so I'll be giving it a reread to refresh myself.

[jaspertjunk]

How to turn your brainrot into fresh new characters

I don't know if anyone else does this but I wanna explain how my "taking extremely heavy inspiration from a different thing and turning into its own thing" creative process I sometimes use works. i'm on my 'puter and don't give enough of a fuck right now so prepare for inconsistent capitalization and other errors.

Using a character I'm working on right now that is heavily inspired by roxy lalonde.

Step one: setting

So let's start off with setting: the setting is also extremely homestuck inspired and I don't wanna talk about it because it's still morphing into its own thing and it's still very homestuck.

Naturally, considering that's the setting right now, you're gonna see a lot of homestuck in the characters as well. There's an aradia/jade mashup character fucking shit up and a weird gamzee/dirk combo??? And those aren't even characters I'm particularly fond of? (I do like all of them a lot though don't @ me I just don't have strilonde brainrot and there's other trolls i prefer to aradia and gamzee)

But so anyway there's a roxy clone. Like I literally used roxy as a placeholder in my head when i was thinking up what type of character i wanted to fill her role. here's where setting comes in

first, you mold the roxy to the setting (or the setting to the roxy). this is actually where i got the idea for my setting to have misassigned roles for the heroes, because homestuck's whole science/magic thing has an interesting presentation in roxy, and i thought it would be cool if she was always meant to fill the sort of intellectual role (i came up with some cool name but i forgot it) but when the shit actually started up was pushed into a magic-based role instead and just had to roll with the punches and become a sick ass technomancer.

And this place within the setting then helped to inform her personality, because she needed to be someone who was flexible, and a lot more tech-oriented than the original roxy, and also someone whose personality meshed with what both her intended and assigned roles are meant to represent.

Step 2: experiences

what a person lives through hugely influences their personality and how they act. so look at what the character has experienced. notroxy, as we've established, is a techy character. i start thinking about how she got that way. i think she picked it up from her best friend, because that unhinged little shit is a mad scientist at 15. She's also a weird kid in a small town, so I think notroxy is probably an outsider from the start for being so close to her.

and then there's the Big Event, where said friend dies under mysterious circumstances. THAT was definitely formative. I decide that probably a big part of shaping notroxy's character is the fact that she wants to fill the gap left by her bestie dying. (this also makes for a bit of a funny transfem moment about a year later when she finally comes out. cuz it's just like "oh noooo i have to take on the social role of our dead friend so our friend group doesn't fall apart." "okay bestie" "oh nooo i have to emulate her so that we have a balanced party without her to fill her assigned role in our adventure" "good idea" "oh nooo i have to be a girl to restore the gender balance of the friend group" "girl what are you talking about"). Also, she's legit fucked up about her best friend and the only person who Got Her dying because why wouldn't she be?

So we start seeing this character who is trying to fill the void left by a whole ass person all by herself, not just FOR herself but also for everyone else in her life. She thrusts the weight of the world onto her own shoulders in the exact moment when she's least equipped to handle it.

Step 3(?): compare and contrast

Now I take all the new character stuff I've come up with and compare it to the original character. Then I pick out all the roxy traits that i used for this character initially and decide which ones I wanna keep. I really like the whole roxy thing of she seems like she's just this silly goofy drunk girl but she doesn't WANT to be and she's actually the one holding everything together and the closest thing to a leader their fucked up little team has. Can't elaborate. Too brain. This isn't a roxy post. I discard the parts I don't need or want to replace with new parts. I don't need the flirtatiousness, for one. Doesn't really mesh with how I'm begining to envision the character. Keeping the sex jokes though. As a treat.

I also do like the sort of shitty handling of feelings we associate with strilondes, but I want to go about it differently with notroxy. I want her to overtly know what's wrong with her and face it head on, something that they don't ever do, but I also want to see her weaponizing her pain. She is very strilondy in the fact that she makes all of her problems infinitely worse through her actions though.

Step 4: go do something other than the brainrot thing

I'm working on this step right now. You need to step away from the original inspiration so you can separate your new ideas from it. Get obsessed with something new, incorporate new ideas from that into what you already have. Find other sources of inspiration. Repeat the previous steps but with a stronger base this time. Make your characters finely woven tapestries of all the things you've liked and all your own ideas. be cringe. be free.

[writerkatprasad]

On changing course

Soo, two days ago I thought of a new story idea. I was also sick and for some reason when I'm sick my creative juices start flowing.

In two days I built a whole world and a storyline with characters who have motive and conflict with a romance subplot. It literally never happened to me before.

So I started writing this story.

And I have so much passion for it! I have not felt so much passion and love for a story in a long time! I'm literally writing this one for me, to see where this story goes and where the characters want to take me.

For the FIRST time since I embarked on my writing journey again, I did not think about the audience or publishing. I'm not even putting an invisible deadline on myself to publish a story. I truly want to explore this story, this world and characters and take my time with it.

I've been having a great few days building this world, a map, the characters, the storyline, the goddesses/demons/origin, etc. I feel like I have allowed myself the freedom to just go ham and create as I please.

The best part? I have never read anything like the idea I have, and I would love to read it. . . so I'm writing it :) and because I've never read anything like it, there's no book or author for me to compare it to. Even more freedom! Of course the comparisons come and go, but it's soo much easier to manage compared to the book I was writing before. This feels more organic and more authentic to what I want. I don't feel myself forcing tropes into a story because everyone else likes it or other successful authors are doing it. I'm literally writing to explore :)

This feels good. . .this feels really good. 🥰

[sl33py-g4m3r]

OCs from SMT IV that I accidentally created; or 2 but I’m only working on 1 currently I think. Fleshing him out more~~

Is what the larp is, lol. Accidental creation of characters.

Don’t have names for them yet tho.

One is someone from the monastery who’s somehow got access to this site and posts occasionally.

The other is a prentice samurai who completed a mission and unfortunately is now in the infirmary unconscious; with their soul somehow being isekai’d to our world somehow.

Whether he’s just a ghost or can interact with things physically around him is unknown at this time. How it happened is also unknown. Hopefully his soul returns to Mikado once more ~~

Rip new recruit. Shall he meet his end henceforth?

Still with all his equipment, gauntlet, and everything, except his memories of his fellows or what a samurai even is. Hadn’t determined whether he can still use the gauntlet to summon demons in our world or use any magic, or it’s simply cosmetic as he was wearing them in naraku and when he collapsed… remembers not of demons or magic…

Appears if at all, as a transparent figure of himself. Unsure to him if anyone can even see him or what happened. Finds interest in all the ‘magic’ he gets to witness in our time. Or relics as he would’ve known in Mikado.

Hopes to remember who he is, what the gauntlet is for and can do, and where he came from. In hopes that he can eventually get back to help his fellow samurai in Mikado. If he remembers that is.

Now he just has the vague feeling he’s missing and lost something deeply important; but knows not what nor whom. And is saddened by it~~

Thought it was a cool idea but now it sounds really stupid ~~~ as there’s nothing there that could possibly just do that to ones soul while leaving the body unconscious and not actively dying…. But suspension of disbelief I guess… magic doesn’t need to make sense in our world I suppose ~~~

Calling my own ideas and fantasies dumb… unbelievable… it’s supposed to be fun even if it seems stupid ~~~

Wanted to larp for fun but accidentally created characters instead….

For once creative post instead of an ‘I’m anxious darn you anxiety stop ruining my fun’ posts. A creative positive post??? Unbelievable ~~!!! lol.

Hope this is my own thought and I didn’t accidentally steal this from somewhere else cause I’m always afraid I had. Cause there’s an occult saying: “there is nothing new under the sun” so I might’ve picked it up somewhere but maybe I’m just overthinking my own creativity here…

How tf would a 1400’s society keep someone in a coma alive in the infirmary? Of course demons are a thing so…. Who knows…: are his fellows worried sick or too busy on missions to care that he’s vanished from this world? Is thee one that has a crush on him and fails to do missions in the hopes he wakes? Or does Hope make him do missions regardless?

Edit: fixed ‘for motions’ to ‘on missions’ as that’s what I intended to type. Stupid typo

[doublefreegames]

Travel Devil - better the devil you know!

There's less than a week left of judging for the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam and it's been a fantastic experience for us so far! Travel Devil has received such wonderful feedback and critiques. We take on board everything that is written to us so we can make better games every time!

So today I'm going to give a little insight into how and why Travel Devil came to be.

Do you wanna know how Travel Devil came to exist?

Originally we put together a game idea for a spooky pet adoptions agency. The game would take place on Halloween and have six pets (3 unlocked and 3 locked) to play with. Each pet was going to have a unique story and minigame associated with it. It was codenamed "Spoopy Pets" and it was far too much for the me and Robert to take on and complete in the Spooktober VN Jam timeframe. We worked on it for the first two days of the jam before we were flagging problems up, so we changed trajectory. It's not a dead idea though, it's in the list of rainy day ideas.

Speaking of the rainy day ideas list, that's where Travel Devil comes in. We thought this up a while ago but just put it on the back burner as there was no time to work on it. The concept was simple - a demon escapes hell and starts a travel log. Then the servants of hell follow in its wake starting the apocalypse march on humanity. When Spoopy Pets became too big we had a look at what we had to play with and Travel Devil just sort of fell into place. Robert started writing and I started drawing.

Character design went pretty smoothly. I went for a mix of cartoon styles, drawing inspiration from things like Dead End, Gravity Falls, The Simpsons and Garfield.

Traditionally, visual novels use anime and manga style design but truth be told, I'm not very good at that style. It takes me ages to make characters look good when I try to draw like that. Hats off to all the wonderful artists in this jam who made beautiful, scintillating characters. I'm so impressed by their dedication to fantastic character art.

One of the first pitfalls I encountered was background art. I like to use sites like Pixabay to get backgrounds but recently it's been flooded with AI artworks. The game jam expressly forbids AI use in your game so we had to get creative.

Fortunately this game revolves around travel vlog creation in Paris and we found loads of creative commons photos of the famous tourist destination. Seriously there are so many fantastic photographers out there and it was a complete life and time saver for the jam. All I had to do was add a translucent white filter to the top of the photos to make the characters pop out and we had our backgrounds!

Development went well once we got on the right track. Travel Devil was made using Ren'py which is a joy to develop with. We did have to wind back our ideas at one point as both Robert and I got sick with a nasty bug but we made it. We stripped back some choices and streamlined the game to make sure we could get finished. Originally, we wanted the player to be able to unlock multiple hidden scenes in one playthrough. As the deadline loomed we simplified it so that the player would only see one of three potential side stories that were growing due to the activities of our main character Tornacense per playthrough. We included 7 unlockable scenes and also 6 unlockable images in our gallery.

There's also a nifty guide to finding all the unlockables right here if you want a more relaxing time while playing.

If you've had a chance to play Travel Devil you may have noticed that we planted some seeds in our side stories that will be big plot points as we go forward. Travel Devil is going to be a series of five games travelling around Europe making video journals and outrunning the underworld.

Tornacense and Kirby will grow, we'll meet lots of new strange and devastating people and love could be just around the corner! Who knows? That choice will be yours.

If you want to check out the first installment of Travel Devil you can nab a pentagram portal and find it right here.

Travel Devil was made for the 5th Annual Spooktober Visual Novel Jam in under 30 days. The next one will be made with a lot more time dedicated to it!

Thanks for stopping by!

DoubleFree - Artist and coder for Travel Devil

[androdetective]

do you have any more info on swap juanín?

I have so many thoughts on him it's insane 😭

With og Juanín, basic things about him are that he values his friends (to the point of enabling the worst of them) and is willing to endure the worst things for them. He is very responsible but also a doormat. He is a very hard worker and, overall, a mistreated character. He feels like quite the opposite of Tulio. While Juanín has a humble demeanor, Tulio has an outwardly proud demeanor. Tulio is at the forefront of fame while Juanín helps him from the sidelines. Juanín is passive while Tulio is abrasive. Their parallels have always interested me. That's why with the switch au, it started with the idea "what if Juanín took Tulio's spot".

Juanín is now more "fake-nice." He will be nice to someone he can't stand if it'll help the show. Although this has limits, as he hates feeling taken advantage of. He'll shittalk people he doesn't like behind their back. Him and Amapola will shittalk others together. They are best friends even if they are dysfunctional and enable each other and get sick of each other from time to time. While Juanín isn't as overworked as his og self, he has to fix Tulio' messes often. Even on live television. As mentioned before, Tulio is in Juanín's place. He does everything, but isn't the best with his work. This annoys Juanín often, but despite this, Tulio is his right-hand man. He entrusts Tulio with a lot even though he shouldn't. He will admit Tulio is an idiot, but I imagine just like the og Juanín he has a distorted positive view of Tulio. Except ofc not as bad as og Juanín's 💀That still doesn't stop him from getting sick of Tulio, or insulting him. Tulio thinks this makes him more important and feeds his ego. He likes bossing people around. He does get tired from all the work though. He is a suck up to Juanín, even if he also gets annoyed with him. He is jealous of Juanín's fame and wishes he could be the news host. (His inexperience and anxiety would hold him back, though) Juanín knows of the jealousy but won't give Tulio his place. He thinks he's worked too hard for it, unlike Tulio. He's satisfied that he's finally recognized by people for his work. That he's appreciated and can do what he wants. He thinks he's doing the best he can in life. Even if he is missing Juan Carlos, his childhood friend. They drifted apart after Juanín started to become famous. They had many disagreements during that time. Bodoque used to work with Juanín and Tulio during the earlier days of the show but eventually left because of that. Juanín and Tulio tried to remedy things, but Bodoque had gotten tired of the work environment. He knew it was making him worse mentally and feeding his addictions. Juanín feels bad for this but feels resentment towards JC because he thinks he abandoned him. Juan Carlos used to be the estrella periodista, but after leaving, he was replaced by Amapola. Juanín will occasionally hear from Amapola how Bodoque is doing. I think he grew closer friends to Amapola after this.

Juanín secretly still likes scrapbooking :] He is creatively talented and has fun creating. He likes looking his best. He does his own makeup (even if his hair covers most of his face) and chooses his outfits. He likes hanging out with Amapola too. Also he has autism/ocd because I get to project on him.

Random fun fact, "birdhouse in your soul" and "kiss me, son of god" by tmbg remind me of him. Also "big shot" and "everybody loves you now" and "my life" by Billy Joel. And to a lesser extent "I love you for psychological reasons" by tmbg.

Aa I'm not sure what else to type but I think about him a lot tysm for asking about him 😭🙏 hopefully this is good information

[dekusheroacademia]

The Ultra Stage: The greatest hero - final thoughts: full detailed plot (part 2/3)

In part 1 you can read my thoughts on the musical in general, understudy Deku (when Shimura was sick), background fun interactions between characters and what changed between the three dates I've watched it.

Here I will write a detailed summary of the plot! I've skipped the intermissions here!

THE RECAP

Like the previous ones, the musical starts with a recap, this time directly showing All Might last fight with AFO. We see Bakugou and Deku watching All Might con the sides, and then they both sing about him. The song, like all in the musical but the last one, is new.

The rest of the recap is only focusing on the story of Bakugou and Deku: middle school bullying, the river incident, the sludge, Deku training for OFA, getting into UA, a recap of their Deku vs Kacchan fight and some more about their interactions.

The musical then starts with All Might talking with Nezu, introducing the idea of the dormitories, and the scene quickly changes to Aizawa and All Might visiting the Bakugous. The scene is identical to the anime, with some creatively used light and cubes to recreate the flashback of Aizawa speaking to the reporters. Another small difference is that the Bakugous bow while standing up.

Next we see All Might talking to Inko, and in the background (without sound) we see Aizawa talking to Jirou's parents, and Jirou dad pretend to be angry with him and storming off.

When Deku reads Kota's letter, a dance with the kid's signature hat comes in to represent him.

Then we see the students returning to UA. Aizawa reprimands them, and then when he decides to not expell them he literally skips away jumping on the stage.

The next scene is Bakugou making Kaminari use his quirk to make everyone laugh. Ochako covers Tsuyu's eyes, and Deku seems surprised Bakugou is giving money to Kirishima. When everyone walks out, we have Mineta, Aizawa and Iida introducing the rooms, before a full on hilarious musical numbers. The musical number centers on Mina and the girls while they all visit different rooms.

Rooms: Deku is a full on All Might posters + carpets being rolled on stage and Ochako calls him an otaku. Iida is just a wall of glasses, Kaminari shows his lamp (Aoyama dressed as a lamp), Aoyama ends up on a platform dancing with a sparkling ball. Shoji has a miniature room that all the students come close to look at. Ojiro's room is very generic and is also rolled in on stage. Mineta tries to invite them, but Deku shoves him quickly off stage. Kirishima is mainly a small dance number and people hitting him with the poles (a classic of the musical), Sero's room also passes by very quickly. Todoroki's room is rolled on stage and is a beautiful Japanese room, and everyone sits down almost on reverence. Sato brings out a microwave and everyone eats cake while flowy fans represents the delicious smell of food. Koda has a bunch of plushies and then Bakugou walks out dressed as his bunny (what bunny bakugou does change every show).

The girls room are all just a screen with the room projected on and pass by very quickly, a part from Momo's, whose bed is dragged on stage and the whole class kneels (Ochako almost faints). The other is Tsuyu, who is shown behind a closed door looking at the classmates.

Then a small camera is given to Todoroki who films the winner announcement (Sato, for the disappointment of poor Aoyama). Todoroki has been yawning and doozing off through the whole song, so finally he goes to sleep but Ochakp stops him. They go see Tsuyu and the rescue students apologize to her. They all hug her but Deku, who is looking at Bakugou in the change of scene.

After the rooms, the students find out about the license exam and we have them meeting the other schools. In the manga this happens a bit later, but at this point the musical introduces Inasa (who interrupts a circle of the class doing a Plus Ultra, with Bakugou getting dragged in by Kirishima), Ms Joke, Camie, Seiji, Shindo (who blinds everyone with his smile, such Aoyama tries to replicate), Shindo's girlfriend (who only appears in this scene) and Itejiro (who is introduced by picking a fight with Bakugou in the background).

After these introductions, we have the "pick the name of your special move" scene, which is a call back to "pick your hero name" from musical 2 (the characters even cheer in the same way). The teachers join the stage, and the musical number shows every student perfecting a move. Mina's move is probably the best done, with smoke coming out of the all rounders she hits. At one point the stage gets dark, only showing us Bakugou and Deku, and we have a small song about Deku's admiration for Bakugou, while he looks at the other student. Uraraka is in the darkened background and she seems hesitant, looking at Deku, but when she makes to reach for him, All Might and the others interrupt her. We get then a small scene of All Might teaching the students, with the camera showing on the big screen his teaching book. Another cute All Might thing is that his yellow antenna-like hair jump up now and then!

After receiving the advice, Deku gets to Hatsume. Everything here is the same, and the scene ends up with Hatsume dragging Iida off stage and Ochako and Deku looking in worry. The rest is the continuation of the previous song, with Hatsume talking with Deku and Ochako about their modifications. A funny moment was when, while dancing, Ochako physically puts herself between Deku and Mei, to separate them. When then Bakugou accidentally destroys a rock and almost hits All Might, Deku's new costume and move is introduced with a song.

The next scene sees Yokumiru (played by All Might's actor) introducing the license exam. This scene changes a bit between shows, and to show the points system we have Present Mic and three all rounders. When the chase starts, the stage has Aizawa and Joke on opposite sides commenting on the students. There's then a small song, before we have the first part of the license exam. This is the same as the manga, so I'll write just some impressions.

Inasa has a big amazing entry with his quirk shown through the screen and suspended spheres over the stage. Camie/Toga is quite amazing, the fight, especially after Toga transforms back into Camie is very dynamic. And Uraraka's actress playing Toga was chilling! The scene with Sero, Uraraka and Deku passing the exam is instead very short, but a lot of emphasis was put on Camie/Toga addressing Uraraka when she expected Deku to be addressed, and I think the musical sets up the Toga vs Uraraka dynamic quite well. Bakugou, Denki and Kirishima vs Seiji was the same. Todoroki also had a very small scene, with finally Inasa acting cold towards him for the first time. Aoyama and Iida had their scene, with a flashback on screen of kid Aoyama, and the rest of the class jumps in to save them with a screen of Koda's doves.

Bakugou's first compliment to Deku's user of his quirk ("you made it your own") is quite prominent, with a shocked Deku looking back at Bakugou, while the other slowly turns to look at him. The rest of the class dances and sings around them, and Bakugou and Deku silently walk to swap their places.

After this part, the focus is on the comedic scene where Mineta, Sero and Kaminari teases Deku about Camie. Tsuyu seems to want to go to them but Ochako stops her and the two stretch while listening. After Ochako's attempt to talk to Deku gets interrupted again, the second part of the exam starts, leaving her wondering what she's going. There's a reprise of Aoyama's song from musical two ("you like him, don't you?"), and Ochako sings a solo about putting aside her feelings.

A small thing I forgot, the Help Us Company is hilarious and is introduced in an almost zombie style song! There's small reprised of this song during this part.

My memory also can't exactly place it, but I think before this point, before Ochako's song probably, we have a flashback of the river scene again, and of Bakugou and Deku finding the All Might card (with Bakugou putting it in his pocket).

As usual, the rest is quite loyal. Gang Orca arrives, Todoroki and Inasa mess up, with the combination of their quirks shown through the screen. The Inasa flashback is also done through a screen, with Endeavor's eyes shown first, and Shouto's cold eyes after. The fight is relatively long, mixed up with Shindo, Deku, and what Bakugou and the others are doing. It ends up with Deku, Todoroki and Inasa ready to attack Gang Orca, but the stop signal rings and the exam ends.

The next scene is the screen with all the names of the students that passed. We have the classic Mineta teasing Todoroki, and the trio who failed accept the remedial exam. The scene changes to Uraraka chasing Deku, who is happy with his new license. We have some extra background scenes of Ochako and Deku taking each the photo of the other with their licenses, and Todoroki accidentally burning Aoyama's license and trying to apologize. The license scene ends with All Might receiving a photo of Deku's license card.

We're back at the dormitories, and Bakugou walks about the audience to challenge Deku. They start walking in circles around the stage, the background changing into streets. At every circle, we smoothly (thanks to moving panels) get the actors re-enacting some of their flashbacks. In particular we get: Deku admiring Bakugou as a kid, Bakugou choosing Deku as a nickname, Bakugou getting his quirk, the river incident (this time with Bakugou's left hand almost raising to accept Deku), Bakugou bullying Deku, telling him not to go to UA, the sludge incident, then Deku standing up to Bakugou, and some dialogues from their later fights.

Once the flashbacks stop, they arrive to ground beta and the screens turn into night. The rest is identical to the anime, and the fight actually happens without singing, but using some interesting music from musical two (the one from Deku saving Bakugou). The fight was actually quite scary, I thought they would accidentally hit each other!

There's a lot of jumping around, and at one point each get a small light in their hands: Bakugou has a orange light and Deku a green light. It all ends up like in the anime, and All Might intervenes and hug a crying Bakugou.

This is quite similar to the way musical two ended, with All Might hugging a crying Deku. At the end Bakugou also has bandaged arms, like Deku had at the end of the previous musical.

After this we get Aizawa reprimanding them, and then the class teasing Bakugou and Deku who are cleaning the common room. Aoyama throws around confetti, and the class has to restrain Bakugou from attacking him. When the students leave, Bakugou and Deku spend a comically long amount of time in absolute silence. Deku starts picking up the confetti, and Bakugou vacuum. Then Deku speaks up and he has this giant smile when Bakugou actually comments on his fighting style.

This is the last scene of the musical, before the final song which is "I want to be a hero". It is choreographed differently than usual, and I talked about it in part one, if you want to read it!

Part one here

[twilightmalachite]

Machina - Test World 1

Author: Kino Seitaro (with Akira)

Characters: Mika, Sora

Translator: Mika Enstars

"What Sora’s been into lately… Hmm, there’s so many it’s hard to narrow it down to just one, though. I suppose he's been having fun building towns in SSVRS lately?"

Season: Winter

Location: Starmony Dorms Courtyard

Mika: There’s still snow out, huh…

Uu, so cold… Maybe I should’ve warmed up a bit before comin’ outside.

No, that sorta laziness would concern Oshi-san. I gotta keep on creatin’ without any detours…!

…I say that, but it’s not like I’ve thought of anythin’.

Nnah~, maybe there’s somethin’ interesting out here…?

Sora: HaHa~! Make room! Make room please! Sora’s coming through!

Mika: Nnah, Sora-kun? What’re ya doin?! You jus’ ran on past…

Sora: Sora’s flying a kite! HiHi~, you see what’s in Sora’s hand?

Mika: Ah, kite flyin’, huh?

That’s a tasteful way to have fun. Have ya been out here flying a kite all by yourself?

Sora: HuHu~, Sora was gonna invest himself in games he hadn’t played yet during winter break, but he wanted to move his body~!

There was a kite to fly in Starmony Dorms, so he borrowed it. ♪

Mika: I see. Sounds like a good change of pace from stayin’ home all winter, huh?

A kite, huh? Hmmm, kite… Maybe it’ll give me a good idea…?

…Nnah~, nothing comes to mind.

Sora: ? Searching for ideas?

Mika-chan-san has a gloomy color, huh~. Sora can tell he is deeply troubled!

Mika: Well, it means a lot to see ya worried, but the issue here’s…

(Ah, I know, maybe I could ask if Sora-kun knows about the current trends?)

(Sora-kun knows lots about new technology and such, right? Talkin’ to Sora-kun may give me some ideas.)

Hey, Sora-kun, could I ask ya a few questions?

Sora: Yes! May may be asked!

Mika: Thank ya~. I’m havin’ some trouble…

I’m actually at a loss on what to do fer my next work. I gotta be able to make somethin’ worth showin’ to even Oshi-san.

I was thinkin’ you could tell me what you’ve been into lately, maybe it could help me with my work?

Sora: What Sora’s been into lately… Hmm, there’s so many it’s hard to narrow it down to just one, though.

I suppose he's been having fun building towns in SSVRS lately?

Mika: Building towns!?

What a large-scale hobby… You mean buildin’ towns in the game world, right?

Sora: Yes! Sora builds while playing in virtual reality. He’s working with someone from a game company that used to work on SSVRS!

And, in the newly made “Test World”, in-game money can be used to open shops and buy furniture for a house!

Mika-chan-san’s good with creative stuff, so it may help him out! ♪

Mika: I see, makin’ stuff in a game world, huh… It’s amazin’ how much technology has advanced nowadays.

Nnah~, but thinkin’ of it, I got motion sick easy with the SVRSS goggles…

Sora: HaHa~☆ No need to worry about that!

The VR goggles have been improved a lot using the data from back then, so I’m confident Mika-chan-san will be able to use it comfortably~!

Mika: You were able t’do that…!? What fast work… I can’t keep up with this tech!

Sora: Don’t worry, Mika-chan-san will get used to it eventually!

Yuuki Sense~ is playing in the Test World now, does Mika-chan-san want to join in?

If Mika-chan could get inspired by the digital world, Sora thinks it’ll be worth it~♪

Mika: I ‘unno. It’s a world I dunno much about, so I’m nervous, but if I don’t try takin’ the first step, I might not be able to create my new work…

I’ll do it, Sora-kun! I’ll also get some inspiration from the digital world!

Sora: HoHo~, Mika-chan-san’s greedy for art~♪

Sora: Sora will bring Mika-chan to Yuuki Sense~ who's playing in the Test World, then!

Let’s all have fun playing in the SSVRS world! ♪

Better than one is two, and better than two is three!

I think by making the Test World more lively, it’ll become an even better town~! ♪ HaHiHuHeHo~☆

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[thesixthplaneteer]

Day 3 OC-tober - Old OC!

This is going to be a rambling personal story post. OC stuff under the break. The first DnD character I made was Groglag a half-orc fighter but the people I played with instilled the feeling of cringe in me about getting too attached to your own characters. They were pretty old school DnD players and this is before crit role and other shows so the idea of being super into your character to make stories about them or grand self serving plotlines was shunned. So in some sense Groglag is the first OC because thanks to getting over the cringe of playing DnD and enjoying it I've been able to get into an amazing creative hobby and head space. That's also a lot thanks to my wife. She's the one that showed me the comic shop that I eventually started playing DnD at and she's the one that helped release me from my shell and not baulk at doing things because others look down on it. She's helped me become who I am now and create the amazing characters and stories I/we have. I think the character where there was a turning point for all this was Derrick Kendrick, The Boy King. I'll share more about him below the break but he was an NPC in a DnD game I ran with my wife and some friends. Her interest in him and genuinely wanting to know more about him and the world when I thought he would be just a quest giver made him into a main stay of my OCs.

Derrick Kendrick - The Boy King

Derrick is the first born son of the third born son of the king of the Moon Shae isles. War against invaders and war amongst the islands themselves weighed heavy on Derrin, Derrick's grandfather. Tragedy brought him low as he lost his two eldest sons to the seemingly endless campaigns before they had children of their own. When Derrick was fifteen, his parents grew ill and died of a sickness the druids of the Moon Wells could not cure. Now all that survived of the Kendrick line was Derrick and his grandfather. His grandfather was old, the wars he fought had wrecked havoc on his body, and the loss of his sons had wrecked havoc on his mind. He abdicated to Derrick at the behest of his advisor Kell. Kell was a new but promising addition to the court, helping Derrick rule as a good king and eventually bringing many of the conflicts to a resolution.

Lots of adventures and chance meetings later

Derrick is married to a Triton named Coral (wife's OC) who was brought ashore in a fishing boat during a Sahuagin invasion and they now have many many children as they rule over a united Moon Shae Isles until their second eldest is ready and Derrick hands down the crown to his daughter.

Fun story facts,

Their eldest child is a druid so he didn't become king

Derrick and Coral were forced to flee the isles after Derrick's grandfather was revealed to be a terrible terrible man and a werebear. They eventually came back and kicked his butt though.

Derrick is also a werebear although it took a while to manifest

Kell is actually an Elf in disguise and is Derrick's great great great great grandfather

The Kendrick line is technically human but they got just about everything but demon and dragon mixed in there.

The first Kendrick that made landfall on the islands was married to a frost giantess and they brought with them a sapling from the tree of life.

In the courtyard of the castle is the Rainbow Tree. The sapling from the tree of life with a menagerie of transplants from fruit bearing trees all around the world. The druids on the island will bring back a limb of a fruit bearing tree when they return from being off island.