#at least this has a better color scheme which is all i really wanted

[chaoticace2005]

Reasons the Mothman should die, collectively written by the residents of the Hazbin Hotel:

Coding for Characters: Vaggie, Charlie, Pentious, Alastor, Niffty, Husk, pretty much everyone

TW: References to abuse

He’s holding back Angel’s progress. (Vaggie, is killing really necessary?) (I am concerned about going after a Vee)

I’m hungry (ALASTOR!)

Ms. Angel gets nervous when on the phone with him.

His coat is tacky.

He’s a bug! And bugs must be DESTROYED!

So Angel stops feeling like he has to be so damn fake. This is getting on my fucking nerves.

HE LICKED CHARLIE!!! (Vaggie, wait it’s okay.)

Color scheme sucks. Purple AND red?!

He makes Angel sad, NOBODY should make Angel sad.

Those obnoxious glasses just make him look stupid.

He’s a manipulative, abusive prick.

ANGEL DIDN'T KNOW BOUNDARIES WERE A THING?!?!?!?!?!? (Honestly that explains a lot.)

NOBODY deserves to be in an abusive relationship.

Too many arms. Nobody needs that many. (...Angel has that many?) (Well maybe he shouldn't.)

Ms. Angel keeps coming home all messy!!

He’s ruining hearts for everyone. Me and Angel already have enough. At least those are on our bodies, what’s his excuse?

Hearts should not even be ASSOCIATED with Valentino, THIS IS NOT LOVE.

I can do without all the sexual depravity. While I am in Hell this is NOT one of the reasons.

If I have to hear that ringtone one more damn time-

The Eggies found some of his films. They should never be exposed to such horrors. Now I have to explain what “a sex” is.

Makes picture shows that are a disgrace to the idea of “entertainment.”

He’s making a bad name for Uncle Ozzie. This is NOT “lust.”

So we don’t have to listen to another one of Angel’s pornos. (Agreed, it’s quite horrifying!!)

So Ms. Angel isn’t tired when she gets home and can save the kinky stuff for then :) (Niff, really?)

So the kid stops coming home with bruises and cuts that I fix up at 3 am. (Husk, what the fuck?)

Because what the FUCK Valentino?

He keeps forcing Angel to do drugs. (HE WHAT?! Like crack??) (That but also I’m pretty sure whatever comes out of him is an aphrodisiac.)

I want to use his antenna as a backscratcher

Has that whole red color thing going on. Only I am allowed to wear red :) (Al, your text isn’t even red.) (My what?)

What is up with his red spit and smoke? Seriously disgusting.

The red stuff from him may be what allows Velvette to create her “Love Potions” which funds Vax’s stupid endeavors (Do you mean Vox?) (Who?)

FOR MY COLLECTION :D (…yeah okay.)

Really is making a bad name for Overlords. And not in the fun way.

Angel’s shown trauma signs of abuse in our meetings. Im pretty sure it’s Valentino.

Make a doll out of his fur so I have a main villain for roach puppet shows!!!

His only purpose is to keep Veks occupied but considering Vixen’s inane attempts to catch my attention it isn’t working.

So Angel can have his soul and he and Husk can run off into the sunset together like in a fanfiction!!! (Ah, yes that would be nice.) (WE WHAT?!) (Oh Husker, denial doesn’t suit you.)

So Angel can get a good boyfriend THAT’S NOT ME to stop these bullshit allegations.

So Angel can admit his feelings to Husker because our cat surely isn’t going to be the first to do it. (ALASTOR I SWEAR TO GOD!)

Who knows how many other people he’s abusing.

Seems to give Vicks confidence. He has enough of that as is. It much more fun to destroy him.

He makes Angel sad which makes Cherri sad!

HE HIT ANGEL!!!

Called my dear Rosie an "old hag" NOBODY CALLS ROSIE AN OLD HAG.

Angel is a good friend and deserves so much better.

I’ve forgotten what moths taste like.

He keeps trying to get Angel to move out :(

Told the kid he had to lose weight. What the actual FUCK. (Ill kill him.)

He’s annoying and looks quite stupid. How has this not been added yet?!

He’s making a bad name for Spanish speakers everywhere. (Yeah it’s embarrassing.) (Wait… what?)

He’s making a bad name for pansexuals everywhere.

He’s making a bad name for wing-holders everywhere. (HE HAS FUCKING WINGS?!) (Oh, yeah, I didn’t tell you?)

Too tall. This is ridiculous.

Won’t admit he’s blind so he’s become even more of a public safety hazard.

If I get one more transmission of him and Box commiting lascivious acts someone will be eaten. I don’t care who. What the purpose of these are I don’t know. Advertisement? (I think it’s to make you jealous boss.) (Ha! Jealous of what? Mediocre sex with a pathetic excuse for a businessman with a TV as a head?)

Because Angel deserves fucking better.

[moonstruckme]

I can’t believe I’ve never read this but Sirius getting a tattoo of your name and you and EVERYONE is like ! And James is probs jelly heheheh

Thanks for requesting!

Sirius Black x fem!reader ♡ 802 words

“Well, the font at least sort of covers the misspelling,” you say, peering at the skin just to the left of Sirius’ back dimple. 

Remus hums his agreement. “Yeah, I sort of messed up in the middle there, so I switched to cursive to make it less noticeable.” 

“What?” Sirius twists around to try and see. 

“Joking, joking.” You smile up at him as he makes a sound somewhere between relief and offense, holding him still by his hip and not at all minding the excuse to do so. “It looks good, Siri. I just wish you’d told me you were getting it, I would have surprised you with the same.” 

Your boyfriend’s pursed lips relax into a familiar grin. “Yeah, sweetness?” Remus groans, finding something else to look at away from the two of you. “You mean it?”

“Nope,” you say bluntly, using your grip to tug him back down beside you on the couch. “Sorry, Rem, you’re never getting near me with that needle.” 

Remus huffs a laugh. “No pressure here.” 

“But baby,” Sirius croons, though it’s really more of a whine, “it’d be so hot. You could get it in the same spot too, so we’d match.” 

“You two already match plenty,” James decrees, coming in the door sweaty and covered in dirt from training. “Outfits and nail colors are enough.”

“Envious green doesn’t suit you, Prongs,” Sirius replies. He leans his head back so he can give his friend a disdainful look over the top of the couch, hair flopping away from his eyes. “Y/n loves when we match, don’t you gorgeous?” 

It’s a struggle not to let your eyes flit down to your star print socks, twin to the ones covered by Sirius’ boots. You give your best impression of insouciance in your shrug. 

“She’s a hostage to your schemes.” James tosses his bag to the floor, perching on the coffee table lest Remus get after him for getting dirt on the couch again. “What are you trying to coerce her into now?”

“He wants her to get a tattoo of his name like he’s gotten of hers,” Remus answers, the tiny quirk of his eyebrow at James conveying his disapproval of this plan. 

James’ eyes widen behind his glasses. “You got a tattoo of her name?” 

“Yeah.” Sirius grins proudly, already turning and pulling down his waistband. “Wanna see?” 

“Does he always take his pants off when you’re all home together?” you ask Remus. “Is this something I should be worried about?” 

“He’ll take his pants off at any opportunity,” he replies. “You knew what you were getting into with him.” 

“I guess I did.” 

“Fucking what?” James’ gaze jumps from Sirius’ hip to his face, betrayal in his big brown eyes. “That’s my spot. You’ve given her my spot!” 

You feel your brows furrow. “Excuse me?” 

“We agreed,” James says, and though his outrage doesn’t seem meant for you, you’re a tad intimidated regardless, “that I would get to choose the tattoo that went on his lower back. Pads, you swore an oath of brotherhood!”

“I was fifteen,” Sirius protests, mouth agape, “and drunk! I hardly remember what I agreed to!”

“Moony was witness.” James gives Remus an expectant look, mouth a hard line. 

Remus sighs like he’d really rather not be a part of this, but he knows better than to argue. “You did say that,” he tells Sirius, then turns to James. “Though it was a long time ago, and I’d like to have it on record that I didn’t recall it when I agreed to do the tattoo.” 

“Ah ha!” James points at Sirius accusingly. Sirius slaps his finger away with a roll of his eyes. “You’ve conspired against me.” 

“Why,” you ask James, “did you want to choose a tattoo for his lower back specifically?” 

James scoffs as though this should be obvious. “Because that’s the claiming spot. As he clearly knows.” He crosses his arms, glaring indignantly at your boyfriend. 

You shrug. “Well, he has two hips. You could always have the other one.” 

Now it's Sirius’ brow which furrows. “I’m not sure I appreciate my skin being auctioned off like this.” 

“Nobody’s auctioning you off, honey,” you placate him, rubbing his shoulder. Predictably, he softens under your touch, leaning against your side. You give his bicep a little squeeze. “For it to be an auction, we’d have to be exchanging money. This is for free.” 

Remus chuckles, and Sirius elbows your side meanly, but he’s smiling. James ignores them both, uncrossing his arms to lean his elbows on his thighs and looking at you with interest. 

“I could get behind that,” he muses. “You’d be willing to share him like that, though?” 

You roll your eyes as you smile. “I knew what I was getting into with him.” 

[mtkay13]

Qi Ye ensemble cast poster, second edition

Yet another one of those LOL Qi Ye just has that power over me. You know the drill; more info below!

I'll go straight to the point: my main reason to draw this was because I wanted to draw the most somber, dark-looking Helian Qi possible with some dark cross-hatching effect. And because I don't want to draw a Helian Qi solo image because who the HELL does that, I had to turn it into an ensemble cast thing again. I just REALLY like to do that for Qi Ye, for some reasons!!! For a general note, first: shading was a PAIN but making a nice composition and thinking about how to make a hierarchy that both works in terms of storytelling and visual composition was fun. I also liked finding out the "color scheme" to use and I do like lineart. So, now, little notes about each character, and the obligatory name poster just so I'm sure we all know whom I'm talking about:

Jing Beiyuan: I've mentioned it before but drawing Beiyuan is like. The easiest for me, I think, out of ALL Qi Ye/TYK characters combined. He happens to have my general goto "pretty face" (which conveniently has peach blossom eyes). I'm happy with how he turned out here! And got to put the sable around his neck which makes for a nice additional touch. Helian Yi: He's easy to draw as well and I'm glad with how the guan turned out. He initally looked sideways, but I liked it better having him wistfully stare into the distance. Helian Zhao: has the exact same face as in the other, coloured poster, and that cracks me up bc that wasn't even intentional. Helian Pei: GDI I find him so hilarious. He looks so done and out of it. Shout out to all his bird as well, which, I find, really complete the look. Helian Qi: I can't possibly say that I love him as an antagonist because there's nothing to love about this literal trash, but I'm still grateful that we got some of the most rancid stuff going on in Qi Ye just because of him and I'm always here for that. He deserves the villain visual treatment, at least. He was VERY fun to draw and I tried to push that nasty grin and shading as much as possible. He turned out exactly how I wanted him to! (the shading on his face and the balance of light and shadow was a bit of a challenge, actually)

Wuxi: Again, a rather easy one, always pleasant to draw! I loved working on his hair (but complained a lot while doing so)--which I think turned out nicely. Bai Wuchang: Finally! Finally I draw him!! He had to be there, since he's like. The base of the whole Qi Ye plot. Lining him was....... a pain, but at least it looks nice.

Su Qingluan: nothing much to say--I think it's always important to have her there in Qi Ye stuff, and I put her next to Helian Zhao because of how he tried using her--but it did make me feel bad for her when I realised that. Song Ping'an: The real star of the show, lowkey, but always alert and present. Feng Xiaoshu: FINALLY. PRINCESS JING'AN. I'm sorry I took so long to draw her. I want to work on a proper design, I swear. To make up for having completely forgotten to include her in the other spread. I'm so sorry. I like how her face turned out! Liang Jiuxiao: I never, ever, EVER get enough of drawing him. Have I mentioned how much I like him? How much of a great surprise he was reading Qi Ye? How many times I've wanted to high five because finally someone is as confused as I am? I love drawing this very specific smile on him, SO satisfying. Also Bichen said he was "THE Qi Ye antagonist" and I live for that LOL Zhou Zishu: do I really need to say anything atp Jiang Xue: I'm so sorry I put Xiao Xue next to ZZS. The cruelty. But she came out really cute didn't she T_T Anyway that's it. I'm still obsessed with Qi Ye and given my current (totally secret) retranslation project I'm nowhere near done going crazy about this book.

[averys-nightmare-zone]

since landing is closing down soon, i decided to take a quick break from SUPERSTRUCTURE (although i will be back don't you worry two fans) and made some fashion moodboards for the 14 fears from the magnus archives to accompany this post there will be some notes and insight on each collage under the cut.

the buried: the buried was really underutilized in the podcast imo. some of my favorite episodes revolved around the buried like lost john's cave and we all ignore the pit. i really hope this did it justice since jonny sims did not.

the corruption: oh my god this one was so hard to make. my google search history is full of terms like "bug infested dress", "moldy clothing" and "yucky fashion" the corruption girlies really seemed to like my last post so i felt obligated to get it right. i think i did okay.

the dark: making a black on black collage look decent is really hard 😭 I was originally going to go victorian for this one but ended up doing nu goth instead since I thought victorian fit a lot better with the end.

the desolation: this is one of my favorites. there's somthing so satisfying about combining ashy greys and black with orange it just tickles my brain. other than that, i don't really have any notes

the end: as mentioned earlier, i went with victorian mourning wear for the end. i mean queen victoria herself was in mourning and only wore black for forty years. that era is so synonymous with death it only felt fair to work its customs and fashion into my end board.

the eye: eye avatars are legally required to wear academic fashion. it just comes with the job description. i don't make the rules. have fun being jonathan sims

the flesh: this one really took me down a rabbit hole. first:, i could only find those anti-vegan shirts that your unemployed uncle wears to the family barbecue and then i came across this fashion designer and spent like an hour on her shop trying to figure out how she got her clothes to look like that. after that it took me another two hours to find all of the accessories. pinterest has been both my best friend and worst enemy over the course of this project.

the hunt: i am so sorry the supernatural gas leakage returned to my home when i made this and I age regressed into being 15 again. when i was making this i pictured it more as the trevor and julia flavor of the hunt instead of say, daisy. god breast america.

the lonely: this one was pretty easy to make once i got a handle on the color scheme. the aesthetic of the lonely has always striken me as a romanticization of the melancholy. think wanderer above the sea of fog. So i gave this one all the things i would romantasize about my life at my loneliest, which is why there's a teacup and a heart locket. the book was also a part of that, but it also doubles as a recreation of a leitner by theponderingalpaca on reddit.

the slaughter: yeah yeah i know the slaughter is supposed to be about war as well as murder, but forgive me for not making a fashion collage about military uniforms. that's really boring. i had just watched woodstock '99 before i made this though and decided to go more for that angry punk/metalhead fashion that korn was wearing in that concert. them and limp biskit are the closest we'll ever get to irl grifters bone.

the spiral: i made this moodboard twice. i know its crazy that the fear meant to represent insanity is hard to pin down, but i think i did it better the second time around. the first one read too much as regular kidcore/decora for my taste.

the stranger: i had to do this one last. i could not for the life of me figure out how to make a circus/uncanny fashion board without just doing clown fashion. i'm still not entirely sure how i feel about how it turned out, but at least the masks are cool.

the vast: vast avatars rise up!! this is a mike crew fan blog and i only wanted to base the fashion around him. he's in the top three list of guys i'm autistic about with elliott stardew valley and daniel powell from archive 81.

the web: not much to say here except if you are a web avatar you have to wear a cunty dress. it is simply non negotiable

thank you to @artmadval for giving me the idea to do this with your amazing fashion archives art, along with everyone else who went through all my yapping to get here. love yall!

[alexizacatboy]

I did a redesign for Sir Pentious! (Opinions below)

I really enjoy this silly goober, no natter how good or bad I think the show is, but my god...the og design...I feel really negative about it. Something just feels so frustrating when I look at it!

So here's some of my thoughts:

Considering his role in the show as more of a comic relief (though he's truly trying to redeem himself and takes it more seriously than, for example, Angel Dust), I wanted to give him a softer shape. Something to indicate that he's not really a threat to anyone, given how easily he's beat by Cherri Bomb (thats her name, right?)and, of course, Alastor.

I also gave him a bit different clothing, so instead of a suit he's wearing a vest. I think it looks better on him, as well as underlines the fact that he's an inventor (along with his visible goggles and a differently shaped hat). Bowtie became a simple tie and I gave him gloves! I don't find the "claws" thing about the designs cringe since animating fingers like that is probably more simple, but the fact that the patters of different characters are same recolored stuff definitely is!

Then, of course, I gave him a snake face with his fangs out. Because despite his goofiness, he's still supposed to be a demon (or, well, a sinner, more specifically).

What I REALLY dislike about the og design is the fact that he has a lot of eyes which are the same color!!!! I feel like it makes the design a little heavy and hard to look at, at least for me. So I left him with normal eyes, as well as giving him (somewhat of) an eye pattern on his hood. I also left the eye on the hat, but it's not really his, rather just a useful hypnotic device in the shape of an eye!

--

What I dislike about the og, is the color scheme and the similarity of the design with other "sexy handsome" characters (though, in this regard he is a little more unique)

I mean sure, he fits with the world in terms of colors. But that doesn't mean the colors arepicked great! I'm a big enjoyer of 1 character = 1 color thing. It makes you realise how different the cast is! However, when 1 color is associated with muktiple characters, it's pretty hard to see their differences and what makes them their own self. Sir Pentious looks like yellow Alastor, when he's supposed to be just himself!

If I haven't watched the show and only knew one character - Alastor (for understandable reasons), I'd think they're somehow related. Friends, enemies, boss - employee, equals as overlords - that kind of stuff. I'd never guess Sir Pentios acts differently. I'd just assume they have same character traits or same motives! I'd never be able to tell actually tell the difference!

That's not how you get people to watch your show! You're not supposed to offer them a cast of similarly looking characters and then say "oh, well, they're actually all very different! You just have to watch it to find out!"

No! You have to visually tell them "They're very different, but they're together for a reason. What reason? Why don't you watch my show? Wink wink"

That is how you do it!

Overall, I hope you guys can give me some thoughts! I'm not a professional, of course. And I'm not telling anyone that they have to abide by what I say. It's simply my opinion and hiw I feel about it. If you like Viv's designs, then that's great! Hope you have a great day!

[taybatwo2]

G3 Hissfits Review Part 2

I covered Toralei in the first post, now time for the werecat twins!

First up: G3 Meowlody. She has a super sweet face

and a new face sculpt (both her and Purrsephone do). She looks a bit different than her animated counterpart.

Taller boots, no extra body stripes, her hair is longer, and she doesn’t have the bracelet. Despite her G1 counterpart being the colder one, G3 switches it and has Meowlody be the sweeter (and a LOT MORE naive) of the two.

She has a lot of separated clothing pieces. I was certain the tube top was going to be attached to her shirt underneath (which snags REALLY easily on the Velcro). Her skirt is a call back to her G1 doll, but I wish they would not have mixed the red and pink colors again.

Here are her accessories. A yarn ball earring, a studded earring and a cute little bell necklace (I love this).

Her boots are really cute! Look at the cat ear buckles and the little yarn ball shoe-laces. I love these more than her animated counterpart’s.

The bottom of shoes have “Meow” for Meowlody and a cat laying down on the other. Now Purrsephone’s turn.

She is totally my favorite. I love her outfit, her boots, her hair style, the colors they used for her, her face sculpt. So good. She is much friendlier than her G1 counterpart (who was already the friendlier of the two in G1), and is more serious and snarky than G3 Meowlody.

Her animated counterpart has more white stripes, more detailed shorts, her boots have more paint on them, longer socks, and her sleeves are a different colors and wider.

Here are her clothing pieces (a bit less than her sister’s). I quite like all of them and their limited color pallet.

Her jewelry! Lots of simple hoops and then a clawed cat paw necklace.

More cute boots. I like the little cat head front and the stripes in the back.

The soles have “purr,” short for Purrsephone and another cat laying down (to match her twin).

Yup, no extra body stripes, which is a shame. They also don’t have toe claws (boooo) like Clawdeen/Toralei/Catty and they have the exact same tails as Toralei (I was hoping that they would flip one of theirs so they could hold tails like their G1 counterparts). Their tails are not removable. Their body type is the exact same as Cleo’s (minus the bandages), while Toralei has the exact same as Clawdeen’s.

More under the cut!

I wanted to switch some of their clothing around to see if I liked it better.

First I switched their shoes to see if having shoes that match more of their color scheme would make me like Purrsephone’s outfit more. Ehhhh……no.

Then I switched their skirt and shorts…I don’t hate it!! Meowlody is trying to convince her sister to keep the red skirt.

Yup, they miiiight stay like this after I wash out their hair. Or I at least need to make a black skirt for Meowlody.

Now onto a quick look at the accessories the Hissfits pack comes with:

That’s a lot of pieces!

Many of these molds we have already seen, but they’re still cute and coordinated with what the dolls are wearing.

More snacks!!! I like the little details they put on these. On mine, the stickers on the tuna and the water bottle will NOT stay on.

Their paperboard poster. It’s even signed by the band mates and is not too terribly pixilated.

They have three detailed hangers.

The guitars got flipped molds of each other (so why couldn’t they do the same for their tails?!?). They are very light and very hollow, but have colorful fronts.

My Catty (she’s still in the middle of getting a full head of micro braids). Is trying on the band’s merch and the shirt fits great! She might not give back that boa.

Another look at the gym bag. It has so many details on it!! It has the Hissfits cat logo on one side (and a gold feather).

And it’s curled up tail on the other side?!? I love that detail!

But my surprise favorite accessory was: the caboodle!

It looks like a miniaturized Gorganizer!! It has all the sculpted detail! The top tray comes out and it snaps shut (but, the plastic hinge joint already has wear).

And finally, I wanted to do a quick comparison of both generations of werecat twins.

I really don’t know why they made them purple. :/ I would have enjoyed more stripes, and mirrored tails.

I appreciate the extra personality in G3’s face sculpts. And the lack of glue head (these ghouls need a LA’s Totally awesome head dunk).

G1 is more cohesive in their outfits though. My G1 Purrsephone is so wonky, hahaha. I wonder if Meowlody’s sweeter style and personality was inspired by the bows on G1’s shoes. They make it look like she’d be the sweeter ghoul (nope!).

Anyways, a very quick and slightly rushed review of these long awaited dolls because I COULD NOT WAIT!!

And here they are slightly redressed and hair washed. Purrsephone is still my favorite and looks so good with her hair washed.

[thewhumpcaretaker]

Is me again with Wick D'Antonio ask HELLOO :D

I remembered how you asked me about Santino's and John's wedding, like how it would look like and all that, SOOO :)

What do you think about their wedding! How do you see it? Where would it be? Who would be invited, etc?

How would they act? Are they both nervous or one of them is handling it better? ^ ^

Wick D'Antonio!!! What's interesting to me is that their wedding would look really different if they were still a part of the Table, versus in retirement. It's more romantic if they're retired, but I think it has more drama if they're still in the Table, so I'll do that version.

This was almost a fic - it has a plot honestly. Might write it later, we'll see!

Image sources: 1 2 3 (monogram) 3 (background) 4 5

You're absolutely right that they'd have a beach wedding. Beaches are important for both of them.

John lets Santino do most of the planning for their suits and for the theme, because fashion and decoration are his area of expertise. "Anything you pick will be beautiful."

So they have a blue color scheme with touches of silver, on top of lots of billowing white fabrics and blue and white flowers. And of course, the food is extravagant because he can afford it.

Coffee-flavored wedding cake with hand sculpted John and Santino cake toppers!! They both like coffee, so it's perfect. John thinks the cake toppers are really funny.

Santino has an extravagant blue suit and John wears white (You might expect black, but today isn't about him as a killer, it's about his new life with Santino and his sweeter side). They weren't going to see each other's suits before the wedding, but then Santino got too excited about picking clothes and they ended up suit shopping together. They also both have silver flower crowns, because I said so!

The guest list is a nightmare. Santino has to make sure no one is snubbed, because being invited to a wedding has political significance within the Table (not to mention within his family), and you don't want to make enemies. So he has to be really careful. Especially with the seating chart…

Security is a big issue as well, because this is a perfect time for assassination. John and Ares are both overworked trying to make sure the grooms will be safe.

When he's working on the guest list and security, Santino gets overwhelmed and starts to break down because he feels like their wedding isn't even about them anymore - there's too much politics involved. Plus, he's scared someone will take the opportunity to make an attempt on his life before his new life with John can even begin. So John has to calm him down and remind him that no matter what happens, he'll protect him from any fallout and they'll be on their honeymoon soon, which is only for them.

On the other hand, John barely has any guests. There's Winston, Caine, Sofia, and Katia, and…that's about it. It makes Santino a bit sad to see it, and he tries to make sure John can hang out with his family if he wants to. At least with Gianna.

There's a lot of back-and-forth in John's mind over whether to invite The Director. Ultimately, he decides not to do it. He says it's because she wouldn't really want to come anyway, but he honestly just doesn't want to see her on a day that is supposed to be happy.

On the day of the wedding, both of them are soooo nervous!! Santino wants everything to go well and according to plan - he's constantly fussing over his suit and pacing around memorizing his vows. John is nervous too, but he expresses it by being deathly quiet and just having a worried look on his face.

But once they see each other, everything melts away and they're smiling so much and can't stop crying. Their vows are so sweet - to protect each other to the death, to be there in sickness and health, to honor and listen to each other, to always be each other's first priority, to show each other the innocence that can't be found in the rest of this broken world.

And then…THE WEDDING DOES GET ATTACKED!!! But here's the twist: although neither of them told the other because they don't want to worry them, both of them decide to carry concealed weapons during the ceremony, just in case they need to protect each other. They both pull out their weapons at the same time and kill the assassins.

The attack is a blessing in disguise: it turns out to be a display of their strength, solidifying Santino's reputation and teaching others not to mess with the power couple!! It's also a demonstration of their love for each other and everyone is touched.

This gives them a nice boost of adrenaline as fuel for their wedding night ;) They're definitely making love with a passion because they're so grateful that both of them made it out alive…and because Santino thinks the splash of blood on John's white suit is actually kind of hot. They can barely get through the dancing after dinner before rushing off to be alone together <3

[sjofn-lofnsdottr]

Hey! I love your gposes, and I was wondering if you had any tips on how to get better at making them.

Oh, thank you! You're kind to say so!

I'm gonna approach this like you're super new to it, so I'm sorry if I'm telling you shit you already know! And if you have other questions about something specific, you can DM me if you like, I don't mind. Honestly, that goes for anyone reading this!

I can sense this is going to be stupid long, so I'm also gonna hide a bunch of it behind a cut.

So starting off with vanilla gpose advice, in a general sense I'd say play around with lighting a lot. I usually try to get at least some light spilling onto people from the side (ideally where a light source would be anyway) in order to give them more definition. I know there's gpose lighting tutorials out there that can probably explain it so much better than I can (like this one? maybe?), but it really makes such a huge difference overall. Even when you're taking a picture outside in the sun, a little bit of extra lighting can make stuff look more interesting.

(I might be a little biased, I was a theatrical electrician for a while. I think lighting is neat.)

Another vanilla-applicable thing I'd say is get really, really, really embarrassingly familiar with the in-game emotes, and practice your timing for when you want to freeze them. And don't forget that the 'expression' emotes will override an emote's usual face, which can change the vibe in some fun ways:

And the third piece of vanilla gpose advice I'd give is to mess around with the filters the game has on the 'general settings' tab. Honestly, you've probably done this, but mess around with ALL the things in the gpose menu. Push every button, waggle every slider, just to see what they do.

I'm currently loitering at an art party, so let me show you a little bit what I mean.

So to start, I go into gpose and see what's what. I let all the background people stop facing the camera, and move the camera a bit to an angle I like. I'm sitting in a corner, which is going to mess with the camera more than usual, but in this case, it's messing with it in a way I like, getting me nice and close to Dusk:

Dusk could stand to look friendlier, right? So I head to the emotes tab in the menu, and pick 'beam' for his expression, because it's the smile I like best on him:

Still kinda bleh. Things look a touch murky, and flatter than I like. Before I do ANYTHING with the lighting though, I go here:

And then I save the hell out of the camera position. Saving the camera position has saved me so much pain. This is because placing lights in gpose requires you moving the camera, since they drop exactly where your camera is. But I like this angle, and I don't want to lose it. So I save it! It'll also save lighting settings, which I find handy occasionally, but not nearly as often (it's a lifesaver when I accidentally hit the hotkey that turns off lights though).

I've taken a lot of pictures in this venue, and the pink/white color scheme is uh ... tricky for me, sometimes. But on the upside, white walls and floors bounce light really well! For this picture, I think I want some light coming from the left of the frame to give Dusk slightly more interesting shadows, and a blue light much further away and above to soften the harshness of the white and pink:

My next step is to use the gpose-provided color filters to see if there's anything I like, just in case:

Bright 1 is one I've wound up using a lot, even though it ruins my eyes and makes everything look dark as hell once I come out of gpose.

Now, the white coming from the left is hitting Dusk pretty much exactly how I want it to, but it's lighting up his moogle sundae more than I'd prefer. The way I usually deal with this is using the 'limb darkening' slider. What it does is darken the edge of the picture, to varying degrees. It even has different colors, although I use black pretty much always:

I only used one tick, but it's made me much happier about the sundae! My one complaint now is that I had to turn off depth of field in order to keep Dusk from being blurry (it's a slider, but by the time Dusk looked focus, it might as well have been shut off anyway), but it's something I can live with for a vanilla gpose.

I have reShade installed though, so let's mess with that for fun. I tend to stick to presets that don't stray too far from what the game itself does unless I'm doing dumb vampire artsy things:

But honestly, in this case I don't think it was really necessary.

As for getting better with crimes, I would again stress getting familiar with the game's emotes and attack animations, because they are often a fantastic starting point to modify into something you're wanting to see. Also, this sounds weird (probably) but when I first started out, I did a lot of throw away pictures that no one besides my Discord knitting circle will ever see because everyone is naked in them. I did this for two reasons. Wait, no, three:

I was high when this idea came to me and therefore I lacked my usual shame.

Clothes clipping was driving me crazy and I wasn't good enough to handle it yet. Stripping everyone naked took that out of the equation, so I could focus on actually moving the dollies in peace.

However! It also meant I couldn't depend on clothes to mask some of my worst shortcut sins as far as moving limbs and what it did to their joints went. This meant I got a lot better at knowing how to move the dollies I was working with in the way the models want to be moved and still look right.

Obviously a saner thing to do would be ~beach pictures~ with everyone in swimsuits. Good thing Dawntrail is coming!

Some of the things I learned during this naked process:

While I try to make a pose look good from multiple angles, because I rarely know what angle I'm going to ACTUALLY want until stuff is at least roughed in, if I know for absolute certain I'm only going to take it from one particular angle, it is best for one's sanity to make sure it looks good from that angle and ignore everything you can't see otherwise.

If you ARE taking more than one angle of the same pose, it is not a crime to make little adjustments after you change the angle! This is extra true when you're doing something like a kiss, because noses are the worst. Go ahead and nudge something that looked right from Angle A but a little off from Angle B. No one will know your dark secret.

Somewhat related, sometimes little tweaks are really all you need! This is especially true when it comes to faces. Try not to overthink what you're doing too much.

Very often, if you want to move, say, an arm from position A to position B, you should start by adjusting the clavicle and work your way down. At first this was kinda slow and annoying and required a bunch of passes, but it resulted in way more natural looking results without asking people to politely ignore wonky elbows and such. Like everything else in the world, this gets a lot faster with practice and is 1000% worth getting halfway decent at.

Hands are the devil, but they also really make or break a pose for me a lot of the time. The more natural you can make hands and fingers look when touching something, the better, I feel. On the whole, I find FFXIV hands are a lot better at gentle-looking touches than rough-looking ones, but that may be my own limitations talking here. Spend time just messing with hands to get familiar with them, just like the rest of the skeleton. Eventually it'll start to get easier and easier to move stuff to where you want it without having to do a million little adjustments on the way to where you're aiming (I'm down to about half a million these days).

Eye contact is fucking hard too. I try to get the models to do as much of the work for me as possible as I go into gpose. For example, I'll make sure Dusk has Farron targeted, so he'll already looking down at him, but most of the time I'm going to be moving their heads or bodies too much for that eye contact to still look right. The way I usually do it is put the camera behind the person being looked at, and then make that person disappear and adjust the looker's eyes from there. Then I check from the angle I actually want to shoot from and make tiny adjustments to make it look more 'correct' to my eyes. Sometimes when I post Camera A/Camera B angles? It's because the eye contact only looked right from those angles no matter what I did and I'm making you all just have to deal with it.

Double check everything! It's easy to rough something in and then go blind to it being not-quite-right.

It takes me about 5 minutes to stop noticing nakedness because I am too busy swearing about elezen necks or something.

Once you start letting your dolls wear clothes and armor again, you have to start thinking about clipping and physics and such, which will also take practice, but I feel like people on the whole are a lot more subconsciously forgiving about that, because we all play this game and we all got trained to ignore a certain amount of clothes being weird because of it (this goes for most clipping, really). Which is good! I try to minimize clipping without actually having to touch any of the clothing bones if at all possible and only really mess with those if I absolutely have to because, say, the entire tail of Dusk's coat is clipping through the chair he's sitting on.

I suppose that's another thing, sometimes ... sometimes a glam is just a nightmare to work around and you just wear something else.

I hope this was ... helpful at all, I know it's long but hopefully not full of shit you knew already, or overwhelming to read. But I wanted to say more than just 'practice,' since that's hard to do if you don't even know what you should be practicing! And again, if you have a more specific question (or follow up questions?), definitely send a DM or something!

[synergysilhouette]

Changes I'd make to Tim Drake (Warning: may be controversial)

As my favorite Robin, I've needed to make this post for a long time. I know my opinions may not be agreed upon, but I hope my dedication is still appreciated, nonetheless.

He isn't dragged for his superhero goals--Any poor mistake that DC makes, they decide to pin it on him having poor judgement, which is really unfair. As many things that get ignored/retconned (even if they arguably shouldn't be, depending on the subject), it feels bizarre to drag Tim for things like his ill-fated "Drake" costume and era, especially when it was walked back on so quickly. On top of this, people seem to look down on him for genuinely enjoying being Robin. Robin wasn't always a "move on" position, per se; Dick had been Robin for consecutive decades before deciding he wanted something different, while Jason was murdered and became someone else as a reflection of this. Tim became Robin because he saw that Batman NEEDED him, and deduced Batman and the previous Robin's identities on his own. If he wants to do stop being Batman's partner (or sidekick, depending on perspective), it should be his own choice, not everyone else saying "this was a temp job and you're out."

He has his own unique color, costume, and maybe even codename--Even if he remains by Batman's side, Tim deserves to be distinct; his codename and color scheme are shared with all his brothers, and it doesn't do much for him. I'd definitely prefer a cowless take on his Savior costume (unsure about the codename; it feels a bit too on-the-nose, but it also feels like it represents his need to help others) or bring back his N52 Red Robin suit WITH the wings as well as making him the brother in purple, which goes well with the Batfamily's aesthetic as well as signifying his romance with Stephanie and friendship with Bunker.

He's going for a psyche major--I feel like this fits so well with his motivations. It's weird that the Batfamily doesn't put more stock in studying psychology outside of Harley (who rarely uses this skill, much to my chagrin). Tim wants what's best for everyone, and became a hero in order to help people. He isn't simply trying to stop problems, but prevent them and make Gotham a better place for everyone. While he can still go for a cyber-related degree (I don't remember his exact major), I'd prefer he also go for a degree that furthers his desire to understand and improve others, plus it's good to help him better understand himself as well. Definitely would've made this something he furthered in "Heroes in Crisis" (which I should make an post about another time).

He isn't bi--Hate me if you must. I'm a gay guy, and I just didn't vibe with this reveal. During the mid-2000s, it was stated by one of his artists that he and the writers kind of already saw Tim as bi, though DC never made this canon until 2021. As far as I know (as a 2010s comic person), it never seemed like DC was keen to lean into LGBT sexuality for Tim, and given that they've been treating him poorly post-N52, it feels like this was a random "let's find a way to make Tim as popular as his brothers" by making him stand out in a way that they didn't. I know this is a bold claim, but this is a feeling I've had for a while now, especially since his personal life now mainly revolves around Bernard (personal bias, but I'm usually not a fan of heroes dating non-heroes; I'd prefer him with Bunker--or Connor, if he's romantically into guys). And they haven't done him many favors since; DC infamously described him as the "always-online bisexual" in a now deleted tweet that embodies my concern that they're just defining him by his sexuality now, as well as a solo comic with horrendous art for most of the run. If Jason or Damian were depicted as bi (with the latter being the least controversial choice, imo, given his younger tenure in comics and romantic life not as fleshed out), I'm almost sure they'd be better handled, probably because they've been better handled as characters in recent years. Overall, I found Tim's retcon of sexuality unnecessary (yet we have bi characters such as Ghostmaker who were LGBT from the get-go and don't get nearly as much attention) and overall used as a metaphor for his "indecisiveness" at making decisions that DC forced onto him.

He still has a (biological) family and life--A big problem with writers and artists is that they sometimes have a problem with trying to make the 4 Robins identical in appearance and lives. Unlike Jason and Dick, Tim wasn't an orphan adopted by Bruce, not originally anyway. He had his own life and chose to be part of Bruce's world, and the need to make him an orphan with pretty much nothing going on in his civilian life was disrespectful (is he still an Olympic-level gymnast? Kinda love the idea that he takes time off for "me time" here and there and that's when Damian or another Batfam member jumps in). Let him have friends and family as Tim Drake, not just as Robin. Let Bruce be his dad without killing off his biological one. Let Tim have autonomy and individuality!

More A-list connections--This is being petty, but most of his friends are next-gen heroes with no major stuff going on for themselves, just like him. Surrounding yourself with important people can help you become important, too. I'm not telling friends to drop his friend groups (him and Conner have one of the best male homosocial relationships in comics and it sucks how they got overshadowed by Damian and Jon), but giving him more relationships with well-known characters could help his status. Plus maybe involve him in more teams outside of Teen Titans and the Batfamily; it's not good that he jumps between being an underrated member amongst iconic characters and a leader of underrated people. Just make sure he's not trading positions to become another hero's apprentice--there was once plans for him to be the next Blue Beetle as well as a temporary Nightwing, neither of which would be good for him, tbh. I have similar feelings for Starfire (we need more of her friendship and Superman; plus I'd love another underrated TT team led by Tim, perhaps with Ryand'r).

Never lose sight of who he is--The idea with Tim (at least from what I've absorbed) is that he's the most optimistic, maybe even naive, version of Dick, committed to wanting to help people and support them, and not one to brush them off of devalue them. He's got a heart, not just a brain, and I like to consider him one of the glue sticks that holds the family together. He doesn't need to be edgy or cool in the way that Damian and Jason are, nor should he be reduced to a sex object like Dick (which is another post entirely).

[gartenofbanny]

Hell as it is shown in Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel is really underwhelming because Vivziepop for some reason decides to make Hell very similar to Earth which in my opinion limits what can be shown and limits ideas as well. So I'm gonna discuss my problems with the rings that were shown thus far and how other pieces of animated media showcase Hell within their own series.

The Pride Ring

The Pride Ring is one of the main settings of Helluva Boss and will most likely be the only main setting of Hazbin Hotel. Right off the bat, The Pride Ring is literally just any big city, but with a red sky, more clubs and drug stores, and somewhat bizarre-looking buildings such as the Hazbin Hotel. The only creative things I can really think of when thinking about the Pride Ring are the cannibal colony and the fact that certain buildings look bizarre.

There are also signs that tell us what the buildings are or where it's at as if we couldn't have picked up the pieces on our own.

The Cannibal Colony is a location in the Pride Ring with its main residents being cannibals with the entire theme of the place being the early 1900s. It's interesting to me because Sinners were once human, but they don't want to move on from their times and want to stick with it for as long as they want. Plus they're all cannibals you don't see that every day.

Anyway, there are certain buildings shown in HH and HB, and the reason why I believe those are creative is that they don't look like any regular building you can find in the big city. Aside from those two creative stamps, the Pride Ring doesn't have anything else going for it.

Blitzo literally acknowledges this in Seeing Stars as when they went to LA, he literally says that it isn't any different from Hell. Why would I believe that Viv's version of Hell is unique when the character says that it's almost the same as Earth?

The Greed Ring

The Greed Ring is literally just the same as the Pride Ring except with more pollution for some reason and there's a green sky instead of a red one. That's all it is and it's very underwhelming because I really expected the Greed Ring to be very different, not just another Pride Ring but with a changed color scheme. At least there are more neighborhoods so that's something different from the Pride Ring, but nothing different compared to Earth

The Sloth Ring

The Sloth Ring similar to the Pride Ring and the Greed Ring is a big city with a different color scheme. Instead, it's more unique compared to the Greed and Pride Ring because it has floating rocks that hold buildings and it actually looks less chaotic and dangerous compared to the two previous Rings. But alas, that's the only thing that really makes this Ring unique.

The Wrath Ring

The Wrath Ring is the most unique and stand-out Ring of Hell in Helluva Boss as of making this blog. It has a Western cowboy theme to it which is something you don't really see on Earth at face value, the Wrath Ring has unique wildlife like Striker's horse or the hog that Striker killed. Yeah, they are similar to the wildlife that's on Earth, but they're actually really strong and look hellish.

There are volcanoes in the Wrath Ring which makes sense as to why the animals look a certain way because they were born there. Plus the volcanoes look very pretty as well.

I basically described the Rings that we were shown thus far because there's a running theme with most of them and that theme is, the Rings are a big city with a different color scheme. The only Ring that's actually different and creative is the Wrath Ring and it's telling a lot when one out of the four Rings of Hell is actually creative. There are two indie animation projects that I believe represent Hell way better than Vivziepop does. Those projects are "Welcome to Hell" by Erica Wester and "Satina" by Hannah Daigle

Welcome to Hell

While Hell itself isn't really shown in Welcome to Hell, the entire concept of it is that Hell is currently being renovated by the ruler Mephistopheles and that every sinner isn't suffering at least not now. So first off, Sinners actually suffer the consequences of their actions at least for a time they did but due to this lack of suffering and chaos, Mephistopheles is losing his shit.

To Mephistopheles, Hell is similar to a business but when it's out of control he tries to make the most of it. I don't know why Mephistopheles wants Sock to convince Jonathan to off himself, but I believe it will be answered in the next episode. All and all, Wester's version of Hell is actually good in my opinion because it's what we expect and I like the fact that Mephistopheles views Hell more like a business instead of a circus like Lucifer from HH. If you haven't checked out Welcome to Hell, I suggest you all do so and stick around for the second episode or installment. It's on Erica Wester's Youtube Channel.

Satina

Satina is an indie series created by Hannah Daigle and with her latest teaser of Satina Season 1 being released, I can safely say that Hannah's version of Hell looks 10X better than Viv's version. And it wasn't even a full showcase of Hell either. What was shown to us was very unexpected. Her version of Hell is something I never even predicted and that's what makes her version leagues better than Vivziepop's, it's unpredictable and creative. The four horsemen of the apocalypse are literally inside a bar that's most likely alive. Not to mention the humor in the teaser is also much better than Helluva Boss'. The designs of the demons are all unique and not just tall stick figure people in suits.

But anyway, long story short, Viv's version of Hell is just barely creative and is quite boring which is disappointing because you can do so much with Hell. We don't know what Hell looks like or if it even exists, you can come up with a lot of creative ideas for Hell and I'm pretty sure that people will like it because we don't know what it looks like. But making Hell just Earth 2.0 is disappointing because I and some other people want to see something different but what's done is done.

Thank you all for reading and I hope you all have a nice day! ❤️

[valhallaas]

Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin’

pairing: jake hangman seresin x sunshine!reader

word count: 2.9k

summary: there’s been a hangman hole missing in your heart, maybe a rowdy night at the Hard Deck can make it all better. Or maybe make it worse.

a/n: i think she did it. part two?! will there be a follow up? bradley, Jake’s coming for your girl…quite literally 😂 anyway, i hope y’all enjoy it! feedback is always appreciated!

Three glasses sit on the table. One water, two rum and cokes. You’re not much for drinking and don’t understand why Rooster keeps bringing them to you. Your smile feels fake when you flash it to him, watching as he sets a third one in front of you. Maybe he’s hoping you’ll cave. If that’s the case, he really doesn’t know you at all. Which is really upsetting in the scheme of things. It can’t really be blamed on the drinks, or Rooster—because he does try.

Things haven’t been the same. Lifting your gaze from the taunting drink, your gaze slides past Rooster playing pool with Phoenix and settles on the familiar blonde who hasn’t been so familiar as of late. Your gaze is searing, you can tell he feels it by the way Jake’s spine stiffens. The subtle turn of his head in your direction. Acknowledging you without giving you his full attention.

Pouting, your head falls against Bob’s shoulder. Your rum and coke will go flat just like the other two did. Sitting there dripping condensation next to Bob’s water. You’ve got one of his hands resting in your lap as you fiddle with his fingers. Everyone’s out tonight celebrating. You of all people should be the life of the party, you’ve finally been placed on the elite dagger squad.

“He still isn’t talking to you?” Bob’s soft voice reaches you.

“No.”

“What happened?”

You shrug. “I don’t know.”

That’s a lie. You have somewhat of an idea of what happened. Casting your eyes back to Bradley, he’s leaning against the pool watching you openly long for another man. A couple months ago, you had caught Bradley and Jake talking. Or, more like Bradley had Jake backed into a corner, the blonde had steam pouring out of his ears. You don’t know what was said, only that Jake hasn’t been the same. He’s kept his distance. Talking to you if he has to, avoiding you if he can.

If you want her happy, let me make her happy. The words replay in his mind over and over. As if Jake couldn’t make you happy. He certainly wouldn’t leave you sitting with Bob, you’re pretty red lips sitting in a pout when you should be celebrating. Fuck, all he wants is for you to be happy. That’s why he walked away. Rooster is who you want. You have him. It doesn’t matter if the thought makes his blood boil. It doesn’t matter that he can’t go to sleep at night without thinking of that night. Your dress flaring out as he danced with you around the bar. How soft your lip felt against his thumb as he smeared the pretty color that painted it.

But he cannot deal with the way you look at him. The way your eyes linger, how they follow him across the room. The fucking pout on your cherry painted lips that seems to never leave. He can’t fucking take it. He’s playing darts with Javy, ignoring you. Trying to, at least. It’s only a few seconds that you give him some peace, your burning stare moved elsewhere. It’s killing him, and he knows without a shadow of a doubt it’s breaking you in two. There’s nothing he wants more than to pop Rooster in his caterpillar covered mouth. Glancing over at Rooster, he sees him staring at you. Watching you looking at Jake in longing. The guy has to know it’s his fault. He’s the one who told him to back up. It makes his ego soar either way, having your endless attention. You were the definition of his perfect girl, and to know that despite you belonging to another, you still desperately wanted him in any way possible, Jake smirks before looking away. His focus back on the dart board just in time.

You want your best friend back. There is a Jake shaped hole missing and you hate it. Makes you act up. You huff when Javy catches your eye, giving you a bright smile. He knows he's not who you’ve been staring at. Biting your lip, you run a thumb over the bright color of your lip. You wonder if Jake knew you put it on for him. His favorite color on you, always complimented you when you wore it. Never failed to poke the scar above your lip, saying it gave you a Marilyn quality.

It’s a bad idea. It’s a very good idea.

Slowly you stand from your seat, Bob watching you with raised eyebrows. Others are watching you too, but you keep your eyes straight ahead of you as you walk. Your hands shake, fingers trailing over the buttons of the jukebox. Swallowing thickly, you flick through the songs with a particular one in mind. You’re going to end up on top of a table, and it’s only slightly embarrassing because you’re stone cold sober.

You’re fairly confident that Penny won’t mind. But, you’re also sure that a raging pilot will carry you off before she can make her way to you.

Pushing the buttons, you twirl, making your way back to the group. The clacking of pool balls clashes with the opening notes of the song. Eyes closed, your fingers fiddle with the hem of your dress. There’s no one else, there’s no else. No one else is paying attention to you. What’s that one saying in every white lady’s living room? Dance like no one’s watching? The singer's voice croons out and your hips sway. Anybody who knows you knows how much you love this song. And you fucking love this song. It doesn’t take long before you’re losing yourself. The lyrics make their way past your lips. Hoots and sharp whistles are blending into the melody from the crowd.

You have to let go. It’s now or never.

Somehow Bob knows what’s going through your head. The table has been cleared off, and being the gentleman he is, he holds out his arm to help your dumbass up on the table. You flash him a smile in thanks, he only shakes his head in return. Hips swaying, your fingertips tickle the tops of your thighs. The drag of your hands lifting your dress higher and higher before dropping it back down. Head fallen back, the lyrics sinking into your skin. No, you aren’t aware of your surroundings. Not the shocked expressions of your friends, the way Bradley’s jaw dropped, or the way the muscle twitches in Jake’s jaw from clenching his teeth. You’re only up there for maybe a full minute before you're being carried off. Hoots and hollers following the roar of your heartbeat in your ears. You can tell by the hand wrapped around your thigh that it isn’t Rooster who has you. Tilting your head up, you see him still at the pool table, watching Hangman carry you away. You don’t miss his wink, and you blow a kiss his way.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He says, a bite to his words when he drops you on your feet out back.

You can’t help but pout, bottom lip slightly wobbling at his tone. It’s been months and this is how he talks to you? You don’t say anything. Simply turning, kicking off your sandals and making your way to the sand. The moon bounces off the water, dancing with the wind as it tangles itself in your hair. Sea salt sticks to your skin. You’ve never felt so defeated before. You embarrassed yourself, and for what? To get scolded like a little girl.

“So fucking stupid, Sunny.”

No one else calls you that. Only Jake. You kind of hate how it's stuck, you’ve even started calling yourself that. You pause, groaning as you tug at the roots of your hair. You got his attention, but this isn’t what you wanted. A warm hand on your elbow makes you jump. A small gasp escapes as you turn to face Jake. You glare at his sheepish expression.

“Can I help you?” You snap. “Hmm? Come to yell some more?”

“I didn’t mean to yell—”

“Yeah you did,”

Jake runs a hand over his face. “Sunny. You can’t just do—”

“I can do whatever the fuck I want, Seresin. No one cares. No one but you.” You step away from him, closer to the water. “Who are you to stop me anyway? You haven’t talked to me in months.” He can’t argue with you. Can tell that he doesn’t want to. You sigh. “What do you want?”

He doesn’t say it. You. I want you. It rings out in the silence between you getting lost in the distant waves. You want him too. It’s not like you were hiding it. That’s why he picked you up and carried you away. You had been putting on a show for him. He had you all to himself now, but it seems like you're still on the wrong foot. It makes you ache. If there's one person who always got you, who never had to try, it was Jake.

You don’t say a thing, simply turn towards the water and peele your dress off. You’re naked underneath, biting back a smirk upon hearing Jake’s mumbled curses, you run towards the water. It takes your breath away. The waves crash against you, digging their fingers in, holding tight, reluctant to let go. You turn to face the shore, seeing Jake standing there with his hands on his hips staring at you. You giggle, the sound too light to reach him, but you can tell by the shake of his head he knows you're smiling.

“What are you doing, Sunshine?”

“Putting on a show. I’ve been told I’m good at it.”

“I’d say so.”

You move in closer, staying low in the water. It seems like you’re both waiting for the other to make a move. You know that this time around it’s his move to make. You sigh in defeat. Stupid. It had been a stupid idea from the start.

“Fine.” You say, eyes watering, voice cracking. “You don’t want me, it’s fine. Just know I miss you, okay? I can’t take it anymore, Jake. I can’t take missing you like this.”

He doesn't try to hide his stare as you walk out of the water. Snatching your dress from his hands you pull it over you and beeline for the parking lot. You had left your phone in Rooster’s truck. You needed out of here. He watches you walk away. But he can’t do it a second time.

You pause when you hear him say your name. Not Sunshine, not Sunny. Your name. It makes you breakout in goosebumps.

“Not again, Sunny girl.” His voice is thick with want.

You’re shoved backwards, shoulders slamming against the side of the Branco causing you to hiss. Fingers trail up your thighs before digging into the muscle, fingers splayed across your skin before he lifts you up off your feet. Instantly, your legs are wrapping around his waist, the skirt of your dress bunched up at your hips. Deft fingers hastily undoing his pants. No clumsiness, you aren’t unsure, there is no heistance. It’s in that moment that you look up over his shoulder, glazed over eyes meeting him in the mirror. He looks like the goddamn devil. He wants to tear you apart from the inside out.

Fucking hell, he’s going to take you against Rooster’s truck. You’re sure he won’t mind. Maybe. Out in the open where anyone can see, the ocean breeze dusting sea salt along your exposed skin. You’re sticky, still wet from your dip in the water, making you cling to Jake’s uniform.

The sound of his belt buckle hitting the floor pulls you back in. Glancing down, your teeth dig into your lip at the sight of him. He’s hot, a pulsing red as he sits heavy between you. He lifts your face so he can meet your eye. You give a hasty nod before he’s pushing into you. You glance down again, heat hitting your cheeks when you remember your underwear is sitting snug in Rooster’s pocket. Easy access, he told you. Not for him, obviously. There is nothing small about Jake. He’s big, and thick, and he has your eyes rolling towards the back of your head. The head of his cock snags at your entrance, you breathe in nice and slow, using his shoulders to lift yourself up before resting back down, swallowing him as you do.

“Jesus Christ,” You moan as his hips roll into yours. It’s better than you can imagine. It’s euphoric. You’d given him the opening, and he took it.

“Jake,” you whine, forehead nestling in against his neck and shoulder.

Jake nods. This was a long time coming. He knows. He knows you need this as much as he does. You're clinging to him, cunt clenching around him like he’d slip free at any moment. He groans when your teeth dig into his shoulder right where it meets his neck. His thrusts are slow and steady, building a fire inside of you. Your head falls back against the truck, eyes opening to watch. You grin lazily when you see him watching you. You draw back, hips moving in a smooth tempo. You hit a good rhythm, letting yourself move with him. It had never been like this with anyone else. It's different with Bradley. But you didn’t want to think about him. Just Jake, all Jake. Easy, full of complete desire and lust, not just a means to an end. You’re almost where he wants you. He meets your gaze and his eyes hold something akin to mischief. You clench around him and he groans. He thrusts up a little harder than before, causing your head to fall back.

“I’ve missed you, Sunshine.”

You watch each other, a breath apart as you take what he gives you. His hand slides up your front, warm fingers wrapping gingerly around your throat. Your breath catches as he muffles out a curse, his other hand lifts one of your legs higher on his hip so he can reach a deeper angle. His pace quickens, his thrusts are harsher. You’re loving every minute of it. Flexing your cunt, your lower muscles bear down as you grip him. He groans, the sound booming in the tight small space.

There’s pleasure coiling behind your pussy. “Jake, I—”

“What do you need, Sunny?”

“Jake,” You whine, pulling on his hair. “Please, daddy, please. I can’t—I need you—.”

His gaze drops from your face to where he’s burying himself in your tight cunt. He nods before lifting his eyes. “I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.”

You flash him a grin and he jolts, his cock twitching deep. You cling to him, desperate and a little dizzy. You moan, he’s so big and you’re so fucking full. He fills you up completely, cock dragging against your walls. You love every minute of it.

Your orgasm takes you by surprise. You lurch against him as a whimper escapes. You lean back against the truck, head hitting the window, boneless. You’re lost in the feel of the pleasure, your gaze watching as he pounds into you. His grip is tight, and a little desperate. You’re loose and wet and fucking perfect. His nose presses into your cheek as he grinds into you.

“I love the way you feel when you’re coming on my cock. Can’t tell you how often I’ve dreamed of the feeling, sweetheart.”

You laugh, wrapping your arms around him. Steady pants and grunts are heavy in your ear. It’s a brutal taking, and you are not wet enough. Tears pool in your eyes, threatening to fall with every harsh thrust. You feel him shift his weight, delivering a sharper thrust that nearly has you sliding up the side. He mumbles apology but his grasp on your waist is unforgivable. You’re bouncing on his cock now, meeting his every thrust. He’s deep, so deep you’re surprised you can’t taste him. You pull his hair, grinning when he hisses.

“Are you going to come for me again?” he asks, practically coos into your ear. “You look so pretty when you do, Sunshine.”

You can’t talk. He knows you’re fucked out, gone stupid on his cock. You asked for it, you know you did with your little performance earlier. But you don’t regret it. You shift, opening up your legs a little wider. He groans feeling himself sink deeper into you. You’re swollen and raw and you’re living for it. Nodding, his name falls from your lips, breathless—he’s sending you cloud nine and you aren’t ever coming back down.

It’s like a volcano, jolting you, overflowing and hot. A scream ripped from your throat and your nails digging into him so hard you can feel when he starts to bleed. Jake is right there. He holds you into place, lips kissing your cheeks. He fucks you through it, jamming himself into your searing overstimulated sex, he meets his end. His grip tightens, a low groan comes from deep in his chest, filling you up. Shuddering he falls into you, keeping you pinned between him and the wall as he gasps for air.

“Holy shit,” he mutters, breaking the silence.

You fall forward, hugging him tightly to you. You were drunk off of him. There isn’t anyway, ain’t no how he was getting rid of you now. You’re aching and sore but you refuse to move away from him. His eyes are still dark and heavy-lidded as he regards you. You give him a soft smile, a hand pushing his hair back.

“You’re a lot of trouble, Sunny girl.”

You lean forward. Running your thumb along his lip, your lipstick coming off on it. You stare at it for a moment before looking up at him, a deviant grin taking up your face.

“Oh, Hangman. You’ve no idea.”

part one

part three

[firephoenix23]

So I know a lot of the pilots of Disney shows have been going around but someone sent me the pilot of what slugterra was going to be and I thought I would talk about it because it is interesting. First off it’s really short only about 3 minutes but basically it’s Eli or Elias Stone chasing what looks to be Dr. Blakk with Pronto or Pinto as he is called in the short

I want to apologize in advance some of these photos are not the best quality but I did what I had to. First off Slugterra was not originally called that it was called Subterrainea which thank god they changed it that is kind of a mouth full and it was a lot more western than sci-fi western we get later. Like even the blasters look like guns.

But let’s address the elephant in the room, why does Eli looks so ugly in this show 😂😂 and so much younger too. I feel like in the current show they make Eli look younger by making everyone around him look jacked as fuck even though all the younger male models look buff as well. But in this show he literally looks like a middle schooler. And I guess Trixie is like his friend from school who is the only one who knows about his adventures to Subterrainea. We don’t know if she goes with him or not but she at least knows. But thank god they changed Eli’s color scheme to blue, orange, white, and black. He’s a little better to look at than green, red, and pale yellow. I do wonder why all the changes though. I’m going to be wondering that the whole time

Which is the other thing I want to address is that Eli or well ELIAS and BEATRIX go to SCHOOL! We don’t know if Elias is like the protector or just goes down for the lols but we do know that he is trying to juggle this secret double life of going to school like a normal kid but also protecting the secret of Subterrainea like wow NEVER heard that premise for a kid show before 😒

That’s why I’m glad they cut out the surface all together but kept the secret part. I think it makes more of an impact in slugterra especially since it’s like who knows what. Also it just makes more sense. Like what kid would escape the world of slugterra travel 100 miles up just to go to middle school. Like nah fam couldn’t be me. Also I don’t actually know if they are in middle school but come on look at them.

Pinto is literally just Pronto even down to the voice acting. I like that they had the comic relief character down first before the main character. Also funny note did you know that Pronto in canon has a twin brother named Pinto. In ROTE Will Shane says like oh I’ve met you before and Pronto says no you’ve met my identical twin brother Pinto. I just think it’s funny that it’s a little nod to his pilot name

Uh Dr. Blakk kinda looks the same except for the hat and the mecha beast. It didn’t look like he was using ghouls just regular slugs so I’m not sure what Elias is chasing him down for. Elias shows Beatrix that he got a slug from him and then she touches it and the school lights go out which brings in SOOO many questions. Like is the surface electricity powered by slug energy???

I was gonna mention the slugs next but they are relatively the same except design wise. They look a lot more stylized and detailed than in the show which makes sense gotta save money where you can. Be honestly I’m glad they changed them some of them are kinda ugly like the joker looking one.

There are so many other things like why did they change Eli’s last name, why did they give him a white wolf mecha instead of the white horse (probably because it looks cooler not gonna lie), why is Elias Stone so ugly 😂😂 so many questions. But I think it’s just cool what slugterra could have been. It gives me such nostalgia for the late 2000s/early 2010s DisneyXD shows like Randy Cunningham, Kick Buttowski, Max Steel. Like all the EdGy boy cartoons that I somehow ended up watching as a little girl 😅

I mean I just looked and season wise and success wise Slugterra stomps them all. I mean which show has its own Roku channel the one and only Slugterra baby! 😂 But anyway I’m glad they made the changes that they did.

[deltaengineering]

Winter Anime 2024: Payday

Metallic Rouge

Metallic Rouge hasn't ended yet, but I am quite certain that at this point it's unsalvageable. I can give it one thing: it's going for a specific ~vibe~, and nails it. Why anyone would want to evoke the ~vibe~ of "deservedly forgotten 2000s sci-fi seasonal" is beyond me (I won't provide an example, because if I could remember it it wasn't forgettable enough), but there you go. Truly, Bones have outdone themselves with this celebration of their 25 year legacy.

It's hard to even start, but the one thing everyone is certain about is as good as any: The plotting and structure of this show is a complete mess. Some consider this "ambitious", but I don't think an ambition of "let's throw in every half baked thing we can think of and try to glue it together with proper nouns" is worth celebrating. We've got insipid and illogical worldbuilding that ultimately goes nowhere, brave political statements on the level of "slavery sure is bad but don't be rude about it", metaphor bombshells like a character who schemes behind the scenes and styles themselves the "puppetmaster" and constant plot twists that explain things long after I've given up on even trying to make sense of anything. That's where the ~vibe~ comes from: everything that has ever vaguely annoyed you in a mid anime is somehow in this one all at once.

This wouldn't be so bad if it had characters that are entertaining on their own, but here we meet the most bizarre creative decision: the one thing it has going for it is the Diet Dirty Pair banter between Rouge and Naomi, which elevates a few episodes to "decent", but of course they spend half the show seperated. And by themselves, Rouge likes chocolate and is as dumb as a brick with charisma to match, while Naomi is sassy and mysterious and that's it. The rest of the characters (and naturally, there are far too many of them) are either irritating or at best just bland.

So if this is Bones pulling out all the stops, at least you should expect the production values to be high, but even that is a mixed bag. Metallic Rouge looks quite mediocre for the most part until it's time for a dedicated Sakuga Cut™, which might be a fight or alternatively just a random one of the dozens of boring hallway conversations (that Crunchyroll of all things is treating this as a joke really says it all). And even the fights aren't all that great, because this show somehow manages to have bad sound mixing and music beds that I'd call interesting in theory but don't work well as a score. At least it has a stellar OP, but even that seemed a lot better before the show actually came out.

I might bump up the score a point if it ends exceptionally well (which it won't), but even in that case... it's still bad. Please go back to sourcing your deep plots from Weekly Shounen Jump, Bones. ~3/10

Bucchigiri...

Bucchigiri..., on the other hand, has the exact opposite problem: While Metallic Rouge is a convoluted tangle of inconsequential plot, this show is just happy to phone it in. It almost feels like a rerun of fall 2021, where Metallic Rouge is the new Fena and Bucchigiri... is the new Takt:Op. It leaves an agreeable first impression, with a bold, colorful look, unusual setting, expressive direction and kinetic animation – but everything not entirely superficial is an excuse, and a "dog ate my homework" level of excuse at that. If all you want is bromantic burly brettyboys going through the motions, get your fanfic pen ready, but don't expect the show itself to provide significantly more than character designs. It doesn't help that the main character is particularly bad, with his gimmick being "annoying disinterested horndog". These non-characters keep going in circles slapping each other's asses and being not very funny for two thirds of the show, until a very generic "sensitive best friend is tempted by evil" drama plot appears because even yaoi shippers realize that eventually something has to happen, which boils down to Matakara going around slapping everyone's asses again, but now it's supposed to be sad. And then that doesn't work at all, because for character drama you need characters. Who knew.

Of course the funny bit is that this is pretty much what I asked for. I gave SKOO shit for only being good at the wacky parts while the heartfelt drama and more fleshed out characters fell flat. Well, now the director's followup work is just the wacky bits and feels completely hollow for it, and then the exaggerated drama lacks anything to back it up. Maybe just do better, I suppose. Oh yeah, and this also hasn't ended yet but with how completely predictable it is I feel like I've already seen the final episode. ~4/10

Undead Unluck

You can take the Shounen out of the Jump but you can't take the Jump out of the Shounen. I don't usually touch the Weekly Shounen Jump brand for good reasons, but Undead Unluck definitely had one of the strongest first impressions for one in a long time, if only because it has leads that aren't Goku and Vegeta again. But it also had a flashy, devil-may-care attitude with absurd nonsense happening left and right, a bonkers setting that is actually interesting in its own right and production value to back it up. In short, it was Fire Force with arguably better characters. When it's firing on all cylinders, Undead Unluck is a very fun time.

The problem is that Undead Unluck is firing on all cylinders about as often as a Cadillac V8-6-4 with a flaky ignition distributor. Primarily it has a massive padding problem: The amount of recapping and flashbacks to things that just happened is patently ridiculous and I say that as someone who has watched two seasons of My Hero Academia. If you include things like OP and ED, I feel like calling roughly a third of this show's runtime literally repeated content is not a wild exaggeration. And that's only literally repeated content – since this is Weekly Shounen Jump, there is also a lot of restating of facts and tedious explanations. I can't even blame this just on Jump Editorial, because a lot of the time it seems to be in service of hitting the right cliffhangers – but if both source and adaptation have severe pacing issues, it all compounds to the worst pacing in any show I've seen a considerable amount of.

And then, even in the coinflip of time when it's actually doing anything, it's obviously not always at its best either. This is honestly acceptable from a show that goes wild – with these you have to take the bad with the good. I didn't care much for the lazily metafictional final arc for example, but it would be perfectly fine if it didn't (quite expectedly at this point) do its core statement twice in as many episodes in a row, only with more screaming the second time. It's good when it's good, sure, but it would have to be outstandingly brilliant to make the whole thing worth it – which it isn't, so it's not. 5/10

Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete (Gushing over Magical Girls)

My standard line regarding any extra spicy fanservice anime show has always been "you know you can find real porn on the internet easily, right". Gushing over Magical Girls (which is, aint gonna lie, a genius title translation) is a pretty good example why: Even though it is pretty damn explicit, it still isn't on the level of actual porn, and then the extended moaning and wriggling sequences just take up so much of the time that it gets tedious pretty fast. And a lot of the "other" content of the show is just blatantly an excuse to make the porn happen. There's some edgy comedy too, but I think characters like Kiwi are more annoying than anything, so that didn't do much for me either. Then the middle section of the show is an excursion where our protagonist villains go sex up a couple of more villainous villains, which feels like it's missing the point even by its own standards. Also, be aware that with hentai content come hentai production values, and this one is definitely below average. None of this is particularly unusual.

However, I kept watching this one, and the reason is pretty simple: I don't actually object to spiciness in principle, and in the beginning the show did a pretty good job of portraying Utena's awakening to a bunch of fetishes. That she then started an awkward on-and-off anonymous BDSM relationship with an actual magical girl was even better. I honestly have to say that this is a brilliant concept, even if it wasn't executed to a level where I was certain it was intentional. Also, while it's arguably the "main plot", it's a fairly small part of the show and when it didn't show up much in the middle I was sure the show had lost me. I do have to admit though that against all odds, Gushing does stick the landing, with a final episode that really pays off that plotline in the best way you could reasonably (see above) expect. It's a bit of a rough ride, but this show delivers.

So I'm two minds about Gushing over Magical Girls. If you just consider it a hentai OVA that somehow escaped to television (which is not an unreasonable standpoint), it feels surprisingly ambitious and well thought out. But as a regular TV show, it just has too many weaknesses to ignore. Still, even though I can't call it good, I still think it's a more interesting curio than the score might make it sound. 5/10

Hime-sama "Goumon" no Jikan desu ('Tis Time For "Torture", Princess)

Oh no, this has "torture" in the title, what could it mean? Yeah, I think at this point everyone knows that it's a joke (one might even say... The Joke) and let's leave it at that. It feels like every season there's some fluffy and cute comedy that I quite enjoy for no profound reason. The Alleged Torture here simply doesn't do anything wrong, manages to find just about enough angles to its one joke to not get boring, and features nice designs and enough production value to deliver a smooth ride all the way to the end. It occasionally does something beyond its one joke, and that tends to turn out cute and chill as well, like Tortura's modest OL home life. Really the only thing I don't like about this is the manzai reaction antics of the sword – explaining the joke is always questionable, but it's especially so when there is exactly one punchline that never changes. In any case, this one is hardly essential and there are many others like it, but sometimes you just want something sweet and inoffensive that still puts the effort in. And this is definitely one of those. 6/10

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (Apothecary Diaries)

I feel like I should like this show a lot more than I actually do. This is because it is made of great ingredients: Very nice looks, a setting with tons of potential, mostly interesting characters and in particular an amazing main character. Maomao is just great, she has tons of personality and a funny oddball charm that is tempered by a smart and stoic attitude. The beginning of the show, where Maomao plays the streetwise intruder into the stilted world of court intrigue and manages to cut through the bullshit like nobody else could, is pretty excellent.

However, as the show went on, it became clear that I just don't agree with the direction the plot takes. Of course it turns out that Maomao is actually deeply involved into the court drama in half a dozen ways (without ever telling the audience about it, which smells of retcon). Of course the focus shifts to other characters like Jinshi or later on Lakan, who are far less interesting. Of course there is a romance with Jinshi on the horizon. I don't want to be that guy that is mad that a show doesn't turn out to be what they had wished it to be, but it's still a letdown.

And that's not mentioning that the daily business of the show, various levels of detective work, is hardly solid gold either. It's just bad at mystery writing – most "cases" turn out to be massively contrived and then Maomao walks in and just guesses the solution out of nowhere. The large-scale mystery (who is Jinshi, really?) is not much of a mystery at all but Maomao can't figure it out because apparently she has to solve these complicated and tiny problems before she can realize the simple and obvious large one. And then there's the drama, which is effective enough in the moment but seems to be mostly built on a foundation of allegedly smart people acting much more stupid than they should.

So overall, I think this is still a good show simply because Maomao is fun to watch no matter what, but I just don't think the writing can quite hold up its part of the bargain, and that is kind of a bummer. 7/10

Yuuki Bakuhatsu Bang Bravern

Bang Bravern arrived with a simple, but quite amusing thesis statement: What if you had a tacticool, Armored Core-like mecha setting but then everything changed when a super robot show invaded. That's pretty funny. It also just so happens that Masami Oobari knows that the likes of Top Gun tend to have a certain undertone, and also made Bang Bravern explicitly homoerotic. That's even funnier. Add to this the fact that the epic super robot action genre is inherently hilariously over the top, and you have the makings of a very amusing show. Now, I could just leave it at that, because that's what Bravern is. An over the top and self-aware love letter to the super robot shows of old, with a couple of additional comedic angles.

In other words, it's like all super robot shows that have been made in the last two decades. Yeah, Bravern is undeniably quite entertaining, but I also don't think it's anywhere as unique as people seem to think it is. The "super in a world of reals" joke in particular doesn't really come into play that often, apart from when that side of the show keeps introducing dozens of characters that then proceed to not do anything apart from standing on the sidelines. The gay love affair does matter more often, but seems to run into diminishing returns because once you've done "come inside me" (which it does in like episode 3), you really have nowhere to go. And besides those two, well... it's charmingly exuberant and features all the goofy tropes, but it lacks the absurd hugeness of a TTGL or the meaningful subtext of a Gridman – and that's only shows that I have actually seen as a non-fan of the genre. I suppose fans will gladly take it anyway, because the genre is somewhat rare nowadays, but Bravern doesn't exactly blow me away. Still, you can't deny the fun. 7/10

Sousou no Frieren (Frieren: Beyond Journey's End)

So here we come to the big dog. The show that's pulling Doraemon numbers on Japanese TV, has been riding a comfortable #1 spot on MAL for months, and has inspired an unfathomable amount of porn. And the real surprising thing is that it's the first show in a very long time that I think comes even close to deserving that level of hype, especially early in its run when it absolutely isn't the kind of show you'd expect to do this – apart from the production values being about as good as TV anime gets, naturally.

Frieren starts out as an uniquely focused narrative that explores as many angles as it can out of a complicated mess of legacy, memory and regret through the lens of a pretty simple and generic RPG trope. It achieves this almost entirely through one of the best casts I've seen in a long time – Frieren may not be quite as charming a protagonist as Maomao, but she has much more depth and more importantly, every character that matters in her show is almost as good, and their relationships are even better. In its first-cours adventure mode, when we're just wandering around having more or less episodic encounters and plot points that drift in and out of focus with a wistful tone but splashes of goofy comedy, Frieren is quite excellent and would have been my show of last year if I had considered it eligible.

But then it slams in a new gear with the elegance of a tractor driver who thinks clutches are for pussies. Suddenly we're doing a proper Shounen Exam Arc and we're getting a lot less of this and a lot more of this. Now to be fair, this is a long running manga and it probably could not have kept doing flashbacks to Frieren being too dense to realize that Himmel was hitting on her 80 years ago forever. But still, the mage examination arc just really isn't Frieren at its best. It's not even that the content is particularly bad (maybe apart from the really quite rough beginning), and I do understand the long-term benefits of introducing a bigger cast of characters for future use, especially when they turn out to be quite good eventually... but it all just takes way too long. There's still great moments here, but that's usually a small segment of the established good stuff or, failing that, Frieren dropping a sick ass spell. Yeah, I won't even blame this on the action, because said action is incredibly well done and still quite brief, but you really didn't need a full season of theorycrafting and skill discussions to get those explosions. In short. Frieren temporarily turns into Full Metal Alchemist with better leads, and while this would be high praise for almost any shounen manga, it isn't for the one that has demonstrated it can do far better.

There is one real upside to this distraction arc though: Unlike, say, the plot problems of Apothecary Diaries that are here to stay, none of this irreversible, which Frieren immediately makes clear by snapping back to its best behaviour the second they leave the designated raid zones. The ending is as good as any part of the show, with the skillful writing and great tone we have come to wish for. Frieren may not be as consistently excellent as it first appeared, but it is still pretty damn good – and not on a purely superficial level either, because it obviously can have outstanding writing when it wants to and the fundamentals are rock solid too. 8/10

Yubisaki to Renren (A Sign of Affection)

And the top spot of the season goes to... a show that may not be the most ambitious, but does absolutely nothing wrong. Yubisaki to Renren is a fluffy romance where a very cute girl meets a very nice boy, and then no drama happens because not everyone in the world is a fucking idiot. I think my delight with this says more about the absolute state of romance anime than it does about the show itself, but I also have to say that while the plot of this show might be simplistic, it takes great care to set everything up in such a way to get away with said simplistic plot.

Obviously the core of the setup is that Yuki is deaf. But, quite smartly, the author doesn't make the story about Yuki's problems with not being able to hear, but rather about how her world is just... limited. And Itsuomi is a dude with an uncommonly wide worldview and experience. Opposites attract, and there you go. The show basically gets all the grounding it needs from that simple setup for free, then throws in a bit of complicated history among the larger cast. Then just make Yuki incredbly cute and Itsuomi an uncommonly levelheaded adult who will take measures to prevent any pointless drama before it gets out of hand, and you have a show that's just 100% a good time all the way through. So the leads (i.e., the thing that matters way above all else in a romance) are great, and the rest of the cast is more than fine too, even those who would instigate such drama – it can't get annoying, because they never succeed.

Really if I had to say something negative about this show it would be that it's still superficial compared to a show at its skill level that does go hard. I mean, it's about two nice people falling in love and nothing goes wrong, which isn't exactly a lot. There is maybe also the idea that Itsuomi may be a bit too perfect, but I'm just more than happy to see a male lead in a shoujo romance that is neither an abusive jerk nor a bland cardboard cutout. In a perfect world, something like Yubisaki to Renren should feel a bit bland and generic, but in the real one, there just isn't much like it. 9/10

[mayonaisalspray]

SEVIPER TETRA‼️‼️

(+a size comparison drawing)

Unstructured un edited hand made blorbo design ramblings under the cut if you don’t give a shit about these losers keep going

Okay so first I want to talk about Jester and Tetra’s normal designs and why I find them so appealing and all the little things I like abt it because I’m the only one who’s probably going to ever ask for it. Well me ask and you shall receive

Jester:

Jester was the first character of the two to be made, but he came way after Trix. The two shared more design similarities early on, though they both do still share a lot of similarities. Maybe I’ll talk about that one day. Hm.

Anyway. Jester’s clown like appearance is due to his desire to not be taken seriously. Jester is a firm believer in the idea of Jester’s Privilege, which is the idea that jesters are able to talk freely and mock people on account of being a jester. Jester (whose “real” name is Jay. Btw. Because it takes up identities that have names starting with J. Just wanted to finally put this info out into the world) doesn’t want to be taken seriously, because he sees himself as a mockery of both the human and Pokémon worlds. He’s torn between the two, unable to fit in either. This is also because it doesn’t want to take himself or his problems seriously but whateva

The rest of his design is more. Hm. Practical probably isn’t the word but idk what is. His hair is long and covers his eye because 1, its eye on that side was removed and it makes his life harder if people see it, and 2, because he doesn’t care to cut it. The sweater is an old gift from Wade, and it wears it so often because it’s one of the few high quality (not ripped) pieces of clothing he has. The pants are brown to hide dirt so he doesn’t have to wash them as often. Things like that.

The only part of its appearance that Jester puts any effort into (besides the clown makeup and collar) is painting his nails. Jester’s nails are very important to it, since a Zangoose’s claws are its strongest weapon. This mostly manifests in the form of manicures.

Tetra:

When I tell you I’m pretty sure Tetra beamed his design into my brain you have got to believe me. I was sitting in the car listening to the mochi madness theme and then BOOM. Twink in my mind.

The most obvious parts of Tetra’s designs are the poison aspects. Tetra has a pretty clear poison motif, from the literal drip that is his sweater, to the toxic chains coming from his head, to the little Pecharunt collar.

But that’s it. He’s just poison, not a specific Pokémon. Jester’s design is (at least partially) based around Zangoose, but aside from the Pecharunt influences, there’s no clear Pokémon theme. That would be thanks to the fact that years of being mind controlled by Pecharunt’s brain poison has left him fairly devoid of identity. Tetra is more the idea of a person who once existed then any real person who still exists.

That’s also partially communicated through the fact that he’s a literal corpse! Yeah there’s a reason he’s that fucking pale, it’s cause he’s dead. Tetra, like the loyal three, ALSO died on the night Ogerpon attacked. But, with Pecharunt’s return, his body “healed” itself. Tetra is still very dead though (I could also talk at length about what I think Pecharunt’s poison can do but it already late and this is long as fuck).

This is a small thing but, before I decided to make them a thing neither of them really had canon heights? But ever since I did I knew Tetra had to be taller then Jester. It just feels right

SEVIPER TETRA:

Alright here’s the main event. I feel like it’s pretty obvious why I made the a design where Tetra finally gets a Pokémon influence and made it Seviper. But why shiny Seviper? You could argue that regular Seviper fits Tetra’s color scheme better.

Uh the reason is I think its cooler and more badass and I like how it brings out details of his design that are more subtle when he’s normal style

The original purple of his toxic chains, toxic stitches, and hell even his choker, all made it pretty clear that this was poison, but it looked like parts growing off him, not as much part of him. Now that it’s pink, it’s more obvious that this is his blood! Yep, the poison in Tetra’s body is the only thing keeping him alive. Without it, Tetra would probably just disintegrate into a bone heap.

Tetra’s eyes, which were originally yellow to match the loyal trio, now reveal their true color. His eyes have always actually been purple. He’s always been under Pecharunt’s influence, even when it isn’t there to directly control his actions. The whites of his eyes are also bloodshot now cause I think it looks cool

I’ve added a (admittedly very light) skeleton motif as well, by trying to make the triangles on Seviper look like rib bones, and modifying the ends of his toxic chains for look more like skulls. I’ve also tinted his skin slightly green, to add more to that undead aspect.

Now why did I do this? Well I got the idea for an animatic and part of it is Jester having a nightmare about Seviper Tetra because Jester has been chasing a group of people he calls his Sevipers for years because of something they did to someone he cares about, but now that the something is directly happening to it (and he doesn’t care about itself) he cannot bring himself to stop Tetra’s mistreating of him. And also because it makes Tetra hotter

Anyway thanks for reading all this if anyone will good NIGHT

[msfcatlover]

Shadow Tim (Reverse Robins)

So, a few very important things to keep in mind for Tim's iteration of the Shadow design:

Tim is taking it up as a tribute to Steph after her death.

Tim does not have a Moonbeam as his partner. (He was supposed to be the next Moonbeam, apprenticed under Cass, until shit went down.)

Tim lacks the fully context & perspective on Being Shadow that Steph & Damian had about it (but he's trying his best.)

To start with, Tim brings Shadow back to Damian's greyscale & gold color scheme, but with one critical difference: where Damian had pops of red, Tim uses very light touches of purple.

(Tim also keeps Steph's bat symbol, so here's a quickly thrown together contrast. Tim has no Moonbeam, so he gets no light/metallic accent on his bat symbol.)

The second major tribute is that Tim adds a cloak, specifically taken from Steph's original Spoiler design. Tim's version is black with a purple lining, and gold trim around the edge of the hood, calling back to both Steph's dual-tone hood & her hair. The cloak itself is ankle-length; not practical, but evocative & stylish.

(So this style cape, and massive thanks to the Stephanie Brown Costume History page, y'all are lifesavers.)

Tim relies on the cloak to disguise his form, with the costume itself being much closer-fitted than previous iterations. The top is a black bulletproof vest with short sleeves added not dissimilar to his traditional Robin costume, but the weird stripes are actually places for him to tuck gadgets he expects to grab in a hurry.

(Basically this, but all one piece, with the Robin sleeves, and obviously lighter on detail to keep from being visually cluttered. No one wants to draw or look at all those lines & straps, or that little wheel-velcro-thing.)

Tim wears a dull grey chainmail body suit between his black undersuit & outer costume. It shows mainly on his arms, between the top sleeves & his gloves, but if his pants tore it'd be visible there too. The gloves themselves are his spiky gauntlets from more modern costumes, in black but with a gold hem at the very top to reflect the band on his hood (paying tribute to Steph's thick hems & blonde hair, while also bringing back Damian's color scheme.)

(These bad boys.)

Tim sticks with the neck gaiter Steph switched to, but does not keep the greasepaint. Instead, Tim has a headset styled after ski-goggles. He was originally designing it for becoming Moonbeam, hoping an AI scan of his opponents' moves would help him predict what they were going to do (allowing him to better mimic Duke & Cass's skillsets.) It's still a pretty rough prototype by the time Steph dies, but Tim's put a hell of a lot of work into it, he's not not going to field-test the thing, now is he?

(You meet the new Shadow, and this stares back at you from under the hood [lightly edited for appropriate drama])

Below the utility belt (grey with gold snaps/buckles,) Tim wears black heavy-duty cargo pants tucked into knee-high armored boots. The extra pockets even further emphasize that Tim is a character with a diverse set of skills and especially gadgets, and the slight puff caused by tucking not-entirely-fitted pants in at the knee calls back to Damian's "Infinite Frontier" outfit that inspired my original Shadow design.

(Not quite that puffy, but that would probably be down to the artist.)

For the boots, I do really like the ones Tim's been recently wearing in comics... mostly, at least. The ones on-panel have a little tabi toe-stripe most of the time, which either appears to be decorative (just a notch in front of the toe, which I don't like the look of) or does weird things to the depth (making his feet look flat.) Also, as someone who cannot even wear flip-flops without getting bloody blisters, it just looks uncomfortable to me. I really like the version Tim wore on that cover with Damian—the shape looks more comfortable, it looks like it has better grip & heavier armor, and looks like a shoe it'd really suck to get kicked by—but the stripes are nearly invisible, and the weird spike of armor above the knee is a bit much.

Combine the foot from the cover-boots with the shape & highlights from the panel-boots. Make the stripes & knee-pad border gold, and add a gold trim along the top edge of the green sole; the sole itself should be dark grey.

And that's Shadow Tim!

A little higher-tech to foreshadow his ascendance to Oracle, while also reflecting Tim's canonical love of weird gadgets through the ages.

Pays heavy tribute to Steph, but not in any way that'd be super-obvious if you weren't in-the-know, without directly ripping off her designs or looking so much like her that the other Bats could mistake Tim for Steph out of the corner of their eyes.

Pays light tribute to Damian, but aside from being a Shadow costume, Duke & Cass have about as much influence on the changes Tim makes (see: chainmail, glove style, face covering) as Damian does.

Misses a few important details of Shadow's design (see: no longer visible eyes, no more grease paint, dramatically changed silhouette) showing Tim wasn't prepared to step into this role but is doing his best anyway.

Extra armor & pockets shows that Tim's got even more protection than previous Shadows, hinting through design alone about the impact Steph's death had on the family.

Sticks to Tim's fashion tastes without going overboard.

Adds a cape for him to go swish.

I'm pretty happy with it!

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

I just randomly found ur blog and am now OBSESSED with the whole avian!mumbo concept

…….tell me everything there needs to be known abt it please I want to draw little bird boy (even tho my main way of doodlin mumbo is vampire but I WANT BIRD)

(apologies for the ramble I live laugh love moustache man)

(here's the previous avian!mumbo post for anyone curious)

It has taken me far too long to get the chance to respond to this ask and I have been so impatient because adjsaklfhaskghjd someone actually saw and enjoyed my unedited babbling about avian!mumbo :')

anyways I think I already said most of what I have coherent ideas on, and the rest is just nebulous vibes and happiness and fluff and hurt/comfort potential, but! I can share doodles and also reiterate/expand upon stuff I have already said

(putting it below a cut so I can make it soso long)

WING FLAPPIES!! I feel like this would definitely be something he'd appreciate about having wings, because I feel like it would be a more satisfying expression of emotion than like. stomping or bouncing or whatever. He would also totally struggle to control his avian body language, you can read his wings/ears/tail like a book, he's so unused to paying attention to and stifling his bird gestures. (Grian finds this beyond hilarious especially, because he can read Mumbo even better than everyone else being another avian)

His wings are red and black, though I haven't entirely decided if I'm gonna switch which goes where to make it match Grian's wings better. Since Grian is a Scarlet Macaw, Mumbo really ought to be too, but that would look just. so goofy. with his color scheme

AND SPEAKING OF LOOKING GOOFY- his wings look so silly for the first couple weeks. Until the feathers grow in properly, they're just kind of gradually more fluffy. raw chicken. wings. stuck to his back. because that's what baby parrots look like apparently! And then also pin feathers, before finally being pretty feathery bird wings

He also just accidentally passively collects the other members of Boatem's clothes. Grian does this too, but intentionally. Mumbo just does it without realizing and then gets confused about it because he doesn't understand the whole nesting thing, so someone else has to explain it to him

Oh and Mumbo tries to just go about his life without any changes or accommodations for his wings at first, because he doesn't want to ruin his clothes or generally have to change his routines. Grian and the others do not put up with this and persuade him to take proper care of the wings instead (<- this is a constant uphill battle for months)

On a more overarching note, Mumbo initially Does Not Like the wings, because they're just tiny and kind of ugly things that get in the way of his elytra and make him have to get all his shirts edited and they don't really do anything but cause him problems. Then once the wings start getting feathers and stuff and they have to start making preparations for learning to fly, it kind of becomes a bit of a bonding thing that brings Boatem together, with Mumbo starting to get used to them and accept them, and everyone else being able to help out with their care some (preening, stretches and exercises...).

Ultimately (probably sometime around HC 9), Mumbo ends up quite loving his wings in the long run. Once they're fully grown they're actually pretty impressive (since he's so tall they end up being a fair bit larger than Grian's, much to his annoyance) and Mumbo ends up putting a fair bit of effort into their upkeep and keeping them all nice looking (at least, when he's not too busy with other projects). He does still find a bunch of the other avian traits a little embarrassing (nesting, chirping, dietary restrictions, wings giving away his thoughts...) but he gets used to them.