#and i mean like the general palette where i just save pretty colors that i happen upon

[thestrangecarrotcake]

i just remembered that when i originally drew my merMay drawing i was like,, bothered by the fact that i was using colors i had saved to my palette??

like bestie what do you think you saved the colors FOR???

[jesncin]

Caped Crusader, "Safe Diversity", and Catwoman

We're at a point where it's expected that a new incarnation of any story previously with a white-dominated cast would be reimagined with a "more diverse" cast. This can mean racebending them, genderbending them or making them queer, but for the purposes of this analysis we'll be focusing on racebends. Most of the time, executives will take the "safer" routes with diversifying their cast- pick a couple of unproblematic supporting characters to be incidentally "diverse this time". Other times, there might be "braver" takes where more prominent characters (perhaps even the main character) are racebent. This doesn't necessarily mean racebending prominent characters is an inherently better thing to do.

I've been more than critical of MAWS' portrayal of BIPOC characters but especially their Asian Lois before. Sometimes BIPOC representation is just a decorative palette-swap change for these shows. Caped Crusader however, is different. It's more complicated- but it's rooted in very similar problems. Unlike MAWS (though I can only speak for S1), CC is far more willing to take on political topics: classism, sexism, police corruption and brutality, even beauty standards in the entertainment industry! Yet, in choosing to portray these topics in their stylistically anachronistic 30s-40s set piece- it makes it so the show's reluctance to discuss race intersecting with any of these topics far more apparent.

(spoilers for all of Caped Crusader)

Take for instance, episode 2: "...And Be A Villain". The story is about Basil Karlo, a less than handsome actor who wishes his appearance wasn't holding him back from both love and playing roles saved for better looking people. He makes a deal with Jack Ellman, an experimental makeup artist who turns him into Clayface. This story is set in motion when Miss Yvonne Francis, a beautiful actress, goes missing. Miss Francis is a woman of color (brown skinned, unspecified) played by Lacey Chabert: a white actress. CC goes for a generally colorblind casting what with Stephie (a white girl) being voiced by Amari McCoy (a Black actress) but it always feels icky when a white actor voices a character of color. Prominent characters of color in CC are more accurately casted. However I do think animation should be wary of using their medium to get away with their show appearing more diverse than the actual talent behind it.

The episode's theme is pretty clear on how unfair the entertainment industry is in regards to who it prioritizes in leading roles. Basil is constantly emphasized as a tragically talented actor whose appearance is holding him back. "With your talent you should be a leading man, Basil." Yvonne says to Basil in a flashback. Meanwhile as Alfred is watching through movie clips featuring Yvonne and Basil together, he comments "while lovely to look at, Miss Francis is no Gloria Swanson." So Yvonne has the looks, but not the talent and still gets prestigious roles because that's showbiz. The only time this is weirdly inconsistent is when Yvonne calls out Basil/Clayface in the finale, saying:

"I don't believe your performance. You're chewing on scenery. Relying on makeup effects to enhance weak characterization. It's insincere, Basil. It's not real."

I honestly feel like this scene was just meant to quickly "subvert" Yvonne being a damsel in distress by having her call out Basil's acting. It's a moment that isn't reinforced by anything the episode set up. After all, according to Alfred, she's not as good an actor compared to Basil. That's supposed to be how they foil each other, so this moment feels unmotivated. Again, I get what they're going for, that Basil's performance ironically relies on his newfound appearance so much that even a bad actress like Yvonne can spot his meager acting. But it doesn't work when our protagonists were actually convinced by his imitation of others. She's still a damsel in distress character regardless of her having a bit of attitude when calling her captor out.

What I don't understand is: why make Yvonne a woman of color if this was the story you wanted to tell? It's not like they're paying homage to how her voice actress looks, after all. Why, in your story set in purposely anachronistic 30s-40s era noir, did the character who was meant to represent the epitome of "not talented but gets by the industry because of her conventional beauty and pretty privilege" a woman of color? We're missing the very obvious conversation here where Tinsel Town is a white industry with white biases to what it considers attractive. It doesn't matter how many attractive actors of color exist, they're still pigeon holed into stereotyped and often racist roles (especially back then), and have to work twice as hard to get the opportunities their white colleagues get. Why is Basil, a white man, the only one afforded a marginalized narrative when Yvonne is quite literally a woman of color right next to him? The episode is especially painful to sit through when Basil is afforded so much sympathy compared to Yvonne.

"He didn't have the right look. He didn't have the right face."

"The camera is kind to some, but cruel to others."

This is transparently a colorblind narrative. Yvonne is written and even casted as a white woman. The CC crew just decided she should be a WOC likely because "wouldn't it be neat if the beautiful actress in this story is POC" without thinking about how that would drastically change a narrative already critical of the showbiz industry based on appearances. It's not intersectional and flattens the narrative to being selective of the prejudices Tinsel Town has. This episode is a great example to what CC generally does with diversity. It's not afraid to be critical of society, but it gets oddly squeamish with discussing how race intersects with these topics- opting mostly for a palette-change type of representation.

It's not entirely fair to say CC doesn't ever touch on the topic of racism. It sort of does: if you read between the lines for why the mayor gives Jim Gordon his commissioner role, and more prominently with the Gentleman Ghost (a rich aristocrat ghost that steals from the poor, believing wealth is his right) being offended that his mansion is sold to Lucius Fox (saying "and you would sell it to rabble like this?")- racism is somewhat present in the world of CC. We see the women in this show experience misogyny, but it's ambiguous if any of their struggles are intersectional with that of race. But that's... just about it. Racism isn't discussed more than it is alluded to, whenever the writers decide it's relevant. Because of this, CC has a spectrum of hits and misses when it comes to integrating characters of color in their reimagined cast.

Here's how I would visualize that spectrum using canonized instances of Asian Lois Lane. I should emphasize that representation of people of color doesn't entail the narrative owing us "a racism arc" or what have you. This spectrum is more used to measure how much racial identity was integrated in the characterization of the character: whether that be cultural identity or history. Being a person of color isn't just "person who goes through racism".

This is how I'd personally place the prominent characters of color in CC on my "spectrum of racebends" chart. Generally most of the characters of color (whether reimagined that way or were originally POC already) are fairly harmless in how they were integrated into CC's world, but none of the characters feel bespoke as a reimagining of the character and are interchangeable with their white counterparts. To quote cartoonist Juni Ba (in a discussion on CC):

"...stripping characters of color in these time period stories of any cultural, [a]esthetic or social signifiers that’d make them true to the groups being represented. Instead they dress, act and speak very western."

In my opinion, the only character that is an exception to this is Linton Midnite (or as he's popularly known as: "Papa Midnite"). Midnite is a character so interlinked with Haitian culture and mysticism that even CC couldn't erase that aspect of his identity (important note: historically, the portrayal of Midnite since his creation is riddled in racism, but that's not my place to discuss here). Midnite at most speaks with an accent, dresses more nonconformingly compared to the western standard dress of all the other characters, and practices occultish stuff (though I don't think there was anything culturally specific in that episode, please correct me otherwise if someone has more insight!). That's a lot more cultural representation than just about any other character of color in CC. Midnite can't be changed to a white character, his African identity is too interlinked with who he is.

There are a few characters I consider in poor taste to be POC- that being Arnold Flass, Yvonne Francis (who we've covered already), and Harley Quinn (who will be getting her own post, as her case is complicated). So let's talk about cops, then.

I tend to be indifferent about media choosing to diversify cop characters because it feels like choosing the most "respectable to society" role for a marginalized character to play. Cops uphold bigoted systems of power at the end of the day, so that's a very comfortable place to represent your marginalized characters. It's why we keep getting gay or lesbian cops, which Batman media absolutely perpetuates as well with Renee Montoya. It's hard to cheer for two women of color being allowed to date and kiss in public when one of them is a cop, y'know? But this doesn't mean re-imagining cop characters doesn't have narrative merit.

In regards to Jim Gordon being reimagined as a Black cop, I'm gonna refer to La'Ron Readus' video on "Fixing the Batman's Copaganda problem" where he goes into detail about the missed potential of Black!Jim Gordon from Reeves' The Batman (2022). Generally, I felt that opportunity was missed in CC as well. While I love that Barbara Gordon is in CC, nothing about her being a WOC is integrated into this version of her. It felt like if either character was white, the story wouldn't be that different. The bigger issue here is the choice to racebend Arnold Flass- a previously white, blonde, cunningly smart, and brutally corrupt cop.

CC follows some of this in their version of Arnold Flass- he's paired with Harvey Bullock (also a corrupt cop). While Bullock is the brawns of the duo, Flass is the smarts. He's cunning and even implied to be willing to frame Bullock if the worse comes to it. It isn't an inherently bad idea to racebend a corrupt white cop into a Black cop. If the writers want to tell a story about how the police force assimilates people of color into the system and forces them to be just as if not more brutal than their white counterparts, then by all means tell that story.

But that's not what CC gave us. By rarely acknowledging race, we don't get to have a conversation or themes surrounding that delicate intersection of identities. We just have "diverse Flass". Look at these panels from Year One for example, can you imagine how Flass' casual disrespect for Gordon by constantly calling him "Jimmy" could be re-contextualized with a race change? Unlike other characters who just feel like missed opportunities for not integrating race into their characterization, Flass is an elephant in the room. To not acknowledge his race in themes of police corruption and brutality is to white wash the narrative with diverse paint.

I personally think the stronger narrative decision would have been to racebend Bullock as Black instead of Flass. Flass could still be the conniving cop, but he encourages Black!Bullock to be the more "violent brute" who does the dirty work for him. It would put a newfound racial layer to how Flass considers Bullock disposable. Then we could have some kind of commentary on how the police force encourages a system of abuse that makes even fellow POC turn on each other. It'd also make it so a certain scene would be better in optics.

I have many criticisms for the scene where Batman holds a gun to Flass in the finale of CC. It's a narratively unmotivated (see my criticisms for CC's Two Face here for elaboration) and weak moment that relies on metatextual shock value to cover up how underdeveloped this take on Batman is. But it's also just very uncomfortable optics-wise. It's a common and valid criticism that Batman as a character can very easily fall into copaganda, with his status, goals, and collaboration with the police force. In many ways, Batman is often written to be committing his own kind of vigilante police brutality.

Caped Crusader wants to be a deconstruction of a Batman tied to power and hellbent on his mission to eliminate crime. But because CC occasionally omits race from its narrative, the scene where Batman holds a gun to a Black cop-a man stripped of his ability to fight back-just falls flat for me. There's no acknowledgement in this scene that Batman basically gets to be an anonymous cop, "warning shots" and all. Batman shoots at an unarmed Black man several times. It's meant to be shocking to us how Bruce is willing to stoop to such a level and indulge in gratuitous gun violence, but it honestly hits too close to real incidents where this is racially the case for me to enjoy the narrative point of this scene.

You know a character who would be perfect for calling out Batman's many privileges? Selina Kyle. Let's talk about Caped Crusader's biggest downgrade.

I've heard just about all the arguments in favor for CC's reimagining of Catwoman and none have convinced me that this was in any way a good take on the character. I see people saying that this Catwoman is a return to her golden age roots, and there's a lot of misconception surrounding that assumption. So bear with me as looking at Catwoman's history is necessary to discuss race and how a character evolves.

Catwoman debuted in the 1940s as a jewel thief who disguised herself as an old lady. She was just called "The Cat" and would not don her more feline appearance until later. True to the mystery woman femme fatale trope she was inspired by, her backstory was left unknown for a long time. 10 years later, in Batman #62 it is revealed that after a plane accident bonked her head, the now named Selina Kyle got amnesia and went on a crime spree. Giving her leeway to reform and be an ally to Batman. This would historically inform how Selina Kyle toed the line between good and evil as an anti-hero.

Her origin would be revisited in 1983, in the Brave and the Bold #197. Although not canon to the mainline universe, it is still a crucial development for her character's history. In this story, Selina reveals that she lied about having amnesia to get out of facing punishment. Her true story was that she entered a life of crime to escape an abusive relationship with a rich man. The only loss her husband understood was material loss, loss of property, so stealing was how Selina fought back.

This crucial re-examination of her character transformed her from shenanigans inducing femme fatale, to a marginalized fighter. Shortly later in 1987 in Batman Year One, Catwoman is reimagined as a street-hardened sex worker in poverty. She is inspired by the Batman to become a vigilante for her own goals and gets annoyed that she's assumed to be his sidekick.

The moment Catwoman became marginalized by power, was the point where she became worthy of solo-character status. She was not only a compelling foil to Batman-capable of going toe to toe with him and make him question his motives even though she did not share his privilege-she could lead her own adventures reflecting a side of Gotham Bruce Wayne's perspective doesn't. She actively makes the setting of Gotham stronger because of how she's evolved as a character.

Catwoman's character would continue to evolve, with some iterations reimagining her as a latina woman and others where she's canonically bisexual.

While Catwoman has been portrayed by Black actresses before, I want to focus on the most recent and prominent iteration of a race-swapped Catwoman. When Matt Reeves' The Batman (2022) featured Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle, an explicitly biracial character within the text of the story, we see another step this character evolves. I think La'Ron Readus' video on "Why Race-Swapped Characters Are Not The Full Story" does a fantastic job of explaining why this is a narratively great race swap. To summarize (though I do encourage watching his video as he goes into depth about 2022 Batman's Jim Gordon as well among many other examples) and add analysis of my own: Selina being the byproduct of an Italian crime lord and a Black sex worker is a brilliant marriage of her original backstory (being connected to and abused by powerful men) and her modern backstory where she's poverty stricken (and tangentially related to a sex worker if we're talking about Batman Year One).

We understand why someone of her background would have an affinity for stray cats because of how she lost her mom at a young age, she is sympathetic to fellow people from the lower class, and explicitly calls out privileged white people- including Batman who attempted to over moralize Selina's partner as a sex worker.

"All anyone cares about in this place, are these white privileged assholes."

It's especially that last line that makes it so Selina's character isn't interchangeable with her white counterpart. She's a textually rich character to contrast Bruce in Batman 2022, and we can see how years of history and evolution has brought such an empathetic character to the screen. Interestingly, Readus feels that while 2022 Selina was an example of a race-swap that works, he believes it was great by coincidence, because of the miss that was Gordon's characterization in the same movie. I think with Reeves as a collaborator on Caped Crusader, that assumption was correct.

Selina in CC is back to being a rich socialite, but (unlike her Golden Age counterpart) she's not married into wealth- she's got generational wealth (with a dad serving jail time for tax evasion). Worse yet, she's taking what little remains of her money and spending it on superficially imitating the Batman to create her Catwoman persona. She even has her own reluctant Alfred, a Catmobile, the works. Selina steals things because. She likes shiny things. And is something of a kleptomaniac. Catwoman is instantly discovered to be Selina because of course she's not as good as Batman is with keeping a secret identity (another key difference from her Golden Age counterpart, whose backstory was shrouded in mystery for a decade).

It is laughable to me that CC touts that their version of Harley Quinn has an origin of her own outside of the Joker, only to turn around and make a Catwoman that is completely tied to copying a man as her origin (did they decide Harley's goofyness as a character needed to be replicated in Selina for some reason? In their supposed dark and edgy show?). What a strange choice to fixate on the part in Year One where Selina didn't like being mistaken for Batman's assistant despite being inspired by him and turn it into a quirky bit. It feels like such a regressive take that frames Selina as a sillier, whimsical version of Bruce that just spends money on a whim because women just aren't smart enough to know how to keep track of their money. They're too busy looking for shiny things to steal. The fact that both 2022 Batman and CC have a scene where Selina is looking through her many bills she's yet to pay is wild to me. How am I supposed to care for a Selina that has the expendable wealth to create a Catwoman costume, car, and gadgets, but delay paying her maid? One of these versions of Selina is far more sympathetic than the other.

Again, I get what CC is going for. Batman is characterized to be hellbent on catching criminals, Catwoman is supposed to serve as some kind of reflection of his obsession. They're both self destructive in their goals, but one is vengeance and the other is chasing thrills. But is that really as interesting a foil as having Catwoman be marginalized, just as skilled, and making Batman second guess himself? Is it a take that strengthens Gotham as a setting by shedding light on its lower class characters? Is it a take that makes her worth revisiting as a perpetual rogue and not a one off episode where's she's basically a shenanigans-inducing nuisance to Batman? Evolved takes on Catwoman have talked about her desire to seek thrills and paired it with how she dismantles power. So it's not like CC's take is particularly unique, it just lacks all the depth that usually surrounds Selina's thrill seeking.

In a show that is frankly desperate to make it so Bruce doesn't have a personal relationship to his rogues gallery because he's too busy being "A cold, remorseless avenger of evil, seemingly more machine than man. Forged in the fire of tragedy, every fiber of his being is dedicated to the eradication of crime." (according to promo) that's how we end up with Barbara as the foil and humanity to both Harvey Dent and Harley Quinn. How the show focuses on the police force more than Bruce. It feels especially pointed that Catwoman is characterized this way. When she doesn't contrast Bruce, she becomes less personal to him as a character that is poverty stricken but still matches up to him in skill. She can't challenge him or his worldview, he can't find her fascinating as an equal, all of their chemistry and intrigue is erased.

All this to say that of the characters revealed for CC, I was honestly surprised that Selina wasn't one of the many characters racebent. CC followed up on a Black Jim and Barbara Gordon, two characters that have been race swapped before in previous media. Most prominently! Harley is Asian in this iteration, something never done before. So why is it that Selina doesn't follow up on the many times she's been portrayed by Black actresses?

It's because it's an actual good racebend if written well. It wouldn't be a "safe" racebend because writing Selina this way means you'd have to acknowledge racism, and it would be much more noticeable if you didn't. There is no canonized version of Asian Lois Lane that parallels her relationship to Superman as an immigrant. But there is a version of Selina as a Black woman who directly calls out white people and is aware of systemic power. It's in something as prominent and mainstream as Matt Reeves' 2022 Batman. So instead it just reads as cowardice to me that CC couldn't follow up on this evolution of Selina.

Not only does it weaken Catwoman and Batman's relationship to regress Selina this way, but it actively weakens Gotham as a setting and the very themes of Caped Crusader. I personally think all the energy that went into Harley Quinn should have been shared with (or straight up gone to) Selina Kyle. Because unlike CC's take on Harley, the way Selina Kyle's marginalization intersects with race and queerness would have actually critiqued Gotham's class corruption effectively. As a Black queer woman, Selina would be among the most vulnerable people in Gotham. We don't have prominent characters in CC that truly reflect the lower class, there are these unnamed characters Harvey Dent sits next to on a train. There are some orphans with Batfam names. A proper Catwoman reimagining that takes advantage of her evolution would have filled this gap in their narrative.

But that's not how "safe diversity" works. CC would rather racebend and canonize the queerness of a character like their take on Harley Quinn. A WOC who gets to kiss a cop and call out powerful men, but not in a way that makes white people uncomfortable.

If I could edit the Sandman quote that "The great stories will always return to their original forms" for Superheroes, I'd say "The great stories will always return to their most resonant forms" because without iterations we don't get characters like the Kents, Alfred or Catwoman as we know her today. Classics are good to look to, but we like these characters because they evolve. In my opinion, none of CC's takes on these characters of color feel resonant. They're not definitive to the level of Mister Freeze's tragic love story in BTAS, among many standout narrative choices in BTAS that continue across media iterations.

In my opinion, CC isn't as thoroughly clumsy as MAWS is in regards to POC representation and race-swaps (all characters of color in MAWS get put in the left side of that chart I made. In the Sunken Place. Where they all Missed The Movement). However, I can't help but see Caped Crusader's take on the world of Gotham as nothing more than an anecdote in the evolution of Batman's story for the modern era. "It's BTAS but superficially more diverse and with less compelling narrative choices."

[bunnisanblog]

We'll Break up in the End

Chapter 1: Black Coffee Previously: Summary and Story Info Word Count: 1.1k

You throw on yesterday’s going-out clothes after a sniff test and decide that it’s still good for a short trip to the bakery. It's just called "Bakery," so you have high hopes that the pastries would taste more exciting. Before you head out the door, you sneak a glance at the bathroom mirror and examine your state. Dark circles were the first thing you noticed, but you shrug it off since it's just going to be a quick trip. You give yourself some credit though, for taking the time to do your skincare routine and brushing your hair, which were almost impossible feats just a few months ago when you found out about your ex's double life. Aside from those, you were ready to go, until something catches your eye. Your makeup bag. You haven't thought of applying makeup since then, but you can't help but slightly frown because of how much you spent on lip glosses and eye shadow palettes that you begged your boyfriend- ... ex-boyfriend... to buy you even if you knew only two of the twelve colors would be used. You shake your head at the memory and head out the door, making a mental note to do a closet purge and toss out anything that reminds you of him.

The sunlight blinds your eyes when you start walking, so you make a little shade with your hand to block out the sun from your face. It just occurred to you how long you've been cooped up inside and ignoring any invites to go out. You check your phone that was once bombarded with texts from friends and a lover, and now it's just dry. 'Like me,' you thought and snort to yourself. There's no better way to cope with a shitty situation than making a joke about how shittier the circumstances are now, like for example, taking a jab at your sex life. You check the navigation to make sure you're still headed in the right direction before letting your mind wander. Left, right, left right. It's not like you forgot how to walk or weren't active inside your apartment, but walking outside is different. You know where everything is inside your space, just enough so you don't run into tables or the messily organized piles of junk you thought to save for later. The outside, however- your train of thought is interrupted by the burning sensation of steaming coffee going through your now-needs-to-be-washed sweater and hitting your skin. You look up at a fairly tall man, clad in a white apron, with a fair-looking face. As if your body wasn't already feeling the heat from the coffee, your face feels like it's on fire from embarrassment. The cute stranger's eyes widen and he places the sample tray of the other coffees on a table to quickly pat you down with his hand towel. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry are you hurt?" His bangs cover a bit of his eyes when he looks down at you with concern.

"No, no I'm fine," you reassure him, taking the towel from him and wiping your arm. (You're pretty sure you might have some burns cause it stings with contact.) "I'm sorry, I should've looked where I was going," you sheepishly say, looking in his general direction but trying to avoid eye contact.

He extends his hand towards you, and you feel the blush on your face grow, but you're frozen. You have no idea what to do because you just met and surely he's not asking to hold your hand-?

"If you'd like, I can take that towel from you if you're done with it," he smiles. You completely forgot about the towel you had a death grip on, and you shove it in his hand a bit rougher than you planned.

"Oh! I'm sorry again, I didn't mean to-" His wholesome and full laugh just cuts you off. Based on his exterior features, you wouldn't expect him to appear so... light and carefree? His defined jaw line and muscular build gives off a more stern vibe about him, especially his matching dark circles to yours, but he somehow makes them look good.

"It's okay, no need to apologize. Please, come inside the bakery. If you need any assistance, you can ask for Nanami." He says, with his signature smile.

You walk in and your senses are flooded with the mouthwatering scent of fresh bread, but all you can think about is Nanami- and how nice he was to you, of course. You can't afford to have another man take up space in your head rent-free again, at least not so soon. You pick out some custard buns, garlic cheese breads, and you notice a lone ham sandwich. It's in a shiny plastic wrap, and you thought what better way to express your gratitude for helping you than to get him a sandwich for lunch! You knew it was a reach, but it's not like you can just strike up a conversation randomly with him, no? You gather all your things and after paying, you see Nanami at the door.

He smiles at you in a kind of way that makes your heart beat ten times faster and feel like it'll bounce up and out of your chest. Before your overthinking forces you to miss this opportunity, you stick your hand in the pastry bag and present the sandwich to him. His eyes slightly widen in surprise and his lips part, but nothing comes out. "Here! I hope I didn't cause you too much trouble earlier with the coffee... so I bought you a sandwich for your lunch. If you haven't taken it yet. Or maybe your dinner if you've already eaten lunch. Not to say that you don't have any other food at home..." Oh god, you already messed up. You mentally curse at yourself for going on and rambling. You honestly expected him to just ignore it or just brush you off as just another girl in the long line that has a crush on him. (Do you have a crush on him?)

Instead, he smiles so wide that his eyes follow suit, and your ears are blessed with his laugh again. "Great minds think alike," he says, while pulling out the same ham sandwich from his apron pocket. "How did you know it was my favorite?"

"Lucky guess?" You start to ease into the conversation with Nanami and find yourself genuinely smiling - not out of nervousness or embarrassment.

"Well, it's not everyday you meet someone with the same taste in sandwich. If you're free, maybe we can eat it together in a few minutes when I go on my lunch?" You're sure you mistake the hopeful glint in his eyes when he asks you to spend his lunch break with him.

"Sure, I can wait at a table," you smile up at him, not getting over the height difference. You watch as he slips his apron off on his way back inside, and there's only a single thought in your mind.

You should've at least brought your makeup bag.

*:･ﾟ✧ Author's Note: Yay, I got the first chapter out! I hope I can improve in my writing style as the story goes on. This was just to set the scene, but wowowow an impromptu first like-date after a meet-cute?!

*:･ﾟ✧ Taglist: @an-ever-angry-bi 🫶

[quetzalpapalotl]

Tf eu #5 rambles under the cut

Obviously, the most important thing is that MY WIFE IS HEEEERE YEAAAAAH. Love how they lettered her name here omg

She's wonderful!!!! Her bait and switch intro was funny (but please don't actually corner The Girl One into a love interest) and her stunt saving Carly was so cool, I'm glad we're establishing her right. I wish she didn't look so much Like That, but at least DWJ is as willing to deform her for action as anyone else. Her buccal fat removal look makes her look like a skull, which would be cool if it were on puporse, but it's not so. I like the shade they picked for her, is more of a lilac but it looks pink with the rest of the color palette and meshes well with the setting.

This series is really good at the appel to the inner child thing, because I'm like genuinely excited to see the Autobots have the advantage for once!! But ofc, they can't really because the arc ends next issue and they're not gonna have a decisive win until that.

Tho, Optimus and Cliffjumper are carrying the Autobots in regards to being the heroes we root for. I mean, Arcee and Jazz are very cool and that has their appeal, but I do wish once things have settled and they can interact in more situations that aren't just life and death, because so far I feel like we only get a good grasp of who Optimus and Cliffjumper are as individuals, their personalities. I want to see what makes each Autobot unique.

Speaking of, still absolutely eating the Carly and CJ dynamic. She is great and when she said that what does if matter if she's at risk when her family is dead and Spike is in a coma, that reallly got to me. It's unwise, but Cliffjumper relating to her and bringing her to give her a sense of closure it's really good. I think that this kind of bringing the kid character into danger would be because Carly sneaked her way, or because Cliffjumper would disregard orders for the hell of it. But like this feeeling of "I know how she feels and I would want come in her place too" works really well.

Also, I care about Sparky now, lol. Not that at hated him before. I'm not a fan of the first page, as cool at it look, because comparing OP to the US military like the later are the good guy is mmmm... but I'm loving his rapport with Optimus. And also there's how he looks when he's told the generator will give them a decade of power. It's not like "amazing tech woaaah!" It's softer like... this isn't an affluent town, these are people who are used to struggle and they just lost their power source. Ten years of power like that is a godsend that he can hardly believe that will do the whole town a lot of good and he cares about that. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but you know.

And ooooh dear, I was already unwell over Optimus getting his Megatron's canon arm grafted, but I understimated what seein him actually shoot the canon would do to me. I need... several moments.... the fight scenes are pretty gone but this one was particulary brutal. Optimus is really fearsome. And given how he has been so carefully characterized as this bleeding heart figure, seeing him decimating his enemies so efficient is quite something. And by something I mean gap moe. We love to see it.

RIP Reflector, your camera jokes will be missed, but that sequence was amazing lmao

Love seeing Optimus hit Starscream where it hurts. But OP saying that last time Starscream was cowering from Megatron's canon brings a lot of questions about the sequence of events in the Ark (which we'll get to see in teh special it seems). And I've been wondering if Starscream had something to do with Megatron falling or dissapearing or whatever, this does make it seem more like it and well, if that's the case I wonder how the rest of the Cons will react.

Man, the Autobots really shined this time and I already forgot what I was thinking about the Decepticons!! But hey!!! Thundercracker is here!!!!!!!! My guy!!! Given that his characterization as per toy bio is the guy that's not so sure about the cause, I wonder how he'll take it when he find out what really happened to Skywarp.

Also, are the Constructicons newly made??

Anyway, good stuff.

[yarrayora]

I read servamp because of you!!! I was skeptical of that "shounen for girls" line, but I'm a girl and as it turns out...

I originally opened your blog for Arago, and then funnily enough, the first time I heard of servamp was exactly that poll post where you mention the suicidal thing - and yep, gotta admit, I didn't expect mahiru to be as well written as he is. As for generational abuse, what I really loved was the conclusion of touma and tsurugis part of the c3 arc. it's so great that tsurugi does still consider touma his family. Far too many people make this kind of thing sound black and white and, I don't know, robotic? when it's just not as easy as hating someone because they hurt you, regardless of everything. Most of all, the eves' theme of balance means **everything** to me, on a personal level. All those references from classical literature to ballet and opera are so fun to research too... All in all I came to really like the manga, so thanks for the recommendation (and for saving me from the official translation, which innacuracy aside is headache inducing to try and decipher. I have /so/ much respect for the fan translator.) I'll pass it along. Thanks also for some analyses that a real joy to read and some really great fanart - I love the way you draw expressions! Ohh and the colored ones have such a pretty palette.

Anyway. Happy early birthday!!!! Wishing you a great year ahead, I'm sending good luck from another part of South Asia!!

NO FUCKING WAY THIS IS REAL THIS IS THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER ARAGO FAN WHO ENDS UP LIKING SERVAMP BECAUSE OF ME THAT'S CRAZY

when i first saw the preview of this ask on notif i was like "is this gonna be a pity ask that isn't actually real" but the essay confirms it ohhh my god i know right? it's great that tsurugi still considers touma his family!

it doesn't matter whether it's healthy or not honestly, what matters is that it's on brand with their personality mired by years of codependency which realistically isn't going to go away just because tsurugi finally took the first step towards his own independence

and most importantly servamp delivers my favorite genre of psychological horror that stems from beast!mori from bungou stray dogs: the person who has harmed you irrevocably has redeemed themself and is loved by the person you love

[darkandstormydolls]

I just finished another sewing project for one of my stories!

I love writing, and I love sewing, so whenever I can, I like to combine those two interests together and sew something from one of my stories!

I think this is the first of these projects that I’ve posted about, although there are a few others I haven’t talked about either because they’re really small and minor (for example, I made Ashling’s prayer beads from some jewelry supplies I had left over from another project) or I’m still waiting to take pictures of them (I very much want to post about my worldbuilding costumes, but I don’t have pictures of my vampire clothes, and they’re heavy wool and it’s over ninety every day right now so that will have to wait). I really enjoy having clothes/costumes for my characters; it helps me get into their heads and just generally feel some inspiration. I’ve pulled together outfits that remind me of characters in my stories from a mix of my costume pieces and my normal clothes, but this is the first thing I’ve made that I sewed specifically for one of my characters.

So, I’ve been wanting to make something for Myxor for a while. I’ve given him a very specific wardrobe and color palette, which means it would be pretty easy for me to make something that would read immediately as “Myxor” (at least to me), but it was never really a high priority project. However, a little while ago, I was at Joann’s getting fabric for another project and decided to check out the remnants, as I usually do, where I came across about a third of a yard of the most perfect fabric for this. It was a light purple (which is his hair color and one of the main ones in his color palette) and it had a bee print on it (Myxor’s nickname is Honeybee). Now, there wasn’t anywhere near enough to sew anything save maybe a stuffed animal or miniature pillow, but I came to the idea of making something patchwork. I eventually settled on making a patchwork shirt; short-sleeved button-ups are something Myxor wears pretty much daily, as well as something I’m very comfortable sewing because I’ve made so many for myself (because I also wear them pretty much daily). I didn’t have enough of one specific fabric to make a full shirt, but I had a ton of small pieces of assorted printed cottons in my stash, so I pulled out a bunch of ones that I thought Myxor might wear and patch worked them together into a shirt. The bee fabric ended up being used for the collar, and another fabric I had had in my stash (the blue-purple on the top front with the lavender print) that I had thought was perfect for him was also featured prominently. I used some purple buttons that I had in my button box for the closure

I really like how this turned out! I think I figured out the length well (since I wear my shirts with skirts, they’re a lot longer than can be tucked into pants, but the first time I tried to make a button up for myself that worked with pants was for my Snufkin outfit, and that ended up an inch or two too short), the fabrics are all nice and comfy, it came together really quickly and without major issue (I did realize partway through sewing up the back that I had cut two of the same piece rather than mirrored ones, but because of the patchwork I only had to recut a small piece rather than a full half). I can wear it in a couple of different ways (open over a shirt, buttoned up, tucked in to pants or not), and I can also add my spindle necklace and put my hair in a crown braid if I’m doing some writing and want to embody the character more (I wrote Myxor into the story with a spindle necklace because in fae folklore, spindles are a common symbol of Chanamadion, the fae god of dreams and inspiration, and he’s very good at dream magic, so it was given to him by a family member when he first started studying it. I then found a necklace very similar to how I had imagined it at a fiber festival and got it, both because it was perfect for him and also because I’m a hand spinner myself). Now, it’s not exactly something he would wear (the patchwork is a little bold for Myxor’s tastes), but it has his vibes and is perfect for when I want to feel like on of my characters. I even embroidered his initials into the collar in the fae alphabet! (In the Latin alphabet, this would be M M, for Myxor Miraths)

[askroahmmythril]

A Worms Armageddon Map Tutorial, by Neo

So since it’s been asked about and there are apparently many a picky detail that can cause custom maps in Worms Armageddon to not show up (and even then, they can be tricky to find), Neo has put together a tutorial on how to make them work.  I thus turn you over to our guest lecturer.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello there, Neo speaking, I'm the one that actually made the maps used in Roahm's videos, so I'll be the one guiding you to get your new map working for the game

I presume you have the map already made, but I have to assume all possible reasons as to why the map may not work, so forgive me for writing it down as a tutorial.

Now then, first up, making the map. I won't tell you how to make it, as I'm sure you can figure out the drawing/image editting process to do so, but I do need to address a few things about the maps.

1) Map size is important: the game allows for ludicrous sizes of .png images to be used for maps and although there is a min and a max for sizes you usually wouldn't run into problems here since the size isn't usually an issue. But there is a caveat: the pixel count on either horizontal or vertical axis must be divisible by 8. This means that if your map is, say, 803 pixels wide, it won't work, it needs to be a number divisible by 8.

2) Transparency: when working on a map, I recommend using transparency to figure out where your worms will be walking on, and if you're gonna have a lot of worms in one match (6 teams of 8 worms each, for example) you need a lot of space to work with, so the fields should be pretty open.

For instance, whatever falls into the checkered background (which indicates transparency) is something your worm will be able to walk, jump or jump rope across. Whatever is the solid color will be used as part of the ground or walls that make up your map.

As a result, be careful with stray pixels, as those can be an annoyance for players to find a sudden unseeable thing that impedes their progress. 

The alternative to transparency is having the background colored in pure black (RGB 0, 0, 0) and have the color black be a different shade of color (RGB 1, 1, 1) if you need it, but honestly that seems a bit too complicated, so I just let transparency do the work.

3) Anti-aliasing: Worms can't do anti-aliasing. In case you don't know, its how the outline of an object is smoothed out for the sake of the picture on a PNG. When the game runs anti-aliasing, its interpreted as a bunch of random stray pixels.

Make sure the outline of the map is jagged and pixelated before you load it up. 

4) Color: A reason of why the map may not load is that it has too much color, as Worms has an upper limit of how many different colors are on the palette This doesn't mean you need to count the pixels, just that you need to run it through an automatic filter. 

A program like Gimp will run your png through a color limiting filter automatically. 

just hit Image > Mode > Index... 

And just set the color palette to something similar to this, color max that Worms has is 112 colors. 

Assuming you save the map and its ready to use (or that you downloaded one from the net) then to load up the map you do the following.

This is the steps that I presume you've already done, but no harm in going over where to put them at. Basically, just go to where your folder files of Worms Armaggeddon are located, you can do so (assuming you're using steam) through the client itself or by following a similar URL to the one I have on my folder

Go to the User folder and inside of that you'll find "SavedLevels", that's where they should be in to be able to load in the game. Presuming that the criteria of color, transparency and size are met, anyway. 

To load up the map in-game, simply start up a match and this is the devious bit, the maps won't load on this drop down menu since these are the default ones to the game, they cannot be changed. 

Instead, left click on the map so that it auto-generates one at random and then right click it to bring up the custom map menus. 

Once you do, this menu will pop up, and in this dropdown menu you will find your custom map files. 

Bada-bing-bada-boom 

Just click exit and the game will be ready to go.

Just keep in mind: if you're making a custom map the requirements of color, size and transparency must be met, otherwise the map will not work.

I apologize for making it long winded, but this should more or less help guarantee you can use it.

Oh by the way, if you're playing online with friends only the host needs the map. Since its a png file the game can simply share it with every other player every time its loaded up. Voice packs and fanfares however need to be in every player's computer, but that's besides the point here

[sagau-my-beloved]

Hell yeah 6reeze confirmed 🌬 (What do you think of Scara’s new design?)

*sigh* I guess I'm pulling for him now

I don't have a lot of emotional investment in him as a character cause tbh edgy characters just aren't my style, but goddamn that color palette

I'll be honest, blue was the last color I was expecting, something in the purple or red family was kind of the obvious choice, and then I saw plenty of fan re-designs with that anemo green, but the blue really came out of left field, but I think they handled it well and I really like the expression tbh, he's just pretty in general, also a good thing that they decided to keep the hat because it's pretty much a design staple

I think it would be interesting if they added his default design as a wardrobe option somewhere down the line, pleasing everyone and all that

It is interesting that his vision appears to be sumeru styled (?), so I guess the casing really doesn't have anything to do with where the character is actually from but just where they are, like imagine just saving up and going out on a vacation then getting into some shit, now you've got a vision for land that you'll probably never visit again-

I also think it's pretty funny that Venti has officially claimed all of the other archon's kids, good for him

And of course I'm collecting all anemo character, for reasons, so now pulling for him is just an obligation ig, meaning I'm gonna have to reevaluate my funds—

[iguana-eyanna]

Inside of Your Light

Pairing: Jeff Wittek x Plus Size Model! Reader

Summary: The vlog squad threw you a special surprise for your birthday, including a big present that may change your life.

a/n: songfic What Have I Done by Dermont Kennedy

You woke up around 7 o'clock in the morning when your phone rang. You groggily grab it and see that your boyfriend, Jeff, started to facetime you. "Hello?" you whispered as your eyes tried to pry open.

"Happy Birthday, baby girl." Jeff said brightly, making you blush.

"Aww, thank you, Jeff. But why did you call me so early in the morning?" You joked as you started to sit up on your mattress. "Sorry, I'm at the gym at the hotel and I thought you'd be awake right now." Jeff replied sheepishly. Jeff got offered a brand deal in New York so he wasn't able to celebrate your special day in LA.

"It's ok, I was meaning to get dolled up a bit before Carley and Erin pick me up to get our nails done." You started to yawn as it made Jeff's heart melt a bit. "You're so cute when you wake up." he said, admiring how the sun hits the back of your head.

You smirk back at the screen as you playfully roll your eyes. “And to everyone else in the world, I’m Frankenstein coming back from the dead.” Jeff laughed harder as he smiled at you. “I gotta go and wrap my reps. Just wanted to wish my best girl an amazing day.” You blow him an air kiss as he winked back. “Love you, babes.” You said as you got out of bed. “Love you more,” Jeff said before he hung up the call.

You take a deep breath and thought how lucky you were to be with a guy like Jeff. You and Jeff joined the vlog squad around the same time a few years back. You were a plus-size model for a few companies like Fashion Nova and Pretty Little Thing. Once you started off your YouTube channel, Carley saw your videos and dmed you on Instagram to hang out sometime. You met up at a lunch with the group and she introduced you to everyone, but somehow caught Jeff’s eye.

The whole time, you and Jeff started to hit it off. Then with a lot of flirting and calling each other late at night, you both decided to make it official. Jeff thought you would turn him away due to his past, but you truly accepted him for his journey, even if it wasn’t pretty. Now you were going strong for about three years, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

After you’ve gotten ready, Erin texted you that they were outside. You head out and enter their car as they began filming. “Hey, guys! We just picked up our queen, happy birthday!” You smile brightly as you buckle in the back. “Thank you guys!” you said. Carly turns back to you and gives you your favorite Starbucks drink and a cake pop. “Thought you could use a little sugary treat to start the day.” You make a small pout from the gesture, thanking her again.

On your way to the nail salon, you guys start talking about David’s latest antics as well as a fancy restaurant that just opened that you really wanted to try. The girls make a face at the camera but you didn’t make of it as you arrived at your appointment. Carly switches off the camera as you all started heading out of the car.

Once you were all done, you all started to fan over the amazing job of your nail artists (which you all generously tipped) and decided to go out for lunch. “Are we still clubbing tonight?” Carly asked as she sipped her Seltzer. You nod yes as you finished a bite of your appetizer. “Yep, I’m so excited to wear this cocktail dress Jeff gave me before he left. I just wished he was here to celebrate.” You said, fumbling with the end of a napkin in front of you.

The girls give you a sympathetic look, knowing how much you’ve been missing him the past couple of days. Even after they changed the subject, all you could think of was Jeff. But after a good meal and a little site seeing, you started to feel a bit better. The girls dropped you home so you could relax before clubbing the night away.

Right when it hit evening, you began getting ready as you curled your hair and did your makeup just right. You slipped on the dress Jeff gave you that adored every curve on your figure, silently thanking your boyfriend for his taste in fashion.

You suddenly hear a knock at the door, thinking it's one of the girls. You unlock the door and open it to reveal no other than your very well-dressed boyfriend. "Jeff! You're back!" You screamed as you gave him a crushing hug, later kissing him. "Hey, doll." Jeff whispered as you took his breath away, taking out a bouquet of your favorite flowers.

"What are you doing back home?" You asked, still dazed that's actually at your doorstep. "C'mon, did you really think I was going to miss my best girl's big day?" He questioned with a twinkle in his eye. You roll your eyes and hug him again, truly blessed to have such an amazing boyfriend.

"I'm here to pick you up to your destination, shall we?" He offers his hand that you gladly took it. He helps you in his car as you both drove off to the main road with his hand on your upper thigh. You notice that he doesn't take the road to the club. "Babe, I think you missed a turn." you told Jeff who was smirking even more at your cluelessness. "Don't worry dolI, I know where I'm going." he takes a hold of your hand and kisses your knuckle as you blush harder.

He then parks in a parking lot and goes out of the car to open your door. Before you could actually take in your surroundings, Jeff shielded your view. "Hey! Jeff seriously, where are we?" you lightly scolded him. "You gotta trust me now, okay?" you agreed as you grumbled under your breath. With a few more steps, you start to enter a doorway that was decorated with...

streamers?

Jeff takes his hands off and you see all of your friends surrounding you. "Happy Birthday!" they all screamed out loud. You smile from ear to ear as Jeff wrapped his arms around your waist. Utterly shocked, you did your best to express your happiness but you were beyond speechless.

You suddenly realized that the place you were in was the restaurant you've desperately wanted to try and you turn around to Jeff who was beaming at your joy. "All for you, baby girl." his husky voice told you as you hugged him, pecking his face with kisses. Then, all of your friends ushered you both in to dine and dance. You saw how the entire restaurant had accents of rose gold decorations, as well as your friends wearing the same color palette.

Although this surprise was really touching, something was bothering you. Usually, they would throw parties like these for David, so why would they celebrate something big for you?

Later on, you all ate the most mouth-watering food as well as dancing to your favorite songs. Once they take out the birthday cake, you lose sight of Jeff. You ask Carly where he is but she brushed it off, saying that he's probably getting you a drink. As you started to dish out the cake, David stood up and clinked a knife to a glass.

"Hey everyone! If I could get your attention please." David shouted as the whole party calmed down. "There is a special surprise waiting outside on the back patio for our birthday girl, so could our celebrant please wear a blindfold?" Everyone started to cheer except for you. "I swear David if it's a wild animal..." you warned him but it was too late. One of the guys used a long fabric to cover your eyes, guiding you outside.

They take off the blindfold to reveal your boyfriend standing in front of you. You don't understand what's going on until you see a flower arch in the back of him, with a message illuminating "Marry Me." You gasp lightly as you cover your mouth with your eyes starting to water.

Jeff takes your shaking hands into his, ready to start his speech. “I wasn't really in New York for a brand deal, I was picking up your birthday gift.”

He then lowers himself on one knee, taking out a small pastel pink box to reveal a beautiful gold band decorated with transcendent diamonds. Both of you start to cry, but Jeff is literally a mess as he tries to finish his words.

“Before I met you, I thought I’d be better off alone. Now, my soul has been torn and reborn, started breathing for the very first in my life. As I’m standing in front of you, I wanna get it right for once.

Oh, believe me when I say I've been knocked out and beat but this feeling is fleeting. Even this morning, I've been thinking 'bout the way you smile golden…I want to move inside of your light.

I never thought I needed saving, I was right where I should be Good God, I know it's dangerous, but it's you that I need I'm in love this time. So, do you wanna be mine forever?”

You uncover your mouth and shake your head.

"Yes, yes, a thousand times yes." you said. The waterworks literally overcame both of you as he slid the ring around your finger, getting up to kiss your lips. Your friends cheer as they close up to you, firing confetti cannons into the air. You look up to Jeff as you wiped away his happy tears away from his face.

No words were exchanged, but you could tell through his eyes that he was forever grateful for you to be a part of his life. You both kiss again, ending the night with great friends and memories that will forever last in the video Joe has been recording for Jeff's channel (which trended 14 million on YouTube for a whole month).

You were the light in his life and he will bask in it for eternity.

[madillhethen]

I just finished the original series PMMM, and just wow. It definitely is a great anime. There were at times where I felt pacing could’ve been done better but the bittersweet ending and the character relationships were really amazing. (I’ll watch the side story and movies afterwards or finish the NGE rebuild movies and then finish PMMM) but I wanted to post my thoughts on each of the girls. In order of my favs:

1. Mami: I thought she was suspicious at first because the weird ‘letting them tag along’ and going into this series with the knowledge of the girls turning into witches already known, but no, she was really what the show defined her as. She was lonely, and didn’t get a choice. But she did fight for others and she did try to mentor the girls as best she could. Something about her design I really like, I think it’s her color palette and tavern maid type of attire (no idea what you call it lol) also she’s mature but still has a youthfulness of her. Plus her combat is hella cool. Definitely my favorite (wish I saw more :’D of her).

2. Madoka: I feel like in the series I felt she was interesting because she was the given protagonist but many times she felt as if she wasn’t the limelight, she wasn’t the hero, she was just a girl who tried her best. And I don’t know, I really liked that. She couldn’t understand the things around her, Kyubey or Homura, and she didn’t have the answers but she was there and she tried, and was just really hopeful. She has so much heart, and in the end, it was really sad but the way she steps up, the way her potential becomes unleashed and her wish to save everyone with her sacrifice was really bittersweet but beautiful. Her goddess form is so pretty, and gosh I could just talk about the symbolism of the design (maybe I will.)

3. Kyoko: when she first showed up, major Mordred vibes lol. She’s like the fusion of Cu, Li Shuwen and Mordred that’s what she makes me think of but I like her tough but sensitive attitude. She has a good heart and a rough exterior. I liked her relationship with the other girls—it was nice with Sayaka if not one sided (and I bet ppl ship em…can’t say I’m a fan). Her powers are interesting, and I hope to see more of her fighting capabilities maybe in the movies? Well I kind of just want to see her with the other girls in general.

4. Homura (I actually want to say she’s tied at 3 with Kyoko): I wasn’t initially impressed with her cool, angst attitude, in fact I was frustrated with the fact she didn’t just tell everyone what was going on. Her design is pretty (kind of looks like Akiha Tohno to me) but I think what made me like her more was when I saw more emotions. She feels like she has determination and potential to do whatever it takes (and she does) her dedication to save Madoka is heartbreaking, if not a bit obsessive? I think I want to see more of her relationship with Madoka in her timeline to fully understand why go through so much lengths. I think her time powers and fighting is cool, the shield/clock type of weapon is really cool. I love the symbolism of her having the shield and what it means.

5. Sayaka: oh boy… she’s my least favorite. There were times that she kind of screamed Shirou Emiya, the ally of Justice, the wanting to protect others not fight people and the sword being her main weapon but my God…. She came off entitled and preachy. I felt a lot of the times she was just projecting her own problems on others, and I get it they’re all like 14 so of course no one has anything figured out, but it’s just hard to like her in my opinion. I think where Shirou has a lack of sense is that Sayaka had too much self—she heard Kyoko’s sad story and went ‘yeah, I’m better than you. My wish was to help someone else’ and sure, it was and it did but it also…was for herself? She kind of pushed it to be like it was for Kyosuke when it felt more like it was for her. I think it was more the initial reaction when Mami warns her not to do it for others, she kind of gets put-off and defensive. BUT Sayaka does have a strength of Will, when she wasn’t projecting her issues, she was there for others, and she tried to care more for others than herself and I think that’s where the problem came from. I do think her story was heartbreaking though, especially when they find out about the soul gems. I wish to see her in action mode? I don’t have much opinion on her beyond her magical girl outfit looks cool.

[popdesign-vent]

17621574 no fucking WAY. 50 dollars for a fucking seal that lives in the ocean?

My brother in christ you are selling an animal. This is like those zoo adopt an animal programs but it doesn't even help someone. Just fuels a weird overvaluing of art that needs further drafting.

Also, since I got an ask, let's do some design and art crit!

From what I can tell this person is pretty clearly inspired by scpkid (the sketchy lines, neutral pose, natural colors with little tonal variation)

I considered using a similar scpkid character but I find that comparing art isn't super constructive so I'll save that for cases where the person deserves harsher crit. I will still talk about scpkid's style and what makes it successful or appealing though.

From a purely anatomical perspective, I'd recommend distancing back legs from each other, both to give the design a more distinct silhouette and allow for detailing on the inner leg. This also helps to avoid clutter, which is present in excess in this design.

The legs being stuck together also leads to the design feeling very unbalanced, which is compounded by the larger head and upper torso. There's nothing wrong with exaggerated proportions, but you have to balance them.

If you want a style to study, sonic official art, particularly the IDW comics have some really well balanced anatomy. Break down some of the work from those to get a better understanding of gesture and how to balance designs.

Designs will be much more visually pleasing if the posing for the initial design is easy on the eyes. It can also give an idea of the character's personality, which often draws in people not looking specifically for pop designs.

Buyers looking to get a design they'll genuinely love and use will likely want a design because they feel a connection and have ideas for it immediately, so crafting a visual story for the character is important.

as for the actual design!

The think about animal fur is that it does not form perfectly round spots. It's a bunch of thin hairs with coloration variation. That's not to say you need to draw individual hairs, but adding texture to the spots also brings depth to the design. There's a lot of round and hard edges in this design, so your eyes don't really feel "led" anywhere.

Generally, you want to have detail in a place you want to stand out, and then more "neutral space" for the eyes to rest. This also means that after checking out the rest of the design, a viewer's eyes will return to the lovely details without being overwhelmed!

The placement of the spots is also not doing favors. concentrating them in specific areas, or making them closer to the main fur color and using darker spots in areas of focus would help a ton.

I think the pointed marking on the stomach was a lovely choice, it leads the eye upwards. I also like the yellow/white sclera of the eyes and teeth, it offers a nice pop of warm color that draws the eye.

Scpkid tends to be able to get away with more complex designs because he uses shape language and eye direction to his advantage. His use of markings ad texture leads the eye effectively while still giving it lots of negative space to rest. You'll often see a bunch of complex markings on the arms and shoulders, with progressively less detail closer to the navel.

Your colors are a strong start but you could use something with more saturation and contrast to really draw focus, because while I like the yellow, it's not eyecatching at a first glance. Consider adding a warmer gray to the upper chest and face or making the eye color contrast with the rest of the palette.

So TLDR;

the anatomy is unbalanced, study more professional work to understand how artists pull off exaggerated proportions

The spots are cluttered and need more thoughtful distribution

more texture and conscious use of soft/hard edges would help the clutter

understanding WHY you're putting detail somewhere is important

your color palette needs more variety to draw the eye.

If you like an artist's style, study them!! Break down their work into basic shapes, pull palettes from their design work and look at how they distribute those colors, pay attention to how the markings are drawn and *where* they are and aren't placed.

None of this is to say scpkid's designs are perfect, but if his art appeals to you, understand WHY they do that. Don't replicate, learn from.

I know the designer will prolly never see this but! I had time and I figured someone else might enjoy more variety past just "this design is shit."

[miraculouscontent]

(miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

Oh My Gosh!!!! I was just thinking about Party Crasher and man I hate how they had Ladybug get captured for the men to save! It's a continuous thing you see in media: strong heroic woman gets put in peril so that the men can shine. I didn't even realize it until you said it! I get that it was probably meant to be a "role reversal" of Chat always getting kidnapped or brainwashed for Ladybug to save, but the fact that this is the "guys' episode" it read like "well damn, we can't have the guys be strong if a girl is in the way; let's have the girl get captured so the boys can prove their worth by rescuing her!".

At least in Sandboy, Ladybug was still competent and came up with the plans, but this?! It makes me sick, and it's all too easy to fall into these traps; even Kim Possible did it! In my magical girl story, the heroine does get put in a magical coma and require someone to bail her out, but it's her female friends AND her boyfriend who save her, so it's not just a girl being weakened so a boy can be powerful, especially since said boy actually does a minority of the work required to save her; the focus is on the female characters so it's her girl friends who do most of it. I still ended up scrapping that side plot anyway, and do you know why? Because regardless of who saved her, I still didn't want my female protagonist to be put in distress at all due to the unfortunate implications! Needing help in a fight? Sure. But outright being captured or kidnapped? Nah fam.

I was honestly thinking about that when the first episode came out. Like, they could’ve just had Marinette NOT SHOW UP in time so the guys take care of things, which at least gives more of a message that Paris wouldn’t go to hell just because Ladybug is a little late or something.

And yeah, the “boys squad episode so gotta toss the girl out” is... sigh.

Anonymous said:

I think the writers were trying to show Chat angsting to show his regret instead of an actual apology. Still doesn't explain why Aeon didn't bring up her death afterwards. Did Olympia delete that from her memory banks?

I guess? :|

I don’t know why Chat can’t just apologize without fishing or trying to earn sympathy. Like JUST SAY YOU’RE SORRY, DAMMIT.

Anonymous said:

If you haven't read Maribat, then you won't regret it. I am not in the DC universe but I started reading it and WOW. Literally every single time Marinette is a badass queen and gets her complete revenge and is actually happy! Even if you absolutely love Lukanette (which I have nothing against) you should totally try it.

Appreciate the comment, but I find it hard to ship other Marinette ships outside of Lukanette. Ivanette is a very loose exception and it’s not like I ship it hard or anything.

Anonymous said:

Despite not being a Lukanette shipper I love you. Why? Because you amazing, so right in literally everything and I love you <33

gkdfjgfdngjkfdg thank you

bat-anon said:

The NY Special made it so that Max is literally the only Black/Brown kid that doesn’t exist to make Love Square happen and that just makes me hate it even more.

I wish you didn’t make me have this realization because I hate it.

At least Delmar existed in the New York special???? I guess???? I dunno, I’m trying here, I don’t recall him doing anything love square centric.

Anonymous said:

I honestly don't mind Alix's outfit as Bunnix! I feel like it fits her, plus she's an adult so its not much of a problem, not saying it can't be improved however. I DO have issues with the designs for the underage girls outfits however....those are very sus

Yeah, the problem I take with Bunnyx’s is that it’s a bodysuit. If there was just more definition, like having actual boots, I wouldn’t complain as much.

Anonymous said:

I actually just really like the idea of the new bee being a genuinely nice person who becomes friends with Marinette. Not exactly close friends (since I like the idea of friendly working relationships without actual personal stakes in them). I also enjoy the idea of the new bee having some small animosity for Chat Noir- just because their personalities aren't the greatest mix. I also think that it would make sense for the miraculous of subjection to be at odds with the miraculous of destruction

Full agreement but we know how much the writers are resistant to have characters go against Chat.

Anonymous said:

Not gonna lie the scene where the girl squad gets akumatized almost makes it seem like they got akumatized on purpose, similar to Manon in Puppeteer 2(although she was a little kid who was probably just imagining she could enact revenge). And why can't they have a uniformed design, like they're a team but wear different colors, similar to the Sailor Senshi(like, Alya's the leader and wears orange, Rose wears pink, Alix wears green, Juleka wears purple, and Mylene wears yellow). It's so boring.

Mood.

Not to mention that WE ARE SO TIRED OF THEM GETTING AKUMATIZED INTO THE SAME AKUMA.

AT LEAST PALETTE SWAP THEM.

Anonymous said:

Relating to the Didn't Need Burrows and Treatment of Marinette bingo cards, have you considered making one for whenever the show fails at girl power? It could say things like "sexualized frames of teenage girls" "boy tells girl what to do" "girls don't get to keep Miraculouses", and "girls are forced to apologize whenever a situation goes wrong". And in the center, it could say "Don't show this to your daughter!"! Lol! What do you think?

lol I feel like I have enough cards, otherwise I would.

Anonymous said:

I saw another post that talked about Miraculous New York, and they theorized that it was rewritten to focus more on Marinette and Adrien in order to get viewers invested in the Love Square again after more people started to lose faith in the ship. Do you think that's a possibility?

I think so. The whole special comes off as trying to reassure love square shippers because of how hard it goes for him. I cut out Marinette’s crushing and it cuts like 18% from the episode, meaning it’s even worse than Season 3 (15%).

Anonymous said:

Maybe the point of the [break-up episodes] is meant to discourage people from shipping Lukanette and Adrigami too?

Spoiler alert: didn’t work.

Anonymous said:

Are we not gonna talk about how in one ask, somebody legit said "(long dreamy sigh) Viperion"? Like same.

RIGHT????

Same.

Anonymous said:

Ml fandom: I hate how Ladybug keeps secrets from Chat Noir! He sacrifices himself for her all the time and she never appreciates him for it! He has EVERY right to get mad at her!!

ML Fandom when Chat Noir does the same thing in the special: ....Wow Ladybug was way to harsh on Chat Noir!! She doesn’t appreciate him at all!! Shes so mean to him!

:|

i hate it

Anonymous said:

Idk if it's just me, but a majority of the fandom is split in two; it's never one or the other "MARINETTE SUCKS AND IS A HORRIBLE PERSON GUARDIAN MARY SUE WHO SEXUALLY HARRASSES" or "ADRIEN SUCKS HE WAS NEVER ON MARINETTES SIDE" but im personally on the latter, but not to that extreme. i hate videos bashing marinette and then never acknowledge adriens faults

Yeah, the fandom gets more divided as time goes on because of the writers trying to increase the drama/tension.

Anonymous said:

I am PERSONALLY offended they gave Luka the snake miraculous. Snakes have such a negative connotation. A lot of people insult Lila by calling her a SNAKE. And now those ML writers DARE insult the best character in ML?! HOW DARE THEY!?????

I adore Viperion but I agree that I first heard he was getting snake and was like, “BUT MY BOI???”

It gets awkward too because other animals like the pig have negative connotations, like how Daizzi basically means “idiot/stupid” and they’re giving it to the freaking blond character, really???

Anonymous said:

I think that Ivanette would be even better if Marinette was plus-sized character.

I see why you’d think that. I just disagree because then it turns the ship into “let’s pair the heavyset characters together because they heavyset.”

Anonymous asked:

On the topic of romance failures and general series salt, my main issue right now is how the series puts so much focus on romantic relationships while failing to consider other levels of relationship or what they affect.

On the L² front I can completely buy Marinette being in love with Adrien. Most of the time she genuinely wants him to be happy and is ready to take a step back for him, however much it hurts. But in terms of romantic love? It. Is. A. Crush! But if we step back from the formula, what is there left between them? Their civilian relationship is held together by a “comedy” of errors and without that there is surprisingly little left. Well, besides two “best friends” desperately trying to make it happen because somehow they lost their individual characters and instead of being friends became matchmakers?

I too like Luka and Marinette together. Their relationship is pretty nice to see and all. But sometimes it feels like it happens in a dimension of its own, like the writers want to make the endgame clear in that the “sideships” can be easily cut out of the big “how they got together”-recaps. I especially miss reactions from and interactions with Juleka. She is Luka’s sister, Marinette’s friend, and IIRC someone aware of if not even a bit player in the great shipping game. She is in a prime position to step up and bring progress on all fronts: She can talk with Luka. She can either give Marinette helpful pointers or go “All in or nothing”, i.e. trying to make Marinette get her Adrien-feelings in order as she does not want her brother to get less than Marinette’s full heart. Similarly, she can counteract “friendly acts” and stop humiliating situations from escalating, or she herself can escalate them in the “All or Nothing”-scenario. Yet she remains basically a background character who gets little attention from the camera and almost no “non-focus identity”

As for Kagami, I may be too biased. *Any* positive Kagami/Marinette relationship is to me what Lukanette is to you. So naturally I have lots of opinions when it comes to her role ;) But can I just say that Adrien/Kagami is the weirdest ship for me? They have a few cute scenes and I think if they’d spend a lot more time together, they’d do each other good but I don’t know how they work. “No Hesitation” Kagami would lob Adrien’s head straight off with all his…everything. If we are meant to take Adrien’s love for LB seriously (and I guess we have to because how in the name of sanity is any form of the stated endgame gonna work otherwise???), how does Kagami fit into that picture as a girl who can hardly express emotions while Adrien is the definition of a  guy who can not stop flirting or goes for all kinds of romantic gestures? Sometimes it feels more like a “social fit” and “Mommy/Daddy approves” kind of deal which is quite the shame! Normally I like these kind of relationships in fictions but they need a solid underlining or good development. One they haven’t and one the series has not been giving to anyone so far.

Yeah, the whole thing with the love square versus side ships ends up feeling extremely forced. Keeping Luka away and forcing Adrien into Lukanette episode are the biggest giveaways, basically a big fat sign that says, “We know Marinette would forget that Adrien exists if she hung around Luka for more than five minutes.”

AND YEAH, KAGAMI WOULDN’T PUT UP WITH ADRIEN’S GARBAGE. I liked Adrimi but it’s definitely more flawed than Lukanette.

Anonymous said:

Watched your opinion on the New York special and I agree with you. It was mediocre at best. It could have been something nice, like if they added Kagami and Luka, for example, so that we can get a bit of development from the new couples on season 4, so that it doesn’t feel rushed when they start dating on season 4. It could also be a good opportunity to see the other temporary heroes one last time, since Marinette technically has the miracle box.

They could have had an epic fight with the American Superheroes, maybe even giving the bee miraculous temporally to Aeon or Jess so that we didn’t need to see their awful and uncreative superheroes designs. It would have been nice if they made something more useful other than being characters that believe that Adrien and Marinette are “Meant to be”, like, we already got a ton of these already, couldn’t we get someone who didn’t feel something about this ship? It has so much wasted potential that I don’t even know how to start. Do you agree with anything I said?

I agree, yes. They could’ve easily thrown Luka/Kagami into the mix (or had Marinette/Adrien stay behind while flipping perspectives or something; flawed but they could make it work).

Anonymous said:

I'm rereading ladybugout and wow... the moment of silence after "chat deserves that kiss" gets me every time. Everyone stopping and just staring because wow he really just said that

Me whenever Chat Noir opens his mouth in the show.

Anonymous said:

I saw the Backwarder post you just talked about and yes, it is so totally ridiculous. They forgot another thing, though. Miraculous isn't just about comedy, action, and romance, it's about embarrassing Marinette. And the fact that almost everyone in the comments was acting like the medicine scene at the end was funny was just stupid and saddening to hear or read about, because it shows how people have been conditioned to hate and rally against Marinette without even realizing it. Granted, there was one lady who said it reminded her of her husband, so I guess that's okay(but all it means is that Adrien will be Marinette's--aka "his lady's"--husband like eeerrrgh!). And there was one person who said they liked that Juleka's advice because "If you're friend isn't willing to commit crimes for your happiness, is she even your friend?". But everyone else liked the ending. And I don't get the person who said we got "Subtle progression with Adrien and Marinette". We're right where we started.

Weeeeell, I understand the “comedy, action, romance” comment because all of those basically boil down to embarrassing Marinette or invalidating her. Comedy and romance goes without saying while action involves her dealing with Chat “Nice Guy” Noir.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me, or does Snow White's "Red Shoes" form look a lot like Marinette. I know, I know, Marinette is Chinese and Red Shoes is Korean, but they still look strikingly similar. They're bodies are really similar, too, but that might just be because animation tends to use eerily similar body types for its female characters on a whole. It's sad and it makes me think of how cute Marinette would be if she was fat. I also think Snow White was cuter than Red Shoes but that's kind of the point.

I think it’s the body type thing but that’s just a guess since I didn’t immediately make the connection.

I agree that Snow White is cuter.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one who's never liked "destined to fail" characters? Basically this is when characters aren't allowed to be good at/succeed at something or else the whole universe will somehow fall apart. Think of how in The Amazing World of Gumball, if Richard gets a job, the world will be in complete and utter chaos. So he's better off as a lazy, bumbling dad. In Phineas and Ferb, Candace is always trying to rat out her younger brothers but if she gives up or succeeds something bad will happen.

TV Tropes put it the best: "Not only is she not allowed to succeed, but she's also not allowed to stop trying!"(conveniently under the Cosmic Plaything trope). I just don't like it because it shows that the writers just want to lead them on with the promise of success then snatch it away at the last minute. And now we're back at Miraculous Ladybug, where Marinette is humiliated every time she doesn't sign a gift that's for Adrien, and yet when she does, everyone in Paris DIES. Except for...HIM.

you: *mentions Candace*

me: [a million awful flashbacks]

Also, yeah, it’s so hard to watch, especially in “Chat Blanc” because it’s like, “Oh, you want to give a gift to a boy and you dArEd to use your powers for it? Congrats, but everyone else is DEAD and you can hang out with him as much as you want! You’re welcome!”

Anonymous said:

I think it’d become a “faintest idea blackout card”rather than a bingo.

(referring to my “Faintest Idea” card)

We’re getting there.

darkmoonravewolf said:

I hate that everything on that list could happen and very likely will

(referring to “Didn’t Need Burrow”)

Yeah, and it makes me sad :’)

Anonymous said:

That’s be real here. Miraculous ladybug is not a show about Marinette; Miraculous Ladybug is a show about Adrien. Adrien is the real main character.

Notice that when they focused on Adrien in “Lies,” they only cut back to Marinette (IN A SCENE THAT CAN’T EXIST) to have her fawn over him.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me or are Lady Noire's eyes huge? Maybe it's just the green but they seem way bigger than Marinette's

I’m not sure, but considering Rena’s facial structure being different from Alya’s, it wouldn’t surprise me.

asexual-individual said:

With what you've said about Adrien lacking a reason to exist outside of development for Marinette and Gabriel, I have to wonder how different the show would be if Chat Noir's identity was also kept from the audience. Adrien would still be there as himself, but he only gets as much focus as Alya, and Chat Noir's identity is treated as a mystery (a Tuxedo Mask type mystery, but a mystery all the same).

I see what you mean but it might cause Adrien+Chat’s screentime to feel excessive once the reveal happens, because suddenly their screentime gets combined and it’s like, “oh wow so the combined screentime is his then.”

Anonymous said:

I know that the kwami's really only exist so we can hear our protagonists' thoughts outloud (like what the Coraline movie did with adding Wybie to the story). But honestly, what's the point in having magical gods in the jewelry if you're not going to do anything with them?

Marketing with “cute” side characters.

guisendisguise said:

It's funny, originally, I had shipped Marichat in the sense that Chat and Mari start hanging out and both fall in love with the other's supposedly less perfect, more real selves. Then Luka was introduced and I ended up putting both lukanette and marichat at the same level. Then S3 hit and killed any love I had for Marichat. The writers themselves killed the Love Square for me. At this point, it's very clear they are living in a delusion where the Love Square could ever work narratively without Deus ex Machina or Deus Lo Vult (God wills it). Basically, they've gone past scraping the bottom of the writing skills barrel and are now shoulder deep in the hole they dug thru the bottom of said barrel. I'd like to point out that the bottom of the barrel is writing poop and now they're digging thru the useless plastic landfill the barrel was sitting on top of

Uggggh, yeah. Any appreciation I could’ve had for Marichat died in “Weredad.” I already didn’t like Adrien/Chat and then “Weredad” just showed his complete lack of... well, ANYTHING.

cosmostellar said:

Honestly feels like MLBs writers are going based off the "JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE" instead of, yknow, fleshing them out while developing them also in the context of their cultures and giving them these little things that the audiences who belong to the same minority can identify with. I don't mean "have Marinette walk in qipao 24/7" bcs thats just... bad on its own but man, /some/ casual acknowledgments of her culture would be nice.

Reading the sentence “JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE” physically hurts me.

Anonymous said:

Ok, I've always thought that Chloe was robbed of redemption (they held it in front of us, but then jerked it away while Astruc says, "She's irredeemable! We thought she was redeemable, but she wasn't :)!" What are your thoughts! Also, I just recently found your blog and I really like it :)

Thank you!

But I have no sympathy for bully characters, so I didn’t want Chloe redeemed. Maybe I’m still bitter about my own bullying experience, but I just wasn’t here for Marinette being forced to forgive Chloe, which is basically what they did until they backpedaled.

The time spent on her was wasted though and that I can agree on.

Anonymous said:

Me: Writes a 1k rant about how the tweet makes no sense as the "mistake" is about motivation and not the critical plot. Also me: Remembers that in MLB the plot always comes back to the romance. Finally me: Wonders why he got involved with the series post-S3 when all the red flags were already everywhere.

Mistakes were made.

Anonymous said:

I'm semi-catching up on miraculous, and- is it my impression, or does Kagami rebel against her mother more in few episodes she's in (even though her mother's influences on her seem to be stronger in general), than Adrien in the entire show? I /know/ that I don't want to see Adrien free himself from his father w/ the desperation I want to see Kagami free herself from her mother and realize that the standards she's held up to are unhealthy and too strong.

Yeah, I’m way more invested in Kagami than Adrien.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one confused about whether the staff stopped caring and half-asses the series or cares too much and over-produces the hell out of it?

Nah. It really feels like they secretly hate the love square so they have to keep forcing it.

Anonymous said:

ngl I haven't watched any new episodes since Chameleon and I've been getting all that Miraculous News via tumblr to avoid that Marinette Brand Second Hand Embarrassment™

Understandable.

Anonymous said:

If they aired the 6th one first WHAT WHAT HAPPENED TO LEAD UP TO THIS???? WE ARE ON SEASON FOUR WITH TWO SPEICALS, GETTING A THIRD, AND ANY DEVELOPMENT WE HAD HAS GONE BACKWARDS, SUCKED, OR STATUS QUO YO-ED AWAY!!!!! HOW THE HECK DO WE GET ADRIENETTE FROM FOUR SEASONS OF NOTHING?????? I USED TO FANGIRL AT THIS NOW I AM TERRIFIED.

Answer: We don’t get Adrienette. We get forced love square and rushed/fake “development” of it while being constantly confused as episodes air out of order.

Anonymous said:

im sorry But adrienette has been suck in this limbo of one sidedness for 3 seasons. neither of them have become closer, neither of them have confided in one another, but somehow people still ship it? at least luka was able to make a move on marinette lol adrien still repeats the same boring “shes just a friend” line. adrienette is a really boring ship.

lol don’t apologize, you’re absolutely right.

nahte123456 said:

Very minor bit of salt to throw to the pile, but can this show just decide on how strong Miraculous holders are? Yes it's a cartoon and not the focus but in the Furious Fu episode we literally get Ladybug dodging lighting and then Su who seems mostly human and is at least slower then Fu was outspeeding her. It's distracting trying to figure out what is and isn't a serious threat in this show.

The deciding factor in the strength of the miraculous holders is “whatever works for the plot.”

Anonymous said:

At this point the only thing I'm excited for concerning Miraculous Ladybug is when it gets a reboot in like, a decade with actually competent writers

Best case scenario is that Zag goes bankrupt and Disney/Netflix picks up the series and gives it to competent people.

Problem is that the love square has been ruined so badly for me that even a “good” version of it wouldn’t be something I’d be into, but still.

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the problem with having all of Marinette's mistakes result in huge disasters (ex. Feast), is that is gives off the impression that teenagers aren't allowed to make mistakes. This show clearly doesn't like giving second chances to the protagonist, so why would life give one to you? Am I right, kids?

Exactly.

Marinette makes mistakes and suddenly the world is ending.

Anonymous said:

If your gonna watch the show, at least pirate the episodes so the writers dont get your support

Don’t worry, I have no interest in financially supporting the show.

Anonymous said:

ml in a nutshell: wasted potential, then giving themselves more potential, only to turn the rest of it into a dumpster fire

Yup, that’s it.

Anonymous said:

u know, when My Little Pony, Sofia The First, and fanfiction carries out character development, respect, romance, and the main plot better than the original show, especially when the shows mentioned above are aimed more at little girls and the original show is aimed at slightly older audiences... somethings wrong

*sigh*

And then it’s like--people will excuse the show because “it’s a kids’ show” and then I’m just “okay then, why are there actually good kids’ show?”

If shows get a pass for being for children then all childrens’ shows should just not try and be garbage since the standard is so low.

Anonymous said:

ive seen some cool fic ideas/concepts/reviews that made me think: ml could use so much more looking into how a character thinks in some situations. one fic i read had alya in chameleon (i know its been forever since the ep came out but hey) not question lila cus she thought: "hey, lb wouldnt befriend a bad person" w and added a plot line of lila making her think lb was cobsidering replacing rena rougue. like, just a few lines to make them seem better pls?

YES. Like, show us characters’ perspectives and why they’re rolling with the facts that they’re rolling with, otherwise they just end up looking like jerks.

We sort of got it in “Ikari Gozen” with Kagami but of course it was just to make Marinette look bad.

Anonymous said:

You know I’m honestly considering making reviews of this show and if I do I could create hour long rants about the show just from that mans twitter.

Yeaaaaaah, once you had in the Twitter stuff, it just becomes, “okay so this is going to add another hour or two then.”

Anonymous said:

Okay one thing that bothers me is how plain marinette's suits are despite being a DESIGNER. Her multimouse suit it just blocks of color and her ladynoir suit is just grey with green lines. I think the lines are supposed to represent actually clothes. Like the limes on the calves are supposed to make it look like boots but why not actually GIVE her boots. (Right, because she has to have a skintight suit unlike the boys who get some layers.)

THE SHEER DISRESPECT OF HAVING THE FASHION DESIGNER WEAR SUCH A PLAIN SUIT.

It also goes to show who really designs here, like oh, interesting, the girls get skin-tight simplistic bodysuits and the boys gets all the cool stuff--

Anonymous said:

I heard some people in my class saying they watched Miraculous Ladybug for the first time, and they were saying how good it was, and I was like: 'Oh you poor fools. You have NO idea what it's truly like.'

You know what they say: ignorance is bliss.

bat-anon said:

Isn’t it INTERESTING how in Frozer, Luka understands that Marinette is torn between her crushes and continues to support her even though he knows she probably won’t chose him, and in the exact same episode Chat Noir refuses to help save the city because Ladybug told him AGAIN that she wasn’t romantically interested in him? HMMM 🤔😑

dbfgjbdfjkgf

I’M REMINDED OF “FELIX” WHERE IT’S LIKE--THEY WERE CLEARLY TRYING TO SHOW HOW MUCH “BETTER” CHAT NOIR IS THAN FELIX, BUT LUKA WAS THE RESPECTFUL ONE.

Anonymous said:

You know what I want to see? An evil kwami, like they just want to commit crimes. No moral high grounds, just chaotic evil.

That’d be amazing just because I wouldn’t be able to take them seriously.

Anonymous said:

Watching S1 and S3 episodes back to back, it feels like reading salt fics at times, especially in regards to the L². Like, Marinette was happy about weird plans, she both needed and wanted the final push, and most of the time there was at least something coming out of it. Nowadays it just makes her sad, Alya and the girls act *against* her, and we get shipping for shipping's sake.

That’s a good point. The shift from Seasons 1 to 2 to 3 is rather noticeable.

Anonymous said:

I hate how Adrien's busy schedule seems to only matter when it's used to make Marinette feel bad, but the second Marinette has a bit more to do, it somehow has a negative effect on not only her, but also everyone/everything she cares about, like, what's up with that??

I’m reminded of “Lies” here and I hate it. :|

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the way the show treats teenage girls is horse ass. The show treats the teenage girls of this show as if they're stupid, naive, emotional, clumsy, and need a boy to tell them what opinions to have. Marinette is always treated like the show's punching bag and blamed for everything that goes wrong because she's "emotional" or "obsessed with Adrien", Chloe could've been redeemed but the writers would rather keep her a brain-dead Alpha Bitch Valley Girl(even though Gabriel and Felix, the latter of whom is a teenage boy introduced in one episode, get to be treated as redeemable, despite the things they do being far, far worse), and Lila is a conniving, self-absorbed fox.

And even though Kagami seems better, she's still roped into the "girls catfight over an oblivious guy" cliche and so far, all of her akumatizations have been because of Adrien. Whenever Marinette tries to move on from Adrien the other characters tell her what's good for her and steer her in the "right" direction because she apparently can't think for herself, and the writers LOVE to use the girl squad to tell us who Marinette should be with, because they apparently know better than she does.

Plus the show loves to treat all the girls as the same, making them all either fight over Adrien or be obsessed with shipping, as if teenage girls are all one assimilating, homogenized group(also when they treat Marinette as if she's "just as bad as Chloe", rinse and repeat for the other ladies.). Honestly, the show feels like it was written by those types of people who think "teenage girls are the worst" so they make them all mood-swingy, obsessive, showoffs, emotional, and downright clingy.

Plus the way Thomas Astruc talks about the female characters on Twitter is even worse, and only serves to make this more evident: he claims Marinette "has poor control over her emotions"(all the while calling Adrien "perfect"), that Chloe was racist in Kung Food "because she's stupid"(so rather than having that scene serve as a lesson on respecting other's cultures, he just did it to pick on Chloe and make her look "stupid"), that she's incapable of being redeemed, that Lila's unlikable but Gabriel and Felix aren't(even though he claimed Felix was a terrible character and a "cliche", that's not what the show says my guy), and other such nonsense.

Other Twitter users have also called out Miraculous Ladybug and its stereotypical treatment of teenage girls. The only shows I've ever seen do this worse are those pretentious "darker" Magical Girl "deconstructions" aimed at grown men such as Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna, as well as most shonen/seinen shows such as Naruto and Death Note, which says a lot. Honestly, whenever I feel like watching a show with empowering and respectful depictions of teenage girls that treats them as bright and intelligent and actually unique from one another, I just watch Equestria Girls, Liv and Maddie, LoliRock, ANT Farm, Moesha, PreCure, or Sailor Moon. Because the way the show acts towards them is deplorable, absolutely deplorable.

Yes to all of the above. Almost all of the girls are involved in love affairs in some way, the two teenage girls are irredeemable while Felix got a sympathetic backstory right away (Chloe took forever to get hers which is a failure), and Marinette is flawed because she’s “too emotional” (a misogynistic stereotype).

Anonymous said:

Hi, I'm the anon who got upset at the lady who made the "Miraculous Ladybug is a Mess" rant, and yes, thank you zodiacspirit17 for liking and agreeing with my rant! I'm glad someone else saw that video! And ugh, Marinette learning to love Chat Noir? Really? I don't remember that line but I also don't want to go back and revisit it to make sure so I'll take your word for it. Ew. That was actually one of the things I hated about the Glaciator scene. Chat was supposedly comforting Marinette by taking her to the rooftop where he planned Ladybug's date, and yet only Marinette finds out about Chat's crush on Ladybug and comforts him on that(while rethinking her feelings), while all Chat knows is that Marinette's heart was also broken. He never asks who it is, or tries to help her get over her crush even if he doesn't know it's coincidentally him.

I know it's because of the "love square" but it's unfair that only Chat's love problems are directly addressed. Come to think of it, the reason Chat took Marinette to the rooftop...I know he was doing it in-universe to help her instead of intruding on her personal feelings(which might have also been why he didn't ask her who her crush was, he was probably thinking along the lines of "we don't have to talk about it right now, we can just have fun!"), but meta-wise, since we know she's Ladybug, the writers were probably trying to tell her "See? This is what you could've been doing, but you missed it. Shame on you!" That's a huge issue I have with the show: characters will do things in-universe to help Marinette, but the show has a different motive in mind. Compare to how Tikki gave actual advice to Marinette in Puppeteer 2, but the writers intended that for the statue scene so they could embarrass her in front of Adrien and the thousands of eyes watching the show(except we're not laughing.). Even if characters do support her, the writer is using them as props for her ritualized humiliation. And yet Luka is the problem somehow.

If Marinette needs to learn how to love Chat Noir, then it should at least be balanced out by Adrien learning to Marinette. I'm sick of this double standard that "girls need to learn to accept boys who like them but guys can do what they want". Another thing she said was that "Marinette needs to learn to define herself outside of who she's crushing on." NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. You see, unlike Adrien, Marinette HAS a life outside of who she's crushing on: she has school, she has Kitty Section, she has her "girl squad", she has her parents, she has her outside family, she babysits Alya's and Nino's siblings, and she has OH YEAH HER FASHION DESIGNING! I didn't even count being a superhero since Adrien does that, too. She has so many things to do outside of Adrien, and yet the fact that she makes gifts for Adrien or dreams about Adrien or wants to have kids with Adrien somehow makes her nothing but an "Adrien fangirl"?

First of all, she's the bloody protagonist?! That's such a "Real Women Don't Wear Dresses" argument, that she can't have her own life AND be in love at the same time! And somehow her crushing on Luka also means her life revolves around him, too! But Adrien's life doesn't revolve around Ladybug even though he doesn't really have anything going for him in his ordinary life? Outside of being rich, hot, white, and male, that is? What are his interests and hobbies, besides what Gabriel lets him do to pass the time? He doesn't even like modeling! And the Agreste plot is more about Gabriel, Emilie, and Nathalie than it is about him.

And what about his friendship with Nino? He didn't even care that Nino was getting strung along by Lila with the others! What about his friendship with Chloe that also waxes and wanes? Granted, Chloe's not a GOOD person, which that lady acknowledged, but she at least tried to change and has more development than him, the writers just won't let her change. I hate when people come for Marinette for doing literally anything when the show won't let her have agency and progress. It's so unfair of her and I wish they could see that. These double standards are driving me insane and they're sexist(maybe even a little bit racist, too), and it hurts even more when a woman's doing those things.

(I had to cut off some of this ask because I didn’t get all of it, so I cut it off at the point where it still seemed like a full ask.)

I FEEL THE “GLACIATOR” THING SO BAD. It hurts even worse when you realize that “Frozer” has to take place after “Glaciator,” so Chat Noir heard that Marinette has love problems and then ignored it to ask her for advice about his own love problems later on. The total lack of insensitivity???

Also, the idea that Marinette’s life would revolve around her crush on Luka is stupid. It’s the exact opposite, in fact.

Meanwhile, Adrien has so little going for him and the “interesting” parts of him involve who he’s connected to or what his father has forced him into.

[moonbeamsung]

I Fell for You Like the Autumn Leaves

In which your neighbor, who might as well be a complete stranger to you, convinces you to revisit an old childhood tradition of yours. Oh, and you end up falling in love with him.

member: chenle (featuring the dreamies and taeyong)

au: pumpkin patch volunteer!chenle x gn!reader

word count: 11.3k

genre: fluff, angst, humor

warnings: mutual pining, very mild profanity, kissing, teasing

author’s note: I know, I know, the au is oddly specific but just trust me! :) And I’m crossing my fingers that the tags work this time. I have nothing else to say except that I’m very proud of this fic and it was very fun to write, so I hope you enjoy it. Hope everyone who celebrates had a nice Halloween!

The tall, slender lamp post on the sidewalk outside of your house glows a pale amber color under the gray evening sky, illuminating the leaf-littered ground beneath it. You’ve walked past it hundreds, maybe even thousands of times, on a day just like this one. But this time, something’s different.

There’s a small flyer taped somewhat haphazardly to the side of the post, the dark lavender paper catching your eye. It’s positioned perfectly at eye-level, and you begin to read.

Fall is finally here, and you know what that means: The town’s annual pumpkin patch and festival is now open! Pick out your perfect pumpkin, find your way through a corn maze, take a peaceful hayride, and more! Come visit us all throughout the autumn season, 7 days a week from 10am to 8pm, at the corner of Chestnut Way and Fairview Boulevard. There’s fun for the whole family!

Small illustrations of pumpkins and colorful leaves fill the margins of the flyer, and the festive palette seems to brighten up the gloominess of the October day surrounding you.

“Hey!”

Whirling around, you’re met with the sight of your neighbor, Chenle. He’s holding more of the flyers in one hand, a small roll of tape in the other.

Despite him living only a few houses down from you for a number of years, you hardly know anything about him. You suppose he’s always seemed sort of mysterious. Sometimes you would catch glimpses of him outside from your window, and no matter if you saw him snapping photos of the blossoming flower bushes in his yard, riding his bike down the street with some friends, or just sitting on his upstairs balcony with a book in his hand, none of these things gave you any clues as to what he’s really like.

You two have exchanged brief hellos whenever you’ve passed each other on the sidewalk, him on his way somewhere and you heading home, but aside from those fleeting encounters, he’s a puzzle for you to figure out. You can’t help but wonder about him. Is he a quiet or a loud person? Is he on the serious side, or does he laugh at almost anything? What’s his personality like in general? Long story short, Chenle intrigues you, and maybe after today you’ll know at least a little bit more about him.

“Hi,” you return his greeting with a small smile, the kind of smile you give when you’re not exactly sure what else to say.

“Those flyers look pretty good, huh? I helped design them this year!” He explains with a proud grin, placing a hand on his hip as he studies your response. To be fair, he hardly knows anything about you either, and upon seeing you inspecting the flyer, he had decided to approach you and hopefully take a small step towards becoming your friend.

“Really? That’s cool.” The awkwardness in the air between you is far too tangible for your liking, and you silently hope he’ll take the responsibility of carrying on the conversation you’re currently sharing. Luckily, this wish of yours is granted moments later.

“You’ve been to the pumpkin festival before, right?”

You nod. It’s true, the annual tradition is one that everyone in town can enjoy, but in recent years you’ve started to lose interest in the festivities. You’re growing up, and it’s like you’re at this weird in-between stage. Mostly, those that attend are either large families complete with young children eager to explore every corner of the patch, or couples hoping to enjoy the ambience created by the cute decorations and cozy autumn atmosphere. You belong to neither of these groups, and so you’ve felt more than a little out of place the last few times you’ve gone.

You’re not sure if this is something you should share with Chenle, but without waiting for any kind of approval from your brain, the words leave your mouth anyway.

“Yeah, but I don’t really have anyone to go with and I don’t know anyone working there, so I’m not sure if I’ll make it this year.”

He frowns sympathetically for a split second before his face lights up again. “Aw, but I was just about to tell you that I’m volunteering there this year! So... if you’re worried about not having someone to hang out with, you’ll have me.”

“Only if you want!” He quickly adds, and that’s the first time he’s seemed nervous, or at least anything less than completely confident during your conversation. The cutest shade of red appears on his cheeks, and you don’t know how you could possibly refuse his offer now.

“Hmm... I guess I can reconsider, then.” You smile wider, more genuinely this time, after faking your contemplation by tapping your toe and tilting your head, a finger stroking your chin as if in deep thought.

“Really?” He replies happily with a small gasp, and his foot starts to lift off of the pavement to take an excited step towards you before he stops himself. If you notice, you don’t say anything.

You nod once again, and he notes how enthusiastic you seem now. Cute.

“Great! My shifts are on weekdays, from 2 to 7. I’ll see you there?”

“Definitely.”

The next week, you bundle up in your warmest jacket before making your way down the sidewalk, turning when necessary as you navigate the winding streets of your neighborhood. About half a dozen blocks later, you’re out on the main road, and you can just barely spot the entrance to the festival in the distance, orange lights strung along an archway that marks the small trail leading to it.

When you finally reach the inside of the pumpkin patch, the first thing you do is look for Chenle. You regret not asking him exactly where he would be working, but it can’t be that hard to find him, right?

He’s been on edge all afternoon, wondering if you would actually show up. It’s not that he didn’t believe you when you told him you would be there, he most certainly did, but there’s an oddly anxious feeling in his stomach that’s been affecting his behavior and he’s not sure he wants you to see him like this.

Chenle, just like everyone else, can be clumsy sometimes. But today? Today was a whole different story. He nearly dropped one of the biggest pumpkins in the patch while he was trying to lift it from the tall haystack it had been sitting on. His shoelace had somehow become untied while he was walking through the corn maze to check for any candy-apple wrappers or cider cups on the ground. Fortunately enough for him, no one had been around to see him trip over it, saving him at least a little bit of embarrassment. He even accidentally left the door to one of the animal stalls open, earning him a light scolding from his supervisor, Taeyong, and an entire hour on feeding duty for the horse it belonged to, between its scheduled hayride shifts.

It wouldn’t be a good second impression, he decides, if you were here to spend time with him only to see him completely failing at doing his job instead.

So when he spots you not too far away, craning your neck as you search for him among the large crowd, he’s conflicted. Does he face his fear of messing up in front of you and possibly risk your only recently-formed opinion of him, or does he avoid you the whole night? His heart clenches at that last option, and in a spur-of-the-moment decision his legs begin to carry him over to you. Catching your eye, he smiles despite the uncharacteristic lack of confidence in himself that he’s currently feeling.

You’re hurriedly cutting across the sea of people that fills the walkways to meet him, and when you’re within an arm’s reach you start to lift your hand in a small wave. Before you can stop walking completely, however, he takes your raised hand in his own, briskly guiding you off to the side to stand out of the way of the massive group of festival-goers. Just as quickly as he took your hand he releases it again, gently letting it drop to hang by your side.

You only just had your first proper conversation with him a matter of days ago, and he’s your neighbor for goodness’ sake. So why in the world did your heart rate seem to speed up just then?

There’s a small bench nearby, and he motions to it with a nudge of his shoulder. Sitting down next to him, you try your best to ignore the confusing signals that your body’s sending you right now.

“You came!”

“Of course I did,” you reply with a laugh. “It’s nice to have someone to enjoy the festival with for a change. I’ve really missed that.”

“What do you mean?”

You explain to him how it had grown out of being a family tradition, and that your friends always seemed to be busy, leaving you on your own year after year.

“Well... you have me now!” His voice is cheerful, reassuring, and despite all the noise and activity surrounding you at the current moment, it makes you feel at peace.

“Wait.” You glance around, then look back to Chenle. “Shouldn’t you be working, though?”

“...Shoot!” He knew he was forgetting something.

Standing up from the bench you share, he continues. “You can come with me if you want, but I can’t promise that any part of my job will be interesting.”

“It’s okay,” you giggle, standing up as well and following him over to a small covered tent. The inside is packed with people, weaving in and out of aisles created by several wooden tables full of small, colorful gourds. The boy behind the cash register shouts his name, beckoning him over with his hand.

“Hey Chenle, can you come help me weigh these pumpkins? Donghyuck had to go help some kids at the crafts area and business isn’t slowing down anytime soon.” He’s too busy typing numbers into a small computer system to notice that he’s speaking to more than one person. When his eyes finally lift up from the keys, he asks, “Who’s this?”

Chenle introduces you to each other, and you learn that his name is Mark. The gray beanie he’s wearing is somewhat lopsided on his head, dark hair sticking out from beneath it after all the times he’s cutely scratched the back of his neck.

While Mark and Chenle ring up dozens of customers, you entertain yourself by browsing through the wide variety of miniature pumpkins and squashes, some green, some white, some yellow. You occasionally pick up an oddly shaped one, running a finger over the small bumps or darkened bruises on the surface of the fruit.

When you look over at the register again, the line has died down, and after a moment of consideration your eyes land on a vibrant orange pumpkin that looks like it would fit perfectly in the palm of your hand. Picking it up, you smile a little to yourself as you turn, pulling your wallet out from your pocket and patiently waiting behind the 4 groups in line ahead of you.

By the time you finally step up to the checkout counter, Chenle’s been wondering where you went. He hadn’t seen you when he was gifted with the rare chance to look up from the metal scale he’s been constantly working at for almost an hour now. Maybe you got bored, he thinks, and left to go do something else or to just go home altogether. So when he sees the familiar sleeve of your jacket enter his peripheral vision as you place your tiny pumpkin down in front of him, he looks up faster than he thought humanly possible, in both surprise and relief. “You know you don’t have to buy anything,” he attempts to whisper in the hopes of hiding his words from Mark.

“But I want to. This pumpkin’s really cute,” you insist with a pleading look in your eyes.

Like you, he nearly mutters. That would have been a disaster.

“Do you want me to pay for it?” He offers, almost pouting at this point.

“Such a gentleman,” you tease, “But no. I promise, I’ve got it.”

“If you insist,” he responds, matching the sarcastic tone of your words and hoping to distract from his reddening ears. Chenle weighs the pumpkin and then places it into a small bag that you sling over your shoulder, where it will stay for the remainder of the day.

Unbeknownst to both of you, Mark’s eyebrow raises at the playfulness of your conversation. Maybe you don’t notice the furious blush on Chenle’s face, but he certainly does. And he won’t forget it.

“Hey, uh, guys? Donghyuck just texted me that he needs a hand. Do you think you could go meet up with him and help out a little?”

“Are you sure you can handle things here, Mark?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. But Donghyuck won’t be if those kids are deprived of craft supplies for much longer.” He reaches underneath the counter and pulls out a huge stack of plastic sticker sheets, with small images of bats, candy, and everything in between. “Take these.”

“Thanks, Mark! See you later!”

“It was nice to meet you!” You call out over your shoulder, and as you momentarily focus your attention on the boy behind you that’s getting farther away by the second, you’re too caught up in saying your goodbyes to notice that the one beside you grabs your hand again. Chenle gently pulls you away from the counter and out from under the tent, steadily making your way towards the other side of the large pumpkin patch.

You were lucky that Mark had the decency to at least pretend there was nothing going on between you and Chenle. He had refrained from commenting on it in front of you, and simply chuckled to himself when he saw both of you walk off together, hand-in-hand. He finds it amusing that neither one of you seems to notice the mutual fondness the other so obviously has for you. Mark doesn’t know a lot about you, but he knows you must be pretty special to be able to fluster Chenle like that.

Donghyuck, on the other hand, does not possess the same decency.

When you reach the crafts area, which is a small, designated space with several picnic tables and bins full of art supplies like glitter, paint sets, and markers, he gratefully approaches Chenle and accepts the large bundle of stickers from him. Like he’s feeding a hungry mob of seagulls with just a few breadcrumbs, Donghyuck essentially tosses them to the large group of children eagerly jumping at his feet. Scurrying away as they snatch the plastic sheets out of the air and get back to decorating their pumpkins, his eyes land on you for the first time.

With a smug, knowing smirk and an exaggerated nod of his head towards your tightly intertwined fingers, he asks, “Who’s this, Chenle?”

You know those movie scenes where two characters look at each other, at something else, then back at each other again? That’s exactly what happens. Chenle’s and your eyes meet, surprise evident on every feature of your faces, before you both realize the exact same thing at the same time. With shaky pupils, your gazes drift down to each other’s arm, then to your hands, laced together and acting as a source of warmth on this chilly autumn day. Much faster this time, you make eye contact again before rapidly but unwillingly pulling your hands away. The guilty smiles you send Donghyuck’s way say it all.

Chenle introduces you for the second time today as his neighbor, but deep down you both wish it was as something else, something more.

“I see,” Donghyuck says under his breath, in a huff of poorly concealed laughter.

Only Chenle hears him, though, and Donghyuck earns himself a rough shove to the shoulder with the snarky comment. You’re looking in a different direction, vision focused on a small child with a frown on her face as she struggles to embellish the small orange gourd on the table in front of her.

“Chenle?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna go see if I can help that little girl with her pumpkin.” You point a finger in the general direction of the picnic table she’s sitting at, glancing back at him for a second as you make your way over to her.

She’s close to tears now, and crouching down beside her small form, you ask, “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

The girl looks down at you, rushing to wipe her eyes before explaining in a quiet, shaky voice, “None of these stickers are the shape I want for my pumpkin...”

Oh, you realize, she’s trying to make a jack-o-lantern face.

“Um...” Upon looking around, you spot a piece of paper nearby on the table and hand her a purple marker from one of the art supply containers. “Well, can you draw what you want the face to look like and maybe I can help?”

With a small “Mhm,” she takes the marker from you and begins to sketch four odd-looking but not totally unfeasible shapes for the pumpkin’s eyes, nose, and mouth.

A good distance away, Chenle is growing tired of Donghyuck’s endless interrogations about you and if he’s absolutely positively sure that you’re not something more than just neighbors. He wordlessly excuses himself from Donghyuck’s side to join you by the picnic table.

The drawings that the little girl comes up with look like a deformed mix of squares, circles, and triangles. Thankfully, you have access to stickers shaped like all three, and you get an idea.

“What are we working on over here?”

Looking up to see Chenle kneeling down opposite you, resting an arm on the wooden surface of the bench, you notice that his voice is different. Not in terms of its pitch or volume, but just in the way that he’s speaking. It’s even more gentle than usual, filled with concern and care, all because he’s talking to a child. How endearing, you think to yourself, smiling down at the ground for a moment or two before you remember the task at hand.

“They’re helping me with my jack-o-lantern!” The little girl exclaims excitedly, causing Chenle to grin wider than you’d ever seen so far and allowing you to get a glimpse of his adorable eye smile for the very first and certainly not the last time.

Nope. Your heart did not just flutter. At least, that’s what you’ll keep telling yourself.

With a wave of your hand you motion for him to stand up, you doing the same before whispering your plan into his ear. Exchanging nods, you both crouch back down again and set to work, guiding the little girl as she overlaps the stickers on the pumpkin to match the picture she drew.

When you’re finished, she claps her hands together and thanks you multiple times, her genuine gratitude warming both of your hearts more than a blanket or a heater ever could.

“Wait,” you turn back around just as you’re about to walk over to Donghyuck once again. Flipping through the sticker sheets scattered across the table, you find exactly the one you’re looking for and peel it from the plastic.

“Wha—”

Before Chenle can even begin his sentence, you’re already pressing the small acorn sticker onto his cheek, giggling softly at how a blush seems to blossom from underneath it, the adorable pink hue spreading all the way to the tip of his nose. Your thumb applies the slightest amount of pressure to his skin while the remaining fingers hold the side of his face, and your other hand clutches his shoulder over the burgundy sweater he’s wearing. It’s at this moment that it dawns on you: This is definitely not a “neighborly” exchange.

You jump back in shock at your own actions. “Oh my god, I’m sorry, I really don’t know why I did that.” Inwardly releasing a string of profuse curses, you awkwardly step closer a second time, lifting your hand again to try to peel it from his face and just wishing this mortifying moment would be over already.

“It’s okay, you can leave it,” he stutters a little, taking a tiny step backwards. “I don’t mind.”

Not really knowing how else to bring the uncomfortable (well, that’s an understatement) conversation to a close, you let his last words hang in the air, casting daunting shadows over your heads as you both repeat the same thought over and over again in your minds like a mantra.

I shouldn’t like them...

Trying and failing to sneak a slight glance at the other, your gazes meet at the same time, both of you looking away just as quickly once you realize you’ve been caught red-handed. Or in this case, red-faced.

...But I do.

A few minutes prior, another festival volunteer had taken over Mark’s job at the cash register, leaving him free to roam around for at least a little while. Not knowing where else to go, he had come to see Donghyuck, and by default, you and Chenle.

As they watch your rather amusing response to the realization of and sudden embarrassment at such a shameless display of your crush on Chenle that you can’t quite bring yourself to accept just yet, Mark and Donghyuck talk lowly amongst themselves.

“He should just ask them out already. I haven’t even known that they exist for 15 minutes and I’m already sick of seeing them both deny their feelings for each other. It’s so painfully obvious!” Donghyuck makes a gagging noise, earning a glare from Mark.

“It’s kind of cute, though. Like puppy love.”

“Whatever you say, Romeo,” he snickers.

“Hey!” Mark shoves his shoulder, annoyed. Donghyuck just laughs.

Pulling out his phone, the younger boy types up a quick text message before hitting the small arrow to send it. Out of the corner of his eye, Mark sees the delivered blue speech bubble appear on the screen and asks him, “Who’s that to?”

“Jeno. He and Jaemin have got to see this.”

Not even a minute later, Chenle’s own phone dings with a message from the former of the aforementioned boys, providing a distraction from and successfully dispelling some of the tension that continues to weigh down on you both.

Once he finishes reading the text, Chenle looks up at you and explains, “Two of my friends are working concessions and they’re almost out of a few things, so I need to go pick up what they need and bring it to them.”

You frown a little and furrow your eyebrows. “Isn’t it weird that everyone’s been asking you to go from place to place bringing them stuff all day?”

Now that he thinks about it, you’re right. But there’s no time to stand around and wonder why there seems to be a pattern with his tasks today.

“Bye Donghyuck! We’re gonna go help Jaemin and Jeno at the concessions stand!”

Was it too much to ask for Chenle to absentmindedly grab your hand again? Apparently yes, because much to your disappointment he refrains from doing so this time.

“Did you seriously ask Jeno to make up a fake excuse for help just so you could get them to leave?” Mark questions him, a clearly unamused expression on his face.

“First of all, no. He actually told me that they’re running low on candy apples. And second, not only that, but also so they can see just how hopelessly they’re crushing on each other.”

“Meaning that they can tease them about it, too, right?”

“Exactly!”

Mark rolls his eyes. He supposes he shouldn’t even be surprised at this point. Donghyuck is always full of mischief.

You remain by Chenle’s side as he leads you towards a storage area for the festival and over to the kitchen section, where he grabs a medium-sized cooler packed with freshly candied apples. The walk is filled with casual conversation, any awkward encounters earlier in the day becoming long forgotten, or at least temporarily put out of your minds.

Not having any of his friends around to tease you helps, too.

The few minutes you have to yourselves come to an end all too soon, and as you approach a large booth that appears to be full of just about every autumn snack imaginable, you catch the eye of one of the two boys standing behind it. Whether it’s Jeno or Jaemin, you’re not sure. But sure enough, like everyone else you’ve met so far today, his gaze becomes one of surprise and interest upon seeing the way you’re walking so close to the tall boy at your side.

You decide to take the liberty of introducing yourself this time instead of leaving Chenle to do it for you. Reaching an arm out in front of you, you shyly step up to the conveniently empty counter of the stand. The first boy shakes your hand while the other turns around, eyes darting from you to Chenle multiple times.

“I’m Jaemin,” he lets go of your hand, but not before shooting you a wink and a ridiculously charming grin. Chenle’s stomach churns with jealousy. The boy is always like this, Chenle knows, but with you it’s different. Normally it’s just the regular flirtatious remark directed at a passing customer, making them nearly spill their popcorn or choke on their cotton candy. Despite his awareness of the fact that he means no harm, Chenle still has to fight the urge to pull you into him protectively. Jaemin picks up on his sudden envy but chooses not to mess with him further.

The second one speaks up, doing the same as Jaemin without the wink, instead displaying an endearing eye-smile of his own. “I’m Jeno.” His eyes light up when they land on the freezing container Chenle’s carrying. “Are those the candy apples?” He exclaims. “Thank you so much!”

“No problem,” Chenle grunts in response as he hands it to Jeno over the counter, still bitter about Jaemin’s coquettish introduction of himself. Picking up on his annoyed tone, you send a confused glance and then a sympathetic smile the boy’s way as you try to subtly calm whatever frustration that remains within him.

He softens immediately, regretting any worry he may have just caused you with his uncharacteristically cold demeanor. It’s immediately forgotten when Jaemin motions for the both of you to round the corner of the booth. Stepping inside from the back, you instantly realize it’s much too cramped to fit four people.

You’re about to excuse yourselves to go stand outside again when Jeno strides past, just a little too close for comfort. Taking a step back to move completely out of his way, you make a fatal miscalculation: Chenle’s right behind you. With a thud your back crashes into his stomach, and the awkwardness is more than just palpable.

Throughout the next few minutes you look for every opportunity to step away from him and escape the mutual discomfort of your current position, but business at the concessions stand picks up and both of the boys are constantly rushing back and forth, leaving you no room to do so. It’s not a physical discomfort, not in the slightest, but more so one where your self-consciousness is heightened, and you’re aware that it looks like something a couple would do, the way a couple would stand. In any other moment, perhaps a more private one, you might not have minded the proximity so much, but the public setting you’re in creates the need that you feel to visibly reject the non-existent distance between you and him.

Chenle could get used to how perfectly you two seem to fit together in what’s almost a back hug, with the way he could oh so easily wrap his arms around you from behind. Just not here, not now. Would it be too much, he thinks, for him to place a gentle hand on your shoulder as you both wait for the chance to separate from each other? He decides the answer is no, and as you both endure constant gusts of air each time Jaemin and Jeno pass you, Chenle holds you, grip light on the space between your arm and neck that’s covered in the cotton material of your jacket. His touch eases your nerves about the situation, for which you’re beyond thankful.

While you wait, your eyes find themselves lingering on the customers that shuffle through the line, some young, some old, tall or short. The scrumptious scents wafting within the booth begin to overwhelm your noses after some time, the pungent aroma of apples and spiced cinnamon becoming almost too much to bear for your sense of smell.

As expected, by the time you actually notice there’s finally enough space for you to step away from each other, you’ve already gotten comfortable where you are. The delayed response to this makes Jeno chuckle under his breath, handing a final box of pumpkin pie to an older couple over the counter of the concessions stand.

Glancing down at his watch, Chenle notes how much time has flown by since you arrived at the festival. He also realizes it’s nearly time for his shift at the horse stables, uttering a quick explanation to you and then the other two boys in the booth.

Exchanging brief farewells, you follow Chenle outside and down a thin path to a more secluded area of the festival grounds, out by the field where hayrides are given. On the way, you pass by the corn maze and the games area. The boys manning the attractions both look as if they’re part of the same group of volunteers that Chenle has introduced you to so far, if you had to guess.

Your assumption is confirmed when he waves at the first one, who’s standing beside a small group of children playing bean bag toss. Scanning the area for any supervisors that could scold him for running off for a minute, he darts over to the two of you.

It’s refreshing that he doesn’t inspect you from head to toe with his gaze, something that had happened to you far too much today. “I’m Chenle’s neighbor,” you start before telling him your name, feeling optimistic that he won’t bug you about your connection to each other very much.

“I’m Jisung,” he responds. Then, “Chenle never brings people to the festival like this. Are you dating or something?”

Never mind.

You inwardly facepalm at his blunt statement. Chenle actually does, the smack against his forehead sounding almost painful.

“We have to get going now, Jisung. I just wanted to introduce you to each other.” Despite being frustrated with the younger’s directness, Chenle still gives him a quick side hug and a “Bye” as you walk away, presumably to stop by the corn maze briefly as you had just done with the games area.

“They never answered my question,” Jisung mumbles to himself.

“Renjun!” Chenle calls, hoping this encounter will go more smoothly than the last. Surprisingly enough, it does. The boy extends a hand out for you to shake with a kind smile, not asking any questions about your relationship with Chenle. You’re extremely grateful that he accepts your status as his neighbor and nothing more.

Only when you’re turned away, gazing into the distance at the hustle and bustle of the event does he pat Chenle firmly on the back, exaggerating a wink and whispering a “Go get ‘em, tiger” into his ear. Chenle scowls at Renjun, groaning about being teased the entire day just for bringing someone to the festival with him.

“Alright, alright, I’ll leave you alone.” Renjun starts to back off, but he simply can’t help himself. The next words that spill from his lips will be the last, he vows in his mind. At least, for now.

“...You like them, though, don’t you?”

“Mmph,” Chenle reluctantly replies after a moment, offering a noncommittal answer.

“Don’t overlook it, okay? You never know. They might feel the same way,” he gives Chenle’s arm a quick squeeze before sending him over to you. The light tap he plants on your shoulder makes you turn around with a smile, expectantly gazing up at him. “Ready to go?”

“Yep,” he nods towards the stables, and you both wave back at Renjun as you make your way over to the large structure.

An unfamiliar man leans against one of the walls once you get there. When he sees Chenle, he straightens up and runs a hand through his brown hair, a slight smile tugging at his lips.

The man steps aside from his spot on the wall to reveal a shelf full of animal care items, from cleaning supplies to heavy bags of feed and dry bundles of straw for the ground inside the stalls. “You know what to do,” he nods at the boy while eyeing you carefully at the same time.

Chenle manages to read his mind surprisingly fast, and he jumps to defend your presence. “They’re with me,” he clarifies.

“But you know the rules, Chenle.”

“Just this once, Taeyong! Pleeease?”

Unable to resist the puppy-like expression on his face, Chenle’s supervisor finally caves. That, combined with the way your face fell when he threatened to send you away in a nonverbal manner is enough to make Taeyong change his mind. A minuscule inkling inside of his brain tells him that you’re okay to be by Chenle’s side as he does his job, even if it might mean that he’ll get distracted at times.

“I suppose they can stay.”

“Yes! Thanks, Taeyong!”

“Wait a minute, what’s that on your face?”

Chenle brings a hand up because he’s genuinely forgotten, but when his fingertips brush the cheap plastic sticker on his cheek he remembers how it got there. “Oh, it’s... uh.” He looks to you for help.

“I did that,” you explain with an embarrassed laugh. “We were joking around and I stuck it on his face.”

“Oh, okay, just making sure you know it’s there.”

Some friends he has, Chenle gripes internally. They didn’t even bother to point it out. What if it had been something else?

Luckily, he doesn’t mind the cute sticker, even if it does make him blush like a fool when he thinks about your cute hands pressing it onto his skin.

As Taeyong passes him on his way out of the stable doors, he pinches one of his rounded cheeks, leaving the younger boy cringing in the process.

Time passes somewhat slowly as you watch Chenle go about doing his tasks, first taking one small handful of the horse’s food at a time and feeding it to her, steadily depleting her evening meal little by little. Then he grabs a broom and steps into the stall to sweep some of her bedding.

“What’s her name?” You ask him after a while, the simplicity of his actions creating a calming effect on you as you observe them. You only know it’s a female because you had heard him mutter “Good girl” to the horse rather affectionately a few minutes earlier.

“Nutmeg.”

“That’s cute,” you reply.

The silence feels heavy, begging you to face what you’ve both left unsaid throughout the day. It’s the first time you’ve really been alone together since you got here. But you’re both too scared to bring up the countless assumptions made by his friends over and over again during the time you’ve spent together that you’re dating, fearing that the conversation, supposed to be a joking one, would inevitably progress into something much deeper.

“I’ve had fun today.”

He says it out of nowhere, making both your body and your heart jump a little.

“Me too.” He peeks his head out from the stall to smile at you, your response tinging the tips of his ears red.

A few minutes go by as you fall into a light dialogue, talking about anything and everything you can think of, getting to know each other more. As he’s finishing up, you finally stand from where you’ve been seated for the past 45 minutes, walking leisurely over to the shelf of supplies, which just so happens to be next to the stall door.

All of a sudden Nutmeg hears something that spooks her, and you don’t realize that she starts to charge towards the closed pair of wooden panels you’re currently right beside.

It’s an instant in which Chenle’s clumsiness from earlier in the day threatens to come back in a much more severe form if he doesn’t do something. Senses more alert than yours for whatever reason, he takes action without hesitation, and time seems to slow before his eyes as he does so.

Swiftly moving you out of the way of the split stall door less than a second before it swings open from the force of the horse’s strong neck, Chenle pulls you to him. His arms dart out to catch you tightly by the waist while he turns both of your bodies around, ensuring that he’s the one closest to the enclosure. His reasoning? If he doesn’t take you out of harm’s way fast enough, at least he’ll be the one that feels the impact, not you.

As you’re being held flush against his chest, your mind races to process just how you got into this position. But your heart presses pause on the gears of your brain, and allows you to just enjoy the close intimacy of the moment.

Chenle knows he should do something, say something, but all he can think of is to stay just like this. Your head is turned to the side, an ear pressed to his sternum and in the perfect spot to hear his heartbeat. Its not-so-steady thump matches your own, sounding much like the uneven rhythm that a young child might play on a drum set, striking the instrument with force and conviction and unwavering confidence.

If only you could confront your feelings for him in the same way.

Both thanking him and apologizing profusely for your lack of awareness, you move to take a tiny step back and away from the snug hold of his arms. Only, you find that you can’t. Chenle’s still holding your waist, oblivious to the fact that he’s been clutching you closely for the past thirty seconds in preparation for a moment that lasted less than one.

“You... you can let go of me now, Chenle,” you say apprehensively, a half smile on your lips as you attempt to look him in the eye without being overwhelmed by the urge to kiss him right then and there.

“Ah, right. My bad.”

Chenle’s not usually this bold when it comes to the physicality of a relationship, romantic or not. But he can’t help it that there seems to be an invisible gravitational force surrounding you, just begging for him to reach out and lay a tender hand on the small of your back. Compelling him to tangle your fingers together like a mess of yarn, with the ends fraying and coming undone but at the same time holding each other up, keeping each other from falling apart. Giving one another something to hold on to in the most unlikely of situations.

With only a few minutes left to spare in his shift, he tells you to wait outside while he packs all of the supplies up for the night. Once everything is back in its proper place, Chenle is just about to step outside through the swinging wooden doors of the stables when a small noise from the caramel-colored horse stops him in his tracks. Turning around, he carefully approaches the animal with an outstretched arm, stroking her shiny mane once he’s close enough.

“What am I going to do, Nutmeg?” The conversation is a futile one, he knows, but it proves to be therapeutic for his conscience. She nuzzles his hand with her snout as he leans onto the wall, lost in thought.

“Should I tell them how I feel?” Her large dark eyes peer back at him, and as silly as it sounds, Chenle gets the sense that she actually understands, despite her inability to respond with comprehensible words.

“I’ll do it, then. Not tonight, but soon. Before autumn ends,” he vows, making a promise to himself and his heart all at once.

Nutmeg lets out a small whinny as if to express her approval. Smiling at the animal’s nonverbal reassurance, he opens the door to step out into the chilly fall night, strides a little lighter and head held higher than usual.

As the small clock tower set up in the middle of the festival grounds tolls seven times, loud clangs disrupting the low and indistinct chatter of the evening, you and Chenle return to the same bench you sat on that afternoon, eyes heavy and feet tired by now.

“Your shift is over now, right?”

“Yeah,” he affirms. “Ready to go home?”

“Definitely.”

The festival has mostly cleared out, which is surprising for the time of night that it currently is. The lack of all the hustle and bustle around you makes it significantly easier to navigate the paths extending in nearly every direction across the grounds.

On your way to the exit of the festival, the same autumn-themed archway you ducked under several hours ago, you pass a few of the boys you met during the day, offering a small wave goodbye to them.

The roads are quiet as you and Chenle walk next to each other on the paved sidewalk, the streetlights placed at every small intersection between the tightly-knit suburban roads providing the only source of illumination. With no one around to hear his shaky voice, he turns to you and stutters out, “I know I didn’t ask for your permission to do this earlier, but may I hold your hand?”

You let him, but not without a bashful scratch to the back of your neck and a mumbled answer of “Sure” directed his way.

Like two schoolchildren with the biggest and most obvious crushes on each other, there’s a skip in both of your steps as you walk the rest of the way home. Insisting on staying outside of your house until he sees the light in your bedroom window turn on, Chenle bids you a sweet goodnight with a lingering hug and a small kiss to the top of your head that he mistakenly thinks you don’t notice.

That night you fall asleep with a smile on your face, visions of pumpkins dancing through your mind and the small one that you bought resting on your nightstand beside you.

It’s the first thing you see when you wake up the next morning, and you reach out to take the small item in your palm. You’re convinced that you can still feel the warmth of Chenle’s hands cradling it as he placed it on the scale, recording the measurement before he gave the miniature pumpkin to Mark, who told you how much it cost. You were so eager to accept the small tote bag Chenle was extending out to you that you didn’t even bother asking for your change back, shoving the money into Mark’s hand and insisting that he keep it.

Your eyes land on the same bag, sitting in the corner of your room, and it makes your face break out into a bright grin. Not even bothered by how early you’ve woken up, you bound down the stairs for breakfast, the most excited for the day ahead you can ever remember being.

You spend the next couple of weeks visiting Chenle during his shifts at the festival, sometimes staying late enough for him to walk you home like he did that first day. With each time he sees you, he warms up to your presence, becoming more like his usual witty and hardly-ever-flustered self. Oddly enough you start to act less and less like a couple, which doesn’t go unnoticed by his friends. The incessant blushing is gradually replaced by sarcastic banter with one another. You don’t know anyone who makes you laugh like Chenle does.

“Hey,” he pipes up one afternoon as you’re watching him organize some pumpkins. “What if I dyed my hair this color?” Chenle points to one that’s a particularly vivid shade of orange, raising his eyebrows as you think of a reply.

“Then you’d look like a pumpkin,” you hum in response.

He chuckles. “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?“

You shake your head. “Not necessarily. Are you really going to dye it, though?”

“Probably not.”

“As you wish, pumpkin.”

He whirls around, nearly dropping the stack of gourds in his hands. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me... pumpkin,” you smirk after repeating the new nickname, and it puts an impossibly cute pout on his face.

“Don’t call me that!”

You jokingly ruffle his hair, and Chenle’s small smile betrays his annoyed facade as he realizes he could get used to hearing the word roll off your tongue, not to mention you addressing him with it.

It’s the week of Halloween when the six boys that volunteer with Chenle at the festival meet up to create a plan that will, ideally, end with both of you confessing your feelings. All but one of them, which happens to be Mark, excitedly discuss possible ways to set you two up. Should they send you on a private hayride somehow? Or maybe they could get you to try out the corn maze together, and hopefully you would struggle with finding your way out long enough to express your mutual crushes on each other.

“I don’t know about this, guys. I still think we should just let them figure it out on their own.”

“You’re no fun, Mark,” Donghyuck chastises. The eldest shrugs, an expression of resignation on his face. At least he tried.

Finally, they decide on having both of you move between each of their respective areas or booths around the festival, dropping as many hints to you about the other’s infatuation as possible. First you’ll start the evening off by navigating through the corn maze, which they realize is impossible for you to get lost in since Chenle had to memorize the map of it. So much for their earlier plan.

After that, Renjun will usher you off towards Jisung’s station, the game area. Conveniently, he’ll suggest you play the balloon dart toss together, but there’s going to be a catch: one of you has to carry the other in their arms while they throw them. They laugh a little at how flustered they imagine you’ll get.

Next, Mark and Donghyuck will help you pick out the best pumpkin to carve for the upcoming holiday. You’ll start to pick it up, but Chenle will insist on holding it instead. If you had heard this, you would be fuming. Who says you’re not strong enough to carry a pumpkin on your own? You’ll show them.

To end the night, Jaemin and Jeno will “accidentally” only give you one stick of cotton candy, forcing you to share. By that time, they hope you’ll be perceptive enough to finally see that the attraction is mutual, diminishing the fear of rejection in both of your minds.

Not so surprisingly, nothing would go as planned.

The boys put their little scheme into action on the night of October 30th. Chenle is actually finished with his days of volunteering at this point, and even though he could stay home after working many long hours over the past few weeks, he opts to visit the festival as a guest this evening, with you by his side.

He picks you up outside of your house, waiting on the sidewalk right next to the same lamp post that the flyer for the festival was taped to, also known as the entire reason why you’re in this situation in the first place. If you hadn’t taken the time to read those words on the purple-colored page, you honestly don’t know where you’d be right now.

Dressed in your favorite and coziest autumn outfit, you practically fly down the stairs of your front porch to greet him. Like you’ve gotten used to doing by now, he holds your hand in his as you walk, taking the same route you always do.

Chenle’s heart beats a little faster when he sees your eyes light up at the sight of the festival in the distance. For the first time, you’ll both be able to enjoy the event together without being bombarded by constant requests to help with various tasks throughout the night. Or so you thought.

From the moment you step foot inside the grounds, Jisung is already standing at the entrance and hurriedly directing you to the corn maze. Confused but obedient nonetheless, you both head towards where his finger is pointing.

Chenle knows something is up as soon as he sees a familiar mischievous twinkle in Renjun’s dark eyes. “You go ahead, I’ll catch up,” he tells you.

“Chenle, it’s a maze. I don’t think they work like that.” He ignores your playful sarcasm.

Speaking in the quietest voice he can muster, which is quite a feat for him, Chenle leans in close to whisper harshly in the older boy’s ear. “What are you trying to pull?”

At a volume level that’s loud enough for you to hear, Renjun replies, “The others and I thought it would be fun to plan out your evening a little! So first we want you to start here, at the corn maze.”

“Aw, really? That sounds like fun!” Oblivious to the group’s true motives, you endorse their plan with your words. “Better get started,” Renjun winks. As you turn to make your way in between the tall rows of vegetables, he roughly yanks Chenle backward to quietly say, “There isn’t a more perfect time to confess to them, I mean, a romantic autumn night at the festival? Make a move already,” he encourages.

Glowering back at him, Chenle reluctantly follows you into the maze.

Only 15 minutes later you emerge from the corn stalks, the boys’ scheme momentarily forgotten. It quickly comes to mind again when you find Jisung waiting outside for you for the second time that night. One time too many, in Chenle’s opinion.

Not missing a beat, the younger of the two boys leads you both over to the area he’s assigned to. The wall of colorful balloons catches your attention immediately. “Let’s play this one!” You exclaim as you tug on his sleeve like a little kid. Delighted with your choice, Jisung quickly explains the rules, but the twist he adds to them goes right over your head. In fact, you’re the one that offers to carry Chenle first. Neither of your faces turn pink with embarrassed blushes.

You don’t even bat an eyelash as you carry the pumpkin that you picked out together in your arms, much to Donghyuck’s dismay. Mark just stands to the side, amused at their attempts to artificially force confessions out of you. The singular stick of cotton candy that Jaemin hands to you over the counter of the concessions stand fails to phase either of you whatsoever, and you end up just pinching off small pieces from the sticky sweet dessert with your hands. Jeno points out your simple solution to the boy standing next to him, observing their failure. “Why didn’t we think of that?” He mumbles.

The six boys finally gather together when they collectively realize they didn’t succeed, but actually did just the opposite. Making a small circle, they start to argue and pointlessly blame one another for causing everything to go wrong. You only manage to catch a few words of their heated conversation, but something in your gut tells you that they were up to more than just creating a schedule of activities for you to follow.

Exchanging glances, you and Chenle nod at each other, about to try and quietly slip away from them. Hand in hand, you take careful steps backwards, but before you can dash away Mark catches sight of you. Thankfully, he smiles a little and puts a finger to his lips, making a “shh” sign as he waves his hand in a signal for you to hurry up.

Abandoning all of your cares, you give up on going unnoticed by the group and shamelessly scamper off in the opposite direction.

“Wait, I know that place!” You shout excitedly as you pass a small playground meant for the younger visitors to the festival. “Can we go over there?” You plead with him, but you suppose you shouldn’t call it that since he gives in to your request so easily.

The child-sized vehicle standing in the center of the play area is a familiar sight to you, and Chenle knows what you’re about to ask him before you even open your mouth. “Go ahead,” he says with a loving smile on his face as he motions to the carriage, designed to look like the very object that the entire festival itself centers around. Catching up to you, Chenle steps forward a little so that he reaches the small stairs leading up to it first.

“Your highness,” Chenle bows, crossing one foot behind the other and bending a knee. Opening the creaky door to the pumpkin carriage for you, he gestures to the inside of the oversized fruit, the graceful movement ushering you to climb inside. You bashfully tug on your striped scarf, holding the woolen material up against your cheeks as you laugh at his chivalrous display. It tickles a little, and he thinks you look even more adorable bundled up like that.

The interior is much smaller than you remember. But then again, you had been much smaller the last time you sat in this very seat.

Calling the inside of the carriage cramped is an understatement. There are two narrow benches on either side of it, the space on the floor between them barely enough to fit the legs of one occupant, much less two. Chenle struggles but eventually sits down across from you, unintentionally forcing your knees to rest in between his. The small windows on the squeaky, rusty doors do little to let in any light whatsoever. In the darkness, you can’t see the boy’s face flush at your closeness.

‘What now?’ You think to yourself, wondering if you’re brave enough in this moment to finally tell him how you feel, how much you enjoy his company, how special he’s become to you. And though you don’t know it, across from you Chenle is contemplating doing the same. He beats you to it with his next actions.

Your racing train of thought skids to an abrupt halt when you feel his hand on the lower part of your thigh, touch innocent and timid as it lingers on the soft fabric of your corduroy pants.

Eyes hurriedly adjusting to the dim space surrounding you, you feel his fingers grasp your own before you see them. At last you make eye contact with each other, gazes boring into one another and recognizing the same things, the same feelings in them. Chenle’s clutching your hand in his now, the first still resting comfortably on your thigh, and you feel the dull sensation of his legs bending inward, squeezing your knees together. His mouth opens, rounded lips parting as though to ask the question that you both already know the answer to. You bring an arm up to hold him by the shoulder, the movement in itself confirming that this is what you want as well. That he’s what you want.

Careful not to bump your heads against the low ceiling of the carriage, he leans towards you, closing the already minimal distance between your faces as he meets your lips in a kiss.

Heads tilting and eyelashes fluttering shut at the same instant, you both pour every unspoken thought, every secret glance, every loving word that never made it past your lips into the contact they currently share. The moment itself feels long overdue, like something you could have done on that first day you spent at the festival together.

It means more this way, though. The amount of time it took for this to happen gave you more time to discover and get comfortable with the way you feel about Chenle. To get comfortable with him. His presence, his humor, his personality, his touch, everything about him is something you’ve grown to depend on over these past few weeks.

Even your lips begin to depend on Chenle as they fall into place against his own, moving with a fervor you weren’t even aware you possessed.

There’s a quiet rhythm to the osculation of your lips, an airy sigh or breath from one of you breaking the silence every few seconds. In the midst of the indescribably wonderful sensation that is the kiss you’re sharing, you faintly feel his hand start to move up and down your leg, not in a provocative way but a reassuring one. His loving caresses have you leaning further into him even though there’s barely enough room to do so, making you wish for one reason and one reason alone that you were having this kiss somewhere else. Otherwise, the location is perfect.

More than a decade has passed since you were just a young child, begrudgingly posing for a photo for your parents by poking your head out through the same small window of the carriage. Since then, the orange of the paint has dulled, the once-soft carpet on the floor has become coarse from the countless shoes that have trodden over it. The wooden doors are splintered and, though never functional, the carriage’s large wheels have undoubtedly begun to show their age with the amount of dirt and dust caught in the grooves.

You’ve made many memories in this place, but the one you’re making today is sure to be unforgettable.

Chenle would give anything to be able to hold you right now, to maybe bring you onto his lap in a tender embrace as he shows you just how fast and how hard he’s fallen for you. Not that volunteering at the festival was a bad thing at all, but you made it so much more bearable, so much more fun. The thought of spending another perfect day with you was more than enough to get him out of bed every morning.

He compromises for the restrictions that the enclosed space places on your movements by untangling his fingers from yours, choosing to cup your cheek with them instead. You’re a little disappointed when his hand lifts from its place on your thigh, anxiousness bubbling up in your gut as you anticipate where he’s going to place it next.

It’s safe to say you just about melt when you feel his palm come up to delicately cradle one side of your chin, thumb darting out to glide along the skin that’s just below your bottom lip. Arching into him, you make the most of the little room you have left to pull him closer.

It’s then that your lungs finally catch up to both of you, sending simultaneous signals telling you to breathe. Granted, Chenle’s kisses feel like all the oxygen you’ll ever need anyway.

Reluctantly leaning away, your chests heave with muted but sharp gasps. A pang of worry hits you when he doesn’t smile, doesn’t laugh, doesn’t say anything. His mouth has fallen open, eyes wide with just as much anticipation as you feel. Taking what feels like the biggest breath in your life, you pray your voice doesn’t tremble as you speak for the first time since you clambered into the dark, cozy carriage.

“I really like you, Chenle.”

The relief that washes over you when he responds is unlike any you’ve ever felt before.

“I like you, too.”

But he’s not done.

“...A lot, in case you hadn’t noticed.” The extra detail makes you giggle, smiling shyly at anything that isn’t him.

He goes to lean in again when you stop him. “Wait, wait, can we at least get out of here first? I want to do this properly.”

You scoot sideways after he nods in agreement, far enough for him to open the door and step down from the elevated imitation of a pumpkin. He extends a hand up to you once he’s on solid ground again, and you take it. His face breaks into that signature bubbly grin of his that’s more contagious than you’d like to admit.

Joining him on the grassy surface, you dramatically stretch your arms out in front of you, waiting for him to reciprocate the hug you’re implicitly requesting.

The impish twinkle in his eye you know so well appears with his next words. “Can I pick you up?”

“You’ll drop me!” You retort, scoffing.

“Aw, c’mon! No I won’t,” he pouts. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Do I?”

“Yes, you do.”

Strong arms envelop your form as he lifts you into the air, only to pull you tightly against his torso. Not even the world’s fluffiest blanket can compare to the fleecy warm softness of the plaid shirt and sweater vest he’s wearing.

The enamored smile on Chenle’s face is the kind that would have made you weak in the knees if you were standing. Forgetting that you’re no longer shielded from the world by the carriage’s privacy, he presses your foreheads together and cutely nuzzles your nose with his own.

Framing his sharp jawline with both of your hands, you lean in to share a second kiss with the boy you wish you had gotten to know sooner. It’s no use wondering about what could have been, however, so for now you decide to focus on only this moment, only these lips, only Chenle. The way he smiles into the kiss has you reeling with affection.

Not even the distant cheers that just barely reach your eardrums can tear you away from each other.

When you feel as though the kiss has conveyed all you want and need to say to one another, Chenle begins to mumble against your lips. In a voice low enough for only you to hear, he says, “We’re going to have to face them sooner or later, you know.”

“How about never?” You reply, grumbling.

“Just follow my lead, okay? I’m used to their teasing,” he comforts.

“If you say so...”

Breaking out of the kiss-induced daze, you both look over to where the six boys stand, clapping and pumping their fists in the air in celebration with one another.

One of them, probably Renjun, you can’t quite tell, cups his hands around his mouth in preparation for the shout that leaves it not even a second later.

“It’s about damn time!”

“I told you guys if we just left them alone they’d figure it out themselves!” Mark adds triumphantly.

Apparently more than one kiss is one too many for his friends to see, and enough to make the small group turn away, yelling for you to “get a room” at the top of their lungs. You feel Chenle smirk against your lips at their repulsed reactions.

“Serves them right.”

You agree.

You’ve never had someone to spend Halloween night with before, and boy does this stress Chenle out to no end. He wants everything to be perfect, wants to do everything that a couple should do on such a holiday. “It’s really not a big deal, Chenle,” you insist sympathetically as he paces your living room floor, currently obsessing over what costumes you should wear.

“But... it’s you, and you’re a big deal. A big deal to me. I just want to make you happy.”

“Nothing could make me happier than being able to call you mine,” you proclaim proudly, enjoying the way his face practically turns into a tomato when what you’ve just said registers in his brain. “Stop it,” he stutters, lowering his head to stare at the carpet under his feet. You just giggle.

The excitement of the night is unlike any other. Your neighborhood’s streets are full of mostly children, but some adults and grandparents too, all taking part in the festivities. Going from doorstep to doorstep, you chant the famous three-word phrase at each house, assuring anyone who answers the door that you’re never too old to trick or treat if they ask. You get lots of compliments on your matching costumes: Chenle’s dressed as Sully and you’re Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. The soft fur on his outfit makes it extremely difficult for you to hold yourself back from hugging him any chance you get.

With your bags full of enough candy to last you two months at least, you return home for the night, this time crashing at his place. Despite the fact that it’s already getting late, both of you quickly change into some more comfortable clothes before settling in on his couch for a Halloween movie marathon.

“How about...” Chenle scrolls through the large selection of films on the screen. “The Nightmare Before Christmas?”

“No!” You cry out abruptly, lightly pounding against his chest with one of your fists before returning it to its original position around his waist.

Looking down at you, currently curled up in his lap with your other arm thrown rather lazily over his sturdy shoulders and your side pressing into his torso, he asks, “Why not?”

In a small voice, you respond. “It... gave me nightmares when I was little.”

“Really? A Disney movie?”

“Yes, now can we please stop talking about it and pick something else?”

“Aw, are you scared?”

“Shut up!” You whine shyly, burying your face as far as it would go into the thin fabric of his loose white t-shirt.

“Hey,” he hushes you, “I’m not making fun of you, baby. It’s okay... I’ve got you.”

Chenle swears he feels the warmth of your blush against his shoulder, generated by his unusual use of that particular term of endearment.

He runs a reassuring palm along one of your arms down to your hand. Effortlessly he winds each of his fingers around yours, like piecing together the most delicate of puzzles, and you remember how this action would have flustered both of you beyond belief mere weeks before. It’s become so simple, so instinctive a movement, saying everything you need to know without even the slightest whisper of a word in the air.

Rubbing small circles into the skin on the back of your neck with his other hand, he holds you close, the harsh light from the television illuminating your form as it clings to his.

You eventually decide on an actual horror movie that leaves you muffling your shrieks with a pillow, but Chenle just laughs with a pitch so high that it reminds you of a certain marine mammal. You scold him by giving his shoulder a whack. “Shh, Chenle! You’re going to wake the whole neighborhood up!”

“Hey, you were screaming too!”

“That’s not screaming, that’s called laughing, you dummy.”

Hours later, Chenle’s arm hangs limply down into the large bowl of treats you’ve been sharing. The soft snores next to your ear tell you that he’s fallen asleep. His family finds you two knocked out cold the next morning, covered in fuzzy blankets and colorful candy wrappers strewn about the sofa.

Indeed, this would be a Halloween to remember, and you hope to spend many more together in the future. With Chenle in your arms right now, there’s no place in this world that you would rather be. And it’s all thanks to a flimsy piece of paper on a lamp post.

[artificiary-fr]

ok so arti’s unnecessary opinion time

Just wanna give a disclaimer that these are just my sort of thoughts in general, and are in no way an attempt to demean, attack, or cause drama about any artist or staff member, or community member. Just kind of what I’ve observed and come to the questions/conclusions of. I got a little opinionated at the end but I tried not to single anyone out save for I think, one unnamed example? 

I’ll put everything under the cut here, because I know I have a tendency to get wordy (and spoiler: It did. This is a super long post, I’m sorry). So, here we go...

TL;DR: I like the gene, I’ll wait for the revamp before giving a concrete opinion, there were definitely some issues, I appreciate that staff took note/action, more communication like this or the dev streams is good (though communication between staff/community is a Thing unto itself of which I probably have a Disliked Take on and that was the really long part that isn’t necessary to read)

Okay before anything: the familiars. They’re super pretty! I like the recolors, and now I’m gonna have to grind the Kelp Beds for those boss fams. Dang. I love the kitty golem recolor.

With that out of the way, here we are - the subject of today’s discussions... Glowtail.

So, my first opinion: It’s not a bad gene! I can see some curious use for it, certainly. But there are some problems with it (and yes; I am aware staff has addressed this and pulled it to fix those problems! That’ll be more relevant later on here c: )

Note One: I think I do understand why it is a gem gene. Yes, design/thematically it does appear to fit the bill of a Baldwin Gene more. But I’d like to posit it’s the completion of a gem-gene set - Wasp/Bee/Glowtail. So in that regard, it makes sense!

Note Two: My personal opinion with the gene is that I like it, but it feels... hm. Plain isn’t correct. Like it’s missing something, I guess? I wish the segmenting was a little more prominent, and that the glow or gradient had a little more glitz/glamor, maybe some glitteries around the hips, to really sell it as a gem gene. I do like the glow we have on the other bits of dragon like light reflection, though, because it adds a little bit of dimension! All in all however even so, I do like it, and I won’t cement my opinion until we see what their updated version looks like in the future.

Note Three (The Problems): The art errors. What... what happened here?

As we’ve noticed, male snappers and male tundras are the two big offenders, with large chunks of color erroneously sitting outside the lineart quite noticeably. There is also part of the ‘glow’ (the aforementioned light reflection) that doesn’t make sense - being on parts of the dragon where it shouldn’t be, like on the front of wings where the tail is not in front of said limb, but behind.

But like... how did this not get caught before it got posted? Was it a time crunch, or it just... didn’t get quality checked before this happened? It’s really unfortunate. :c

Something I do with my art - and this is just my own process/thoughts - is when I’ve put down the base color, before I do any shading/highlights/big details, I pop a layer underneath the entire drawing and fill it with a high contrast color to the palette. That way any bits where I missed coloring in - or didn’t clean up outside the lines - becomes super noticeable, and I can fix it then instead of being a problem later. Maybe doing something like this before throwing the gene through the color automation process would’ve helped?

Last Note:

I feel like part of why these errors went unnoticed is because of how often, and sometimes how rushed, some of these updates have been - and this has been more noticeable in this year than otherwise. Is it because of community dissent with wanting more updates creating more crunch? Due to low-attention reticence creating a need for pushing more ad revenue / more “come to the site there’s new”?

I’m unsure, but it’s unfortunate nonetheless. I think staff, and FR as a whole, would benefit from like... hm. How to word this...

Maybe taking more time on updates / a more extended schedule so things aren’t as crunch (of course this being said, I don’t know what the workload is like so I can’t even say if crunch is applicable), and more open communication? Like how the dev streams were going - that was pretty well liked and everyone I know got pretty excited to see em and how the art was doing. It also opened up the avenue for more open communication / more nuanced opinions or thoughts.

---

But herein lies the huge issue, I think, with communication. This is the part where I’d like to reiterate, this is just my observations, and is not intended as an attack, a vaguepost, or deliberate callout at anybody. There’s no malicious intent here. This bit could also be construed as drama I suppose, and I apologize for that because again - not the intent. Just my take.

I’ve noticed posts going ‘no drama please’ or being tired when new updates come out of like, ‘oh boy here comes the negativity’ so I don’t think it’s just me who’s seen it, but have you guys noticed when anything new comes out, there’s an immediate rush of extreme salt and negativity?

And I don’t mean posts where its like “it’s not for me” or “I don’t like it but here’s [detailed/explained reason why]” - those are the nuanced opinions I mean. Those are fine. I mean the ones where people in forums, or on the more prolific drama blogs, are just.... mean/empty? Like “FUCK staff I hate how lazy they are with this it’s shitty looking” - that really vocal generally super salty in general minority of the community. Just hate without explanation, or just kind of aimless generalized attack/complaint.

I think that’s where communication with Staff fell off the bandwagon. The really loud, really vocal minority of folks who throw super salt or yell “This Sucks You Suck” completely overshadow the people who are well intentioned with sharing their opinions or problems/criticisms. The toxic bits and really vitriolic words are what gets seen and noticed. I think this is the majority of what gets heard, which is why communication got so closed off / shut down unless positive, in recent times. Do I agree with that? No, I don’t either - but I’m just looking at this from the outside. Idk how staff feels or thinks.

And this goes for both people who don’t like the content, and people that do.

Remember that the Keel thread got locked because someone who was white-knighting started getting real nasty with people in the thread, and going to extremes insulting artists who did mock-ups to help visualize their thoughts/opinions and was just being a real douche?

What I really wish was that we could have more open communication. Some of the things I really liked to see were like: Dev Streams, Community Updates/Q&A, Opinion Polls, That Update Progress on Breed/Gene Progress from a while back. All of that was excellent. And I like to see the community responding in well thought out ways! I like to see staff more hands on too! We’re only human and love this site and our dragons and want to see it at it’s best - but they’re also only human, and make mistakes, and we don’t know what’s goin on in there, just out here.

Trello is a really good way to kind of show that communication, and is transparent, but isn’t free-to-use for businesses, so... of course I also don’t know how Stormlight Workshop runs their business/hours so I’m just blowing hot smoke. But anyway, I think everyone would benefit from slowing down and opening up. If things are going slow, that’s okay - if Staff opens up to the community and says “This is taking longer than expected, but here’s upcoming releases / current in-progresses” I think we’d be like oh okay things are happening and it’ll be nice! As compared to everyone gets super antsy, nothing’s happening, no-one is talking... and then we get hit with a bunch of updates, some of which, like today’s, have... issues.

Of course then I worry that with more open talking or “we’re experiencing delays” the more vitriolic will get even angrier/saltier which doesn’t... help... but I mean... yeah. 

ANYWAY so I’ve written a full dissertation essay here without really intending to (see? I warned y’all! I ramble/don’t shut up ahahaha) so I’m gonna just stop myself here before I start going in circles. This last chunk I don’t really know what the meat of what I was trying to say was, now, I think. Sorry about that. It was just “here’s my stream of consciousness” apparently ^^;;;;

Have a good evening y’all! Thanks for listenin’ to my (rant?) if y’all made it this far. You’re appreciated and thank you for letting me bend your ears! Stay safe in this crazy world, hang in there, and have a good one!

[gem-quest]

[ O P H E L I A ... ]

“There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free, if you truly wish to be.” 
- Pure Imagination

Real Name: Catriona “Cat” Walsh Age: 20 FC: Saoirse Ronan Species & Class: Specter Bard Guild: Moonstone 
 Description of In-Game Powers: Specters are Gem Quest’s non-corporeal undead player race.  They’re notable for only having 9 stats instead of 10, with Strength being omitted from their stat lineup because they literally have no physical bodies.  Instead, their Willpower stat serves as their Strength equivalent.  This means they have a rechargeable meter of how much they can possibly interact with physical objects before taking a rest or recharging with a spell or potion.  Beyond that, Specters are distinguished by their inability to be damaged by non-magical weapons, increased susceptibility to light magic, and inability to be healed via healing potions or traditional physical healing spells (only a period of rest or spells/potions aimed at restoring mental wellness can heal them).  The non-magical weapon immunity is amazing lower levels, but it’s not long before everything thrown at you seems to be enchanted or blessed or cursed or whatever.  Weirdly enough, as far as the whole “incorporeal being” conceit is taken in other aspects, Specters can indeed take potions, as well as eat and drink.  They get decreased buffs from some potions and foods, though.  To balance this out, spells that provide small buffs and aren’t explicitly light-aligned are extra effective on them.

There’s a lot of frustration with the class because of its “fake” weapon resistance, since any old dagger with any mild enchantment or magical effect at all on it can hit them.  They can’t viably hit physical things in combat without specifically taking Knight, Rogue, Rider, or Mage-Knight as their class.  And even then, they’re arguably the weakest race choice in the game for non-magical melee combat.  Meanwhile, a lot of physical things and all magic can still hit them very hard very easily. 

All of this said, there ARE skills to really like here, too - namely, superb mobility.  Specters can pass through physical materials five feet thick or thinner as long as those materials aren’t specifically enchanted to prevent phasing.  They float slightly by default and have a rechargeable flight ability that allows them to lift much further off the ground in short bursts.  They also have a rechargeable ability (with more uses per charge than flight) that allows them to teleport from where they stand to any spot they can see within 20 feet without a spell as long as they haven’t been hit with an attack in the past 5 seconds.  This gives them excellent mobility even in the heat of battle and allows them to have a lot of control over their position and angle.  It also means that it’s often smarter for them to worry less about defense than about being hard to hit in the first place.

Place of Birth: Dublin, Ireland

Appearance: Ophelia has a Specter’s signature slightly translucent skin, under-saturated color palette, and skirt hem/legs that trail off into mist.  Her eyes are a stormy gray, and her wardrobe is almost exclusively black and white.  When it comes to fashion, she prefers some of the more dark Victorian-inspired looks in the game as opposed to the high fantasy, renaissance, or medieval looks that a lot of other characters favor.  That said, she’s got a pretty extensive and well-curated wardrobe behind her.  She considers it highly important that she have at least one appropriate black and white ensemble to wear in each and every level in order to fit in with the theme.  That said, she also has her own signature look that she uses as her “default” (the outfit she’s wearing in her pic at the top of her audition - full-body edit to be shared later!).  Oh, and she loves gloves and capes.  LOVES THEM.  And kind of hoards them, tbh.

Places Most Likely to be Found In-Game: Ophelia’s favorite haunt at the moment is the City of Magic in Level 11.  It’s the logical home base for a character who’s both a crafting/magical class AND a ghost. There’s a high enough concentration of both useful items and ingredients AND sufficiently gothic-flavored areas and NPCs to suit all her needs, both practical and aesthetic. She’s set up her own little shop in one of the many background spooky haunted house locations within the shadier-looking part of the city, and her Aesthetic demands she sometimes hangs out at the city’s main graveyard.  

Beyond that, she can sometimes be found in various libraries and shops across the levels she can access, looking for interesting bits of crafting knowledge, hints of new items she could try cobbling together, and items that she could modify or combine with something to make can even more useful item.  She’s also been known to turn up in random wilderness or roadway portions of levels in the first half of the game, foraging for crafting components that grow or randomly generate within those environments.

Current Inventory:

Screaming Lute (x1): Ophelia is very, exceedingly proud of her combat lute.  She crafted it herself out of her bardic starter instrument.  Specter Bards begin the game with an instrument they are capable of interacting with consistently.  Cat has decided that, within Ophelia’s story, this was Ophelia’s lute in life, and it was destroyed shortly before her death as a way of intimidating her.  Anyhow, Ophelia has heavily modified her starting weapon to the point that she thinks of it as an entirely new item.  It’s covered in strange etched carvings and shifts between glowing with an eerie red light from the inside and constantly trailing wisps of white smoke.  She uses it as her primary weapon in the game, as strumming specific notes and chords on the lute lights up some of the etchings and fires off various spells and magical effects and spells Ophelia has been able to learn.  The lute downright shrieks whenever she uses it to cast a spell.  How does it work, you might ask?  That is a very long story, and one I’m saving for another post XD  Most of the spells Ophelia has at her disposal are cast through her rune-covered lute and will be catalogued in her lute info.

Whispering Flute (x1): Ophelia likes rhymes and the aesthetics of symmetry.  A secondary combat and utility weapon of hers, this is a flute enchanted to fire off up to three charges of Ventium per day, and one charge of Murmurationium per day.  A good insurance weapon to sneak into a dangerous social situation, as it’s a perfectly normal and usable flute until she uses it to unleash the fury of the cold cruel winds of death upon you XD

Empty Unbreakable Bottle (x5): Ophelia favors magical items strongly because Specters can interact with non-martial ones automatically, without having to expend any extra effort or have at least X amount of Willpower to do so.  Unbreakable Bottles are the cheapest magical container commonly for sale in game that’s capable of reliably holding liquids, so Ophelia likes to store all liquids important to her in them.  And she likes to have at least a couple of empty ones on her at all times in case she wants to take a sample of something or otherwise just needs one.

Unbreakable Bottle of Rune Ink (x5): Rune Ink is an item that can be used as permanent and unfading ink that’s nigh impossible to remove or cover up.  More importantly, though, it allows a PC with knowledge of the game’s runes, basically a language of magic that appears in a level or two and on some items, to write runic symbols that absorb nearby magical energy and store it within the object with runes written on it.

Enchanted Carving Tools (x1): Basic carving tools, enchanted to be able to create magical items and inscriptions.  Ophelia uses them for crafting both magical and non-magical items, since any given item needs to be enchanted for her to be able to actively use it for long stretches of time anyway.

Enchanted Mending Kit (x1): Enchanted mending/tinker’s tools able to repair magical items without damaging their magical properties.  Ophelia uses these to repair any repairable item sent her way, for the same reason she also uses enchanted carving tools for everything.

Paxanimi Potion (x3): A potion that mitigates psychic damage or corruption and provides a temporary boost to a player’s Psyche stat.  For Ophelia, as a Specter, this is the closest thing she gets to a reliably available health potion.

Psychometry Scroll (x1): Allows caster to make one inquiry about the past of an object or place, then projects a scene or quote from the object’s or place’s history that provides a relevant answer to that question into the caster’s mind.  Without crafting very specific questions, the results can often be vague and unhelpful, as the game will take the path of least resistance in providing a vision that meets the requirements of the inquiry.

Ictuium Scroll (x1)

Second Sight Scroll (x1) (Learning)

Assorted Random Crafting Bits and Scraps

She actually has more inventory kept hidden away within her home base rather than coming with her everywhere.  Most of it is just more tools and materials and many, many changes of clothes.

“How much does it weigh?  Can I touch, smell, and taste it?  Can I put it in my inventory?  Is it magical?  Is it combustible?  How many knowledge checks can I roll on it?  Does it match my outfit?  Can I keep it?” - Catriona, literally every time she sees any new item in D&D

Strongest character trait: Imagination

Strengths: Ophelia is an immensely imaginative and resourceful person who comes to Gem Quest from a background of extensive fiction reading and making famously effective TTRPG characters.  It helps that she researched Gem Quest *extensively* before starting and continued to be active in forums and the GQ Wiki right up through getting stuck, along with getting early advice and support from a beta tester acquaintance.  Her ideas are typically wildly innovative and a bit risky, but to her credit, they pay off more often than not.  She’s slow to trust others with much critical personal information, but pretty open to giving others a chance and to judging people based on her own experience rather than on gossip.  Thinking on her feet is second nature to her, and she’s rarely at a loss for ideas.  Her devotion to her character and planned story arc have helped her to maintain a degree of focus and stability that’s thus far proven to be her most valuable coping mechanism. 

She’s generally friendly and pleasant despite her spooky aesthetic, story, and demeanor, and she will genuinely try to help anyone who asks her for it.  In business and in social encounters, Ophelia is considerate, well-mannered, and often downright chatty, though she usually knows to take a hint when people make it clear that they don’t want to talk.  She makes and offers a selection of odd but useful items at very fair prices because she’s not here to make a profit - she just needs enough resources to keep going.  She’s earned a bit of good will based on that.  Her skill in puzzle and strategy-based quests and willingness to dispense hints on the above, along with her crafting, has garnered her a good reputation as a support player and PC shopkeeper within her guild.

Weaknesses: Even knowing that the game is now a matter of life and death, Ophelia still seems to care more about her in-game narrative and goals than practicality, survivability, or winning.  A vibrant creative type who wishes no irl harm to anybody, she has a hard time conceiving that even the most blatantly destructive PCs would truly do harm to anyone outside the narrative.  She catches most of the references you make and then obnoxiously, steadfastly denies that she has caught them if you inquire, because Star Wars doesn’t exist in the world of Gem Quest and of Ophelia, dammit!  While her coping methods might be working for her internally for now, her devotion to staying in-character makes her a bit of an acquired taste.  She is very, very particular about sticking to character, even when it’d be more practical and less annoying for her to drop it. She’s been known to make important decisions that risk her safety (and sometimes, indirectly, that of others) in the name of “authenticity” to her character and story plans. 

Far, far too curious and adventurous for someone with a Defense stat of 2.  She has lots and lots of interesting ideas, all of which she gives equal chance to, plenty of which aren’t good.  Just because her creative ideas pay off more often than not doesn’t mean that there aren’t times when they don’t pay off.  And when they don’t pay off, they tend to not pay off SPECTACULARLY.  Reasonably likely to get herself killed enacting some inventive and exceedingly high-risk scheme to take out a dangerous boss before it can do damage. 

For some folks, the mix of creepy aesthetics and backstory and acting choices with effusive goodwill and pleasantness is more off-putting than inviting.  Arguably talks too much, especially when she’s nervous or upset.  Has a weakness for getting emotionally involved with NPCs, particularly minor NPCs with chains of side quests or that can serve as temporary companions, despite theoretically knowing that they’re just chunks of code.  Seems physically incapable of just sitting back and relaxing for a few without having to start some new project or come up with some new big subplot or plan. 

Plenty of folks are happy to buy her crafted items, but she has a bad reputation as an active combatant due to a few infamous Incidents.  At this point, only the truly uninformed, the truly desperate, the truly experimental, or the truly crazy in Moonstone would willingly party up with her XD

“Death has made me less than kind.  And very, very creative with a broken lute, who knew?” - Ophelia

Player Stats: Ophelia’s defensive strategy in combat is just to not be hit at all.  Her Defense stat is dangerously low, with any points that could buff it up as she’s gained levels and experience instead going to Agility and Luck.  She prefers to draw her “defense” from stats that she can get more versatile use out of.  She’s unusually low in Charisma for a Bard and has only enough Willpower to allow her to craft with physical items.  She can’t wield non-magical weapons at all.  However, she opted to invest a bit more in Psyche than a lot of other players did since a lot of a Specter’s durability lies in their emotional stability.  She also has uncommonly high Intelligence, which combines with her Psyche and Luck to equip her well for puzzle-based and strategy-based challenges.

STRENGTH: X

DEFENSE: 2

CHARISMA: 6

PSYCHE: 7

WILLPOWER: 7

CAUTIOUSNESS: 4

AGILITY: 8

ENDURANCE: 5

INTELLIGENCE: 9

LUCK: 8


Personality: (A lot of this is already in her strengths and weaknesses, so I’m putting a bit of a summary and some extra detail in here.)

She eats fictional media for breakfast, means well, talks a lot and talks often, has an overall spooky quirky nice one vibe (you know the type), fancies herself an actress regardless of the feedback she might receive, will (un)live and die in-character out of a fruity cocktail of artistic integrity and spite, is the Bard equivalent of a TV mad scientist who tends to cause the problem at the start of the episode with an experiment and then solve it in the last 2 minutes with a crazy genius plan that’s then shown to have not *totally* worked in a post-episode stinger, and is too smart for anyone’s good.  

Building a clear narrative here helps her bring some degree of organization and order to the wild creative whirlpool that is her brain.  She’d never considered herself much of an escapist until she discovered GQ, where she hasn’t escaped from responsibilities and work and struggle so much as she’s found an intoxicating degree of control over what her responsibilities and work and struggle are.  She can write a meaningful story here, be its central driving force, have the impact she increasingly feels like she’ll just never be able to have in real life, and stick her epic quest out to a glorious conclusion.  Ironically, she’s a weird mix of always needing an outline and a sense of narrative while ALSO constantly bursting with new ideas and clever but risky plans that she takes quite seriously.  Cat harbors perpetual mild guilt for feeling so restless and unhappy - after all, she’s lived comfortable life and has a family who loves, and it’s not like people have to like anything she makes or does or says in order for her to have a high quality of life.

“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.” - James Joyce

Biography: Catriona Walsh was born in Dublin, Ireland to an Irish mother and an American father of Irish descent.  The family moved to New York City for her father’s job when she was just 5, but she and her mom remain close with her mom’s side of the family back in Ireland.  After 3 years in New York, the family moved to Columbus, Ohio, where Cat spent the rest of her young life, except for summers.  Most summers since she was 13, she’s stayed a couple months with an aunt and uncle who own a small tour company in Dublin.  From 16 on, she’s been helping with business while there.  Now she’s at college in Dublin and working at the company on the weekends, in exchange for staying with her relatives. She’s studying business for her parents and literature for herself.  

Cat has always had a great fondness for the tour company, though mostly for the actual tour guide end of it.  She’s a natural storyteller and explorer who delights in going off the beaten trail and sharing all she knows about xyz subject with anyone who seems interested.  Unfortunately, her improvisational bent has landed her in trouble with her aunt and uncle more than once.  There are schedules to keep and itineraries people pay to be taken through, after all.  This landed her behind the front desk of the office answering phone calls and administering group ticket sales, which she very nearly hates.

School is hard, especially with her true interest pushed to the side by necessity.  Feeling like none of her ideas ever get taken seriously is hard.  Making friends that last beyond one semester sharing a class is hard, and as she gets further into her college career, her future looks increasingly stifled and bleak to her.  Attempts to get some poetry and original music off the ground haven’t gone anywhere, ending in some spikes of faceless nastiness that prompted her to delete her one YouTube account and take a step back from social media about a year and a half ago.  Sure, she knows she’s supposed to have a thicker skin than that if she wants to go anywhere, and she *does* want to go somewhere.  But she can’t seem to make her skin much thicker.  She wants to argue with her uncle and aunt a bit more, as she increasingly disagrees with them on quite a few things, but they’re both extremely conflict averse, and she can be extremely lacking in tact about things she’s suitably worked up over.  

Through it all, she knows full well that so so many people have it worse, and that she has no reason to feel restless and dissatisfied and unhappy.  It’s just that she has a hard time connecting with people and feeling heard. She’s not alone, so why is she lonely?  Cat takes refuge in being the zany, intensely individualistic artist who’s sometimes worth inviting to a party for the interest value and who surely has friends somewhere - you just haven’t ever met them.  

For the past year or so, all the time Cat has for herself and an increasing amount of time that used to go into schoolwork has been split between her long-time refuge in tabletop roleplaying and her new favorite place: Gem Quest.  She’s part of two Dungeons & Dragons games currently being run on Roll20 (well, was a part of them, anyway), both of which she plays as a multiclassed build with some degree of casting put together for a mix of strong utility and intricate storytelling.  Gem Quest continues a years-long trend of being in love with exactly one fantasy video game at a time and playing it as much as possible, though it’s her first MMORPG.  

Catriona researched Gem Quest *extensively* before ever getting it or creating her character.  She heard about it from a fellow member of one of her online D&D groups, an avid gamer happened to be a beta tester.  Cat was drawn in by the idea of being able to entirely occupy the space of a created hero within a sprawling fantasy setting and be a version of herself designed as a protagonist in a world designed to be impacted by her.  She had a cousin who had a VR headset but decided it just wasn’t really his thing, so it wasn’t hard to convince him to let her use it for this.  After waiting to see more setting and story info during the early general release and researching everything there was to know about GQ thus far, including via discussion with her beta tester acquaintance, she entered into the game a short while after launch. She’s had time to level up, mostly in being an item crafter and utility character with a surprising capacity to serve as a highly mobile glass canon blaster (and inexhaustible source of very creative and very insane plans) in combat.

She also has a whole, novella-length backstory for her character - a summary of which I will post later! - that she treats as her character bible and guide for all in-game interactions.  It’s based on a single image of a skeleton in a black and white dress in some official art of one of the higher levels where there are a lot of scenic skeletons lying around.  This is the sort of brain Cat has XD



Ophelia, as a character, is the ghost of a minor noblewoman and court musician who was betrayed when she starting poking around into the disappearance of her older brother at court.  Her desires to find her brother and for vengeance brought her back as a Specter, but she came back a world away from the place she died and has to go on a quest to make it back and finish her story.  Cat built the character to be tied to a mid-to-late game puzzle-heavy level so she could have a big climatic Moment there.  Then, she’d continue to the end in search of her fictional brother.  Ophelia wields a spectral lute as a spellcasting focus and spends a lot of time pursuing leads about both her brother and her murderer (aka quests Cat finds thematically/aesthetically good for Ophelia).

Cat is VERY set on seeing this plot through and being the hero of her story, from start to finish, despite what’s happening with the game now.  She does her part to provide puzzle guides and crafting support for those working to beat the game, but she’s not going to rush through her story and suddenly snap back to being poor little ungrateful and inexplicably depressed Cat who has no place in anything and can’t do anyone much good with what she’s got.  While she’s in the game, she’s going to be Ophelia.  At least Ophelia has a *reason* to be unhappy and restless, a wildly creative and wildly striving brain tied to the world with a few wisps of smoke.  And at least Ophelia is good at what she does.

Never mind how much she adored aggressive exploration and creative combat at first.  She’s learned well enough that she’s just a liability there, she’s bad at being in a group, and, not so different from real life, she’s at her best when she’s just at the shop counter being support.  She’s already been booted from a couple of parties over her crazy plans, play style, and general personality. And there have been more than enough incidents with her pulling something crazy because it was in-character and genuinely seemed like a good solution with the resources given, usually with at least decent results but always with high risk, that no one in the know is willing to party up with her anymore. 

She’s kind of stuck either in her shop or going solo.  At least she makes good things, though, right?  And she’s just taking her plot slow because of she’s savoring and developing her story, not because people don’t really like conquering life beside her out here either, right?

Right?

Relationships: I’m very much open to some plotting and planning with anyone who’d like to try working something out!

In regards to side characters or such of my own, I have some ideas already for this.  I’ll fill these in as I finalize my ideas a bit more!

Char 1 -

Char 2 -

Char 3 -

Playlist: TBF Pinterest: TBF Extra: TBF

[doshmanziari]

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness ~ It’s Just Like Symphony of the Night, Except Not At All! [Part IV]

When asked recently if Curse of Darkness is good, I answered: no; but, I’ve played through it about ten times. So, on a subjective level that can’t really be transmitted to other people by telling them what to focus on (although I’ll try to enumerate what I focus on), there is something here that, well, I just like. I’m not the sort of person to make the claim that, “[X] is a fine videogame, but a bad [series-name] videogame.” That’s not my conclusion -- to suggest that there is an inherent goodness to the series I like just because it generally excites my palate, and that anything below one’s standard is a “betrayal” of that inherence.

Even though difficulty isn’t what I go to videogames looking for, I think what makes Curse of Darkness work best for me is its hard mode, accessed by finishing the game once and then inputting “@CRAZY” for your file name on a new file (the same goes for Lament of Innocence). The norm for the Castlevania series and iterative challenge has been “loops” -- clearing the game once and then having it roll over automatically to a new game, whereupon enemies deal more damage and are perhaps more numerous and/or newly appearing. Although these adjustments have provided an extra challenge, the presence of new material, of differing enemies or enemy placements, has tended to be relatively minimal. The first Castlevania, for example, halts its modifications on stage four on subsequent loops. CoD’s hard mode is remarkable in that pretty much every area has been edited for enemy type and occurrence. It is also, at least on some hypothetical level, the toughest of any Castlevania hard mode. Hours in, you will still be easily slain in just a few hits, your curative capacity is strict, and money is tight. What all of this means, for me, anyway, is that Curse of Darkness becomes a sort of brutal dungeon crawler: the endurance which the level design, by default, asks of the player better matches what you need to do in order to survive until the next save point.

What it also means is that you might be compelled to more intentionally curate your familiars, here called Innocent Devils. Normally, these critters are absolutely peripheral, excepting a handful of spots where one’s ability is required for progress. On hard mode, having the right familiar in the right situation, using the right abilities, is an enormous help -- sometimes, the difference between your life and death. If I could retroactively magically redirect all of the labor poured into the Innocent Devils to the level design, of course I’d do it in a heartbeat; but the variety that effort produced -- the physical differences between a Devil’s evolutionary forms, their skills, and the descriptions for each (two of my favorites: “A star motif graces the rod of this mage. Its owner dreams of one day becoming one with the stars”, and “Pure rage in corporal form, it is chaos with wings. Many find its anguished form hard to look at”) -- has its place among the rest of the game’s marginalia. Without them, too, Curse of Darkness would perhaps be an overly lonely experience.

Curse of Darkness has something in common with KCET’s post-Game Boy Advance Castlevanias (most of all Order of Ecclesia), which is that its bosses are excellent -- fun to look at and fun to fight, especially on hard mode, where precise mechanical execution is mandatory. The downside is that they are, in fact, so good that returning to the game as usual after each can be especially deflating. Just as fun are the narrative interludes featuring some wonderfully on-point voice acting by, best of all, Liam O’Brien (as Isaac) and Adam D. Clark (as St. Germain), and, somehow, some of the subtlest facial expressions found on the console. To be sure, the characterizations are limited -- caricatures more than characters -- but what they lack in humanistic texture (something perhaps not to be sought in this series) they make up for in flair. People might pick on the Lords of Shadow titles for resembling “high fantasy” ersatz with doses of Castlevania jabbed in wherever, and while that is a fair criticism, just as awful was the games’ relentlessly grieving tone, as if a suffocating sense of self-seriousness were what the material needed for effect. Curse of Darkness’ tonal strain -- reverential, obscurantist, and funny -- could not be unlikelier. There is the rendering of Trevor Belmont, after we first fight him to no avail, as a near-saintly figure; the inscrutable, fanfiction-like logic guiding the major plot beats; the way Hector, as protagonist, slams between ridiculous shrieks of vengeance and introspective “Indeed”s. It is, all in all, maybe the best-relayed storyline Castlevania has ever gotten, and maybe will ever get.

If there’s one mechanical idea, separate from the Innocent Devils, to applaud, it’s the stealing mechanic, whereby Hector can snag various items from ghouls and ghosts if done at the proper time. This is indicated by the lock-on reticule momentarily switching from orange to purple, and often requires waiting for certain animations to begin or finish. It’s a neat micro-challenge to engage if you’re so inclined (bosses are where it shines; the Wyvern, for example, has an optional aerial sequence that’s tied to the steal-window), and a nice alternative to item drops being determined by randomized success/failure rates. To be clear, randomized drops do still exist -- they’re there in the bestiary as a delineated datum -- but they’re no longer the sole possibility. For some, this mechanic might also serve as an invitation to observe Dracula’s army with a heightened degree of purposefulness, to better appreciate the effort that went into giving its members life. However viewed, it’s kind of a shame that the idea remains unique to Curse of Darkness. I suppose pure statistical randomness pumps up the playtime for anyone who enjoys grinding; but the intentionality underpinning the stealing mechanic, the terms of its execution and our means of utilizing it, is a tantalizing window into an alternative, less number-crunchy shape for the action-RPG mold of Castlevania.

And, really, for as often as Curse of Darkness’ visuals compare unfavorably to Lament of Innocence’s, I couldn’t’ve taken as many photos of it as I did for another lo-fi-/CRT-dedicated project last year (a fraction of the results can be seen here and here) if the game’s world didn’t have an ambient luminescence of its own, albeit one thinned out by the aforementioned issues with the scope and camera, and several stale settings. In a fashion seemingly particular to PlayStation 2 releases, scores of exterior and interior spots are clothed with polychromatic, sourceless “lighting”, such that a wall’s surface might go from a deep blue to a brown-green to a purplish red. Taken as a sum, Curse of Darkness’ Wallachia is dim and gray-faced; taken constitutionally, it’s in fact abounding with colorful dispersions. Especially delightful for its brazenness is the pause menu/status screen, centralized by a pillar of neon-green stamps, headlined by a teal and an orange ochre banner, and itemized on the right by a stack of iconographic boxes. As coloration and organization go, compared to Lament of Innocence’s screen, it’s sloppy. But as a chunk of graphic design to linger in, it’s delicious, and happily recalls Harmony of Dissonance’s palettes (also directed by Takashi Takeda).

Well! That’s nearly all I have to say about Curse of Darkness right now. I’m curious if the animated Castlevania series’ second season, featuring Hector and Isaac (Isaac is physically recast and no longer queer-coded in the way media tends to do that coding; a gain and a loss, in my opinion), got some people to try this game out for the first time. If it did, I’m also curious if the show’s characterizations transferred over, maybe allowing those people to enjoy Curse of Darkness in a way foreign to myself (no, I still haven’t watched the show) and others. Could the imaginatively supplementary reach of fanfiction sustain such a playthrough? Surely it’s possible.

You can read the prior three essays on CoD here, here, and here.