#i also changed the eye design for my self insert :3

[kipcube]

the bride and the ugly ass groom

[meimi-haneoka]

Clear Card Trivia 3 ~ Sakura's journey of growth and self-understanding throughout Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card

Hello and welcome back to my "Clear Card Trivia" series, a collection of informative posts where I delve into certain aspects of the story of Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card! ✨

The topic I will talk about today has been on my "to-do list" for long time. It's something I felt the need to talk about, and I won't hide the reason why: the desire to fully eviscerate this topic grew particularly after reading around certain criticism of Clear Card Arc. But also after listening to CLAMP's Twitter Spaces, particularly the ones towards the end of the story.

It's something that, setting aside my obvious love for the new characters, will always make me think that Clear Card Arc has been a very welcome addition to the series.

This post will delve into Sakura's growth throughout Clear Card Arc.

Sakura grew up considerably during the story, and had a character development that sadly not many people truly realized.

I'm not talking about an evolution of the character design which, despite changing and evolving throughout the story (as it's expected for a long-running serialization), kept depicting Sakura consistently with quite young looks...no, I'm talking about her mental growth, in relation to her self-knowledge and her relationship with her magic powers.

A journey that might almost feel "frustrating", because it is full of "up and downs", and Sakura sometimes seems to be taking one step forward and two back. Aside from the obvious practical reasons (the plot had to develop several other storylines simultaneously), it very much reflects the realistic growth of a pre-teen, which is never a straight line but is made of improvements and relapses.

Along the journey, I couldn't really avoid mentioning some bits of the development of Sakura's relationship with Syaoran, which will get its own deep and detailed post another day.

There's also an extra about the significance of the Clear Cards in the story, at the end.

I have to be honest, the post is very long, but I tried to insert visual elements to make it easier on the eye. If you're curious to know how the hell I found so much to talk about for this specific topic, follow me under the cut and dive into Sakura's journey throughout Clear Card (it's also a good way to review the story)! ✨

A Disconnected Beginning

Clear Card Arc starts in a very "festive" and happy way: everything is peaceful, a new exciting chapter of Sakura's educational life is starting with the beginning of middle school, Syaoran is back to Tomoeda, this time to stay forever with his beloved girl...everything seems so perfect. And precisely in chapter 1, before everything takes an unexpected turn, we have this scene here, which I consider the "true" beginning of everything:

Sakura says "I haven't been using this lately...well, that's for the better".

At the beginning of Clear Card Arc, Sakura seems to be feeling disconnected from her natural gift.

Despite she had to go on a quest to collect all the Clow Cards, which later she gave a new life to by changing them into Sakura Cards, we have to remember that Sakura was born with magic powers. They weren't bestowed on her by Kero-chan, nor by the contract with the Clow Book: she always had magic in her blood, and it apparently "woke up" on that fateful day she found the Clow Book in the library of her father.

At the beginning of this arc, Sakura seems to think that the purpose, the meaning of this natural gift which is literally part of herself, has been fulfilled by transforming all the Cards, and splitting Eriol's power as he had requested. Her words here seem to be suggesting a general idea of "if I have to use this key (therefore, my magic powers), it means something troublesome is happening, so it's better if I'm not using it because it means everything is okay".

And although we can't really deny that what happened afterwards is far from being able to be considered "peaceful", this scene here always left a bad taste in my mouth because there's almost a negative vibe attached to the idea of her magic, transpiring from Sakura's words. It's almost as if she's politely rejecting it.

Precisely after she places her Star Key in her jewelry box, probably hoping to never have to use it again, she has her first premonitory dream of the events that will shake her life afterwards. Almost as if her powers were trying to tell her "no my dear, this is you and you'd better come to terms with it as soon as possible".

Then, as we all know, the Cards turn blank. Sakura produces a new key while having another dream and a quest to fight and "secure" some strange phenomena happening around her begins, leaving her in a state of increasing confusion.

This is the beginning of the part of the story that I quite literally call "Sakura loses sight of herself".

At this very early stage of the story, she still doesn't know that she started losing control over her increasing magical power, and it is definitely not a coincidence that all of this began when she thought of shutting her main magic tool away in a box, hoping to ignore it forever. For plot reasons, this also happens simultaneously to Syaoran taking the spirits of the Sakura Cards away from her (because in the beginning, you had to be tricked into thinking he was up to something shady and was the real mastermind behind all the incidents).

Syaoran expected for Sakura to lose control over her powers, as his mother predicted a general period of trouble for her that could lead her to unhappiness, albeit without any clear indication of what could happen: Syaoran came to Japan knowing something was bound to happen to his girl and her powers, and that something was going to lead her to grief, but he had no idea about all the rest. So his uncertain and reckless approach, which ended up in some cases worsening the situation, is also somewhat understandable. He was acting like a worried, overprotective boyfriend at his wit's end.

The strange events, which Sakura materializes into a new set of Cards, surely leave her distraught and confused, not to mention the situation with the Sakura Cards and Eriol's missing replies, but I feel that what really destabilizes her core are the constant dreams she gets, sometimes even in the middle of her waking hours, making her faint on the spot wherever she is.

Premonitory dreams are a part of her natural gift that she began to express ever since the OG manga, but she never seemed to really understand them or take them seriously.

This time around, she keeps seeing this cloaked figure and this terrifying dragon, no one speaks a word despite her relentless questions and the cloaked figure seems to be wanting to take her newly made key away (Lilie!!! what were you trying to do!! *facepalm* she probably tried to pull her closer so she could talk to her), so it's just normal that all of that leaves her increasingly stressed and anxious, even though initially you never see her openly and verbally stating that, due to her overall positive nature ("I'll manage it, somehow" is part of her "everything will be alright" invincible spell, and this is indeed what she keeps telling herself in the beginning of the arc, even though in some occasions it turned out to be a double-edged sword, as sometimes it looked more like sweeping her fears under the carpet, to me).

"Something Is Not Right"

Dream after dream, Card after Card, Sakura begins to have these general feelings of discomfort and of "something is not right, here", as she openly states to Syaoran in this scene of volume 4, chapter 14. There's something about this situation that is pricking her sixth sense, and makes her uneasy, but she can't quite put her finger on it yet. All she can do is to keep "fighting" these phenomena happening around her, hoping to find out more along the way. She reiterates the same feeling of uneasiness at the end of chapter 15, after what I consider one of the most concerning side-effects of her poor control over her powers: Sakura seems almost "in trance" while she leads her guardians to the exit of the maze, and acts in a very uncharacteristic, cold way by shoving her bag in front of Yue to make him hold it for her. It's almost as if her magical sixth sense worked too strongly and warped her personality in that moment: an effect that has been mentioned several times in relation to powerful magicians like Clow, Eriol and later Kaito too, so it's not farfetched at all to attribute this one-off occurrence to her loss of control over her strong powers, which ended up affecting her personality too. Luckily, it didn't happen again in the rest of the story and the capture of this Card was completely changed in the anime (a wise decision imho, since the JP fandom is particularly fussy about the integrity of Sakura's character, and she needed to stay "Sakura" in order to do what she did at the end).

At the culmination of a "mini arc" (the visit to great-grandpa Masaki) characterized by uncontrolled visions of Nadeshiko, another frightening dream (one that ended up dragging even Akiho in, due to the synchronization) and Sakura for the first time ever confronting Syaoran about the things he's been hiding from her, we reach the following scene of volume 5, chapter 23.

"I Wish I Had A Mirror"

I always considered this scene extremely important, because for the first time Sakura spells out clearly the inner turmoil that's been gnawing at her soul ever since this ordeal with the new Cards started.

"The truth is...I'm the worst at understanding myself. And that is probably causing lots of concern to everyone." "I wish I had a mirror. A mirror that could reflect the real me. Then, I would probably understand how to not make everyone worry"

Here, Sakura clearly spells out the frustration of knowing, feeling in her bones that there's something wrong with her, something that she's not understanding about herself, and that something is causing problems, but most importantly, is causing her loved ones to worry about her. Let's not forget that not only Syaoran, but also Yukito, Touya, Fujitaka, Tomoyo, Eriol & his family have all been watching her situation in apprehension, each of them making decisions and moving discretely in a direction they felt was right (and admittedly, not all instances were so).

Sakura can somehow feel all of that, she can feel that it's related to something she still hasn't realized about herself. This tends to be forgotten because it happens in a relatively early part of the plot, but notice how this is the same problem Kaito suffers from. A quite stunted ability to understand oneself. Sakura and Kaito definitely have lots in common, when it comes to this specific part of themselves. Keep this in mind, because it'll be relevant later.

And then, the situation worsens.

Sakura's dreams start to terrify her, because they begin to show Syaoran's face under the cloak of the mysterious figure who's scaring her in her dreams. An apparent truth she cannot accept, she won't accept, even though she's still unsure about what exactly these dreams she's having are. Despite her boyfriend has been acting shady for long time, she decides to trust him and wait for him to talk to her about all the stuff he's holding inside, instead of putting him through the wringer. This also means, though, that Sakura will keep all her fears to herself, eventually bottling up.

Furthermore, Kaito starts to rewind time to fix a situation without a way out (in chapter 28, Akiho was on the verge of going berserk completely and unleash the artifact), creating an additional sense of confusion when Sakura can feel that her finger is numb due to strain, but she can't understand why (she had fought Kaito's time magic unconsciously). Whenever Kaito will rewind time, even later on, Sakura's magical sixth sense will try to wake her consciousness up more and more, giving her these vibes of "deja vu" or making her act in an apparently inexplicable way.

In the first part of Clear Card, Sakura sometimes literally looks like a soul wandering about in confusion, dragged by the events.

I wish to point out that this is not a flaw in the characterization, it is a precise design by CLAMP. Sakura IS, in this part of the story, confused and lost, overwhelmed by the events. She has no idea how to approach this matter other than "treating the symptoms" as they come. This happens because she's still, surprisingly, quite reluctant to embrace a fundamental part of herself: her innate magic power, which expresses itself mainly through her intuition. But we'll gradually get there.

Around chapter 30, before the big realization, Sakura's situation reached a point where:

- her Sakura Cards unexpectedly became blank; - almost everyday (sometimes multiple times a day) there's a new incident that she secures into new transparent Cards; - she constantly sees ominous dreams (in scattered order) with a cloaked figure acting in a questionable way and a scary dragon, and at some point she starts seeing her boyfriend under that cloak; - her boyfriend acts shady, Eriol doesn't reply to her messages; - there's a general feeling of "something is not right" with her magic and some stuff starts to not make sense to her (because Kaito rewinds time)

It is at this point that Sakura finally moves one (giant) step forward and connects all the "puzzle pieces" she collected (particularly, how much more "obvious" the creation of a Card became) and understands that she's been the one causing subconsciously each and every single incident that lead to the creation of a new transparent Card.

"I'm Angry At Myself"

And with Syaoran finally coming clean with her (because at that point he had no reason to keep things hidden anymore, as the thing he was trying to delay ultimately happened - and believe me, I'm sure he partly felt relieved to not need to lie anymore, as that took quite a toll on him too), Sakura can at last give an explanation to at least a part of the things that are happening. And she finally realizes that the doubt that was tormenting her was true: she DID, in fact, not understand something very important about herself, she didn't realize that it was her own power going out of control and that all the incidents that happened bore "her magic signature", so to speak. She failed to "tune in" with her magic.

For the first time ever, Sakura expresses anger at herself.

She will direct that anger (to a lesser extent) to Syaoran too, but I'll tackle that in a separate post.

This is a moment of deep reflection and regrets for Sakura: the poor understanding of herself, the poor "communication" between her heart and her magic powers brought to a situation where her most beloved person was putting himself in danger in order to protect her, while trying to not make things escalate. This is a very sensitive, beautiful and important moment, steeped in conflicting and complex feelings (and remember, Sakura is just a pre-teen. It is normal for a pre-teen like her to not understand herself, but there's just one tiny detail: she's not a common pre-teen, due to her natural gift, and she needs to take that into account). Eventually Sakura calms down, and after creating Rewind, her resolute face while hugging tightly Syaoran suggests that from now on she'll face this matter from another, more courageous and determined perspective.

Or at least, these were her good intentions. Because unfortunately, insecurities are hard to eradicate and in the central part of the story it's shocking to realize how far longer Sakura will insist in shutting away her emotions and refusing to listen to her heart (and intuition) fully.

"It's Just My Imagination"

Part of Sakura's anxiety might have been sedated with the revelation that the Clear Cards are produced by the girl herself, but unfortunately the true core of her problems was not solved at all and will only surface more clearly in the next 20 chapters.

Sakura actively starts having "premonitory bad feelings" when she sees Akiho in volume 7 chapter 34, a bad feeling that she does check with Syaoran, but quickly dismisses as "well, it's just my imagination". This will basically be one of the major problems preventing her from reaching the complete control of her magic. Sakura, knowing her magic potential, should've given way more credit to her sixth sense, but her anxiety, her insecurity and her crippled connection to her innate gift still pushes her to dismiss these "signs" as nothing really important or true. Timely as hell, a few hours later something bad will indeed happen to Akiho, where she completely loses consciousness for the first time and the clan/Association actively starts to absorb Sakura's power through the artifact implanted in Akiho. All of this was caused by the high concentration of magic that "triggered" Akiho's artifact (and here I have to sarcastically "applaud" Kaito, just like Syaoran he's another one who does stuff before thinking through, ultimately worsening the problem).

Once trapped in Akiho's artifact, thanks to her power Sakura can see the most horrifying glimpse of Akiho's past, when she was turned into a magic artifact, by living it on her own skin. And even though Kaito is forced to rewind time once again to save the situation, erasing these memories from Sakura's head, her heart (which is tightly connected to her magical sixth sense - I'd daresay her heart is straight up the source of her magic) DOES REMEMBER, pushing Sakura to act in an apparently irrational way, crying and hugging Akiho tight in empathy. Sakura is particularly shaken by this feeling, still in pain even hours later, but once again she doesn't understand where it comes from. However, she does express with Syaoran an intention to talk to him about it once she's able to put it into words, and in the meantime do her best with all the rest. At least, there's an intention to understand better this part of herself, but it's still soon to see actual results.

Aaand CLAMP really seem to be wanting to test Sakura in this arc, because at this point of the plot, they add the electrocution spell. 😅 No one seems to understand who caused it (it's not Sakura, nor Kaito, but now we know it was none other than Yelan!!) and Sakura's anxiety increases once again. The fact only Syaoran gets affected by it inevitably reignites the doubts in her mind, unwittingly reminded of that terrifying dream of Cloaked Syaoran she keeps seeing...but she stubbornly keeps telling herself "no, it's not like that, it's just a dream". It's undeniable that this situation where she cannot understand her foretelling dreams yet, and the way they show her scattered hints because her power is out of control, has surely contributed to Sakura's insecurity when it comes to trust her own intuition.

Her power is so out of control at this point, that even when Kaito shrinks her and throws her in a hole carved into a tree (landing in a "world" created with magic where he hopes she'll create the right Card) her dreams take over again (it's apparent by the "shaaan" sound and how everything turns suddenly pitch black, a common background of her dreams), showing her Akiho in the dress she was wearing when she was turned into an artifact and, inevitably, Sakura's biggest fear, "Cloaked Syaoran". Pay attention because these visions she's getting here thanks to her power match what will happen later on: what the talking flowers tell her here will turn out to be the beginning of the lyrics of the main theme of the "Alice in Clockland" play. This vision of Cloaked Syaoran seemingly "about to do something" to Akiho horrifies Sakura to the point of screaming in terror and creating one of the most unsettling Cards, "Break". It is after this very scary moment that Sakura starts to wonder very specifically for what purpose she is creating all these Cards. The purpose is actually more than one, but she definitely posed herself THE RIGHT question, as this brings her one step closer to the core of the problem and eventually embracing her own magic abilities.

Then, between chapters 43 and 45 we finally start to see some changes in Sakura: surprisingly, she begins to listen more to her sixth sense, first catching Yukito red-handed while activating a newly acquired magic, and then wondering about a strange painful feeling in her chest when her father tells her that lately she and Akiho became even more similar. We were all lead to believe that this was the foreshadowing of Akiho taking her place (cause everything in the plot at this point deceivingly hints at Kaito wanting to switch them), but she actually was getting foreshadowings of the "rewritten world", where Sakura would genuinely feel wrecked to know that someone important to Akiho was missing, precisely when Akiho would've become part of her family as her twin. In fact, in chapter 45, before falling completely asleep, she hears again the ominous "you won't be able to come back" (the Association's threat to Kaito), wondering WHO wouldn't be able to come back - somehow, Sakura knows that it's not directed at her.

"Just Tell me Honestly How You Feel"

And then, we reach another moment that I consider pivotal for Sakura's growth during this Clear Card Arc. The moment when she's on the verge of breaking down and finally lets all her feelings out.

Her anxiety over the dream with the Cloaked Figure reached the highest peak, so much that she finally manifests a Card, Mirage, that challenges her precisely with that appearance. While Sakura battles that Card (which at the moment she still believes it's an actual person), she seems resoluted to get to the bottom of this story, and to pull down that hood to know the truth. You can really feel that she's so done with all this psychological torture. The fact the real Syaoran appears right at that moment and she finds out the person she saw was just a Card is partly a relief for her, but also throws Sakura again in despair because who the hell is that person in the dream, then??

Syaoran, as the good and attentive boyfriend he is, can just feel that Sakura is stressing over something, so he brings her to his home to help her calming down. And to her umpteenth attempt at sweeping her negative emotions under the carpet, beating around the bush commenting over the tea with a fake smile, he cuts immediately her bullshit and just tells her : "You don't need to force yourself. Just tell me how you feel right now". When she hears that she's allowed to speak out her emotions with honesty, Sakura wears on her face one of the most heartbreaking expressions of the entire manga. She's literally about to break down in tears of exhaustion, as you can see it above. ☝️ Listening to her, gradually, Syaoran encourages Sakura to get out all that's been torturing her lately, particularly about the dream with the Cloaked Figure. It is a very difficult moment for her, because she has to relive the dream, and expose in front of him all the fears and doubts that were trying to tamper with her trust in him. Courageously, she goes through with it, even though her denial ("it's just a dream!") is so strong that she ends up creating another Card: "Dreaming". Sakura at first seems relieved to see the Card, in the hope that everything she saw was indeed a mere messed up dream and nothing else (see? she's again self-sabotaging her relationship with her magic) but Syaoran with his frankness is quick to bring her feet on the ground: the kanji on the Card show "yumemi", and the word can also indicate a "foretelling dream".

Although Sakura seems disheartened at first, her next dream with the Cloaked Figure is much more relaxed, so much that even the dragon doesn't particularly scare her anymore: our girl's intuition makes her correctly feel a sense of loneliness in this dream, which she attributes to the hooded figure, not realizing that it was more likely coming from the dragon itself (aka, Kaito). After all, in chapter 72, Lilie will confirm that her presence ended up distracting her from the one "character" she should've paid all of her attention to. Her intuition, despite being misattributed, ended up having a positive effect through the synchronization with Akiho: the girl will wake up with the same feeling of discomfort of her friend, and as if guided by hitsuzen, she will head to the garden where she'll find a sickly Kaito staring at the moon - most likely feeling the loneliness Sakura perceived in her dream. I like to think that in this scene of chapter 48, Sakura subconsciously helped Akiho comforting Kaito, by waking her up with the unresting feeling, precisely when Kaito needed it the most. Still not completely embraced her magical sixth sense yet, but a significant improvement.

The road between chapter 48 and chapter 52 is paved with lots of struggles, as the Mirror Sakura Card gets stolen by Kaito, Sakura runs the risk of being absorbed into Akiho's artifact again, she meets Momo for the first time and she's even given a hint about Kaito's plan (or what Momo thought was his plan, as he had benignly lied to her about that), but almost all of that gets rewound and erased when Kaito intervenes. Moreover, despite not remembering anything consciously, Sakura is left with a sense of unhappiness when she looks at her home, a remnant of her brief journey in the world of Momo's book which straight up threw her into despair, showing her what her life would be if everyone forgot about her. She also finds once again a Card produced out of nowhere, "Time": I'm convinced she produced this Card because her conscience was awake while Momo and Kaito talked in stopped time, and their conversation triggered her sixth sense to produce Time as a result. Needless to say, all of this worsens her state of mind once again, which leads to the other pivotal, and finally resolutive, scene of chapter 52.

Never Avert Your Eyes From Your Heart

We finally get to what I consider THE scene, the one that will definitively shake Sakura from her deadlock, from the anxiety that stunted her connection with her innate gift and her deepest emotions. And the one who helps her overcoming all her fears is, of course, the love of her life - with a honorable mention for none other than his mother Yelan!!

Chapter 52 got a very, very special place in my heart, because it's basically one giant parallel between SyaoSaku and YunaAki. The two pairings experience similar situations, but the response from one side of each pairing is quite different. Let's remind you for a moment of the part earlier in this post when I told you that Kaito and Sakura, for most of Clear Card, surprisingly have one thing in common: they don't seem to understand themselves well enough, and both have a tendency to look away from feelings that cause unrest to their hearts - anxiety for Sakura, love for Kaito.

Syaoran, always attentive and observant towards his girlfriend, notices immediately that Sakura is suffering, as soon as he sees her at school. Despite being unable to touch her to comfort her, he offers all of himself to support and listen to her concerns. Sakura is visibly and pleasantly surprised of how the boy could read behind her mask, that usual contrived smile with which she tries to dissimulate her emotions and not make him worry. A bad habit she's consolidated lately, but that Syaoran is gently determined to dismantle. After opening up with him (and this is where Sakura differs from Kaito - by having an established relationship made of love and trust with Syaoran, Sakura lowers her walls with him), she falls once again into the usual trap of "but maybe it's just my imagination" and I love to see how Syaoran is her anchor to the ground, making her see the concreteness of this situation: he straight up tells her "you produced a Card out of it, it cannot be 'just your imagination'. " And then, like a precious family gift, he passes on to her the priceless words of wisdom of his mother Yelan, an advice that not only Sakura, but also the other "lost soul" of the other paralleling pairing should listen to:

"People with magical power should never ignore the turmoil and stirring in their hearts, the so-called 'intuition'. And it’s not limited to people with magical powers. People should never avert their eyes from the changes in their heart."

This is a turning point for Sakura. These words seem to positively "break" something inside of her, showing her the correct path to follow. CLAMP beautifully portray this process of "embracing and assimilating" the words she's just heard, by making her place her hand over her heart. I love when they do that (they used the same visual when Akiho heard Kaito's true name, and 'wrote it' on the most important page of the book of her life). Sakura is truly grateful for the words Syaoran relayed to her, precisely what she needed to get out of her impasse with her feelings and magic. She knows she can always count on the support of her soulmate even in the darkest moments, and she's thankful for having him in her life.

From this moment onwards, Sakura will experience several instances where her magical premonitory senses give her signals through the "stirring" of her heart. Contrarily to before, she starts to actively take them seriously, listening, without dismissing them as the delirium of an anxious little girl. This allows her to activate the Siege Card in the fraction of a second, successfully shielding herself from Kaito's time magic, making her the first person ever who achieved that. This also leads her to effectively remember that she saw Kaito using magic, even when time was rewound by him, and contact immediately Syaoran to talk about it, planning how to move from that moment onwards. A little relapse on her bad habit is immediately dispelled by Syaoran, and our girl even goes as far as saying "there's something inside Akiho", even though she's not sure exactly why she's feeling that way. But it's an intuition she's having and she decides to not dismiss it anymore, with everyone trusting and supporting her in that direction. By listening more and better to what her heart tells her, Sakura also decides to not confront Akiho about Kaito and his magic, because she's well aware of the feelings Akiho got for Kaito and she doesn't want to potentially disrupt their relationship. So, she decides to wait for her friend to talk about it first.

Thanks to this better understanding of her own intuition, she also says in chapter 57 that she wants to meet the guardian of the book "Alice in Clockland" once more, despite not remembering if and when she's met her before. This also ultimately leads her to accept the role of Alice in the upcoming play scripted by her friend Naoko, because her sixth sense tells her that it's inevitable for her to do so. It's important to emphasize how the other characters support and encourage her to listen to her innate gift, at this point, without trampling over her self-determination like they did before.

It is a moment of big growth and character development for everyone.

The Ultimate Growth: Finding a Meaning and a Purpose

What happens afterwards is history: the fateful "Alice in Clockland" play unfolds, and Kaito completes his plan to push Sakura to create the Card he needs, exchanging his magic artifact (the watch) with Akiho's one (the book), in addition to activating the forbidden magic to rewrite the memories of everyone, to fit Akiho as part of Sakura's family.

Sakura's intuition will be crucial to wake her true self up while in Clockland, succeeding in beating Kaito's magic multiple times, till Syaoran comes in and gives the "final blow", cutting off the spell definitively.

And even when everything seems lost because Kaito successfully activated the fobidden magic, changing their memories and erasing himself from their existence, Sakura's magic and sixth sense keep making her say things she either already said or heard before in the "unrewritten world". Not only that, but even after meeting Lilie in a dream and forgetting her face (due to the strong influence of the forbidden spell), bit and pieces of that conversation keep coming back to her, and she listens dutifully to every single one of these "feelings". Kaito might have overridden part of their memories (only the ones concerning him, Akiho and the events connected to the creation of the Cards), but the experience, feelings and personal growth of each character were left untouched, that's why the chemistry between Sakura and Syaoran is the same as before the play started, but also Sakura's personal relationship with her magic is far better than before (an information that might have seemed random and unimportant is that now Sakura summons Mirror even just to chat, an indication of her completely changed perspective on her magic).

Now that Sakura finally embraced her magical power, all that's left for her is to find a true purpose for it.

A question echoes in my mind, "What am I creating these Cards for?". Sakura poses herself this question halfway through the story, and she finds the answer to it precisely at the end of the journey.

Her powerful magic intuition, combined with her immense empathy, leads her to realize that somebody is missing from their reality, and that person is the one Akiho loves. At this point Sakura is unstoppable: she wants to listen to the voice in her heart that's screaming "Go and help them!! Give the true happiness back to Akiho!", and everyone can only follow her lead as she assertively puts into practice what her heart is telling her to do.

Sakura in this final part of the story shines brighter than ever. She's more assertive and self-confident than ever. All of this is because there's something she strongly wants to do with her innate gift, as Eriol unequivocally says in chapter 75: her power grows exponentially again, but this time it's not out of her control - it is Sakura herself who's voluntarily boosting it, thanks to her strong wish. And that allows her to control it and use it exactly as she wants.

In chapter 79 her growth reaches the highest peak, by handling the resolution of Akiho and Kaito's personal problems in an admirable way (she steps aside for a moment to give Akiho all the agency she needed), but also finding herself in front of an uncomfortable dilemma, which leads her to an unavoidable reality: Sakura quickly understands that she cannot be on everyone's side and there are lines to be drawn at some point. She can't be a pure and oblivious girl forever. She needs to grow up. There are choices to be made, especially when dealing with real evil people.

And Sakura choses to go on with the people she loves, even if that means she has to "stain" her "moral record" a little bit.

Empowered by this strong wish to fix the situation, she literally gives life to a miracle, protecting her dear friend and her beloved from the grasp of their abusers, simultanously giving everyone their true memories back. The effort exerts her greatly, but what she achieved is by far the most important thing she's ever done with her magic power till now: she helped two dear people lost in a life-and-death situation. Her magical growth went along with her personal, mental one.

This is also the reason why the accusations of "the other magicians should've trained her" end up being in vain: Sakura's problem with her powers was mainly on a personal level, not on a technical one. This was a journey she had to mainly walk by herself, finding the right balance and confidence in her abilities, deep down in her heart.

No one could've done that for her.

Merely training the practical aspect of it would've just worsened the situation, because Sakura wouldn't have been truly "in it" with her heart and mind. She needed to go through this process of growth, before reaching this stage of self-awareness in relation to her magic powers. I truly feel this is the reason why CLAMP made certain choices inside this story. Again, as I always say, a good part of Cardcaptor Sakura does revolve around magic, but the main focus and linchpin of this story is and always will be the main character's heart, her growth and the interpersonal relationships with her loved ones.

This makes Clear Card Arc, in my opinion, a worthy sequel and a full-fledged part of the Cardcaptor Sakura series. I think those who decide to skip it or read it with a superficial approach miss a journey of tremendous growth for our beloved protagonist.

So much for those who kept saying "This is not Sakura's story".

How can all that ☝️ NOT be Sakura's story?

I'll let you judge. 😊

Extra: The Significance of the Clear Cards

I want to digress for a moment about a thorny topic: the significance of the Clear Cards in this story.

Sakura isn't always completely passive towards the events happening around her, but wonders several times during the story why all those Cards are manifesting like that. While the first and easiest answer is of course "because her powers are going out of control" (and this is something Momo herself questions Sakura about in chapter 50), it becomes apparent at some point that the more the story goes on, the more the Cards that are created by her are particularly relevant and connected to the events that will happen in the final part of the story.

I know this is a sore spot for many who complain about not understanding the purpose of the Clear cards. It's because people tend to compare this set of Cards with the ones Sakura captured previously. That's not the right way to look at them, because their origin and purpose are different and change throughout the story. Forget about the Sakura Cards, even though so many of these "Clear Cards" (which are never called so, not even once, in the story itself, but just "new cards" or "transparent cards") might look so similar in purpose to the previous ones.

First of all, the Clear Cards are an outlet for Sakura to vent in a healthy way her power in excess. Power that if kept inside, untapped and confined in her body, might have unpredictable harmful effects on her (<- probably the grief Yelan foresaw). God bless the Clear Cards for existing and allowing Sakura to vent out these bouts of uncontrolled power in a relatively safe way.

The Cards that Sakura produces in the beginning are sometimes reminiscing of the Sakura Cards, because her power manifests itself basing on Sakura's experiences, feelings, thoughts and wishes. The Sakura Cards are an important part of her life (before Syaoran took them, she literally acted like their "mom", keeping them alive with her power) so it's only normal that the first base for some of these new Cards would be a magic tool that she already knows. In this sense, it becomes easier to understand why many of the "captures" seem so easy, way too easy compared to what a reader would expect from a sequel: the goal of the capture here isn't to make her power and experience in capturing cards grow. She already had 2 arcs to do all of that. The capture of the Cards in this third arc becomes something new and unexpected: a "damage control" of a regrettable situation with Sakura's powers, while she learns to dominate them and enter into harmony with her supernatural abilities. The growth Sakura needs here is mainly a mental one. Performing her magical power aimlessly without having a true connection with it and a true understanding will only exacerbate the problem. This is the reason why, despite having a "capture" element, Clear Card derails from the previous arcs in the purpose of the capture. It's a pity that an element that should've brought freshness to the plot was in many cases received as an actual flaw.

In the beginning, as Sakura's power is completely out of her control, some Cards might look completely random too - they don't look based on Cards, thoughts or wishes (like Appear, Reflect, Action, etc.). But pay attention, because the more the story goes on, the more the Cards begin to become particularly specific to something that shook Sakura's heart in that moment, or referencing events/feelings that will become pivotal to the events Sakura will experience later. Especially regarding Kaito's plan. Many of the later Cards Sakura produces are a direct reflection of the feelings and wishes that Kaito infused in the activation of the forbidden magic, with the creation of "the story for Akiho", the one he wanted to absolutely have a happy ending for. Cards like Repair, Promise, Choice, Kindness, True and False, Synchronization, Rewind....many of them didn't even get to express their magical abilities in a "conventional way" (everyone expected to see Sakura literally activating them like she does with all the others), but it's just because at that point the Cards Sakura is producing are born following her premonitory intuition: thanks to the hints/speeches that those Cards give her in Clockland, Sakura little by little regains consciousness of her true self (it's a pity that many English readers will never realize all the times Sakura was about to "wake up" in Clockland, because the translation didn't respect the change in fonts of the JP text). Sakura wasn't supposed to "use" them in a conventional way (how do you "use" Kindness? You force people to be "kind"? 🤨 and what about Choice??), she was supposed to listen to them and let them guide her towards the truth. This is also the reason why all of these Cards bear the face of her loved ones. Think of them as tarots. Which is, incidentally, another use of the original Clow/Sakura Cards. I am basically sure of this interpretation because the kanji of some of those Cards I mentioned above are brought up during the climax: particularly when Akiho talks to Kaito in chapter 78, she uses two specific verbs, referring to Kindness (慈愛 - a kind of gentle and tender love) when she describes the love and support her family gives her in this rewritten world, and to Choice (選択) when she questions Kaito about his choice to disappear completely from her life. So to summarize, the last Cards Sakura produced "accidentally" weren't accidental at all, but were actually specifically produced by her power in reference to Kaito's plan, to help her finding the way out to a dire situation. This represents a very important indicator in the plot: at that stage of the story, Sakura started to listen more and more to her intuition and her sixth sense, finally quitting her bad habit of downplaying it ("maybe it's just me") but actually giving it credit and taking it seriously, trusting her instinct to lead her in the right direction. And this was, of course, all thanks to the speech Syaoran gave her back in chapter 52. It is also the case of the Rewind Card, which Sakura will ultimately understand the purpose of on her own, at the very end of the series. That's the moment where everything will become clear and make sense to her: "This Card, too...I created it precisely for this moment". The Clear Cards ultimately became the embodiment of her foretelling powers. Which then led to the birth of the first two consciously created Cards, Blank & Remind, which will become so important in the climax.

If we ever get a new arc in the next years, we'll certainly deal with a more mature Sakura, who's more in sync with her magical powers 🩷.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

ok so what are some of the changes you would want in the upcoming harry potter hbo series. and since your blog is Harry centric so I'll ask how do you want him to be portrayed in the series ? what traits of him do you think the series makers should shine more light on ?

Okay, I have, like, a list of things I didn't like in the movies and could be improved upon by the show. The list I have here isn't just about things the show could improve, but also things I want to see in the show in general. I think most of my opinions are pretty common, though.

(Also I'm not sure how good the show will be, like, I'm somewhat hopeful, but also very cautious with my expectations. We should start getting casting announcements around in a few months, which could help indicate where this show is going)

Regardless, here's my list of top concerns for the upcoming show:

Harry's character

This is the one you questioned specifically and one that could make or break the show for me. I want Harry's sass and anger, I don't want him to be a self-insert for the audience the way he was in the movies. I want his actual character. The sass, anger, and tenacity that is Harry Potter combined with his kindness, compassion, and sometimes clueless awkwardness. Let him be smart, clever, and talented.

Harry in the books is so much more than "just Expeliarmos" and the fact people could think that about Harry is a legitimate crime against his character the movies committed. Truly character assassination that Harry isn't an exceptional wizard with the world's lowest self-esteem and cheeky attitude.

(Also, for the love of god, give him green eyes, please. Contacts exist for a reason and it'll be a good way to differentiate the new actor from Radcliffe)

2. Ron & Hermione's characters

I could probably just put a "make all characters like in the books" category since this is true for a lot of them.

Specifically for the other two members of the Golden Trio, I want Hermione to have her flaws, and Ron to be smart. He is talented and smart and just as skilled as Harry and Hermione. He isn't the dumb comic relief and I'm so mad the movies made him such. And Hermione isn't a perfect Mary Sue who can do no wrong. Let her put Rita in a jar. Let her show how much she actually appreciates Ron and Harry and their approach to problems, different as it is to hers.

3. Voldemort's everything

I didn't like Voldemort's design, I didn't like his characterization, I didn't like how he spoke, how he walked — none of it felt like Voldemort to me.

I want Voldemort to be scary, not some odd caricature of himself. Give me a Voldemort design that looks scary. Give him the red eyes, and make him look actually skeletal. And let him move elegantly, talk softly. He isn't shouting and throwing tantrums, usually, he is very deliberate in what he says and does.

Also, give him his weird sense of humor. In the books, he makes bad puns ("Wormtail is here to lend a hand"), I like my villains a little campy with bad puns but also terrifying.

4. Dumbledore's everything

Well, honestly, I have no complaints about Dumbledore in the first movie, my problems started after he was recast.

I want Dumbledore to speak softly. I need an actor who could say "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" and make it work. I want an actor who'd smile like he knows things you don't as his eyes fucking twinkle, but could still look intense and even intimidating for the later seasons. I also want him to look whimsical and dress in the most absurd eye-catching robes you've ever seen.

5. On the matter of robes — wizard fashion

I want wizarding fashion. I want long robes, silly hats, colors, and patterns. I want the costume designers on the show to have fun with it. I want them to go wild.

The wizarding world should look whimsical and campy — that's part of the magic. I want it to look like a foreign world. Even the most purebloods of purebloods (like the Blacks) are more like the Addams Family than any serious drama. They have a sense of campiness and whimsy. Let wizards be weird as shit and show it in their dress and interior design (I mean, the Blacks hang house elf heads and have a troll leg umbrella stand, the Ministry of Magic has paper airplanes flying all around, they're weird).

6. About the more filler-y sections of the books

I want all the silly little plots that were removed from the movies. I think some of the more filer-y things add a lot to the books and to the whimsy of being a student at Hogwarts. I want the trio to sneak out Norbert, I want to see Peeves, the deathday party, all of these things that make Hogwarts truly feel like a magic school.

7. Hogwarts Castle

I love the castle of the movies and that of Hogwarts Legacy. Honestly, I think Hogwarts Legacy did a good job of capturing the feeling of the movies castle while making it its own new unique thing. I think the TV show should do something similar and kinda create a Hogwarts castle amalgamation of all previous iterations that would feel familiar and allow them to still use some of the same merchandise but also be new and unique at the same time.

8. Time period

I think this is a pretty common opinion, but I want the muggle clothes and sets to clearly be set in the 1990s. I want the show to be a period piece. I don't want to see smartphones, or modern fashion, or modern cars — none of that.

9. Age-appropriate casting

I'm not the only one who says this, but as great as Allen Rickman was, he was too old for the role. Part of the tragedy of Snape and the Marauders is how young they actually are. I think it'll just be much more heartbreaking if the actors looked as young as they're supposed to be.

(Including James and Lily in the flashbacks!)

10. Worldbuilding & extra scenes

Since it's a TV show and not a book, which opens up more perspective options, I would like to get, maybe, some extended Pottermore facts into the show. Like, to flash out the world in a way the movies didn't.

Additionally, I wouldn't mind if some extra scenes were added to build up characters we don't get as much of in the books and it could serve the plot. Like, as long as the scenes are added in a way which is like 'they might've happened in the books, we just didn't see them cause Harry wasn't there', that sort of thing without subtracting from anything else and without retconning or contradicting anything. Like, with good writers, this could be really well done, I'm just worried about them adding anything because I don't know how much faith I have in the whole project. But it could be cool if done well.

[princess-ibri]

I think it is both funny and slightly alarming that there are those who possess an intense dislike for anyone who ship Asha with Star (one person even derisively called this ship “Starsha” but jokes on them i like it xD);

1) “BASIC WHITE TWINK IS MORE POPULAR WITH THIS SHIPPERS THAN THE BLACK HEROINE” I think they conveniently forget that everyone knows what Asha looks like and is more or less fine with her appearance; The Star’s human appearance, on the other hand, has not left the figurative drawing board beyond the art book, therefore it is fun to delve into character design and see how he looks more fleshed out. Also, what do they mean “basic white twink?” I’ve seen plenty of Human/noid!Star concepts with various skin tones/ethnic features/builds. Then again, I explore more social media platforms than just Tumblr.

2) “THESE SHIPPERS KEEP WHITE/LIGHT-WASHING THE HEROINE” They are exploring the concept designs that were shown in the art book. Also, Afro-Latinos/Hispanics have a range of skin and eye colors. Another also: NOT ALL OF THE SHIPPERS CHANGE ASHA’S OFFICIAL APPEARANCE.

3) “WHO’S GOING TO TELL THESE SHIPPERS THAT THE HUMAN STAR IS/WAS GOING TO LOOK LIKE HER GRANDPA?” We already know. We also know that was one of the POTENTIAL options that wounded up being scrapped. Therefore, Starsha headcanons don’t have to be tied to one single idea that could have happened.

4) “WHY ARE YOU SHIPPING ASHA WITH A HUMAN BOY VERSION OF THE LITTLE STAR WHEN _insert canon film character_ IS RIGHT THERE/ASHA DOESN’T NEED A ROMANCE?” First and most important of all, because we can and we want to. Second of all, not all of Starsha shippers headcanon the Star to be male. Third of all, no one has any issues with shipping Asha with any of her canon friends (or even a self-insert) or headcanoning her to be happy single; the only ones I see having any problems with any shipping are the ones who don’t like we are shipping the original concept of the Star and Asha.

Sorry for my rant. I just find it weird that those who don’t ship Star x Asha or who aren’t a fan of the Humanoid Star seem just so offended by the fact that this portion of the fandom exists and is having fun with their headcanons so far. It’s not like our headcanons have any effect on the official WISH Film.

P.S., I love your art and concepts! Not just for WISH, but those are some of my favorites!

Hey all absolutely excellent points! Yeah my rule is just, let people have fun with stuff? Cuz like--yeah guys none of this actually affects anything IRL of any actual importance so, chill out and go do what you want instead of getting upset other people don't want to do the same? Spending your time trying to police everyone else's fun just leaves less time for you to have any.

And thanks!! I've been enjoying working out how I want Wish to fit into the DisneyVerse and working some of the concept stuff in with the Canon the movie gave to do so! Hope you'll stick around for more!

[chaospyromancy]

OC-tober week one: Introduction

Doing the OC-tober challenge, prompts by @bweirdart ! I'm going to be posting week by week, I find that this way I don't get as stressed out about missing a day, and might actually complete an October challenge for once!

More info about OCs under the read more!

Day 1: Favorite OC Richard is a character from my project Blood & Time, formerly known as Genesis in Paris. He's a gentle giant and one of those characters that appear really put together but are actually so, so close to being completely unhinged. He's also so Autism. He brings me a lot of comfort and I designed him to be Handsome so of course I love drawing him. He calls his cat the Cat because he can't decide on a name, btw. Day 2: New OC The Creator is a character from my project In a Heartbeat, a vampire-in-high-school story. She's the Old As Hell vampire who turns the main character and antagonist of the story into vampires by accident. The scars on her neck and chest are from a vampire hunt she barely escaped. Technically she's not that new (I started working on IAH in November 2022), but I haven't made new characters since. Day 3: Old OC Aube was probably the first OC I ever designed. She smells like 2008 to me. I was 9 years old and kept drawing her/imagining stories with her until I was around 12. She was super edgy and, of course, a self-insert. She had a romance with Axel Kingdom Hearts (my first real video game crush), but she was NOT a KH oc. Day 4: Re-design Genevya is the main character of my project Blood & Time. I've had her since I was 14, so a decade now (wow. lol). Her design changed a bit here and there, but it didn't really drastically evolve. Recently, with the story and other characters around her growing, I felt like her design felt out of place in the world/too busy. I changed her white hair to streaked brown, and gave her regular eyes instead of heterochromia. Her color palette naturally got warmer, which I feel is fitting since she's a charismatic person. I'm putting her in a lot more greens and golds these days. Overall, I'm very glad I decided on these changes.

[deafsignifcantother]

Alastor and my self insert, Irene! She's Deaf ofc, loves going on walks with him throughout the pride ring bc she never allowed herself to walk around since she's scared of getting snuck up on or getting threatened without knowing. Gave her three eyes to symbolize how observant she needs to be, though personality wise, she isn't very aware of things going on (me asf).

She's half bunny because when she was alive, she called all her lovers bunny (which I do), so it's a way to taunt her bc of her relationship trauma and divorce. I like the idea of demon features being their dislikes from being human. I thought the bunny thing would be a good idea, even if it's stereotypical. Her eyes turn pink when she sees someone she has a crush on because she's cursed to make her romantic emotions (her number one weakness / cause for her down fall) completely visible and unavoidable. <3!

I have 0 oc's plzzz all my ideas are self inserts oops I have two hazbin ones LOL. My first one was from high school and she's veerrryyy different from this one. My divorce changed me fr LOL. The og one was half deer but more evident than Alastor since she has the native features from legends of my tribe. I'm agender and there's a creature in my tribe that goes from male to female depending on its surroundings and I'm like real ash. This is art of her. Her ribs are kinda shown but like in a stylized and unrealistic way to represent how open her heart is / how she like "wears her heart on her sleeve" or however the saying goes. She has floating protective bands around her waists since being held at her waist reminds her of her past lovers when she was alive and it upsets her a lot. Both this self insert and the new one die of suicide due to their lovers. Real ash. She also has deer hooves, and the new self insert has rabbit feet. I love half animal half animal ppl so much it's so fun.

the new one has black hair. It's funny bc my chest is so flat but all my self inserts from high school had huge titties LMFAOOOOOO I was trying my best. She's also 15 feet tall LOLZ. The new self insert has small boobs and narrow hips like me irl. I'm making the self inserts more and more like me and it's evident from their designs.

I have 5 irenes: irene the clown (sidekick to art the clown), irene wayne (dc, jokers ex sidekick turned hero), hellpriest irene (pinhead's lover from when he was human), irene emory (wife / captive of asa emory from the collector), demon irene (^^), and irene hartfelt (new one ^^). All of them are deaf and native (though both of those traits vary, from hoh to vaguely having native features).

I'm still on the fence if irene hartfelt will be with alastor or not bc she's aro but not ace. I think they'd get along perfectly though <3.

[oldmemoria]

caught up with cringetober because I literally forgot to do it, individuals and explanations under cut

Day 1: Heterochromia I’ve come to the revaluation that my sona is already cringe as hell considering not only can his entire body change color but he also has differently colored eyes as a staple of his design. They’re usually yellow and blue but this time I color picked the blue from the trans flag and the mint from the Vincian flag for this color palette, it turned out really pretty :)

Day 2: Self Insert Now she isn’t my self insert anymore, but back in the day when I was at “peak cringe” she definitely was. This is my warriors OC Icypelt and I have a post going over part of her story on my profile somewhere. She’s been through a lot and I think her modern design is very pretty :)

Day 3: Unnecessarily complex fit/design Spider scene is kinda infamous in my brain for having wayyy too much detail but I love them and I think this might be my favorite one out of this batch, super cute, the pose is really cute and the colors are nice and fits her really well :D

day 4: Angel x Devil inevitable MCR reference ik, Helena and Revenge, love them dearly. Poor revenge man this one is cute and looks like a sticker!!

Day 6 (I skipped day 5 because I didn’t want to open up ms paint today): neko i kinda hate this one but cat Gerard yay

Day 7: Pinterest base at first I wanted to draw hobie in place of Gwen but I remembered that I haven’t really drawn Mikey with her even though they’re supposed to be friends so I drew her instead. Idk. The height difference is not accurate because of that but Jumping Spider is small because he’s based on a jumping spider and those are tiny who would have thought

Day 8: tumblr sexyman i have never played undertale a day in my life i just know a lot of people wanted to jump sans’ bones

day 9: Crossover ship/rarepair OH BOY THIS ONE GOES KIND OF HARD AND IM EMBARRASSED ABOUT IT BECAUSE THEY KIND OF WORK FOR EACH OTHER UM MIGUEL OHARA X CLOTTED CREAM COOKIE IM INSANE OMG-

day 10: fursona i already have a fursona I already drew and yes I colorpicked from the lesbian flag how could you tell /j

Day 11: Yandere LYLA is technically canonically a yandere because spoiler alert she tried to kill Miguel’s fiancé via overheating her in the shower (essentially literally boiling her like a lobster) because she was “in love” with him (she said if she did have autonomy and had feelings the would be in love with him but she doesn’t but idk who knows I don’t).

day 12: niche interest ik MCR isn’t exactly “niche” but the black parades story in particular has always caught my interest and I have my own interpretation of it and a whole kind of story I’m still developing and character arcs and headcanons and interactions and yeah you get it, death in particular has evolved into god knows an OC on his own I just keep him attached to MCR because… it makes more sense that way, ig-

day 13: creepypasta does this count- whatever grimdark is just the same thing as a creepypasta- I’m not really in the MLP fandom anymore but it was my first ever “fandom” I was actually apart of. My first hyperfixation if you will. I wasn’t in the grimdark part of the fandom because I was too young for it but I was actually watching the izzzyzzz grimdark video and I was like “oh” and drew a rainbow factory Rainbowdash. Honestly I should draw ponies more they’re fun to draw

Day 14: candygore (?) im not good at drawing candygore and since I was rushing this o didn’t do it as well as I thought I can, but it still turned out pretty cool

Day 15: song lyrics aaaa inevitable hesitant alien drawing this one turned out so cute!! The colors and the sparkle eek so cute aaa action cat lyrics I’m breaking down right in front of you I’m sorry

planning on doing the rest of the month now, maybe not exactly on time since I’m still in school but I’ll try to get 31 drawings out by Halloween. Love the idea of cringetober because I just love all things cringe. Ack this is so good

[thatsuccessfulpokemontrainer]

uhuhuh how has sprites design changed and developed over the course of his story? same with beedrill and mari

Ohhhh thank you so much for this RAHH!!

So- sprite is actually two concepts (with two different designs) who got reversed mitosised into one guy, one was a self insert oc from my first full playthrough of pokemon crystal and one was a gym leader oc.

I'm not sharing old art of sprite because honestly looking at anything I've done more than a month ago makes me cringe however- I did an approxmation of "sprites" first design with some fun facts.

Also yes his '!' shirt used to look like that. I actually changed sprites colour scheme because I showed my friend some art and they were like "omg like mcdonalds sprite. is that why hes in the mcdonalds colours." . mortifying. changed immedaitly after.

I dont think I got it across in this version at all but gym leader sprite was supposed to be a punk and had a full patch jacket and stuff.

A lot of sprites design was really open to change when I first started the account, his hair would vary from being over one eye to being over both- his scars would move around since i forgot to make a ref. A lot of stuff just solidified over time the more I drew him the more I figured him out <3. The more I rp'ed as him, the more he became his own character and I got a sense for his likes and dislikes and it impacted his design.

Now drawing him is super duper ingrained into my head and whenever I open a new canvas there is always one of these guys

He also used to have upturned ears, not much to say on those, other than i liked the downturned look more, and changed it in november of last year.

He also kept the blue in his hair after him running away and attempting to dye his hair blue in an effort to disguse himself. He's kept it in the tips since for reasons that he can't explain .

Onto Beedrill! (did some doodles of his old design)

His design changes are really recent because at the start he just wasn't- interesting y'know. just some blonde dude.

But also BD was also first known for sending people meme shirts via pelipper mail so he didnt really need to be more than that. I think the googles and staff helped a little (speaking of which, looking at maybe giving him his staff back sometime)

As his storys become more relevant, I've needed to spice up his design, which I'm happy I did with the funky pokemon esque hair. The fox mask also helps him seem more interesting, but him wearing it isn't common enough to count.

I'm currently doing a redesign of his prosethic finger and another part of his design which i'm excited to share once i'm done.

Now mari!

Not much to say with her old design, her clothes and such were picked out my maris creator and cowriter, and she was supposed to look put together yet ready to fall apart at any moment. She was a real villian, but I've never been unhappy with her design and how it's reflected her personality.

I did like how in maris first apperance, lucians (her bayleefs) leaf was completely seared off along with having severe burns on its body, but by the time she got her blog it was full again as mari has saved up to get a coleus plant implant to regrow the leaf, along with the scars on him fading from her use of burn cream she was sent.

Thank you so much for asking, sorry for rambling haha !!

[lovesmenot2015]

Hi hi!! Fear and Hunger & 0, 3 and 6?

Doing the termina version of Olivia due to her termina version being more fleshed out! Also for anyone else who sees this: Yes I know there is a funger character named Olivia already but I don't feel like changing my self insert's name 😭😭

0 – What are some of the inspirations behind your S/I? Are they exactly like you? Were they an OC? Did any of your favorite characters have any influence in their design/personality?

Olivia is based off of me a lot and has other various inspirations, but for her Fear and Hunger Termina version she is based off of old Hollywood and actresses from around the time as well as how old Hollywood treated actresses from the time. There is a loss of innocence aspect to her story. Judy Garland comes to mind when I say this.

3 – Have you ever imagined any episodesor segments of your F/O's source starring your S/I? If so, what did they get up to?

I usually imagine what would happen if she were to survive the Festival of Termina and what her life would be like after, as well as how she would hold up during the festival. I like to imagine that she managed to escape with one of my Funger F/Os, lately I have been thinking about Marina especially.

6 – What's the relationship dynamic between your S/I and your F/O? Be as vague or as descriptive as you'd like

Oooh boy, get ready. Listing all my termina F/Os for this.

Karin - Olivia and Karin have almost a mother/daughter dynamic, with Karin serving as a maternal figure that Olivia is lacking in her life due to her actual mother being emotionally distant and only caring about the money. Karin and Olivia met prior to the festival, with the two having a small interview when Karin was doing a project focused on asking various actors and actresses their thoughts on the war. Olivia is very attached to Karin despite the blonde's coldness.

Pav - Classic creepy pervert preying on a victim. The pig has eyes for Olivia a lot and makes it pretty obvious, he would probably try to 'kidnap' her a few times and keep her as some sort of hostage. Pav has her play 'secret games' with him and talks about how special she is and how much he adores her.

Marina and Samarie (polyam) - It started with Marina having eyes for Olivia and seeing her as some sort of little sister, being able to keep her calm easily. I feel like Marina would read to Olivia and tell her various little stories to help keep her calm, at first Samarie was slightly jealous as she stalked Marina but eventually started to have feelings for Olivia as well. Samarie and Marina, if they end up together in my Funger au, end up acting like legal guardians to Olivia. I feel like Marina would like dressing her up.

Abella - Abella is used to taking care of younger people and is probably the most well suited to take care of Olivia due to her past, she would probably show the girl how to fix mechanical things as well as try to keep her entertained and/or distracted from the horrors of Prehevil. She lets Olivia play with her hair as well, even taking her hair out of the coast is clear for the girl to do so. I feel like they would also have a mother/daughter dynamic almost.

[bwobgames]

12 Detective Beebo Fun facts

there´s probably more but here's some

1.

When Beebo goes to open the doorknob, you can see his reflection 5 times. That's the amount of loops he will go through.

2. Also, those particular pictures were drawn in 2019. Including others that were not shown

Like this design of 2019 Beebo

3.

The reason i never made another pixelated room is because I drew the furniture using a weird perspective, so I needed guiding lines, and it was a complete drag to do, so I never did it again. Probably won't do it for the game either, too tedious.

4.

This one drawing of the first loop has Ángel separated from Vivi and Beebo through the framing of the window. Foreshadowing whooo

5.

The original sprites used to be longer.

You can also see 2 other characters that were taken out, the doctor girl and the jacket guy. The jacket guy became a modified version of Coli, and the doctor girl just disappeared for the sin of being a borderline self insert. Lmao.

Also! Ángel was gonna have light grey hair, but after actually drawing it I didn't like it so it went to dark gray

Here's the tinified sprites

6.

Heres some planning for the looks of the game from 2019. I like it honestly, its 2.5d, looks like a pop-up book. It just needs some work with the perspective.

7. The original design for beebo (silly triangle hat guy) was supposed to be a comedy character for a nonsensical game like jazzpunk. I even made a very bad 3d model for it.

That is also where "he has anime eyes" came from

I used to draw him all over my school notebooks just being silly, like going down the stairs head first.

8. There were many ideas on how things were gonna go. From vampires to weird magic systems to sci-fi. The thing that was gonna stay was the tíme loop, was would vary was the reason

9.

A lot of the time, Beebo talks about his fear of big houses and feelings of being trapped. I'm actually surprised that aspect got so unnoticed in theory crafting

10. Nina's dress changes color in every post, thats because I never saved it, and just guessed it everytime I colored it.

Speaking of colors, Most of the colors used in this comic are from the same palette as Character Pattern, another one of my games.

Also speaking of colors, I planned all characters to have a very minimalistic color palette for the monochrome sprite work, this caused me to mistake Vivis dress as red and her jacket as white, when originally her dress was black and her jacket was red. whoops.

11. The constant references to the cold are not just for the fact that its, indeed, cold. Its also beacuse most of the time everyone dies with heavy blood loss, which makes someone feel very cold

12. The pictures for the spooky Haunted house explanation look pretty normal without the heavy editing

They required a lot of shadows to make it less incredibly bright

except for this one

this one just looked like that. spooky.

I also had a cool picture of a shadow (me) in the mirror of a dark bathroom, sadly it wasnt dark enough because you could very clearly see the toilet paper. It got erased.

[getitfrenchship]

Meet the S/I: Renée “Refraction” Hughe

Fuck it, let’s go in an order I feel like. Let’s talk Quirks!

Self Insert or OC? Self insert, but I might work on a design that’s more OC like

Appearance:

The three stripes are pieces of hair that stick out to help detect what blends of colors she attacks with. She’s supposed to have a green trench coat, wave patterned T-shirt, and really cool vaporwave designs for sneakers. I might make the trench coat fit the vaporwave aesthetic too but hmm. She wears a visor over her eyes similar to how ‘zawa covers his eyes from enemies, though these also act as color correctors during night missions. Underneath, her right eye is blue while the left is orange (not sure what I should make a potential third eye color)

She also has a vigilante outfit with a different hairstyle entirely (think generic white spiky anime hair), but that design’s still in beta.

Basic Info:

Birthday: June 7th

Likes: Video game collecting, cats, tacky fashion

Dislikes: Vinegar, mayonnaise

Quirk: Currently named Color Splash but copyright might get in the way of that. Basically Refraction has the ability to control objects that are a certain color. For semantics: the color has to be based on someone whose 3 eye cones are present & functioning. Renée can’t just control an orange because she says it’s purple, for example. And she can’t control a red object if she’s colorblind, as the object might be green instead. This works in I’d say how far Renée can see?

Character relationship dynamics:

Romantic: Ai//zawa. If my brain were spicy enough, potential Over//haul or Chr//ono having a crush on her.

Platonic: Hawk s

Reluctant to have Mentor: Gentle (he calls himself her father figure despite only being a few years older than her)

Inspirations: All//Migh//t.

Background, Personality & Relevance in Story That Aren’t Necessarily Changes in the Narrative but Y’Know:

Background: Renée’s a post-grad student who’s taking an international internship from America to Japan. With her power, she gets confused for Eraser head & has her apartment destroyed in a collateral accident. ‘zawa offers for her to stay at his place once everyone moves into the dorms. She helps take care of Eri if she’s not needed on U A’s campus.

Personality: She’s definitely one of the more comedic S/I’s. It’d be fun to flanderize comedic mishaps with her, especially since she also streams games. Her one serious moment is feeling powerless to fight against the Para//normal Libera//tion Front, to which both ‘zawa and a cheered up Gentle help her work through it. If, again, brain felt spicy enough, I could see a Vigilante AU 👀

Relevance in Story That Aren’t Necessarily Changes in the Narrative but Y’Know: Thinking on it more, I think she’d be in the background during the first few arcs & really makes her debut during the failed Yakuza arc. Potentially she could act as a spy for the heroes. If she does, she’d make a big stink about the god awful fashion choices everyone has (Over//haul especially) and force them to have better matching outfits to show that they’re united.

In terms of a vigilante AU, she’d take inspiration from Stain but take a vigilante route rather than join the League. Her new nickname could be Shade. New design and everything. Depends if I want to make her Gentle’s reluctant apprentice or if I want to go for a somewhat angst route. Heck I need to read Vigilantes to see if she could be found there

[romancable-tabris]

So ideas ideas for new playthrough characters.

DAO - Still City Elf Linnasa (changing her design because the blood of andreste storyline lead to the white hair blue eyes thing when i was younger and while i don't necessarily hate the look doing it for all 3 of my main characters aint cute xD lmaooo

I feel like Linn is still gonna be attracted to pretty much everyone in her party. Still a dual wielding rogue (lets face it its my fave class in DA plus the shape shifting is fun and i miss it. Also who needs a big beefy warrior when thats my boyfriend most times.) Anyway she's gonna be pretty much the same except her hair is gonna be brown, and her eyes are a warm light peachy colour!!!

Then DAII is my Hawke, but I think I'll play him the same as I did before. He also will look different. I played him femme before, but this time it'll be masc just cause it doesn't matter, Hawke is Hawke at the end of the day.

I think I'm changing my main character in DAI though. As much as I love Lanarís she was a mega self insert and imo far too timid to be inquisitor. I was working through some things before. I think now my inquisitor is gonna be a dwarf perhaps... idk yet. I'll know closer to the release of DATV!!

[yourbestpalpercy]

Howdy! So, uh, I found this post again and have decided to remake it as I’m older and have made changes to my opinions so-

1. Oldest Oc: Bouncetrap as I made her before Tesha. Like Tesha though, she’s an old FNAF Oc! She’s also a rabbit but I want to make her either a bat or at least change her name to cut any ties she had with Bouncetrap.

2. Your newest Oc: Depends. I’ve made changes to old characters to the point where they could be considered new Ocs. For now, let’s say the old Armadillo Oc that I changed from a super crappy slasher with two personalities into a knight who cannot move onto the after life named Armadura (Spanish for Armor)

3. Favorite Oc: Ever since returning to these characters, it’s a tie between the new and wacky Greenest and the total party animal Glitch. They both have aspects that I absolutely adore.

4. Any Villain Ocs?: Many! Soul, No Eyes, Glitch, The Blaze, The Tear, Greenest, Silo, Fal Twen (Debating a name change), Kiraly, Tornado (The Sea/Sky Animus Hybrid), Orbweaver (Rain/Silk Hybrid), Iris Lovecake and Joykill

5. Main Reason for Making Ocs: …Idk, I just..make them and decide to revive old ocs.

6. Describe your creation process: It typically starts with me stressing out and listening to music to calm down, slowly, I start to think of animations and I quickly make an Oc.

7. Favorite Ship?: I’m starting this with mentioning that No Eyes and Recaidie are no longer a canonical ship, I realized just a few months ago that it’s a problematic ship (Recaidie is confirmed to be 7 and No Eyes has..no confirmed age) and quickly made it noncanon. Nowadays, my favorite ship is a mix between Greenest x Minty (Mintiest) and Iris Lovecake x Joykill (Iriskill or Joycake).

8. Do you ship your Ocs?: Absolutely. Reread 7 to learn which is my favorite.

9. Weirdest Oc?: Uh…I particularly dislike all of the old ideas for my remade ocs.

10. Favorite character design?: I adore Glitch’s new design with the spots and spikes.

11. Would you consider yourself nice to your Ocs?: Eh, I’d say so.

12. An Oc you’ve killed: Armadura, she’s a ghost. Rebarx is no longer canonically dead.

13. Are any of your Ocs parents?: I actually made Recaidie into Minty’s and Greenest’s daughter so yes.

14. Any neglected Ocs?: ..Neglected how? Anyways, I don’t think so. Maybe Astrid?

15. An oc that’s hard to write?: …Greenest is really hard to write tbh. It’s hard to get his speech correct as he’s rambly and he constantly jumps to talking about other things.

16. Your largest and smallest oc?: The Tear has been made to be the same size as the Gargantuan Leviathan and TamaMimik is still my smallest oc.

17. Your oldest and youngest oc?: The Tear is my oldest (a few millenia old) and TamaMimik is still my youngest.

18. Do you dislike any of your ocs?: …I dislike August tbh. I think I could’ve characterized them better.

19. Have you ever made a self insert?: *Looks at Leaf* (Context, Leaf’s nickname is a real life nickname I have)

20. An Oc Regret?: August

[solivagant-muse]

🌌 MILKY WAY - what was the inspiration behind your oc? what was the first thing you decided about them? - ALL 

Iris: Okay, this is going to be embarrassing to admit, but she was originally going to be a slashersona. That's why her hair looks so similar to my self-insert. Inspired by the movie "eyes without a face". She was also meant to be small and dainty and soft-spoken, and interact with Billy Lenz... 👁👁

But then, after watching Scream for the first time and getting nostalgic for the 90s, I wanted to reverse the slasher formula. Also, after coming across the "slasher dating a novelist prompt," I decided to change everything.

Big, scary woman and small, weak man, and this happened.

-

Finley: Before Finley became, well, Finley, his character design was meant to be for my version of Danny Johnson! After making the change for Iris, I figured she needed a final boy, and after much thinking, I scrapped the idea of making him ghostface and made him his own character.

So Finley, in a way, is ghostface if he wasn't a slasher and instead was a pretty pathetic final boy having a puppy crush on a slasher.

Also, "hold you close/tear you apart by whore_or" was such a big inspiration for him. Hands down, best Danny Johnson version for me.

These are the songs that helped me mold Finley <3

-

Odile: I still wanted a doll-like slasher, and that's what Odile became. Not to mention, I added fairytale components on her and religious imagery, too.

Got big inspiration from Carrie and Martin for her looks and her behavior from Brahms.

This song helped me make her story <3

It fits her perfectly.

-

The Patron: LOOK... I wanted my own version of Gabriel May to play with and fill with subtle horror eroticism, OKAY?

Having an artist want me as his muse? *fans myself*

👉🏼👈🏼😔

WOE, HAVE SOME MORE SONGS.

-

"Alice": LMAO... I love drawing bandaged and unhinged women all the time. This time, I gave a random character a story.

Originally, I wanted to use her to practice making (romance/horror) visual novels... found out I suck at them, lol. Don't know where to start and don't have time now.

Then, considering I wanted a more down to earth story, with crime/mafias, etc I gave her the crime cleaner job.

Also, perfect blue and serial experiments lain gave me inspo for her.

[banana-breadses]

holy shit your object show as a whole sounds so interesting if you woulnd't mind i want to hear more

okie lets go! (long ramble ahead)

My show is called Roll Credits!

plot wise its just your standard object show with challenges eliminations and a huge plot thing later in the season! the characters is where it gets fun ;-)

here are the first drawings of most of the characters. its not the best, but they're all here! lets go in order:

Water Bottle(she/her): Athletic! likes sports and excersise. complete opposite of Towel.

Towel(she/her): Lazy! likes television and sleeping. complete opposite of Water Bottle.

Textbook(he/him): Smart! is a green book! i have since updated his design, and added glasses and some blocks of text on his cover. also BAD AT TALKING

Rubik's Cube(he/him): Organized! basically my younger brother's self insert. dont know much about him but hey he seems cool.

Sugar Cookie(she/her): My girl! love her! first character of them all,an oc before i wanted to make a show. Ive talked all about her before, and I love her <3

Snowflake(he/him): honestly he's the one ive thought the least about. cool guy, really chill(pun intended)

Drum(they/them): Likes music i guess. I love them but all conversations end up in an argument because of the ~transphobic family~

Bowl(he/they/it): Cool guy. also a god. this was drawn before he was a god. doesn't talk i also have an original drawing for God Bowl that i dont really like anymore but if you wanna see it... (more lore to come!)

Bill(he/him): Rich! Bowl's best friend, and talks a lot. makes up for Bowl's silence.

Sunglasses(both he/him): the hosts! individually their names are Sun and Glass. Sun is excitable and energetic, and Glass is a cool guy.

Measuring Tape(she/they): Mom friend? i think? no matter what I am in love with their shape!!! she's so cute!!1

Glow Stick(she/her): rowdy teenager! likes to party and have fun. Her emotions do get really big(like me!) and she changes mood really intensely really quickly.

Flashlight(she/her): Cute girl! love her! she's the youngest of the group. kind to everyone, knows everyone, but doesn't have any real friends. Until now! with compassion she and Glow Stick become good friends :)

Speaker(he/him): didn't have a personality, but now he still doesn't! yknow how Rob in TAWOG forces his way from a background character to the villain? Speaker's kinda like that. doesn't have a personality, but hacks into the settings of the show to give himself one.

Pinecone(he/him):!!!!! the angry one!!!! used to be a criminal. he has been cloned!! and he doesn't really know it. as far as Pinecone knows, he got hit with a sciencey beam and thats it.

Marble(he/him):uuuuhh a last minute addition. dont know much about him. :/

Key(he/him): very calm. Kinda like Candle II. his eyes are always closed because when he opens them theyre so shiny it would blind everyone. why? you'l never know(unless you ask him(he polishes them(with bleach)))

Twig(she/her): TWIG!!!! Love her!!! very soft spoken and loves her leaf. doesn't understand people all the time, but she tries :o)

Mushroom(she/her): the mediator. Likes gardening, and tries to keep her alliance from falling apart.

those are all the main characters! there are a few side characters like the mafia, their parents, and the gods.

okie the mafia:

Coney(he/any): Pinecone's clone. wants to distance themself from him a lot, so he became a criminal! leads a band of friends despicable objects.

Poinsettia(she/her): tries to stay calm. Tall. super cool

Butter Knife(they/them): anxious to all tomorrows. i have never seen them not anxious.

Tie(he/she): chaotic. has maybe killed someone for real......? she wont tell.

honestly the mafia is just Team Rocket level evil, but Coney honestly tries to be bad.

their parents are just a few things ive thought about. Sugar Cookie's parents are Chocolate Chip Cookie and Cake, Rubik's cube's parents are Puzzle and Paint Pallet, and Measuring Tapes parents are Ruler and Tape. Ive come up with more(not all of them).

TAPE!!!! LOOK AT HIM!!! HE IS SO SHAPED!!!

the gods are still a bit of a mystery to me. there are twelve of them, (all dishware) but the only ones that are really important and fleshed out are Bowl and Plate. Plate was Bowl's caretaker when it was young, and after Bowl ran away, she got really depressed and holed up in the gods' realm. they all have varying numbers of eyes and wings.

here's a picture of Plate and a ladle guy i might make a god.

okie those are all the characters! (not even all of them I still havent mentioned Doll or any of the alliances ;))

[regard-me-not]

When I created Naga, one of my dnd 5e characters, the idea was to ignore all the restrictions I usually put upon myself during character creation. I allowed myself to come up with a total mary-sue type self insert purely satisfying oc that had no real baggage or grand designs, just pure aesthetic and vibes. Her goal is to be an adventurer, and she aspires to be a knight even though she's a soulknife rogue who was taught by her assassin mother.

Visually, she's literally made to be picrew-able. She's the daughter of a zany Jeff Goldblum-esque nobleman and his retired assassin shadar-kai wife. She has a magic bracelet that lets her change her hair and eye color. She has 3 fully realized npcs who follow her around at all times fussing over her wellbeing. She rides a fucking purple wyvern named Julia. She traded names with that wyvern - who is also her best friend.

Over the course of the campaign, she had "the prince inside" pulled out of her soul, which manifested as a tiny talking frog with a crown named Prince Frogga. He's the sweetest little guy and loves everyone unconditionally. Also, Naga unlocked the ability to change into a boy "Prince Nagga" form by Swallowing the Frog and Fusing Back Together. And then change back by blepping Prince Frogga back out.

I have so many silly stories and moments to share about her, I could go on for pages. There's no real point to this post other than celebrating this wild child because I'm thinkin about her, but if I were to extrapolate one it'd be a reminder to make your mary-sue self insert characters. The design philosophy behind Naga extends to playing her in-game, too. RPing her whimsical shenanigans is like comfort food for the brain, and sometimes I forget that's kinda what rpgs are about.