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kaontic · 2 months ago

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*Long post*

And tho she be but little (even compared to a normal shark for reference lol), she is fierce. 💅

She has never done anythin’ wrong, ever, in her existence.

We know this. And we love her.

*Gives Shanix*

(Why is Shanix capitalized it’s a currency—)

Somethin’ tells me that some writer 40 years ago had it out for aquatic animals.

Thus, we got squid colonizers (in which one is referrin’ to the Cybertronian they abducted as their “brother”? And not anythin’ more demeanin’? Huh...Interesting…) and their piranha-anglerfish-shark hellhounds.

(And also their non-hybrid alligator bailiffs)

Yes, that’s what we’ve finally concluded after readin’ this issue 3 sparkdamn times, to try and figure out just what the actual frag’s goin’ on here.

‘N nothin’ else. :)

*Awkward silence* :)

*Awkward silence intensifies* :)

God, they really might be basin’ all of their designs + lore off G1, are they? 🫠

(I’ve read some opinions regardin’ that, and they are understandably not very positive. I get it. G1 is honestly just pure source material, and should only be seen as such, if we’d all like to keep the remainin’ sanity we have left)

(Therefore, you can interpret whatever the frag happened and the way things worked in it however you’d like, and adapt whatever you like into your own fan continuities. That’s what DWJ’s been doin’, and doin’ good…ish. That matter can be a separate post)

Well, if they really do go through with it, at least they can finally acknowledge (and dare I say address, if they have the page time of course) the one origin for Megatron that I think I can actually get behind so far.

(K*rwa, make this former Pokémon fan look even more like a geewunner, why not? Why. Fraggin’. Not at this point? *Bangs my head against the headboard of the bed*)

It’s not like I made an entire scrappy post about it that I deleted later or anythin’.

(Although the points I made in it still stand, no post here is safe 🙂🙃)

✨ Anyway— ✨

Let’s review our notes:

. Megs has a clan, and by clan I think he means his warriors (“You will turn from my enemy…into my kin”), which means he’s been fighting before his abduction, which means that I’m still allowed to hate him yay—

. And his fusion cannon (so we have yet to learn how he acquired it)

. And that cathartic defiance of his that he has in common with Starscream (a major reason why I love ‘em both equally)

(I really need to stop makin’ Megatron centric posts to prove that)

. Oh, he’s a triple changer after all—! 😮

Wait, what is he doin’—? 😶

（・口・）

You guys

That was f**king AWESOME (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

NEW FAVORITE ISSUE I LOVE DRAGONS— *Flashbacks to Beast Hunters* 😍

. Imagine, instead, if he had to start over every time he died, and what I mean by this is that each new part of the trial is the next trial. So if he dies on the 500th trial he has to restart from the 1st trial and fight his way back up

I think I’ve spent a little too much time with Shockwave—

. Wow, there really is an evil matrix. Is that how he got all these new powers (e.g. revivin’ Ravage)? 😂

. Yes, this is Hell Megs (don’t ask how Cybertronians know what Hell is)

And in the future you are going to the 9th Circle. We call it Earth ❄️

(　〇□〇）

. Not to rip from that deleted post, but like—

*Pretends to insert Smokey and Craig’s “Dayuuuuuuuum!” cuz of the 10-image-per-post limit*

You guys don’t know how much I’ve wanted a character to talk to Megs like this. About this. In canon

And that character turning out to be a Quintesson is f**cking perfect

(*Gets unapologetically sidetracked* Other than, firstly, Optimus. Or Kiloton. Or Impactor. Or even a human in a scenario where they desperately try to get Megs to understand that he doesn’t have to be a gun à la Iron Giant

Yes, he has a literal gun as his alt mode but that’s not what I mean hear my pretentious ass out—

He doesn’t have to be a literal weapon programmed to serve the misguided or oppressive interests of individuals, who might not even be online at that point in the war—along with Optimus, Elita and Magnus. Oh why link them together, you may ask? Cuz they are all in the same boat!

They tell him that he can be so much more [DEZIMIR SAID THAT BUT IN A DIFF CONTEXT AAAAAAAAAH—], but here’s the twist: Megatron’s happy the way he is, and D-16/Megatronus/whatever his former name was consented [with no room for doubt in his spark] to becoming a tyrant—but they don’t know that, and that’s the point

They will always question whether or not Megatron has free will/agency/an understanding of “right” and “wrong” [they theorize that he’s mentally incompetent, but they can’t check his brain chips cuz ✨ ethics ✨ or somethin’], and he of course goes along with that to avoid facing justice [kinda like Joker’s situation but potentially way more complicated I’m trying my best to explain this lol]

Then the Autobots start questioning themselves and each of their mental states (as like I said, they’re technically all in the same boat) and it all just goes to hell

I want a fanfic of that lmk 😂)

(Secondly, Starscream. He could say all this to Megs as well, esp during a particularly heated interaction, in order to criticize his poor leadership. However, Star’s unfortunate thing is that while he sometimes does have a point, he goes about his dissatisfaction/frustration in such a disastrous way, as to result in his words fallin’ on damaged auditory sensors oof)

. *Gun mode acquired*

. Aw, the dragon got slayed :/ 💅

. Is he putting his servo on an optic? A little confused by that still 🤨

Update: Oh…we’re seein’ his servo through his optic 😶

. Some people are saying the “Master” is Unicron

I mean, if that turns out to be the case, and he’s just lyin’ to Megs about bein’ on the same page screen as him in order to somehow c[REDACTED]e his brother again (wait I forgot is Primus a thing in this continuity)—

(Another update: “Primus have mercy!” *Gets executed by a douchebag and his own future douchebag*)

Well, this is Hell and he’s the Devil so— ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(I should stop it’s Palm Sunday 😅)

As long as they don’t use him in anyway to excuse or downplay Megs’ actions, I’m fine with that

He’s always gonna be irredeemable (so there can’t be anyone written to be “worse” than him right?)

(R-Right…?)

Anyways, let’s go recruit younglings and ruin Ulchtar’s existence lol

PS: Wait, let me test somethin’ real quick: wouldn’t it be really funny if Megs actually apologized to Star next issue as a plot twist

I know that s**t only happens in fanfics, but with the way they’ve been writin’ his dialogue (as others have said, it’s givin’ self-righteous cult leader), and just the way he’s been conductin’ himself (in a frighteningly calm manner)—

Like he’s actin’ very humble/subdued after bein’ in CC’s custody, which I find weird since we now know that he’s been through this typa s**t before, so—

Idk…we’ll see. Oh, we will fraggin’ see

#you order and dwj delivers 🙌#ok maybe i shouldn’t say that lol #the poor guy has enough fan requests as it is and no page time #the latter esp i think contributes a lot to why skybound isn’t perfect #still peak tho #maccadam #transformers #tf skybound #tf skybound spoilers #energon universe #energon universe spoilers #tfeu #tfeu spoilers #megatron #quintessons #sharkicons #allicons #megatron gun mode #maccadams

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otakween · 1 year ago

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Digimon Frontier - Episode 50 (Finale!)

Yay, it's over! (lol). I'm sorry, but this ending didn't do much for me. We barely got to see the real world at all and the epilogue amounted to a boring slide show (aside from Koji reuniting with his birth mom, that was sweet). In the end, these characters just didn't feel as fleshed out as those in previous seasons and the digimon connection was lackluster too (it's hard to see the spirits as separate characters). Oh well, I don't mind watching some bland anime now and then...

Notes:

Seriously, compared to previous seasons, this goodbye was so blah. They just get yeeted back to the human world immediately after the final battle and miss their chance to say goodbye to the digimon. Bokomon gets the longest goodbye monologue, but I never liked him so...yeah. (Remember when Adventure gave us sentimental goodbyes between each human-digimon pairing that were indicative of their distinct, defined personalities? Yeah...I miss that).

The spirits showing up and even striking the final blow was...okay I guess. The "bad guy" spirits were just silent and in the background again. There's just no emotional connection because we haven't seen the main spirits as characters before (aside from silently nodding from the digivice from time to time).

Neemon snapping his own pants was a funny gag. The slapstick between Bokomon and Neemon did grow on me. (Funny how Neemon never served a single purpose...)

The Susanoomon thing was weird. In the previous episode Susanoomon was created by combining all 10 spirits but only Takuya and Koji were "inside" him, but in this episode all the kids go "inside." Either way it's still 10 spirits. They should have just made him be a combo of all the kids from the start! So clunky...

Lucemon Satan Mode gave major Millenniumon vibes in his lil grubby form. I'm not sure if "fall down mode" or "Satan mode" is a dumber name.

Seeing the digicode flow out of Lucemon/the digivices and reform the digital world was nice. (Hopefully the moons came back too lol). I wonder if everyone's going to start from zero as a digiegg?

Lol sure, they just let a bunch of kids barge into an emergency room. Hospital security apparently sucks in Japan! I was a little confused what exactly revived Koichi. Was it Koji's love or something from the digivices? Well, either way it was pretty silly.

I don't know why I didn't even think about the human/digital world time difference. I thought when Takuya returned to the human world in that previous episode that everyone would be worried about him, but they have the nice "no time has passed actually" loop hole.

Now that I think about it, it kind of feels like they all had the same arc. The epilogue was all about the kids having learned how to get along better with others (except maybe Tomoki who learned to "not be weak," but even that had to do with how he treats others!) Instead of just seeing them hang out with their one-dimensional families and classmates, I think I would have just preferred an epilogue of them hanging out in the human world and getting pizza or something. Or maybe they could be supporting Junpei at a magic show! (Maybe what I really need is fanfic lol).

Bring back parents!! The kids' parents in Adventure and Tamers were a big presence and it made them feel more like real, relatable people. Here they're mostly just in the background. Also, maybe if I got to know Koji's dad more I wouldn't think he was such a weirdo for lying to his son! >:/ I wanted to hear his side!!

Digimon Frontier was...my least favorite season so far for sure. It's not like it was a total loss, there were some cool digimon designs and I liked the digivolution sequences. The characters were charming enough, but not super memorable. I think this series' shortcomings really highlight what made previous seasons work better. IDK much about how it was received back in the day, but hopefully they learned from these mistakes. Onto the next! (After a brief gaming interlude).

#digimon frontier #digimon #anime

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destinygoldenstar · 2 months ago

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Mai Mishou / Cure Egret

'Kay. So I didn't like Bloom's design. Is Egret any better?

Yes.

But not by much, unfortunately.

Egret's design carries the same issue that Bloom's had. Which is that it's too busy.

She can hide it a bit better cause she's less saturated, but it's still there.

You got the many MANY layers on her shoulder pads.

You got this weird pink triangle piece on her torso.

You got the multi-layered skirt. There's a skirt underneath here with its own frills.

AND THE BELT AND SKIRT ARE ASYMMETRICAL TO THE BOW. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!??! AGAIN?!??!!

Also, why did they make the belt buckle asymmetrical now?

Her original design had the belt buckle in the center of her belt.

It worked because it aligns near perfectly with her bow. So her torso feels evenly matched.

But now that you put the buckle to the side, it makes the torso look even more weird looking. This looks unbalanced.

Yeah you know how I feel about this already.

You also have these weird top pieces on the boots.

I don't even know what these weird pieces are.

But hey, at least this time, instead of four different heart pieces, there's only TWO different heart pieces scattered around! Because those brooches on her cuffs are butterflies!

WHERE NOWHERE ELSE IN THE DESIGN IS THIS A THING.

At least the color palette isn't bloated this time. (Pure White, Milky White, Turquoise, Pink, Periwinkle.) That's something I guess.

Also, Cure White influence without understanding what made Cure White good.

Same cuffs.

Same shoes.

Same heart motif.

Hey, at least her hair is purple. That's... a choice.

As much as I don't like the layers though, I kinda have to give her a pass based on her inspiration.

She's an Egret.

She's a bird.

Birds have feathers.

And that brings me to something else.

She's a white cure. Right?

The SHADE of white they went with is a dirty white.

"Well, okay, it's a lighting issue."

Still.

Egrets are known for usually being milky white.

Milky White isn't actually pure white.

There's your lesson for the day.

Her whole design is pretty unsaturated though.

Especially compared to her partner.

They look weird standing next to each other, right?

One is full of saturation, and the other is not very saturated at all.

Not that I expect her to. She's Cure EGRET. Not Cure Parrot.

Still. I question the logic behind making the duo a flower and a bird.

What if they were both birds? Just an idea.

Cure Windy is kind of interesting of a case though.

Like, I get the idea. Cure WINDY.

The skirt is a lot more wavy and flowy.

The cuffs are more loose.

The frills are more pointed and lacey.

ALSO THE TORSO IS ALIGNED. YAY!!!

There's less layers now. It's very nice and helps it too.

I also think these boots are kinda cute??? Low key???

Look I can make an exception if I want to.

It fits her motif very well. I know what she's supposed to be.

I have two issues though.

One, the color palette.

It's very close to being the same as her original design.

(Original - Milky White, Pure White, Turquoise, Pink, Periwinkle)

(Windy - White, Pink, Periwinkle, Turquoise, Light Blue)

The only difference is that her milky white is now a light blue.

CHANGE IT UP A BIT. YOU DID THAT WITH BRIGHT.

Maybe I'm an idiot, but as a kid watching Splash Star, I legit could not tell Egret had two outfits. I thought they were the same.

And...

Okay this is gonna sound petty. THESE SHOULDER LOOPS.

I HATE THESE PIECES.

THEY ARE SO DISTRACTING.

MY EYES IMMEDIATELY GO TO THESE, AND STAY THERE. THEY'RE SO WEIRD LOOKING.

THEY ALSO RUIN THE FLOW OF THE REST OF THE DESIGN.

THIS DESIGN DOES NOT NEED THESE.

GET RID OF THESE, AND IT'S BETTER!

Okay, so how do I rank these?? Uh...

Cure Egret is a C Tier. It carries some of the same issues Bloom's design does. But it's not as bad. The less saturated color palette kinda saves it.

Cure Windy is a B Tier. I prefer this one personally, despite its problems. But man those shoulder pieces.

Overall Team Placement ^

#pretty cure #precure #futari wa precure #character design #character designs #futari wa precure splash star #cure egret

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kittyandco-archive · 1 year ago

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7 & 14 for whichever fem f/o you want!!

YAY THANK YOU

i was thinking about raquelle yesterday so :3 barbie time

7. What hobbies do you share? What hobbies do you do separately but encourage the other about?

we both LOVE fashion of course. we love learning about new and upcoming subcultures and history and all that.

we also enjoy baking together; vanilla cupcakes are raquelle's favorite so we've learned to perfect our recipe over time 🥰

we also love walking along or relaxing on the beach! (which i guess isn't a hobby but we do enjoy spending time together like that)

i enjoy reading and writing for fun outside of work (expanded upon in the next answer). raquelle has personal design projects that she does for herself (in other words, not for sale at her store). she's so talented and i wish she wouldn't compare herself to barbie so much. ;w;

otherwise, her method of unwinding is usually watching some kind of reality show or chilling in our hot tub or she sneaks over to use barbie's because it's bigger. sometimes i'll join her, and sometimes she asks me about what i'm reading/writing. i get a little shy because at first i think she'll roast me 😭

14. What are your thoughts on each other's profession? Do you visit each other at work?

my s/i is a fashion magazine editor! raquelle thinks it's so interesting, even if she's always trying to steal the spotlight in it. 😋 it's so cute, but i tell her that i have to give other fashionistas a chance. that's actually how we meet... i'm interviewing barbie for a spread, but raquelle wants a turn too 😭

raquelle owns a boutique in malibu, and of course i visit her! we hang out and have lunch together pretty often. not everyday, but at least twice a month (we spend a lot of time together after work anyway, and then we move in together).

fem f/o ask game

#asks #💕 malibu heat #I MISS HER

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amorest-viesse · 1 year ago

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[To The World Of Our Friends] - Chloe SSR Card Story Translation

Ft. Akira

An Incredible Night Beneath The Stars - Chapter 1

[Living Room]

Kitty: I haven't seen you in a while, Chloe, Akira. How have you been?

Chloe: I've been great~! I’m so glad we get to see each other again, right, Master Sage?

Akira: Yep! It’s incredible to be able to sit down with you again.

That day, Hello Kitty and her friends found that they could suddenly use magic and came to this world to see us.

Kitty: I wanted to see everyone again too. We probably can’t stay long, but I’m grateful for the time we can spend together.

Chloe: In that case, we better make the most of it! I wanna do lots of things together like, “Yay! You’re really here!” kinda vibes, y’know?

Akira: Agreed! Let’s have as much fun today as we can. What do you guys want to do?

Chloe: Hmm, let me think… Ooh, I wanna make something for Miss Kitty!

Kitty: Why, I would love that!

Akira: It’s something only you could do for her.

Chloe: Ehehe, I’m glad you like the idea! What kind of clothes do you want? I can make anything, so don’t be shy!

Kitty: Hmm, I wonder…

Kitty: I would love a pretty dress to wear for a piano recital, but a cute apron for making sweets also sounds nice.

Kitty: Oh, I just can’t decide.

Chloe: Alright then, let’s make both!

Kitty: Will you be fine with that?

Chloe: Of course I am! Just leave it to me! We can get started right now, actually. Do you guys wanna head to my room?

[Door Open]

Cock Robin: Master Sage, are you here!?

Akira: Sir Robin, what’s wrong?

Cock Robin: My apologies, but we just received an urgent request…

Akira: …! Understood. Oh, umm….

Chloe: We can get started in the meantime. Good luck on the mission!

Kitty: Good luck, Akira! Let’s meet up again once you’re done, alright?

Akira: I’m so sorry about this, but I’ll head back as soon as I can!

The two of them waved me goodbye, and I headed out for the mission.

♡♥♡

[Hallway]

Akira: (It’s a bit late now… I better hurry to Chloe’s room.)

Akira: It’s me, Akira. Can I come in?

Chloe: Of course!

Akira: Alright then…

[Chloe’s Room]

Kitty: Welcome back, Akira!

Wearing an elegant dress, Kitty greeted me with a spin, twirling to show off her outfit.

It was red with a matching ribbon and delicate lace accents around the collar to match. The entire composition felt balanced, yet elaborate all at once—a perfect fit for Hello Kitty.

Akira: Wow, you look beautiful…! Compared to your usual cutesy style, this outfit is so chic! I love the new look!

An Incredible Night Beneath The Stars - Chapter 2

Kitty: Ehehe, thank you. This is such a beautiful dress. It makes Kitty so happy! Chloe is amazing as always, isn’t he?

Chloe: All I’m doing is bringing out your natural charm! I had a ton of fun making it too!

As the two of them complimented each other back and forth, their voices seemed to skip and dance merrily.

Akira: (I’m sure they had a great time talking to each other while Chloe was sewing. They both love fashion after all.)

Chloe: Alright, now let’s model the next outfit.

Chloe: <<Suispicibo Voitingoc>>!

As Chloe cast his spell, both of their outfits changed into clean, white aprons.

Akira: …Oh?

Then, when I looked down, I noticed my clothes had changed to match theirs as well. All three of us were now wearing aprons embroidered with apples and piano keys.

Kitty: Chloe granted my wish. I wanted to have matching aprons with you and the other Western wizards too!

Akira: Kitty…! Thank you so much. I absolutely love this…!

Chloe: Miss Kitty was the one who came up with the design. Isn’t it great?

Akira: It’s greater than great! I love how it’s both cute and casual at the same time, nice going.

Kitty: Ufufu. It makes me happy to be able to wear such lovely outfits with my friends ♪

Kitty: Now, we can accomplish the last thing I want to do together.

Chloe: Oh? What’s that? I wanna know!

Kitty: I’d like to make sweets with everyone.

Akira: Wow, that’s a great idea!

Chloe: That sounds super fun! I don’t bake very often, but I’d love to try it with you.

Kitty: Thank you! Next, we have to decide what to make. Is there anything the two of you would like?

Akira: Not really… Anything would be fine by me.

Chloe: Tarts, muffins, apple pie… Everything sounds delicious. I can’t decide either…

Kitty: Ufufu, it’s okay to take your time. Kitty can wait.

Saying that, Kitty began to hum a little song. It was a bright and cheerful tune.

Kitty: ~♪ ~~♪

Chloe: …Oh! Weren’t you humming that earlier when we were coming up with the apron design?

Akira: I’ve heard that melody before! It’s strangely familiar for some reason…

Kitty: Oh? Do you know it? It’s the song I like to sing when I’m making sweets.

Kitty: Especially when I’m making popcorn. I like to think it gives the corn a little extra pop!

Chloe: Haven’t you made us popcorn before, Master Sage?

Akira: Yep. It’s a treat made by heating up corn kernels—

Suddenly, we made eye contact—like the same thought just crossed our mind—and smiled.

Chloe: Miss Kitty!

Akira: We know what we’re going to make!

An Incredible Night Beneath The Stars - Chapter 3

[Puroland]

Chloe: Thank you for teaching us that song, Miss Kitty. It was super fun singing while we made popcorn together.

Akira: The other Western wizards seemed like they had a pretty good time too. Murr was bouncing around like he was popcorn the whole time.

Kitty: I had a lot of fun too! I’m so glad we got to spend this time together ♪

After a successful world-hopping trip, it was now Kitty’s turn to invite us to Puroland.

To thank us, she wanted to give us a tour in exchange.

Chloe: If you ask me, just getting to wear these cute fits is plenty!

Kitty: Ufufu, thank you. However, I want to do even more for you to show my appreciation.

Kitty: Could you two come with me? There’s a place I want to show you.

As we followed her, the landscape transformed into more natural scenery as the trees grew into a forest around us.

Kitty: This is the place. The night sky looks especially beautiful from here, so I wanted to stargaze with you.

Looking upwards, my breath was taken away.

Chloe: Whoa…!

Akira: Amazing! The sky is filled with stars…!

Kitty: Isn’t it wonderful~♪ And there’s one more surprise too.

Kitty: <<Makkuromi>>!

Kitty casted a spell, causing something to appear.

Chloe: Is this… a bonfire? Oh! And marshmallows!

Kitty: Let’s make this the best night ever by telling stories and toasting marshmallows under the stars.

Akira: Wow, it’s a picture-perfect scene…!

Chloe: This night is gonna be incredible! You’re the best, Miss Kitty!

We sat ourselves around the fire with excitement and began skewering marshmallows.

Akira: There’s nothing quite like toasted marshmallows.

Chloe: Right, right? They’re so much fun every time.

Chloe: Oh, I have an idea. Since you have a popcorn song, why don’t we make up a marshmallow one too?

Kitty: That’s a great idea! I’m sure it’ll make our treats taste even yummier.

Kitty: I wonder what the lyrics should be. If we’re describing marshmallows, “white” comes to mind…

Chloe: And fluffy…

Akira: Then they get all sticky when you heat them up. The way the texture completely changes makes it fun. It’s almost like magic.

Chloe: Oh that’s a great line! It is almost like magic!

Kitty: I agree, it’s wonderful! I suppose we have our lyrics then.

Kitty: White and fluffy~♪ Sweet and tasty~♪ Let’s cast a fiery spell on our marshmallows~♪

Kitty: Alright everyone, together now!

Chloe & Akira & Kitty: Yummy magic~♪ Yummy magic~♪

As we sang our new song under the stars, toasting marshmallows together, the smiles we shared shone brighter than the bonfire.

Sweet Memories Together - Card Episode

[Kitchen]

Chloe: Hmhmhmm~♪

Akira: (Ah, it’s Chloe. He has his apron on, so maybe he’s making something?)

Akira: Good afternoon, Chloe. You seem like you’re in a good mood.

Chloe: Oh, Master Sage! Did you catch me humming? Ehehe, that was a bit embarrassing.

Akira: I’m sorry for surprising you like that, but you seemed like you were having a good time. Are you making… popcorn?

Chloe: Yep. I was thinking about when Miss Kitty visited and how much fun I had with her and the other Western wizards.

Chloe: It made me miss her all of a sudden, so I decided to make some popcorn in her honor.

Chloe: I was also going to try the secret ingredient she told me about while we were toasting marshmallows!

Akira: Caramel, right? You’re supposed to heat up some butter and marshmallows to drizzle over the mix…

Akira: Then, you sing the song she taught us.

Chloe: Exactly, If I do all that, we’ll definitely meet again right?

Chloe: But when I tried singing, it was difficult for me to replicate the chants by myself, so I ended up humming it instead.

Akira: Ahaha, is that what happened? In that case, I’ll sing with you. Just leave the chants to me!

Chloe: Really? Thank you! I feel a lot better singing with you here too.

Chloe: Alright then, let’s do this! One and two…!

Home Screen Voice Line

“Miss Kitty was the one who came up with the apron design! Isn’t it cute? All of the Western wizards wore this while we were making popcorn together. Hey, do you wanna sing that super fun song Miss Kitty taught us? I’d love your help with the chants!”

#mhyktl #mhyk #chloe collins #mahoyaku #mahoutsukai no yakusoku

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milenadelgadolaborde · 1 year ago

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Hunger games 2: catching fire: Reaction-Thoughts-Discussion

[BEWARE THE SPOILERS!!!!]

Alright book munchers- we’re back for more heartache and tears with catching fire

Published: 2009 - Spoilers ahead!

Honestly what I remember from this book is the clock design of the arena which was super sick, Finnick obvi, more Peeta (yay), a little too much Gale for my tastes, loathing Snow, and the end (of the movie at least) - Oh and Cinna getting attacked by Savages! Before the game starts

Let’s get munchin!

——

Part 1: the spark

Ch1:

First line: “I clasp the flask between my hands even though the warmth from the tea has long since leached into the frozen air.”

The first book also started out by referencing the cold and a lack of warmth so that’s interesting

“I’m staring into the snakelike eyes of President Snow.”

I already hate this guy but the snakes thing seems like a connection to the title of the newest book - he keeps getting compared to snakes throughout the next scene

—-

Ch2:

“The smell of roses and blood has grown stronger now that only a desk separates us.”

Gods this man is so disturbing

—-

“Whatever problems anyone may have with the Capitol, believe me when I say that if it released its grip on the districts for even a short time, the entire system would collapse.”

Fucking let it then!

“so I flinch when he (Snow) whispers in my ear. “By the way, I know about the kiss.”

Why does he have to be so creepy?!

——

Ch3:

“The smell of blood . . . it was on his (Snow) breath.”

Absolutely disgusting // absolutely revolting

—-

“but underneath all that, I can feel the steadiness that Peeta brings to everything.”

He’s just the best for you girl

——-

Ch4:

“Given all the trouble I’ve caused, I’ve probably guaranteed any child of mine a spot in the Games.”

Awful- it’s gonna be a no from me man

——

“I hadn’t thought about it much, but in the arena at least some of the boys got to keep their body hair whereas none of the girls did.”

I didn’t pick up on this during the first book but I did mention how awful it was that they basically force the tributes into a fashion show before they fight to the death and to think of them actually doing things that would make it harder for the tributes to survive even if it’s something minimal like body hair that protects your skin etc.

like it’s so disturbing bc it’s already awful to have this group of kids killing each other but the people in charge being like “Oh and they have to look hot while they die” It’s so fucking wrong!!!

——-

“As usual, a special platform has been constructed at the bottom of the stage for the families of the dead tributes.”

So not only do these families have to watch their kids get murdered on screen for entertainment but they also months later have to stand in public and congratulate their murderers? Absolutely sickening

——

Ch5:

My poor babies - I want them to get together but not forced together like this

——

Ch6:

“The party, held in the banquet room of President Snow’s mansion, has no equal.”

I hate this man and his fucking opulence

——

“And here in the Capitol they’re vomiting for the pleasure of filling their bellies again and again.”

On top of it all to be presented with all these rich people who have so much to eat that they literally make themselves throw up several times just to keep gorging themselves on food while the districts starve - Unacceptable- honestly unacceptable// I’m surprised there hasn’t been more revolts

——

Ch 7:

I truly understand Gale because it’s not hard to see why he’s pissed at what the capitol has done to them and why he wants to fight back. I think he’s absolutely right.

I also notice though that every interaction Kat has with Gale seems to leave her frantic and panicked when every time she’s with Peeta she seems calmer and a little more at ease.

—-

Ch8:

“Life in District 12 isn’t really so different from life in the arena. At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead.”

——-

Ch9:

“I have chosen Gale and the rebellion, and a future with Peeta is the Capitol’s design, not mine.”

“I can’t let the Capitol hurt Prim. And then it hits me. They already have.”

———

Part 2: the quell

Ch10:

Ch11:

The threat of constant surveillance is unimaginably exhausting - very big brother

No me gusta

—-

Ah the mystery of the famed District 13

—-

Ch12:

“Whoever devised the Quarter Quell system had prepared for centuries of Hunger Games.”

Absolutely disgusting and awful - gods this series hits my heart and soul // it’s too cruel man

——-

Ch13:

They don’t even let her say goodbye??? This is so twisted!

—-

Ch14:

Ch15:

I already love Johanna and Finnick

——-

“Our new Avox is Darius.”

The cruelty of this Snow guy knows no bounds

——

Ch16:

“As I watch the procession to the City Circle, I think how it’s bad enough that they dress us all up in costumes and parade us through the streets in chariots on a regular year.”

—-

“Johanna Mason is naked again”

😂

——

Katniss making the Seneca Crane dummy = iconic

——

Ch17:

““I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you,” Peeta replies.”

My heart ❤️ No puedo mas

““I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever,” he says.”

——-

“It’s so barbaric, the president turning my bridal gown into my shroud,”

Snow putting Kat in a wedding dress for the interview = evil + atrocious

“Cinna has turned me into a mockingjay.” =iconic

——-

Ch18:

““Maybe I’d think that, too, Caesar,” says Peeta bitterly, “if it weren’t for the baby.””

Le Gasp! This Man!!!! I C O N I C

Always with the interview plot twists! I love him!

—-

“By the time the anthem plays its final strains, all twenty-four of us stand in one unbroken line in what must be the first public show of unity among the districts since the Dark Days.”

Ey Snow, you done fucked up. What exactly were you trying to accomplish with this quell? Like all you did was make ppl more pissed off. Big Yikes

And not him having Kat witness Cinna getting beaten right before she goes up into the arena man - why is he so evil?!

—-

Part 3: the enemy

Ch19: 😬

Ch20:😬😬

Ch21:😬😬😬

Ch22:

““No, wait,” says Finnick. “Let’s do it together. Put our faces right in front of his.””

The fact that this man made me laugh while all this horror is going on ❤️❤️

——

““Tick, tock. This is a clock.””

Iconic design to this arena

—-

Ch23:

Ch24: 😢😢😢

Ch25:

Ch26:

Ch27:

Oh no, not Peeta - omg I don’t remember this // what will they do to him?

Fuck what an ending! Next. Next. Next.

#blogging #bookblog #bookblogger #hunger games series #hunger games #the hunger games #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #suzanne collins #catching fire #booklover #bookish #book quotes #bookblr #book review #book recommendations

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s3898709 · 2 years ago

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Week 7

Reflection

From the testing session in the Capitol during the mid-semester break, the key change that I needed to make was to "be bolder". Once again, the colours aren't right (probably due to the architecture works and the amount of white that is in the space), and we can also now clearly see and compare it to the screen and how off it is (even if they are digitally the same hex colour). Luckily, I was given the opportunity to just play with the colour wheel directly in the space, so I now feel like I've got the colours done. Just need to get it ready for the next demo.

Also, going along with the theme of being bold, it was suggested that I add more 'flourishes' for when something happens on screen, so given that I'm not using the screen lights for pretty much anything currently, I'll probably end up using those lights for this.

The other thing that was noticed (or wasn't) was the team's progress within the roof. In general, I got the census that people would prefer that the entire rim lit up rather than individual lights (which will be easier for me, so that's a bonus).

Overall, though, I think the syncing up with lights with the video worked out well! And other than some more tweaks to get the whole thing in a draft state before next week's test session, it will be great because that demo was only half complete!

Research

Now, here's a bit of disappointing news. I can't find many academic sources or works that depict exactly what I want to do. Most of eSports flashy lighting procedures go into what I call the 'intro', which is essentially a hype reel before the game begins. The most that tends to happen in both the eSports scene and real-life sports is some animation (and maybe some lights turn on) when something like a goal (or in the same games akin to a goal) is scored. Nothing that really gives any indication of progress, or when a team holds possession.

Now there are probably two main reasons behind this. The first is that it requires a lot of setup, and there are a lot of scenes to create if this were to be produced in a live setting (or a lot of complex code interacting between different applications and APIs). The second reason is that it doesn't make sense in a lot of games to have this sort of progression system. The game most akin to Splatoon in terms of its competitive ruleset is Overwatch. In Overwatch, you can respawn, and the rulesets are objective-based, rather than on elimination that occurs in many shooters or a 'goal' system like real-life sports and other sports like video games. Add in the fact that Splatoon has very distinct colours for each team and you can see why this idea hasn't been incorporated on a large-scale basis.

Progress

This week, I'm really trying to finish of the lighting design. That's because there will be such a long break before the next Capitol test, and also, I need to get some of the video elements (like the intro and getting commentators) started!

While I didn't really run into many challenges per se (other than testing what presets work the best with what I'm trying to produce), the biggest issue I ran into this week was the constant crashing of Pharos. I think in one night I encountered three crashes (which made me lose around three hours of work total). I think the issue with this was that I had my editing software, Final Cut Pro, open at the same time as I needed to test some things with that open simultaneously, but that ended up causing more hassle than it was worth (...yay).

The key changes I've made this week were changing up the colours and incorporating the other feedback (discussed above), as well as getting the intro in place. The purpose of the intro is to hype up the audience before the set begins, so I'm planning on starting with a small amount of lights, and then building it up so that people really feel like they're in for an awesome time. Luckily I decided on the audio piece early as it fits right into what I want to do (Surrender Peace by Grabbitz). The song itself builds up to a drop and the instruments combined with the style they're played in have a very similar vibe to Splatoon, so that's why I picked that track.

You can see this week's draft here ->

youtube

#Youtube

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lazzledazzler · 4 years ago

Text

Lazzle's Rune Factory 5 Review

Alright so here are my thoughts and experiences with RF5! This is a big boy so buckle in earthmates...

Obviously this review will contain spoilers, read at your own risk.

Initial thoughts upon playing...

Great opening! I enjoyed the jazz music~ I did feel like it leaned a bit more towards the male player though. It definitely feels like a rune factory game. It's familiar, and controls are easy to get accustomed to for the most part. The mold is there and rf5 doesn't stray too far from its predecessors which is comforting for veterans. That being said, I'm not going to pull any punches and will critique this game harshly. Keep in mind as updates for the game are released not all things discussed in this review will be as relevant overtime!

Let's hear some thoughts on...

The story/plot. The plot is enjoyable overall. I'm not crazy about the whole Seed organization thing but it was a neat idea. They address the Sechs Territory and it is confirmed that the game takes place some decades after RF4. But by the end of it, I didn't feel like I really accomplished anything because it felt like I barely did anything really. Also they left a lot of stuff unanswered. I'm not even sure I understood the message they were sending, if they were trying to send a message at all. The main story is too short, and it doesn't involve enough of the townsfolk. You're basically doing everything yourself in secret the whole time and the townsfolk barely know what's actually going on. Out of the love interests, Lucas plays the largest part in the story, followed by Priscilla and Scarlett. The story feels targeted at male audiences--at least that's how I felt. You, the player, have a larger role in the game, much like in RF3 and I was glad to see this. As of right now there are only two arcs. Praying for DLC 3rd arc...!

Protagonists. The latest protagonists to join the crew of Earthmates are...decent. Their designs are nothing special unfortunately, though I appreciate Alice's more than Ares's. Appearance-wise they lack personality and creativity. Personality wise I am pleasantly surprised with how sociable they are. They're not exactly quick witted and sassy like Lest/Frey were in rf4, or as endearing as Micah in rf3, but they have a certain realness to them that makes their reactions to things believable. I'm certain Xseed will see to making them a bit more sarcastic in their localizing efforts, so let's all look forward to that. Overall though, while I appreciate their mannerisms, they don't really measure up to all the previous amnesiacs we've grown to love over the decades.

Characters. Overall I enjoy all the characters introduced in Rune Factory 5! I feel like there is someone for everyone in this game on some level. The voice acting was pretty good for every character. The designs are very much Rune factory. Like OG runefa, compared to rf4 ( 4 kind of strayed from their usual style) which I like. Characters still have their own signature quirks that you find endearing. Although I would have liked to see more variety? Like we've had mermaids, univir, half monsters, vampires, etc in previous titles but rf5 only gives us the usual (half) elf, dwarf, and then a succubus (physically she doesn't have unique features aside from the ears and heart eyes), and some were-people. I was hoping for something more unique to really give that classic runefa vibe.

Dungeons/Battles. I'm pretty split on this one. On the one hand, the dungeons have more depth due to the 3D aspects. They've included more contraptions that are very fun to see even if they aren't executed that well. So I'm grateful for that. On the other hand, the dungeons are insanely short imo. It doesn't take long at all to get to the boss. The puzzles are also pretty subpar and few compared to RF4. Fighting monsters is similar to the other games. You can lock on now but I only use it when I'm trying to use my Seed Circle. The lock on feature is actually counter-intuitive and makes it harder to dodge. Weapon mechanics have shifted a bit. There’s a feature that makes you invincible to damage if you time the R button dash correctly. Axes and Hammers are significantly slower than in older games? Like. I thought I was in slow motion it was so slow. Lances are also harder to use as well? I'm questioning my sanity here. I don't know if it's a bug or intentional either.

Farming. Not much has changed from previous games mechanics wise. They added new types of special crops which is neat. The camera view changes to overhead when you go near your fields though, and it can make you dizzy/uncomfortable. It actually makes it a bit difficult to see at times so I wish there was a way to adjust the angle. If you are tilling corn or dried weeds to improve the soil, you need to place them separately if you don't want to use the entire stack. Otherwise, it will till the entire stack on the land if you place them all down at once. The flower shop is unlocked late in the story. Weird thing to do considering you need flowers to make medicine. Not to mention the fact that you wont have access to the fertilizer that increases defense against typhoons? During typhoon season? Thinking emoji...

The town. I have to say Rigbarth's design is poor compared to Sharance, Selphia, etc. It's too big and it takes too long to get around. Everything is too spaced out and there aren't enough warp points to make it easier on players. I don't want to walk an entire mile up a hill to talk to one person and then walk all the way down to the beach to speak to another. It doesn’t really feel like a ‘town’.

OST/BGM. Music was good, though nothing really stood out to me where I'd go "damn this slaps" or something. I think they might've had some old soundtracks from rf2 or something because it felt really nostalgic at times.

We need an exterminator. (Bugs Bugs Bugs)

Marvelous, I don't know how to tell you this buuut...your customers are NOT your testers. When you release a game, you need to make sure it's not littered with glitches because customers don't enjoy dealing with them and will drop the game!

Here are some of the types of glitches I encountered:

Crashing. Game would randomly crash or freeze and close at any moment. Sooooo frustrating! Sometimes you get lucky with the autosave feature, but the autosave only activates every morning at 6am in your room and then when you warp to a dungeon level/floor. So when you're in the middle of your daily tasks in town and it crashes, you have to start all over. Marveloussss no one enjoys losing their progress in a game I promise you that much.

Lag. The dialogue bar is seriously slow, especially after loading your file. Crafting/Cooking screen lags. When you press the Y button to skip through dialogue it lags like hell. Pretty much after every time you load the game will lag, the audio will lag if you're in a battle, everything is just. so. slow.

Repeating dialogue. So if you close your game entirely (or if it crashes) naturally you'll reload your file to continue where you left off. There's a bug that will cause all NPCs to repeat the last dialogue that occurred from whatever plot related thing you did last. So for example, if the last thing you did in the story was unlock Ludmilla, everyone in town will naturally have some dialogue about her. But even after seeing all this dialogue and even saving, if the game is closed and reloaded you'll have to read all that dialogue again from townsfolk. It got really annoying after a while.

Monster taming. One time I tamed a monster but once I named it and hit 'ok' the monster never showed up in my barns? Just. gone. Okaaaay then...? Additionally, I expanded one of my monster barns but all of the monsters I tamed wouldn't appear in the added room. You get 4 monsters for each room but the monsters I tamed would show up in the original room. Meaning I had like 7 monsters in one room! I tried to bring them into the newly added room but they would just warp back to the other room. Sad.

Pond Glitch. I fished in the pond located in Sasayaki Forest and left the fish I caught but didn't want laying around the water's edge. If you leave fish around the pond's edge and go to sleep, the next morning you will be teleported to the pond and trigger the fairy dialogue as if you had thrown all of the fish into the pond??? So the dialogue of her telling you she wants 'X item, not this!' will trigger over and over for all of the fish you left at the water's edge. RIP.

Party member Bug. I had Martin in my party and I made him leave. Then when I went into my monster barns to get a monster pal to join me instead it showed me Martin's portrait???? Also I've encountered a bug where I can no longer ask anyone to join my party for some unknown reason. The R &L button prompt was just gone when I reloaded.

Errors. When cooking or crafting, the dialogue box shows up sometimes...

Typos. Random average typo here and there. Not a real biggie but there is one instance where the heroine will use the japanese male pronoun "boku" instead of "watashi" which really convinced me that this game was completely intended for men lol.

Let's talk about Pros

The good stuff. The stuff that makes you all warm and fuzzy inside.

Plot Advancing. Now I'm gonna put this as a pro because I'm certain the average player will enjoy this even though I do not. There are now markers on the map to show you where to go to advance the plot. This is all well and dandy, but it also made the story less appealing for me because you don't need to go around town and speak to residents for clues or assistance to advance anything in the story.

3D Graphics The 3D models are all amazing. The interior designs of the houses/buildings are also incredibly detailed and realistic.

Collecting items. Now there's a feature that will allow you to collect items into your inventory just by walking over them. This is pretty neat and welcome for the most part. Once the item is sparkling, you can walk over it and it'll go into your rucksack automatically. This also makes lumbering and mining go much faster. Yay!

The miraculous L pocket. Now you can customize the categories that appear in your L pocket by going to the rucksack tab in the menu. This is a super neat feature that makes things easier on players who want to manage their items in a format that suits them.

Weapon/Tool Toggling. You can now toggle between your equipped weapon and tool by pressing the left or right buttons on the trackpad.

Collecting lumber/material stone. Oh lord this is probably the most welcome improvement moving forward from the previous game. You can now put all of the lumber and material stone from your inventory into its storage at once. This also applies to fodder for tamed monsters. Well done Hakama.

Autosave. This feature is a welcome addition to the series. The game will save your data every morning and every time you enter a dungeon. Autosave has really saved my ass a few times when I made a huge error in judgement so I'm incredibly grateful for this feature. And it doesn't save over your actual save file--there's a separate autosave file at the very top. So if you messed up something but already saved on your main file, you can still salvage your mistake by reloading the autosave! I just wish it activated a bit more often sometimes.

Warping. Now we can warp to each level in a dungeon as well as certain places on the map in town. It's pretty convenient for the most part.

Increased party members. Now you can have up to 3 members in your party! Hooray! Party members act more intelligently than in older games. Scarlett can use the Seed circle to assist you in fights. I think she also tosses healing potions at you occasionally. So far, no one has tossed a dish at me if I haven't eaten like Kiel and Clorica did in rf4. But I have been hit by a failed dish (from reinhardt?) and a healing potion (from scarlett). Scarlett, Priscilla, and Reinhardt are the most helpful when dungeon crawling in my experience. Some of them however, (looking at you Doug) don't shut the hell up with their one line of dialogue they have and repeat it constantly.

Seed Circle. This neat feature allows you to capture monsters. By charging it and releasing you can capture monsters for the bounty system or add them to your party temporarily. If you throw it without charging it, you can stun monsters in place momentarily or grab things from far away. When stunning monsters, it can also give you the monster's drop item occasionally. Unfortunately it uses a lot of RP so it can be difficult at times.

Combo attacks. This is a neat feature that I appreciate and use often for boss fights. They do some serious damage so it's good to save them for the bosses. The actual cutscenes aren't that impressive, and feel kind of subpar when you get down to it but I think it's a start in the right direction.

Farm Dragons. I'm listing this as a pro although I really just see it as a new feature. Farm dragons have fields on their backs that you can place monster barns on and farm on. Giving them certain crystals will give your fields boosts in certain criteria, like length of growth, soil quality, you get it. I personally don't use the crystals because I couldn't give a shit lmao I have men and women to woo here. But if you're into this kinda thing then it's a pro.

Storage. When opening your storage box, fridge, etc. you can actually hit the R & L buttons to switch between ALL of your other storages. Looooove thissss. Great addition. So much faster to put items away in their respective places.

Crafting/Forging. Now we can also use the R & L buttons to alternate between the different weapon types/accessory/gear types instead of having to exit the menu and going back in each time you want to make something different.

Cooking. More recipes have been added. Yay!

Days are longer now. More time to get shit doneeeee ayyyy

Fishing. They've added many more fish to the game! Now the player will shout something when you get a bite, making it easier for you to hit B at the right moment. Nice. Also if you fail or press B too early, the fish doesn't vanish most of the time. Also nice. There is now a feature to fish with another person's assistance. Once a day you can investigate the sign near the fishing station and someone might offer to lend you a hand. Press the B button at the right moments on the slider and you can get a rare fish that can't be caught normally.

Monsters. New types of monsters! Love the designs. Even the monsters that are the same but just have different skins are really neat. They look great in the 3D format too. You can even ride with up to two people on certain monsters! Some bosses had awesome designs while others...were bad.

New Types of Furniture. The carpenter store has a wide arrange of furniture you can buy for your home. It also has wallpapers and stuff which is really neat. Though unfortunately you can't even sit on some of the furniture so that's a shame.

Events. Now there is a system where events are triggered by approaching an icon on the map. This is probably an improvement to RF4's randomized system, though personally I found it annoying because it meant that I had to see the events before I could just enter a building normally. Sometimes I just wanted to get shit done and not have to read through walls of text for someone's love event when I just want to buy something.

Voiced Lines. The protagonist seems to have more voiced lines, as do other characters. Good!

Let's talk about Cons

Not including glitches. Oh boy. So many cons. Where do I start?

Dialogue. Probably the most notable con in the entire game. The dialogue is drastically minimal in comparison to previous games, especially rf4. There is probably a quarter of the amount of dialogue compared to rf4's insane amount of content if not less. Townsfolk repeat themselves. Often. Too often. Am I playing Harvest Moon? Originally I thought it was because the dialogue is randomized, but I think it's actually because more dialogue is unlocked as you raise townspeople's FP. Despite this, there's no linear build up where you start off as acquaintances and eventually become very close like in rf4 because of how sporadic the LP/FP is. Townsfolk don't even talk to each other. One of the greatest perks about runefa is the conversations townsfolk can have with one another. Residents randomly gathering in small groups to talk about anything. Previously you could add someone to your party and sometimes a dialogue will occur if you speak to the right person at the right time with that person in your party. This is nonexistent now. The only time they do this in rf5 is during the festivals. But, it will only trigger if you have unlocked all the characters in each marriageable lineup and they can't be in your party. The residents will talk about one another but that's pretty much it outside of town events. They got rid of all the minor dialogue that occurs too. Trying to sleep in someone's bed while they're right there? They wont comment. Inspecting objects in stores while the shopkeeper is present? Wont say anything. Take a character with you to a dungeon/boss fight? Their lips are sealed. Where's my sense of community? :(

FP/LP This ties into the dialogue issue. The rate at which LP/FP increases is sporadic as hell. You can go from 1FP/LP to 4FP/LP just by giving a gift sometimes. I wouldn't even speak to people and their affinity increased by like triple for no reason. Then it increases by like 2% for the longest time. Argh!!!

Graphics. I don't consider myself very picky when it comes to graphics. I don't really mind that the foliage and scenery are at the level of a ps2 game at best. I tried playing on my television initially, but the lag and camera operability was too much so I fully switched (haha puns) to handheld. One thing that sucked is that I literally cannot tell the difference between medicinal herbs, antidote grasses, and green grasses without the captions because the graphics are so indistinguishable. So when you're trying to pick up multiples of those items by holding the A button, you're just randomly walking over anything green in the hopes that you'll get the right ones...

Lack of Sound Effects. Something I noticed is they got rid of the sound effects that will play when you complete a puzzle or add someone to your party. When you try to brush a monster there's no sound for the '♪' they make when you successfully brush them. So it was hard for me to tell if I had actually brushed them or not. I was a bit saddened by the lack of cute sounds.

Too much free range. From the very beginning of the game, you're allowed to go pretty much wherever you want when leaving town. It was too easy to stumble into high enemy level territory without knowing, so when I was like level 5 so I got KO'd immediately.

Artwork. The portraits seem to be lower in quality somehow. Runefa has always had shitty portrait art imo but this time it's even worse. Many character's eyes looked fucked up. Though the 3D models are insanely good for mostly every character except Terry. Terry's 3D model looks Terryfying and I prefer his portrait.

Festivals. They've added some new festivals. Some I enjoy. Some not so much. They changed the format of the eating contest. It's horrible. Good luck with that one.

L pocket + R button? They got rid of the feature that lets you skip to the other end of your items when opening the L pocket by pressing R button. I really liked that feature because it made it faster to reach my items so I was bummed that they got rid of it.

Gotta go fast. Now when you speak to someone, it doesn't 'stop time' as you might say it did in previous games. So people are still moving about as you speak to someone, making it harder to catch up to people! Annoying!!!

Catch and release? Not in my farming simulator! Say goodbye to being able to toss a fish you caught back into the water. In fact, say goodbye to tossing anything you don't want anymore into the water. Now you just have an army of fish flopping on the ground around you. And with the auto pick up feature, they're probably going to end up in your inventory anyways once you try to move. There are still certain ponds with fairies that you can toss stuff into, but you'll have to deal with the fairy harping at you for giving her something she doesn't want.

Shop Hours. Oh god. The shop owners don't even open their stores at the correct hours? It says open at 9am. If you speak to them they won't open their store until like 9:07??? But Priscilla and Lucy will show up to work their part-time jobs at around 8:30am and you can buy stuff through them before 9am. So the actual shop owners (for the bread shop and general store) are pointless usually. Additionally, if the store is empty (but open) you can no longer add a shopkeeper into your party and then enter their store with them to buy things from them. Why. Just why. When you want to buy something that only a specific person sells (Only Hina sells fish, only Heinz sells misc items) you have to wait for them to finally decide to work in their own store. Wonderful.

Monster Item drops. Maybe I'm crazy but the monster drops are seriously a lot harder to get than in previous games. Especially boss drops. It's almost impossible to get the rare drops now. I don't even want to try anymore. And as far as I know, the only place to buy monster items is through Heinz, but his items are actually misc. items, not specifically monster drops. So you'll be lucky to check his store (whenever tf he decides to actually work) for any monster items you might want instead of farming for the drops. Sighs.

Difficulty. This game is too easy. There is little to no challenge whatsoever. I had to increase the difficulty setting to hard mode and it was still too easy. I beat it at level 139, never once did I need to grind or level. In fact, your character levels up way too quickly for the pace of the story. I had zero trouble with any of the bosses and even the final boss was a breeze. Quite sad. Though because I am not new to the franchise, it's likely that newcomers would have some trouble in the later parts of the story.

Fishing cons. Idk how you fck up fishing but they sure did. You have to stand further back now because the pole is so long that you'll miss the fish you're aiming for. In fact, it's seriously hard to aim period. You'll end up recasting more often than not. Fish come in the various sizes but they don't seem to have the darker or faded characteristics that can indicate whether it's a rare fish or not. The graphics make it hard to tell. The pros that i've already mentioned are welcomed but it doesn't negate the fact that I do not enjoy fishing like I did in previous games.

Mining/Lumbering Cons. You can no longer strike three times consecutively when mining/lumbering. This sucks lol. Even when you upgrade your axe or hammer, powering up the tool does nothing for getting wood and material stone--it only expands the area of your strike. So it takes longer to get wood/stone from stumps and rocks now since you have to strike the full 9 times but it's not too bad. It's also harder to aim now as well so that's also unfortunate.

Seasonal Fields? Kiss them goodbye! That's right, there are no seasonal fields in rf5 because devs are insane! You instead have the farm dragons that seem to look seasonal based on the fact that they are designed after elements like earth, water, and fire. But no, these dragons are simply extra fields for you to use. Here's a spoiler: you're not going to use those fields. You're just not. They're kinda useless unless you're obsessed with farming. Now you have to grow your crops out of season like the sad farmer that you are.

Farming cons. Seeds no longer tell you how long it takes to grow the crop. Why. As of June 29th, they fixed this with an update. But I still had to play the whole game without it so fuck you marvelous. The joystick is really sensitive? So when you're trying to use a fertilizer or something on your field you're likely to place it on the wrong 4x4 tile, wasting your fertilizer. So it’s best to hold down the R button when farming. Also the crops look uglie as hell.

Sleeping and warping cutscenes. Just like in rf4 there's a cutscene when you go to sleep that can be skipped easily by pressing A. In rf5, there's a cutscene to sleep and a cutscene when waking up. It takes a bit more than a second to skip these scenes so it gets annoying after a while. Warping is this new feature that replaces our beloved escape spell. Overall I appreciate the feature but I hate it for two reasons. One: there's an annoying ass cutscene for it each time you use it that could be much shorter. And Two: townsfolk now use warp even when inside the town. In previous games, someone exiting your party in town would just manually run to wherever they need to be. So you could easily chase after them if you need to talk to them or give them something. Now, party members use warp regardless of where you are at the time. So say you have someone at 7 hearts and you want to try confessing to them. You would have them join your party, save your game, and then have them leave your party and immediately speak to them and confess before they can run off. If it doesn't work you reload until it does. In RF5 this wouldn't work anymore because they will warp. Now you would have to save, run around town trying to find this person and hope they accept the confession. Otherwise you'll have to play hide and seek again because reloading your file will randomize the resident's locations (if they are not working in a shop)!!!! I often just waited until a festival day because then they will be at the plaza for most of the day and it has a warp point there.

Crafting/Forging/Cooking. They've removed the feature where you can press Y on the ingredients in the menu to add more of that particular item. I miss this feature :'(

Lacks incentive. There is no trophy room from my knowledge. The final dungeon that is meant to be like the sharance maze/rune prana isn't that hard to beat for skilled players and is only 20 floors. After you beat the main story and this dungeon there's not much else to do really.

Request Board. Unlike in rf4, you need to make sure you have accepted requests before you complete them or else it will not count. Previously, you could complete all sorts of tasks and Eliza would still recognize your work even if you accept their request after the fact. ie, shipping goods, harvesting crops, etc. So make sure you don't harvest your special crops before accepting the request it's for!

Return of the "Loli" Dragons... Yeah you read that right. We got more dragons in children's(???) bodies with skimpy clothes. I don't know anymore????¿¿¿

Can't marry the Milfs or Dilfs. Tragic.

Still no homo. Grow up Marvelous.

Reverse Proposal? Reverse Uno card-- Laid low by the patriarchy. You now have to buy the double bed and craft an engagement ring to propose to your man if you're playing as Alice. Marvelous this isn't what we meant when we said we wanted equal rightsssssss This can be seen as a pro if you're a softhearted babey who doesn't like rejecting bachelors' proposals because you feel bad :'( But this is a con for me because I don't want to spend money and materials on a double bed dammit!!!

Misc. Still can't stack dishes or fish. There's no green elemental fairy???All the other elemental ones are there except the green one? why??? Still can't tame the giant Wooly. Some bosses that have insanely awesome designs cannot be tamed and makes me wanna eat glass.

Let's talk about Love~

Relationships. We want them. And half of us only play these games for them. I've only played as the female heroine so far but I'll be updating this review as soon as I finish with the bachelorettes as the male hero.

Confessions

As usual, we must raise the love points of our beloved to 7 hearts before we can attempt to date them. However unlike in rf4, if you fail at a confession once, you will need to raise the LP up an entire level before you can try again with any chance of success. It's imperative you save before attempting a confession now.

Love Events

Each love interest has two love events that must be seen before you can date them. They're reminiscent of older game's style but I felt they could have been a biiiit more interactive or so? Or involved the town a bit more for some of them.

Dating

Once you get your honey to be your bf/gf, you get to choose the nicknames as usual. Then you can go on dates. The first three (non-festival) dates are actually events. You need to see all three events to get married.

Marriage Event

The final event you need to clear before you can marry your sweetie. In my honest opinion, so far for the boys, these events were rather disappointing. They lacked the drama and angst that sort of 'test' the love between the two when compared to rf4. Also this is a huge con for me personally and a minor spoiler but there are no special cutscenes at the end of the marriage event like in rf4. Instead, the cutscene takes place during your actual wedding. I was saddened by this because it took away the depth from the marriage events and the actual character? As it is just a cut and paste type of thing instead of an original cutscene for each person. They lack individualism this way. Also it kinda felt like a way for devs to avoid gay relationships and cut corners :^/....sus.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes...

Children!!!!!! This is actually one of the coolest additions in the game. Just like in rf3, you can have up to 3 children again! Your first child will resemble you, and you will have the option to choose its gender as well as its personality. There are 6 different children, (3 boys and 3 girls), all with different hairstyles, mannerisms, and seiyuus. Your answers will determine which child you get. A year after your first child is born, you will get the option to have a second child. You'll end up with twins, both resembling your partner. You won't get to choose the genders (it will be a boy and girl) but you will get to choose the personalities once more. The children all have canon names too and each kid is incredibly cute. And of course, you're still able to take your kid with you in your party~ ...Though you can only take one kid with you at a time.

So is RF5 good?

Yeah it's a fun game! My theory is that Marvelous forced the devs to release the game earlier than they were ready for, and that's why it's so lacking. But that doesn't mean it's not worth playing! I'd rate it 3.5/5 stars hehe. Not nearly as good as RF4 (full stop 5/5), or RF3 (4/5) but enjoyable nonetheless. I wouldn't recommend it as a first game to play from the series for newcomers though, I feel it's best for vets who can overlook all the cons thanks to loyalty and nostalgia. By the time it’s released in the West, the bugs should all be dealt with too.

So! Definitely buy this game! We want the series to continue and we want RF6 to be better than this--and hopefully Marvelous will make sure of that next time. If you're not a picky person I think you'll enjoy rf5 a lot. If you're like me and have high standards then, well, still pick it up and let it run its course. Then dust off rf4sp and cleanse your gaming palette >;^)

#rune factory 5 #rf5 spoilers #rune factory #rf5 #spoilers #review #rune factory 5 spoilers

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therealvinelle · 4 years ago

Note

Maybe this is bold of me to ask, but are there any deleted scenes from your fics, or scenes you had consideted writing but didn't? And if yes, would you be willing to share them someday?

Oh no problem!

Usually when a scene is deleted it stays deleted, so I don't have a lot to give you. There are a few things that were cut in betaing for various reasons, I can put a few of them below a readmore in this post.

There's the prologue that never was to Nebuchadnezzar's Dream, from back when the fic was supposed to be told alternately from Bella and Carlisle's respective points of view. In the prologue we saw how Bella, Alice, and Edward came to the point where they decided to overthrow the Volturi. Or, we would have, except I didn't actually like that prologue, and found myself jumping straight to writing chapter 2, the "Carlisle is at a party and gets attacked by a werewolf" chapter instead. My good beta @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin asked why I didn't simply make the whole fic from Carlisle's point of view, I realized she had an excellent point, now here we are.

For that matter, this is nowhere near the only significant change that happened to this fic during writing. One example, in the original outline I never brought up Carlisle's gift. Two significant things in the last chapter were not planned until after I published chapters twelve and thirteen, respectively (Luckily for me it'll look like I plotted them all along, so yay for that). For a tightly plotted fic, this one has had a lot of leeway.

Slight caveat, as I’m self-conscious: with most of these you will probably be able to tell why they’re deleted scenes. Especially the prologue. God, that prologue.

(Also, for the record yes I do write other things, but due to 1. being betaed, and 2. being long, I really only have examples for Nebuchadnezzar's Dream.)

The prologue that never was. Apologies for the fluff saturation:

The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II once had a dream.

There was a statue that was gold on top, then silver, then copper, then iron, then clay and iron. As he watched, a rock struck its feet, and soon the whole statue crumbled, leaving nothing but rubble. The rock then grew into a great mountain that covered all the world.

This, the prophet Daniel told the king, was a message from Jehovah.

The statue represented five great human empires, the golden head being the Babylonian Empire, and the following three being those who would come after. The last would be both iron and clay, a divided kingdom. It will fall, and then the kingdom of Heaven will come, crushing those empires in its path.

Thousands of years later, in 1453, the Byzantine Empire fell. The last of the Roman Empire, a divided kingdom, had fallen.

The Christian world trembled, because reckoning was surely near. With the fall of this last, great human empire, all the world would fall to rubble.

Fifteen years had passed.

The Cullens had left Forks behind, settling in the small town of Grafton, Idaho. Carlisle had quickly settled into the new hospital, and Esme had designed a beautiful new home for them while the rest attended the new school. Jasper and Rosalie were Carlisle’s younger siblings while Bella, Edward, Renesmée and Esme comprised another set of siblings. Alice and Emmett were the fosters.

Jacob wasn’t far, he still lived with his old .

«Did you hear they all scored an A on Mr Rosen’s test? Seriously, all of them!»

The words were uttered by Jenna Gilbert, a blonde sophomore who reminded Bella very much of Jessica Stanley. She was sitting on the opposite end of the cafeteria from Bella and her family, though

«Jen, it’s the Cullens, that’s just what they do. You should stop comparing yourself…» her friend said soothingly.

Bella ducked her face into her hand to hide her smile, and winked at Alice, who grinned back at her.

It was Bella and Renesmée’s first time going to high school as a vampire. It was exactly what Edward and Alice had said it would be, for better and for worse.

For the worse, because she spent her days pretending to be a human girl, never using her strength or speed, pretending Edward wasn’t her husband and Renesmée wasn’t her daughter.

For the better, because she got to spend every day with Edward, Renesmée, and the rest of her new family. The others had done the high school routine too many times to see things the way she did, and Renesmée had never known a life without the Cullens, but to Bella, attending high school as one of Dr. Cullen’s adoptive kids felt like she had truly come full circle since that first day she spotted Edward in the cafeteria. She was one of them, truly, irrevocably, and high school was nothing if not a promise of the countless years to come surrounded by the people she loved.

Edward caught her eye, and she smiled back at him. She lowered her shield briefly to show him how happy she was to be with her family.

His face softened into that beautiful, lop-sided smile of his, and he leaned in to whisper into her ear, «You’ll be less happy when you’ve been through English 101,» he said.

«Hey, hey,» Jasper said quickly. «Don’t you dare, Edward, I need all the happiness I can get in this place.» He locked eyes with Bella. «Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.»

Bella laughed, and rested her head on Edward’s shoulder. He placed his hand above hers on the table, and she smiled. «Not a problem, Jazz.»

Jenna’s voice caught her notice again. «Look at how they’re sitting! Try and tell me they’re not incestuous, Cam. Just try.»

Her friend didn’t reply to that one, although a quick glance informed Bella that the girl was staring at the Cullen table with a frown on her face.

Bella and Alice caught each others’ eye again, and this time they couldn’t hold back the giggles.

***********

Later in the day, Alice’s eyes lit up. «You’ll receive a letter from Stefan and Vladimir a week from now,» she chirped.

«Oh!» Bella exclaimed. «What does it say?»

«The usual,» Alice replied, her eyes slightly distant as she concentrated. «They hope we’re all doing well, and they included a new story of how things used to be before the Volturi. It’s the story of how they once built an entire temple for themselves in just one day. Oh, and they have a new phone number. O-seven nine six five nine six.»

Bella’s eyes widened as Alice talked. She hoped they had included drawings of that temple, it sounded incredible.

Bella hadn’t expected the Romanians to stay in touch, when they left after the thwarted battle with the Volturi she thought they would slink back into the old European shadows they had cloaked themselves in for that past several thousand few years, not to be heard from until some new threat to the Volturi loomed.

But no, that very next Christmas Bella had received a gift from them. It was an old, if flaked painting of Ivan the Terrible looking a lot like Vladimir, and a note from Vladimir explaining how he fooled all of Russia into believing he was their ruler for decades, all right beneath Aro’s nose. Carlisle had broken into a fit of uncharacteristic giggles when he heard that, and even agreed to put the painting in the hallway. To this day, he’d huff with silent laughter whenever he walked past it.

After that, Bella and the two Romanians had been in touch. They’d send her gifts, stories, and their own observations about the Volturi, and she’d respond fondly.

It was a very unlikely friendship, but she was was eternally grateful to all those who had stood with her family when the Volturi came. The Romanians were no exception,

«Are you going to call them?» Alice inquired.

Bella nodded. «They were going to tell me about their visit to Thebes.»

(Outline: Prologue of sorts. Status quo update, everyone’s happy except for the part where the Volturi are waiting to kill them. Alice, Bella, and Edward form their plan. Alice sees that she’s going to have to send Carlisle away, and coincidentally his hospital colleagues are having their Christmas weekend in Montana. PERFECT. She talks to him.)

***********

Heavily altered scene from chapter 7

Carlisle makes more jokes than he did in the final product, they're unfunny to the point where my beta said "you can't publish this", the plague joke in particular is a bit too dark for him so I gave it to Jane instead. More importantly, the chapter itself has a very weird, clunky start:

«Is it the gift of being profoundly unimpressed by ridiculous claims?» Carlisle deadpanned. «Because if so, Aro, I think you might be on to something.»

Several seconds had passed since Aro made his ridiculous claim. At first, Carlisle had burst out laughing. Then, as he realized he was the only person in the room laughing and Aro was staring at him in full seriousness, his laughter had trailed off and he’d been left to stare dully at Aro for several long seconds, waiting for Aro to crack up and say «gotcha!».

Aro never cracked up.

Carlisle had absolutely no idea what Aro was playing at, especially not immediately after Carlisle had very reluctantly decided against shutting him out of his life.

«You can’t be serious,» he’d said.

Aro had sighed. «I’m afraid I am.»

And now, at Carlisle’s deadpan guess, Aro only shook his head. «Not quite.»

Carlisle stared at him for another second, before he ventured another, scathing guess. «Are you hoping it’s the power of being highly suggestible? Because I definitely don’t have that, or I would have abandoned my diet centuries centuries ago.»

Aro just looked at him. «If you would let me explain-» he began, but Carlisle cut him off.

«No, no, you want to try and convince me I have some sort of gift, then I want to guess at what you’re going for,» he said, crossing his legs at the knee and propping his chin up on his knuckle in a faux-pensive look.

«Now,» he continued, even as Aro gave him the world’s most unimpressed glare, as if Carlisle was the one who was being ridiculous, «I’m pretty sure I would have noticed the power to throw fireballs by now, so it can’t be that,» he mused aloud. «Same goes for the power of…» he searched his mind, «turning into a bat. That one would definitely have come up at some point. Or maybe I should suspend myself upside down in a cave. See if it triggers anything. Just to be sure.»

«Carlisle,» Aro murmured, but Carlisle wasn’t done.

«Maybe I spread disease. My father certainly thought demons did. Maybe that’s why I get so many interesting patients. Those brain fungi,» he nodded towards Renata, who was still sitting with the book open in her lap, «I’ve had two in one year. That’s a lot.»

«Carlisle-» Aro tried again, but Carlisle held up a finger, a wide grin spreading across his face.

«The power to change my eye color. You see, yesterday they were black-»

Aro actually rolled his eyes at that. Of course, he made the insolent gesture look like a fluid, enchanting movement.

«Yes, quite funny, now if you would let me explain…» Aro tried again while Carlisle tried not to snicker at his own joke.

***********

Two deleted paragraphs from chapter 9. The alteration was made because it was a bit on the nose about what Renesmée does.

Humans were mammals, and mammals were hardwired to protect their young. This extended across species, making mother cats care for puppies and humans care for anything that was small and cute. The instinct to love and cherish anything cute and helpless was an evolutionary necessity, and had to run deeper than anything if a species wanted to survive.

Enter Jane, who was the smallest, cutest thing Carlisle had ever seen, but from a species humans instinctively knew to fear. Maybe the very fact that she was something that humans knew they should want to care for made their fear exponential, made it impossible to deny that something was very wrong about her, that they were looking at a predator.

Perhaps too there was something to vampires having retained some of that human instinct to protect their young, if the countless stories of covens dying to protect their immortal children was anything to go by. Carlisle himself had been no exception when the Volturi came for Renesmée, even as he found himself risking the lives of countless friends.

How far things had come, he thought, from preparing to die along with his loved ones at the hands of the Volturi to sitting across a café table with Jane and pitching costume ideas.

***********

Chapter 9 was heavily altered, mainly as it was too funny the first (and second!) time around and I kept having to return to insert more existential dread. A side effect of this is that Carlisle in the original draft was still undecided on whether he had a gift up until the very end of the chapter, whereas it's proven beyond a doubt much earlier in the published version.

Jane was looking a bit daunted, though it was nothing compared to how Carlisle felt.

Silently, they went to stand in front of one of the many sports stores that Whitefish had to offer.

«This could still be confirmation bias,» Carlisle whispered, and leaned against the wall. For all the human blood that was in his system, his knees felt oddly weak.

Jane let out a startled laugh. «You’re seriously still in denial?»

Carlisle shook his head quietly. «They reacted pretty reasonably, just because they didn’t run away screaming…»

«Reasonably?» Jane echoed dully. «Carlisle, you can’t actually…» she shook her head. «Remember that bubble we talked about?»

Carlisle put his head in his hands, and let his fingers move up, under the wig, pulling it off in one neat motion.

Jane shook her head at him. «You look even more glamorous with your real hair.»

Carlisle still said nothing, balling the wig together in his hands.

Could it be he actually had a gift?

***********

The chapter 11 outline originally had Renata and Carlisle failing to communicate like normal people because they've spent too much time with Aro, and unintentional innuendo keeps ruining their attempts to make polite small talk. Sadly (or happily) this is a lot easier to conceptualize than carry out in actual writing, and their conversation wound up being far too serious for that, so it was cut. Luckily for you I did pen Carlisle flashbacking to a time his foot got in his mouth:

The moment after the words were out her face scrunched up.

Carlisle snorted. «Aro is a horrible influence on us all.»

He remembered one of his first talks with Jasper, when they were still getting to know each other.

Jasper had been a little starstruck when he learned Carlisle’s friends in Italy were those Italians.

He’d asked Carlisle a lot of questions once he got past a misplaced sense of awe, wanting to put a face to the eternal, petrified, leaders of the vampire world.

During a hunt with just the two of them, Jasper had been asking about Aro’s gift.

«What do you even think about when you’re with him?» Jasper had marvelled aloud, and he would later explain that the way he say it, this was like the way the Egyptian gods supposedly measured souls.

Place your heart upon the balancing scale against the weight of a feather, and if your heart weighs heavier it is devoured by the demon Ammit.

Place your hand in Aro’s, and if he deems you guilty of breaking his law, you will be torn to pieces in the space of a second.

Being friends with the man sounded unbearably stressful to Jasper.

Unfortunately, Carlisle’s mind had gone in the opposite direction, and what came out of his mouth before he could stop himself was, «England.»

He’d covered well enough for that, or he hoped he had. Jasper never asked.

***********

Chapter 11 was also supposed to have Renata being brave enough to ask for a selfie with Carlisle when they're both in black robes, this because I just really want Edward to sift through the Volturi group chat after all this and finding that. Alas, I couldn't work it in there. (Determined to not lose the joke, I had Aro take the photos in chapter 12 instead.)

***********

Chapter 12, the fandom ghost requested I include another butt slap and offered me fanart if I fulfilled her wish.

And so:

He held up a hand, presumably to touch Carlisle’s arm in comfort, but just then Alec started retching.

«He ate human food,» Jane deadpanned to Demetri, Felix, and Renata. Shaking her head, she brushed Alec’s hair out of his face as he hurled into the river.

Aro grimaced slightly, his hand hovering in the air.

Carlisle felt all the bread, corn flakes, and water that he’d swallowed press uncomfortably against his esophagus. «I’ll do you one better, Alec,» he choked, before he span around, fell to his knees and started retching, much like a cat.

Aro, evidently not sure what to do with his arm but not about to let it drop purposelessly, gave Carlisle a supportive pat on the bum before kneeling beside him to hold his hair as he hurled.

It was funny, but simply didn't fit the tone considering what happened after. It had to go. But hey, I got the art.

#there's more but these are the things that came to mind #my fic #nebuchadnezzar's dream #fic spoilers #of sorts kinda #doktrajediscovery

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malfoymxnor · 4 years ago

Text

𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬

➤ pairing: draco malfoy x reader

➤ requested: yes | no

➤ words: 1.6k

➤ genre: fluff! also this is supposed to be more of a cute thing rather than serious so pls don’t take it seriously!

➤ summary: modern world au! you discover how to make silver wire rings on tiktok and attempt to teach draco. overnight, draco finds a new obsession.

MASTERLIST

“Draco, wake up!” You whispered to the sleeping body laying on the bed. All you could manage to see in the room only lit with the rising sun was the streaks of platinum blond hair sticking from under the emerald blanket.

This is exactly what Draco Malfoy had woken up to on that Saturday. Not that he minded of course, the mornings his girlfriend would wake him from his slumber was his favorite. He typically valued his sleep on the weekends, but nothing could compare to seeing the one he loved most.

He opened his eyes, smiling softly to himself as he saw your face staring at him. “Good morning to you too.” He said as he sat in his bed, rubbing his sleep-filled eyes before looking around his room. He noticed immediately that they were the only ones in the Slytherin boys’ dormitory. He must have been asleep for ages if everyone was already eating breakfast in the Great Hall.

Of course, Draco being Draco, he wanted immediately to make the most of this alone time. “Come here, darling.” He took your hand in his, pulling you into his bed so you lay beside him.

You let out a laugh as you felt your body be pulled down besides his. However, just as it was when you walked into the room and woke up your boyfriend, your other hand stayed behind your back to keep the surprise, well, a surprise.

You felt your spine shudder as you felt Draco’s lips gently kiss along your jawline. It was no surprise what his gentle yet passionate touches did to you. “As much as I want this to continue,” you whispered to him as you looked up at him. “I have something exciting for us to do.”

His eyebrows rose playfully. “I’m not sure if I should be afraid, but I can guarantee you that I can make us do something exciting too.”

You playfully shoved his shoulder in response, but couldn’t hide the grin appearing on your face. “Hush! You can’t focus on what we’re about to do if you’re making sex jokes the entire time.”

You sat up on the bed, criss-crossing your legs and facing your boyfriend. Draco sat up in bed, the bedsheets falling on his lap to reveal his bare chest. Your eyes wondered for a moment, before you shook your head to focus on the fact at hand.

“Alright. Disclaimer, this will seem weird but I tried this out last night and I think you’re gonna like it.” You smiled, your eyes glancing over to his bedside table. There laid more than several rings and chains. Perhaps it was because he grew up in a very wealthy family and wearing jewelry was just a part of his daily life at this point. Most of the rings were simply just a gold band or has one stone, with a couple having a snake engraving or in the shape of a snake itself.

This is what makes you think he will enjoy this activity so much.

You continued your little speech before revealing what you were hiding behind your back. “I was on TikTok a couple days ago and people are making rings from scratch, from wire. I tried it out last night and well..”

You pulled out a bag from behind your back and pooled out the supplies from the bag onto the large bed. Inside was some wire, scissors, countless amounts of gemstones and crystals, a ring mandrel to measure ring sizes, and a ring you had made last night.

Draco’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, wondering how in the world you could make any piece of jewelry from wire. All of the rings he has owned were made from gold, as far as he knew. The Muggles must be bored if they figured out how to make rings from wire.

That was before his eyes went to the silver ring with a light pink stone in the center laid upon his bed, which was made by you. He took the ring into his hands, carefully studying it for a moment. He had to admit, it was extremely durable and made of high quality.

“Darling, you made this last night?”

You nodded, a bit nervous as he studied the ring. You loved to make things with your hands, this was no different. You knew your boyfriend had high tastes to say the least.

“Teach me then. I do love rings.”

A smile broke out on your face, happy that he was at least excited about this. “Yay! Okay, just follow my instructions, it’s not too difficult.”

You took the long ring mandrel in your hand, telling him this was used to make sure your finished ring would be able to actually fit your finger. Draco was already focused on every word you spoke, hoping to do a decent job to earn your approval.

Next, you explained every step necessary to make the ring. You explained how to center your stone, wrap it around the mandrel, and even make impressive decisions around the stone. Once you were finished, you pulled your finished ring off the mandrel, showing him it only took a few minutes to make it. “Now, it’s your turn.”

He nodded, taking the mandrel and wire carefully in his hands, as if he would somehow destroy it. Remembering the steps you had given him, he picked a black gemstone and used a gold wire to make the ring. He felt more confident over time, attempting more complicated designs than what you had shown him. At the end, he pulled off the ring, frowning as he realized the stone wasn’t exactly centered and the wire was somehow pulled in places it shouldn’t be.

“What did I manage to do wrong now?” He pouted slightly as he looked at his failure of a ring.

You kept in the laugh. Although it didn’t look very pretty, you couldn’t deny it was adorable to see the tough Draco Malfoy pout at a simple ring. “Well, you didn’t center the stone first of all.”

You explained the steps once again, however Draco still did not understand how what he did was incorrect. “Why can’t I use magic to fix what I already made? I feel terrible for the Muggles who have to do this by hand.” He grumbled slightly.

“Because what’s the fun in that?” You grinned as you stood, taking his hand in yours. “Now, let’s go get some breakfast. We can try again later.”

Hours had now passed since that morning. It was now the evening, and Draco Malfoy was the only one of his roommates awake this late at night. He sat in his bed underneath his thick blanket, the materials needed to make the wire rings sat out across him. With a quiet “Lumos,” the tip of his wand was lit and sat next to him while he worked.

It was silly but he can’t look like a fool now. Not in front of his girl. Besides, perhaps if he got it right, he would be able to make one for you.

A couple more hours had passed, each ring getting slightly better than the last. At his point, he was almost completely out of the wire you had provided for him and rings of different colors lay on his bed. He found himself becoming slowly more frustrated but he tried to remind himself this was supposed to be a relaxing activity, at least according to you.

Why does this Muggle activity require so much practice? Bloody hell, Quidditch was a lot easier.

After what seemed like an eternity to the Slytherin prince, he finally was able to produce a ring that he wasn’t ashamed to look at. In fact, he was quite proud of it. The band was made of silver and had an emerald green stone perfectly in the center, and was complete with a few simple designs surrounding the stone. With a soft smile on his face, he made a few more acceptable rings and placed them beside him on his bedside table and went off to sleep.

He woke the next morning more cheerful than normal, and you could tell when he sat next to you for breakfast in the Great Hall.

“Not that I mind, but why are you so cheerful?” You asked, looking at him as he sat down and began to eat the food off his plate.

“Have you already forgotten?” He asked once he swallowed his first bite, reaching into his pocket and pulling out that first ring he made successfully. “I did it.”

You smiled as you looked at the ring sitting on the table between you two, holding back a slight laugh. Of course, you thought the ring was wonderful, but you wondered how long it took for him to make this one ring. You had a deep love for your boyfriend but you had to admit, he typically wasn’t the type to love arts and crafts.

“Alright Malfoy, it looks nice, but does it fit you?”

“Well no.” He said as he took the ring and your hand, sliding it onto your ring finger. “I wanted to make you one first.”

You bite your lip, trying your best to hide the way your cheeks were now colored with a soft pink color. “Oh, thank you.” You admired the way it somehow perfectly fit onto your finger. He must have been very focused to not only make the ring, but correctly guess your ring size. “But didn’t you make some for yourself?”

“Don’t worry about that.” He showed you the inside of his other pocket, where there were at least a dozen other similar rings. “I may have gotten a little carried away.”

#harry potter #harry potter imagine #harry potter imagines #hp fanfiction #hp #hp headcanon #hp imagine #hp imagines #draco #draco malfoy #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy headcanon #draco malfoy headcanons #draco malfoy imagines

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gamebunny-advance · 4 years ago

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I’m Feeling Saucy...

Time to post some *really* old NSR/Desynchronized comic sketches.

I’m putting them under a readmore because they’re *especially* bad and weren’t posted for a reason, but I feel like the only way I ever look at my old sketches is if I post them. So hopefully doing this will motivate me to actually finish one of these.

Contains Potential Spoilers For: 1010 Desynchronized

“Mug”

From a comic about Kerinting breaking one of Kliff’s mugs by mistake. I never got the layouts down for this one (that’s gonna be a running theme for most of these). I don’t think I ever finished the script for this one because I think it’s way too sappy, but I’m scrapping it anyway because I don’t want to write White as being physically abusive anymore.

Captions:

Kliff: I mean, yeah. I liked that mug, and now I have a mess to clean up.

Kliff: But I’m not going to hit you over it. It was a mistake.

Kerinting: I made a mistake... but I’m not being punished?

Kliff: Hey, this isn’t an inviation to break all my mugs. Just be careful next time.

------

“Untitled”

This is from one of the earlier rewrites of Desynchronized B Plot. Since I’m scrapping that version, I can talk about it a bit more.

Since I scrapped the original kidnapping plot for being in bad taste, the new idea was that during an unauthorized getaway into the city, Kerinting got separated from the main group and wound up in the trash (in most versions of that script, they accidentally got caught up in a fight, but since 1010s can’t retaliate against humans while in civilian mode, Kerinting became the distraction to let the others escape, but he didn’t make it out).

Coincidentally, on the same night, Kliff was coming home from a night of drunken karaoke and had noticed him in the trash. Joey (his neighbor) had forced him to go out since Kliff had gotten extremely depressed after the events of the game and had just been moping around his apartment for the past month or so.

Thinking it was just a bootleg that was tossed and against his better judgement, Kliff takes Kerinting home with the intention of gutting him for parts. The following day, Kerinting was able to reactivate himself, shocking Kliff who had no idea that Kerinting was a genuine 1010.

There are two different routes that I wrote for this version of the incident:

One was that Kliff just tells Kerinting to leave, but Kerinting refuses to since he was out past curfew: any 1010 not back home by a certain time will be destroyed, no questions asked.

The other was that Kliff physically takes Kerinting back to Barraca mansion, but gets into an argument with NJ about it, causing them both to flee back to Kliff’s place.

In either scenario, Kerinting is essentially abandoned by the others and is taken in by Kliff out of pity/spite. In most versions, this backstory was revealed through a conversation with Joey. Joey was actually a lot more prominent in earlier versions since he more or less served as the “voice of reason” to the other two’s nonsense. He might still be, but I haven’t thought of many other scenarios where he’s really “needed”.

Captions:

Joey: So... this thing...

Joey: Just lives with you now?

Kliff: Yep.

Joey: And you’re okay with that?

Kliff: It wasn’t my choice to make.

----------

“Routine”

I really liked the idea of a comic comparing and contrasting what the daily routines of the Green 1010s were now that Kerinting is living with Kliff.

Despite how bad they are, I do feel like the scribbles speak for themselves about what’s going on. But I did want to make an aside about how they sleep: In earlier drafts Kerinting just slept next to a cabinet in the living room because it’s visible and doesn’t take up much space (Kerinting used to stay in Kliff’s closet, but he kept getting scared by him). In more recent stories he sleeps in a suitcase next to the cabinet. The other 1010s sleep in what I call a “standing bed”. It’s a dock that they hook into so they can charge and upload their memories for the day. In earlier drafters this had to be done physically instead of being remotely uploaded.

----------

“Memories”

One of my “dream pieces” is to draw “Kliff’s Photo Album” where he keeps all of the pictures from his younger days. Top left would have been him and young!NJ. Bottom left is NJ recieving letters/gifts from his classmates before he gets shipped out. Top mid-right is a young!Tatiana. Below that was supposed to be Kul Fyra. Far right was a strip of one of those photobooth things with all 3 of them.

I had an idea for a comic where he takes one of those with Mayday & Zuke in one of the Sayu Photobooths as a celebration of him helping them take down one of NSR’s artists. When he came home, he would have put that one with the ones he took with Tatiana and NJ all those years ago. I might still do that one day because I still think it’s a cute idea, I just don’t think I can execute it that well XP.

----------

“Pet”

I think I’ve posted the script for this one already, though I’m not sure which one would have been the most recent iteration.

Anyway, this comic is mostly about Kliff comparing the ways that Kerinting behaves more like an animal than a full-fledged human. The 1010 AI is fairly advanced, but it’s still very predictable.

Captions:

Voiceover Kliff: It likes getting treats.

Kliff: Here, I found another mixtape for you.

Kerinting: Yay! Thank you!

Voiceover Kliff: It needs constant affection or it gets lonely.

Kliff: You did good today! *pat pat*

Kerinting: Really? I did good today?

Voiceover Kliff: It’s good at learning new tricks.

Kerinting: I cooked it just like you taught me!

Kliff: Yep. Looks good.

Voiceover Kliff: And no matter what it does, I can’t stay mad at it because it’ll hit me with those [puppy dog eyes].

Kerinting: I’m sorry. I broke it again.

----------

“Daddy”

I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about this before, but it’s a personal joke that 1010 calls anyone who even vaguely has some authority over them “Dad”, including each other. NJ is a dad for obvious reasons. DJSS is a dad because he’s dating NJ. Kliff is a dad because he helped design the MKI OS. And I don’t think I had considered it at the time of writing this one, but they call Tatiana “Dad” too because she’s NJ’s boss.

Captions:

Kliff: How many “dads” do you things even have?

White: There’s the Captain, you, DJ Subatomic Supernova, and me.

Kliff: What do you mean “me”?

White: I’m a first gen 1010, so that makes me their dad.

(White is an upgraded MKI. Red & Blue are upgraded MKIIs. Yellow & Green were born as MKIIIs.)

#gbunny draws #nsr #1010 desynchronized #i dunno if i want to add the character tags #the usual suspects are here

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sparklegemstone · 4 years ago

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Loki Ep3 Thoughts

I can write this right now because I watched ep3 on Wednesday morning. For the other episodes I've watched the first 5-10 minutes to slake my curiosity and then waited until I was 100% alert and engaged (read: not a work day) in order to fully appreciate the full episode. But I watched all of ep3 on Wednesday, and I did so because as I kept going there was never a point where I felt like I was missing anything by not being fully alert.

That is to say...I didn't think the episode was that good. Not bad, but mediocre, especially compared to the other two and the other Marvel series we've seen so far. The only point of this episode was "strand Loki and Sylvie and get them to be a bit more friendly to each other" and they could have accomplished this in much more interesting ways that would have felt more fulfilling as an episode. Maybe I'll feel differently after another watch, but these are my first watch impressions.

Loki singing was a gift. A+. Fantastic. The whole series would have been worth it just for that moment. I really enjoyed the callback of the mug smashing a la Thor. The 'passing time on the train' sequences were the only really worthwhile parts of the episode. I loved the idea behind Loki talking about Frigga teaching him magic and how she raised him, though I thought the presentation of the idea could have been even better for more resonance and emotional impact (also I was distracted by the corny looking fireworks effect, I'm trying not to blame the series for its budget if that fed into that particular effect, but at the same time WV and FATWS knew how to work within their budget without making it feel like they were budget limited). I'm still not a fan of the whispy insubstantial look for the battle magic design coming from his hands, but like most everyone else appreciate all the magic use this episode. Ooh! The 'love is a dagger' monologue -- another that I really like the idea of, I think it could have been more emotionally impactful with a different presentation.

Outside the train car, the whole episode was just "give me the time pad", "make me" over and over again. Lots of empty calories in this script. I don't find Sylvie that interesting from what we've seen so far (why can't we have Randy 😔). She felt like a pretty generic female 'chip on her shoulder, has to fend for herself runaway' character, and didn't live up to what the first two episodes were building her up to be. She felt kind of juvenile, which might have been what TPTB were going for, I don't know, maybe I'm being sexist with that impression? But definitely not as if she's someone who has been living in apocalypses experiencing nothing but death and destruction all around her for the past X amount of time. The character has to justify a badass slaughter set to an 80s rock jam, not the other way around. Also that shot where she tries to enchant Loki and he just stands there with his head down and lets her? I don't know if they were going for intimate in that scene but it just felt kind of clunky and awkward.

I'm curious to learn more about her because I still have so many questions. You'd think if TPTB wanted to design a Lady Loki character they would make her look more like Loki with black hair instead of blonde, which might suggest she's not actually a Loki variant? But maybe she's purposely made herself blonde to distance herself from Loki. But then why does she have Loki's costume and a variation of his horned helmet? She's strongly reacted to being called Loki twice now, so clearly she has some relation to or history with Lokis.

And the whole final sequence that was the dash to the escape ship -- again I'm not trying to criticize the show for its budget constraints or pandemic constraints but that whole sequence felt like they were running through a set and/or competing on some sort of space-themed Nickelodeon GUTS show making their way through a staged obstacle course. It was a combination of the set itself with the saturated neon colors, and the artificial feeling choreography of how Loki and Sylvie moved through it without the environment fully motivating said choreography (run to one point, crouch and wait for a few seconds, then run to the next point, run into a building just to run out), and the cinematography of how it was filmed. I was expecting the fallen tower that Loki magically caught to start rising to reset itself on the stage any second. I didn't feel the terror and urgency of so many people fighting for their very lives. I didn't really feel the urgency for Loki or Sylvie either.

I already wrote this in another post but I'll copy here because it's short. It felt like a poorly written Doctor Who episode: a Doctor Who episode where the story of the place and people the episode takes place in doesn’t matter and the audience isn't supposed to care about it other than to be a giant obstacle course for the main characters to navigate and for the setting to be "nifty".

If we had 22 episodes instead of 6, I think I'd be more forgiving of the episode and my expectations would be lower. Then again if we had a 22 episode season then each episode would have it's own complete story that is told and wrapped up by the end of the episode vs. this shorter chunk of an episode that isn't satisfying in and of itself and only works in the context of the episodes it comes between. So it's like the worst of both worlds, lol.

I realize that was a lot of negativity, but I hope this doesn't just come off as complaining. Like I said, I didn't dislike the episode and there were definitely high points, when it just comes to writing out my thoughts, in this case at least, I find myself having a lot more to say about the parts I was less impressed with vs. the things I really liked to which my reaction is more simply "yay", "thumbs-up", "I liked that".

#loki series spoilers #loki series negativity

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mcwriting · 5 years ago

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The Marriage Project (1)

Omg I can’t believe it’s taken me THIS long to post this. I wrote this chapter probably in like April or May and it freaks me out to finally post but here it is!

My slow burn (American) High School AU with Tom Holland!

All the general info for this series is on the story masterlist, but I’ll list warnings and word counts on every chapter. Chapters will be much longer than my typical 2000 or less babies

Warnings: This will become a mature story in the future (no smut; more info on masterlist). Some profanity in this chapter

Word Count: 4140 (I told you!)

% approximately the 2nd week of August %

Ah, senior year. One last year of high school, one last year of seeing the people you’ve grown up with every day.

You’ve been told it’s easy. The best year ever. And yeah, maybe it will be. It’s not like you’re taking too many hard classes or overloading yourself with extracurriculars, aside from volleyball, soccer, the National Honors Society, and quiz bowl.

(Okay maybe it was a little much, but you loved it anyways)

The only real problem was the certified thorn in your side, Tom Holland.

He’d essentially been your mortal enemy since the sixth grade when he beat your mile time by only a few seconds.

Now, it’s not that he was a bully or anything, he was just so insufferable to be around. And yes, everyone always says boys pick on girls when they like them, but rest assured that wasn’t the case. You’d both always hated each other, nothing more.

You were always competing, and because of that ended up in the same place a lot.

He was in all your honors classes, in NHS, played boys soccer, and did quiz bowl. The only thing you had to yourself was volleyball except, oh wait, his younger brother’s girlfriend was on the team and Tom was his ride home every day.

All these thoughts raced through your head as you walked in on the first day, sitting down in AP calculus as soon as you finished up at your locker.

Everyone did the “how was your summer?” and “long time no see!” as students filed in. Eventually walked in Tom, and you shot each other a glare as he sat down right next to you.

“Holland.”

“Y/l/n.”

Everyone around you groaned. They all knew you two were forces to be reckoned with and probably dreaded spending another year listening to the two of you bicker everyday.

Though you were often in close proximity, you never really talked much, except to argue. Rarely did you agree unless it was on basic facts, and even then was it hard to admit sometimes.

Because of this, you typically resigned yourselves to only speaking when it came to grades so you could keep a mental tally of who was in the lead. You were both in the running for valedictorian at the end of the year, and you were not about to let Tom win.

The week was almost over and things had gone smoothly for the most part.

Sure, you and Tom had had a couple of spats, but nothing that wasn’t handled quickly.

He’d been to all of your volleyball games so far, even the summer ones, which meant he was forced to watch you dominate the court as both a setter and right side hitter.

It was a nice little satisfaction.

Especially because you’d watched him throw some horrendous passes in the preseason football game last week that led to a loss by one touchdown. (Okay, he’d had some good passes too, but they were lucky shots).

You settled into your seat in senior home economics Friday before lunch. The class was your school’s attempt at teaching some life skills for rising adults. For the most part however, it was a glorified cooking and sewing class. You didn’t mind per say, since you could cook up a pre-snack lunch sometimes.

Most of your friends were in there, including your best friend Alexis, whom you hadn’t seen all morning.

You, Alexis, and two other girls stood around a mixing bowl with the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies since it was a Friday, which Mrs. Flynn called “dessert day.”

“Oh! Before I forget,” your teacher, Mrs. Flynn, started getting everyone’s attention. “This year we’re doing something new for this class! Next week I’ll have you all split into pairs for a semester long marriage project! I will be drawing names out of a hat, so don’t get too comfortable yet. Anyways, be thinking on what kinds of careers you might want and things of that nature! Okay, now get back to your desserts!”

The whole room broke out into chatter the last part of the hour-and-a-half class, people speculating who might end up with who and what jobs they’ll get.

“Oh my God, wouldn’t it be funny if y/n got Tom?” Alexis stated as you stirred chocolate chips into the dough. The other girls laughed as you just snorted.

“Yeah, I’d rather lick the inside of the microwave than be paired up with him for a semester,” you replied, earning more laughter from your friends.

You assumed Tom’s friends were saying the same however, because when you looked over to see how bad their dough looked, he was rolling his eyes as his group pointed in your direction.

The next week came and went, and it was once again Friday. Or, as Mrs. Flynn was calling it, Wedding Day.

Every time she’d pull a couple’s name, she was going to make you both come to the front of the class and exchange plastic wedding rings and sign a fake marriage license.

Yay.

Everyone chattered excitedly as she tore up the strips with your names and mixed them around. Finally the time came for her to start the drawing.

“Okay, friends. First up we have...” she drew the first name. “Katherine and... drumroll please?”

The class drummed their hands over their thighs.

“Chris! Come on down folks, let’s get this marriage on!”

She “married” the first couple, and then continued to draw. You had to admit that you were a little nervous, but still eager to see who you’d get.

Two couples later, she pulled Tom’s name.

You shot him an eyebrow raise to which he returned a discreet middle finger. You rolled your eyes as you prepared a drumroll for Mrs. Flynn.

“And his lucky partner is... y/n!”

“What!” you both exclaimed simultaneously.

Almost the entire class burst into laughter.

“Mrs. Flynn, this has to be a mistake,” you said.

“Yeah, can’t we have a redraw?” Tom asked.

You hated that he was agreeing with you.

“Nope! You get who you get and you don’t throw a fit! And if it doesn’t work out in a few weeks we can discuss divorce plans.”

“How about annulments,” you stated dryly, earning a chuckle from her.

“That… kinda depends on if you have kids,” she trailed awkwardly before perking back up. “Now come on down! They always say your first marriage is the most memorable!”

“Who has ever said that?” Tom asked.

“You know. They. Now just get up here and do the ring thing!” she commanded.

You both sulked up to the front of the room.

“Okay, now stand here facing each other and hold hands.”

“Do we have to?” Tom whined.

“Yes, now do it and it’ll be over with faster.”

He groaned, rolled his eyes, and grabbed your hands, holding them loosely.

“May I have the rings please!” Mrs. Flynn asked Caroline, the girl whose desk was closest that she’d asked to be designated ring bearer. She handed over the basket to let you both choose from the mix.

You took a silver colored ring with a faux white diamond in the shape of a star. Tom chose one with an oval “ruby.” You couldn’t help but notice how every single person was on edge watching the two of you.

“Okay now Tom, repeat after me. I, Tom Holland, take thee, y/n y/l/n, to be my wedded wife to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.”

He mumbled through the vow, avoiding eye contact, and slipped your star ring onto your finger. You were surprised at how gentle he was, carefully caressing your hand and making sure the ring faced straight up once it was on your finger.

You, too, said the lines and placed the ring onto his left hand.

“Alright. It is with the power vested in me by this very school that I am proud to now pronounce you husband and wife! You may now air kiss!”

You took a deep sigh and pretended to kiss each other's cheeks.

“Class, I’d like to introduce you all to Mr. and Mrs. Holland!”

They began to cheer and clap and laugh when you interjected.

“Uh, no. It’s Mr. and Mrs. y/l/n.”

Tom began to argue with you when Mrs. Flynn stopped you both.

“Alright fine, we’ll do a combined name. How’s the y/l/n-Holland family sound?” she asked, writing your names on the fake marriage certificate.

With reluctance, Tom agreed to having your name first and you both signed the paper.

Finally you were able to sit back down where your friends were waiting.

“So what was that about licking the microwave?” Alexis asked.

“Oh shut up.”

After your volleyball game (another win!), you and Alexis conversed over cheese fries at your favorite diner.

“Still not ready to talk about today?” she asked. You shook your head.

Alexis had been paired up with Caroline. They were both straight, but you had both been friends with her since freshman year and they got along well.

Today had just been the marriages, and next week you’d be learning more about your family dynamics.

“I’m just so pissed at him. This afternoon in senior art he told all the guys in there that he was going to make it as hard as possible for me. I mean jokes on him, he’s going to want to get an A too, but he was just so smug about it. He also strung his stupid ring on that necklace he’s always wearing. What’s that all about?”

“I mean you’re still wearing your ring. But yeah, that is a little weird.”

“I’m wearing mine because compared to some of the others, the star is actually cute.”

“True. I got unlucky with the selection,” Alexis admitted, digging hers out of her purse to show you a big square blue gem.

“I just wish there was a way to get back at him after all these years. I mean, we’ve been at each other’s throats for almost six years but nothing has ever seemed to really hit hard. This is the last year I’ve got to really make it count.”

Alexis gave you a look, one you knew to be quite mischievous.

“You know what’s the best way to get revenge on a guy?” Alexis asked.

“Uh, no, but by the look you’re giving me it seems to fall under Carrie Underwood ’before he cheats’ directive.”

“No, dumbass. You make his family fall in love with you.”

It took a second to process what she said before you could give a decent reply.

“You’re kidding right? His family already knows who I am because of all the stuff we’re in together. They probably also know about our rivalry. I mean, he’s told his brothers to never become friends with me.”

“And you know that, how?”

“The libero is Sam’s girlfriend. She’s been spilling tea for me for the past year.”

There was a break in the conversation as the waiter brought your meals out. Once he was gone, you spoke up again.

“Look, do you really think that would work? I mean sure I’d get under his skin, but it doesn’t really constitute revenge, does it?”

“Look at it this way,” Alexis put down her burger so she could splay her hands out in front of her. “If you can get on everyone else's good side, they’ll all talk about how much they love you and he’ll be forced to listen. If he really hates you, it’ll drive him crazy.”

You thought on it for a minute as you chomped on a chicken tender.

“Alright, I’m in. If it doesn’t end up working, I still have all of next semester to mess with him anyways. Now if I can just figure out how to really get to know his family…”

By the time Monday rolled around, you and Alexis had done some more scheming, but your plan wouldn’t even begin to be put in action until your volleyball games Wednesday and Friday, when you’d try to talk to Sam.

You sat down in home ec, where today you’d be picking careers. The catch, however, was that your family unit would have a set income, so each couple had to decide how it would be split up.

“Y/l/n-Holland family, you’ll be making $200k a year,” Mrs. Flynn announced, handing you the slip of paper. “Get together and decide who’s getting what jobs.”

“At least we’ll be rich,” you thought as Tom plopped into the seat next to you unhappily.

“So I’ll be the doctor and you’ll be the trophy wife, right?” he asked immediately.

“Hah, good one. I think we all know that I’m the smarter one here and wayyyy more likely to get into med school than you. And don’t call me trophy wife. I mean, what, you think I’m hot now? Can’t wait to tell everyone that little number.”

His ears turned beet red and he balled a fist.

“I don’t think you’re hot, except maybe hot shit. It’s a figure of speech.” he spat.

“Oh get over yourself. I know I’m hot anyways. Let’s just both pick jobs that earn $100k so we can be equal. How’s that sound?”

“Fine.”

He played with the plastic ring on his necklace as you looked up jobs on the computer. After a half hour of searching, Tom and you decided that to be fully equal, you’d both take the same job as physician’s assistants.

“Just so you know, I’ll never actually be anyone’s assistant,” he said.

“Oh yeah? Ten years time if you’re lucky I’ll hire you as mine.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Hey everyone, since class is almost over, we’re gonna wait to draw how many kids you’ll have and other financial things Wednesday. See you then!” Mrs. Flynn called out as students packed their things.

“We have to have kids, too?” Tom asked incredulously.

“Good thing it’s fake. I’d hate to see you as a parent,” you shot smugly, earning another middle finger from him that left you laughing.

Wednesday came kids, and thankfully all you got were twin girls, age 9. The project didn’t make you carry around flour babies or anything like that, you just had to account for them in your weekly budgets.

There goes the annulment plan, though.

Each week, Mrs. Flynn would be drawing something new for you all that would either be good or bad for your budgets, and it was up to you to figure out what to with the funding, or lack thereof. You also had to come up with a story each week that explained why money was put somewhere or what your “family” did that week.

She would also be doing progress checks, so you couldn’t wait until the end of the semester to do all the work. By the end, each couple would have to give a presentation over what they did and learned.

“Okay, so we each get to name one. That’s pretty equal,” you stated, thinking up baby names.

“Well I like Elizabeth,” he almost immediately replied, writing it down on one of the “birth certificates” you’d been handed by Mrs. Flynn.

“That’s… surprisingly good. I’ll go with Francesca. What about middle names? I like Rose.”

“Hm. How about Opal? Then they’ll have the same number of letters in their names.”

You were surprised at how much though he put into this, but let it go as you wrote your child’s name down.

“By the way, we need to plan time to get together and write a budget and find a house this weekend. I have a volleyball game Friday so how about Saturday?”

“I have football practice Saturday.”

“Well yeah but only until like 10 right? We could just meet at like 1. We’re doing construction at my house right now so could we do it at yours?”

You spoke sweetly in an attempt to receive a yes and put your plan into motion. Tom sighed and thought about it.

“I mean I guess. But you’re only going to be there to work on the project and then leave right?”

“Uh, duh. The less time with you the better.”

“Likewise.”

Tom and Sam weren’t at the volleyball game Wednesday, so you had to wait until Friday’s.

Friday was muffin day in home ec, so you thankfully didn’t have to talk to Tom. Instead, you and Alexis discussed the plan of getting Tom’s family on your side as you mixed up batter.

Later that afternoon, you watched from afar as Sam and his girlfriend, Julia, sat on the bleachers speaking. It was still an hour until game time and coach had asked you to round up the girls for stretching.

“Hey, Jules!” you called, jogging over to where she was. “Oh, hey Sam!” He looked at you like you were crazy before responding.

“Uh, hey y/n.” He gave a slight head nod.

“Anyways, coach wants us to start warming up. Wanna be my partner today?”

“Um yeah. Sure. See ya later babe,” she said, giving Sam a quick peck on the cheek before standing up to follow you.

After another win, you were helping take down the net and noticed Julia once again talking to Sam while Tom stood a few feet away looking bored.

“Hey, could you wrap up the net? I need to do something real quick,” you said to another teammate as you headed over.

“Hey, Jules! Solid digs today! You were making my job way too easy,” you joked.

You could see from the corner of your eye Tom look up at you in annoyance.

“Ahaha thanks girl. But I can’t take all the credit. You were on fire tonight. What was that like 15 aces? And your hits? Incredible,” she replied.

“Yeah, you were amazing tonight,” Sam added.

“Ohhhkay we can stop the compliment parade on y/n now. We need to go anyways, Sam, mom wants us home,” Tom interjected, putting an arm out in front of his brother, who was rolling his eyes.

“Alright fine. We still on for dinner tomorrow?” Sam asked his girlfriend. She nodded and they exchanged a quick hug and kiss.

“I’ll see you tomorrow too, Tom,” you said. “I’ll bring my laptop.”

Sam looked at him in confusion.

“Yeah whatever,” was all Tom could say to you as you strutted off to the locker room.

You stood nervously on the front porch of Tom’s suburban home. You had texted him when you parked but now dreaded actually going inside.

After shifting back and forth for a minute, you finally rang the doorbell.

It was only a few seconds later that the door opened, revealing Sam’s twin Harry. He looked confused.

“Y/n? What are you doing here?”

“Hey Harry. Tom and I are supposed to be working on a school project today and he said to come over at this time so...” You awkwardly shifted your backpack straps and looked down.

“Tom! Someone’s here to see you!” he yelled out, making you snort.

He appeared shirtless in the doorway and looked at you blankly.

“Oh. It’s just you.”

“Just me? What did you just forget that we have to work on our project today,” you replied, holding up your left hand to point to the plastic ring on it.

“You’re still wearing that? Why?”

“Firstly, the little star is cute. And secondly, you don’t have a lot of room to speak, Tom. Yours is still on your necklace,” you pointed to the chain around his neck, to which he instinctively reached up and grabbed the ring, twisting it between his fingers.

“Touche. Now come on, let’s just get this over with.” He opened the door wider and let you in, locking it behind you.

As he led you down a hall covered in photos towards the stairs, his mom stepped out, almost running into her son.

“Oh, sorry.” she looked at you, “Y/n? What are you doing here? It’s nice to see you.”

“Nice to see you too, Mrs. Holland. Tom and I have to work on our home ec project and we couldn’t do it at my house.”

“Oh dear just call me Nikki. And I do remember him mentioning something about a project. Are you the one he’s married to? I never thought I’d see the day.”

Tom tensed up and clenched his jaw while you gave a light chuckle, holding up your left hand again.

“I hate to say it, but yeah. You’ll probably be seeing a lot more of me throughout the semester.”

“Well you kids have fun. And Tom, honey, would it kill you to put on a shirt?”

He went red again and you had to stifle your laughter.

“I was just on my way to do that, mom. Come on y/n,” he mumbled, grabbing your wrist and dragging you up the stairs.

You turned and waved at Nikki one last time as she called up behind him,

“And make sure to keep the door open!”

He was totally embarrassed by that, and made it a point to shut the door behind him once you made it to his room. Finally you could let out a hearty laugh at his expense as he dug through his drawers and pulled out a simple black t-shirt.

“Finally. I was getting tired of looking at your man boobs,” you quipped, looking around the room.

“Ha ha. Good one,” he shot back dryly.

You were surprised at what his room looked like, though you didn’t know what you’d expected. It was very neat with sleek grey walls. His blue and grey bedding was made up with decorative pillows laid out. On his desk were a few random school papers and a computer, and one shelf held some Spider-Man paraphernalia while another contained medals and ribbons and trophies.

You dropped your backpack to the ground and pointed up at one figurine.

“Hey, that’s pretty cool,” you said sincerely.

“Yeah, I’m sure you think so,” he replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

“Uh, no. I’m serious. It’s actually really dope.”

He looked taken aback at your compliment, and even to you it felt weird to be saying that out loud about Tom of all people.

“Oh. Well uh. Thanks. Spider-Man was my favorite growing up. But let’s just get to work.”

After an hour of sitting on his carpet searching for a house and arguing over general money allocations,

“Yes Tom, tampons actually cost like $7 for 30 of them and most girls need at least one box a month. And that’s just one factor of personal hygiene. Do you even condition your hair?”

“I’ll have you know my hair is well moisturized. I just don’t ever have to pay for it.”

You finally came to an agreement on the week’s budget.

Packing up your things, you looked up at Tom who was now sitting on the side of his bed scrolling through social media.

“So next week. Your first game of the season, yeah?” you said, remembering that September was already almost here.

“Oh yeah. You coming? I’d hate for you to see just how incredible I am.”

“Psh whatever. I saw your throws at preseason. But yeah, I’ll probably just rinse off after my volleyball game and head to the field. Gotta see what cuties they’ve got on the other team.”

“Ugh gross. You know you’ll regret saying that when half the school is swooning over me in the stands.”

“The only thing you’d ever see me swoon from is dehydration. And that’s a pretty weak excuse already.”

You stood and Tom got up to lead you back out.

“Oh, I think I know the way. You don’t have to take me.”

“Yeah I do. Gotta keep my eyes on those grubby little fingers of yours. Who knows what you’d do unsupervised.”

Before you reached the door, Nikki spotted you from the living room.

“Done so soon? Wow, good job guys. Come back any time y/n!”

“Thanks, Nikki,” you called back to her, then turned to Tom. “So same time next week? We can do it at my place if you want.”

“Nah let’s just do it here. I’m always exhausted the day after a game and I don’t really want to get up.”

Okay then

“Well, see ya Monday then. Bye.”

You were halfway down the sidewalk when Tom called out, “Be safe,” before shutting the door. You stopped in your tracks in shock, but eventually got into your car.

What really mattered, though, was that you were already on Nikki’s good side.

1 down, 4 to go.

Yay! It’s finished! I really hope you guys enjoy this new series because I’m so excited to share it with you all! Once again, future chapters will have some mature content (s*xual harassment and mentions of assault; underaged alcohol consumption) but those chapters will be explicitly labeled with warnings.

Anyways, thanks for reading and please send an ask or message if you’d like to join my story or permanent tag list!

Tag List: @jackiehollanderr, @one-big-fangirl,

#The Marriage Project #tom holland #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland imagine #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x you #enemies to lovers #slow burn #Harry Holland #sam holland #tom holland au #high school!au #high school!tom holland

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fizzingwizard · 4 years ago

Text

Episode 34 arrives and it’s a MUCH NEEDED breath of first air. I mean, this episode could have actually BEEN a 99 Adventure episode. I guess at least one person on the production team has actually seen the old show at least once!

In my opinion, it doesn’t quite equal the cuteness, silliness, and personality of similar 99 episodes, but it comes very close, and it’s certainly the best we’ve had in a long long while.

And it’s all because of these two.

More below!

The episode bizarrely begins with Tailmon barking to communicate with Komondomon. Which raises the question, if no one could talk with Komondomon before because he can only bark, how were they communicating? Did Lopmon just tell Komondomon everything he needed to know and tell the kids “just follow his lead” or something??

Also Tailmon’s opening line being her barking is pretty surreal. And yet, fitting for a cat Digimon who is a dog at Child level.

The kids are shown taking a break - the first sign that this episode is gonna be A Bit Different.

Taichi: Something feels weird. Why aren’t we fighting?

Sora: Taichi, don’t you think you should rest once in a while?

Taichi: I mean, I do, I just got the impression the rest of the world didn’t agree...

Sora: By the way, why do we like this world that constantly tries to kill us and never gives us any pleasant memories so much? Why don’t we just take our partners to the human world and leave this place to its fate?

Taichi: How else am I gonna get an outlet for my pent up aggression and adrenaline junkie issues?

Sora: That’s your backstory?

Taichi: I’m a complicated man.

Komondomon then randomly jumps... into the sea. “Oh no, they’ll drown!” No, they won’t, because Komondomon has the ability to build a dome over his back trapping oxygen inside. Submarimon I get, but Komondomon?

As they dive, Tailmon explains what we learned last week about Millenniumon trying to resurrect himself with a new body. Apparently a very large fragment of him is located undersea in a place called Farga (transliteration TBA). She thinks resentfully about how she was almost absorbed into Millenniumon’s most recent resurrection effort.

Hikari tackles her with a comforting hug, which Tailmon seems a bit discomfited by. But does not object.

Tailmon considers defeating Millenniumon for good to be her personal mission as a Holy Digimon. Patamon sees her determination and does his best to put on his game face too. It’s like being glared at by a sock puppet.

Tailmon: I can’t allow Hikari to be put in danger. It’s my job as the Holy Digimon -

Tailmon: - gosh darnit and she’s just so cute too!

They wind up getting hit by a rip current or something?? and thrown into another weird submarine sort of thing. They discourteously break a hole in it and wind up inside a self-sustaining underwater kingdom, apparently, which instantly goes on Red Alert as Manbomon come to attack them.

This is Daipenmon, or Big Penguin Monster. I love him. He is glorious. Gaze upon his expression of perpetually stoned haze.

Daipenmon: You try steering this thing every day in and out nonstop without turning to hard drugs.

She attac!

While fighting, some Mantaraymon break in through the hole they made and the Manbomon go to drive them off as apparently they are not welcome. Then MarineAngemon appears in all her creepy glory and they sort everything out.

MarineAngemon: Oh, Tailmon, I see you’re a Holy Digimon! I can tell by your Holy Ring. I have one too.

Takeru: Patamon, why don’t you have a Holy Ring?

Patamon: .... -.-’

Look! See! So cute! They are floating on bubbles! All the kids get their own and each has an individual design that shows their personality. Here Tailmon tries desperately to keep Hikari from falling off. I missed this kind of thing! Flashbacks to Monzaemon’s Toytown...

Turns out MarineAngemon is extremely small and the scene before was all “don’t pay attention to that man behind the curtain” type scare tactics. Not very effective since no matter how big MarineAngemon gets, she’s still extremely adorable. She invites them to stay the night. I really expected it to be a trap, but it wasn’t.

OH MY GOD IS THAT FOOD ARE THEY EATING ACTUAL FOOD OMG OMG

quick someone alert the producers! Someone’s having FUN with this show! I was starting to think that was illegal or something!

It’s not AS fun as when they went to Devimon’s illusory castle in 99 Adventure and stuffed their faces after starving and living on potentially poisonous eggs for a week... but I’ll take it.

Meanwhile an undersea band plays music and Taichi ACTS LIKE THE FIFTH GRADE CHILD THAT HE IS. For about 0.5 seconds but HEY he did something child-like! holy cheez wiz batman!

Hikari is mysteriously absent so Tailmon goes to find her. Turns out she’s asked MarineAngemon to heal Komondomon who is tired and wounded from their journey. Tailmon’s like, “Aw, what a nice person she is.” I’m all for exceptionally kind-hearted Hikari, but taking care of Komondomon should have been priority 1 for EVERYONE. At least Sora should have thought of it. I can see Taichi being too forward-focused, and Takeru a dumb eight year old, but Sora would definitely have thought about Komondomon.

Clearly the show wanted to establish how nice Hikari is, but I hate when shows inadvertently make all the other characters look like asses just to trump up the current star...

Taichi’s digivice glows and...

... MINI KOUSHIROU RETURNS!!! Hurray!

Um, what’s that Sora’s drinking? A mimosa? o.O

Well anyway, Koushirou just shows up to remind everyone of the situation with the satellites and that things are getting worse.

Taichi: Do you have any idea what we can do about it?

Koushirou: No, but I’ll keep you posted.

Taichi: Thanks for nothing braindead

Koushirou: That’s it! You’re not the man I knew in episode 3 anymore! I want a divorce!

Taichi: Fine with me it’s not like you’re ever home anyway!

Koushirou: Well at least I’m not cheating with YAMATO!

Taichi: I HAVE NEEDS!

*cough*

Uh, I know Taichi is shorter than Sora, but he looks... pretty tiny here... lol. Or maybe Sora’s just had a growth spurt again.

They spend the night sleeping in bubbles. Aw.

By the way, question: the kids seem able to walk and breath normally in MarineAngemon’s kingdom... but the fish-type Digimon can also swim around normally. And it seems the kids wouldn’t be able to survive in the ocean itself, but they and the fish can both survive here? And yet bubbles? What... what kind of scientific anomaly is this place??

So... MarineAngemon’s kingdom appears to be a Whamon’s corpse! X’D Wow that’s dark.

They are attacked by Anomalocarimon! For reasons. Actually, they did explain earlier that the ocean Digimon have been more aggressive lately and it seems to be the influence of Millenniumon’s stone in Farga or whatever.

Daipenmon: This sucks I don’t have health insurance

Tailmon frantically tries to fight off the intruders while also keeping Hikari out of danger. This entire episode is about Tailmon wanting to protect Hikari and keep her at arm’s length so she doesn’t end up in danger, while Hikari just keeps trying to stay close to Tailmon and support her.

Tailmon: I can’t take you with me, Hikari. It’s too dangerous.

Hikari: Fine. Big brother, will you bring me into the heat of the action with you?

Taichi: Sure thing.

Tailmon: ...

In his defense, Taichi does seem a bit freaked when Hikari TAKES A FLYING LEAP off MetalGreymon toward Tailmon.

(no I really love that Taichi immediately understands why Hikari wants to fight and takes her right to her partner without even a token “nuu but you’re still a baby.” I mean, if Yamato’s cool with Takeru being in danger all the time, Taichi shouldn’t be much worried about it...

Hikari has a flashback! Turns out she’s heard Tailmon calling for her since she as a little kid!

She caught one of Angewomon’s feathers back then too.

Hikari promises Tailmon that she’ll be by her side. Awww.

Hands again.

Crest of Light! I kind of expect that we’ll find out about the Crests and what they mean really fast at the end of the season... although I’m still kind of hoping Mimi is mining Crest crystals atm.

Hikari is able to magically produce a Digivice... I’d completely forgot she didn’t have one till now.

Here I expected Tailmon would evolve, but instead, the power of Light appears to give everyone a power boost like it’s done in the past. They all glow with their Crest colors, kids and partners alike (except for some reason Tailmon glows yellow???) and launch a joint attack on Anomalocarimon and defeat him. Yay.

Then they say goodbye to MarineAngemon and go on their way, I guess to Farga.

So... yeah! it was a nice episode. It had a theme. There was fighting, but it didn’t overwhelm everything else. There was character development. I really can’t complain about it. And it was SHOCKING that Taichi had so few lines (compared to what’s become the norm - a GOOD shock but still I was like “omg what’s going on!!”)

I am just confused because why is this sort of episode happening when we haven’t seen it in ages? What happened in that interim between when they all met up after the first team split up and just now that prevented the show writers from having fun with the show and just writing nonstop fighting all the time? I’m so confused. It makes no sense. Still suspecting that they couldn’t get anyone to come in and voice characters for long enough so they just focused on Sanpei Yuuko/Taichi, but without the others they couldn’t figure out how to push the show forward and make it fun too... Idk. It’s so weird. But oh well. We got a good episode, and maybe it’s a sign of changes to come. I hope so.

Next week...

We get attacked by a scary looking Digimon and Hikari... Idk, thinks she can block the attack somehow? haha. Aw but look how awesome she is protecting her brother and Greymon!

Hikari gets touched by the dark powers! Oh noes!

And more cuteness.

The episode title name-drops Angewomon, which surprises me because I figured they’d hold off on her and give Tailmon Nefertimon for an evolution first. But *shrug* whatever! Looking forward to it.

#digimon adventure reboot #digimon adventure:#digimon adventure 2020 #fizz watches digimon 2020 #digimon #digi spoilers

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