#idk what types i really need though i usually build my team based on type match ups... 🤔

[wildflowercryptid]

really debating if i wanna use a new team in kitakami bc i just caught a shiny bellsprout and kinda wanna use her...

[rubys-domain]

I finally got to play tcg with my bf. we'd been talking about doing it for a hecking while. now that it finally happened though... idk if I should be surprised that shoddy internet got in the way (as usual. it's always fucked things up when trying to do things together remotely). which lowered the mood a little bit. and I kept winning because it was literally his first time playing tcg after he did the tutorial like three weeks ago. and I guess I've gotten somewhat decent at deckbuilding at this point. first I used my trusty bennett-fischl-chong deck, then it soon became clear that there was no way in hell he'd win against that team. (he also really wants to use only the chibi characters and monsters, which means he won't be using a lot of the busted cards.) so for the rest of the matches I went with a sucrose-oceanid-kaeya deck. obviously I still put thought into that comp (because I'd feel bad using an actual random bullshit deck — I didn't want to make it look like I was looking down on him or something), but still way easier to beat than the first comp (at least I think it is). but he kept losing to that deck too.

he's definitely not the sore loser type, and he didn't seem all that bummed by not getting a single win. he was pleased that he actually killed one of my characters in the very last game, and he told me in jest that he would "have his revenge" in a rematch someday. I just feel bad for absolutely ripping him to shreds even though I didn't intend to. and because I realized the absolutely massive knowledge gap between us. he just needs to get familiar with what different effects/passives do and how they manifest, and learn the logic behind choosing a team comp (how each character would contribute, what rotation to use, the fact that this game relies on rotations at all, etc.) and choosing action cards for said comp. stuff that he's definitely no stranger to because he plays gwent and loves card games in general. I really do think he can kick my ass in this game; he just isn't familiar with all the things yet. and now I kinda want to think about how I would teach a complete noob how to play tcg. like yeah there's the in-game tutorial that teaches you the basic mechanics, but it doesn't at all teach you how to build an effective deck. you can't just throw big dps's in the same deck and expect to have a good time (flashbacks to when I ran a yae-zhongli-xiao deck to grind proficiency... *shudders*). you either have supports that help your main damage dealer survive and do more damage for big numbers (hypercarry), or you have multiple smaller damage dealers that can buff each other's damage via reactions to consistently chip away at the enemy's health (quickswap). it's very similar to the base game in that respect.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

AIKU AND PROF BIRCH THEY BOTH HAVE THE MF STUBBLE LMFAOOOOOOO

LMAOO no wait that’s so real Karasu being like “maybe *I* need a ground type then I can compete with yuki and show him I’m the man”

Oh yeah huh I didn’t even register that LMAOSJ er anyways HAHAH wait this can be fake death instance #1 Karasu scared shitless like “oh fuck no is she dead where’d she go damn where’s staraptor when I need it” LMAO the way we both thought about the death instance is so funny I hadn’t even read that part of your response yet truly on the same wavelength!! Bro that’s fr me we keep talking about Karasu and I have to keep reminding myself that hes not the love interest in pursuit

LMAOA I imagine them standing outside the base for the abusers or sth getting ready to go in and otoyas like “woohoo a date with nurse joy here I come!” And readers like “we’re so cooked” but in the end they somehow succeed time to cook up what Tullia and Karasu are doing LMAO wait imagine idk like a sorta filler ep moment maybe when you don’t feel like writing/posting something that super central to the main plot and we get the team split up first we see otoya reader then we get a snippet of Karasu tullia LMAO truly dumbass x dumbass chemical reaction there’s no strong duo than that!!! HAHAH another tally already this is so funny maybe he sends his staraptor out like usual but no one can find them fast enough to help them and they’re just like “hey guys!” Cue the “ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE” LMAO

REAL early gen art >>>> im never getting over the scovillain jumpscare it fr haunts me like what the hell is that…

Omg gojo dynamic from pi I agree that was peak (watch me be one of those people swerving to Karasu)

Ok circling back to birch because I saw the separate post first SO REAL ITS REALLY IS GIVING BIRCH??? Bro even his shirt and pants are kinda reminiscent of aiku colors and like I said the fuckass STUBBLE and the vibes just match too well he definitely would get chased into a tree by some runt pokemon LMAOOOOO retired soccer player Aiku is just Prof birch fr

Yeahhh I thought legendaries might’ve been too much which is why I only kinda considered it as a side plot only but when I was thinking of that I fr thought yk zekroms head is kinda giving karasus hair LMAOOO zapdos also gives really strong chigiri vibes but RAYQUAZA I love rayquaza I remember using its mega really often LMAO

Real an iPad is a more convenient size wise also I’m ngl I am a Google office (??) HATER I remember having to move a doc from word to gdocs and the entire formatting got fucked up and I was like what the fuck just happened????? Like the margins and spacings doubled and shit but wtv….i don’t use it unless i have too google sheets is also ASS bro my dumbass just said “wait is pages not on apple comps/macs” then I remembered that you said you have a windows….the way I already forgot that info from like two seconds ago….

JJK BORUTO crying lowk unless the sequel directly address and includes the current characters I probably won’t bother with anything beyond whatever makes it to my social media feeds either

LOOKING FORWARD TO IT aikulations or not I’ll be ready to laugh

YOU DESERVE IT you truly at the goat of goats wait that’s also so cool that’s essentially what I do when I read (except in reverse order) I lowk wonder how many things we imagine are the same (like small details yk) like I have a very clear visual of what the restaurant they sat in looks like and the outside and the parking lot (buildings and architecture are my greatest enemies in terms of drawing and layout though so I fear I won’t be able to draw it out but maybe I can find a similar looking place?? We’ll see LMAO) but yeah that essentially happens whenever I read stories and books too it’s kinda funny when I see cover art for a book and I’m like oh that’s not what I imagined but ok go off

But OMG???? I will keep my eyes peeled fs but if you’re saying it’s something insane it’ll definitely be something where I lose my mind over so now I’m even more curious LOL also that’s so me I definitely unintentionally pass out more than I should only to wake up and be like haha oh shit

LMAOO tiktok please send a hot audio Mira’s way!!! Im still amazed by bfb though 41k is actually insane for a one shot if anything I feel like that just means your next long fic is just gonna be HUGE wait actually speaking of assuming pursuit is like the pi long fic equivalent for bllk where do hollyhock and peregrine fall on the scale? Just kinda curious LOL not sure if you meant for those to be of the same length or if they’re not like long long if ykwim

Also I’d like you to know that right as I was about to hit send i select all’ed (??) this entire ask and almost deleted it I think if that happened I would’ve passed out

- Karasu anon

THE AIKU BIRCH PARALLEL I WAS CRYINGGGG it was too good 😭 the vibes match up SO well too i can just see niko rescuing him with a random starter pokémon so well LMAOAOA niko the true protagonist of pursuit boruto nagiy/n daughter charles and kurona are just side characters in his adventure

okay ykw is hilarious i just checked yuki’s team and he has an electric type too (manectric) so karasu DEFINITELY needs a ground type because of his electric type ptsd 😭 once he gets garchomp and lucario though he honestly has a good shot at beating yuki just in terms of type match ups though…like talonflame easily takes breloom, honchkrow can deal with alakazam, lucario packs up steelix, garchomp beats noivern and manectric, so the only one left is azumarill and ngl i think one of the birds like staraptor or pidgeot has a decent chance against that KFFJDJSJ so at the end of the day karasu does clutch up 🤩

LMAOO the funniest thing is like because she gets deino relatively early (i think it’ll be her third pokémon??? she’ll catch joltik beforehand) none of karasu’s birds have fully evolved yet so he’s just like WHERE IS MY DAMN STARLY in my mind his birds don’t evolve until he runs away because they need that freedom and consistently tough battling to really be pushed into evolution yk?? but no you’re so right pursuit karasu is so ideal man like nagi’s lucky reader brotherzoned karasu immediately or else he’d be in trouble (jk)

LITERALLY bro otoya’s just thinking about how nurse joy will love him after his (she won’t) meanwhile reader’s like yeah we’re done for but somehow they pull it off (probably thanks to joltik aka undisputed goat of reader’s team) but omg imagine it’s like reader and otoya going through hell trying to save all of these pokémon and then the chapter just cuts to tullia and karasu trying on clothes FJSKDJSJ infernape’s getting a massage karasu’s buying treats for starly it’s truly such a contrast 😭 HELP reader and otoya are subject to an entire lecture from karasu afterwards (mostly otoya because reader told karasu it was his fault) they’re just sitting there like niko after the game against team z LMAOAOAOA

IT HAUNTS ME TOO DW I THINK ABOUT IT QUITE FREQUENTLY AND NEGATIVELY HAHAAHA the early gen art with the water color vibe is so pretty though i love it!!

please it’s okay i’m doing my best not to swerve myself 😟 it’s fine though as long as i give a pi gojo vibe to him too it should be okay i hope…like this is our stressed out bird obsessed big brother DJFJSJS we have to lock in and go crazy for nagi fr

okay wait imagine that pursuit is kind of like a prequel to the main games?? in the sense that reader and nagi and all fix training and the perception of trainers so it’s closer to what it’s like in the game series…and then niko is the protagonist of the games themselves (i can def see him w one of the little zygarde cells as well as zygarde itself) with nagiy/n’s daughter, charles, and kurona as the little trio of rivals ☝🏻 nagiy/n’s daughter getting yveltal (taking after her mother in terms of looking sweet but having demonic team members), kurona getting xerneas, and charles getting nothing (him with a legendary is TERRIFYING)

brooo google suite sucks but it’s more convenient than word because i can access it on my phone without any extra effort 😓 so a bit more convenient than word for that reason but it’s so glitchy and annoying that i just switched to pages straight up LMAOAOAOA

i feel like everyone must picture smth different!! especially because i don’t describe settings to the point that it’s very obvious what you’re supposed to be imagining just general vibes yk…i feel like it’s probably based on your prior experiences?? but if you ever draw or find reference images do send them in hehe i will appreciate it 🤩

AAHHH I’M ASSUMING IT LIVED UP TO THE HYPE pursuit drop last night was crazy fr 😰 given that the mini prologue was 2.5k words alone i think we can predict that the word count is going to be insane 😭 peregrine if i had to guess would be in that 80-100k word count range and hollyhock could be more or less than that really depending on how deep i decide to go with the lore and how much of the in between i decide to show!! if that makes sense LMAOO

[nefoe-dd]

SO SMT AU AM I RIGHT GAMERS

I mentioned this in the tags of another post and joked about it in Discord but my brain went brrrr during my last class of the day and now I lowkey have a full plot starting to form lol.

Keep in mind the only Shin Megami Tensei game I’ve played myself is the Nocturne remake, plus I only really remember bits of the plot of 4 and whatever we’ve been given so far of 5 so I’m not super well versed in the series.

Also I’ll add this to the tags too but DSMP Spoilers specifically for the contents of Techno’s Will exist in this post, because that is where the idea for this came from. A lot of other JRPGs have similar plotlines but I specifically thought of SMT because its kind of a meme specifically for that at this point how the plot always seems to have the same type ending bosses. 

Also some spoilers for Shin Megami Tensei IV

ANYWAYS

Now Presenting: An AU where Techno’s Limbo is an SMT Game lol

(Under a ‘Read More’ because it got way ahead of me)

An Introduction to Relevant SMT terminology:

Demons: Makes up a large majority of the characters in the game. They are the enemies that you face in combat, and its possible to recruit them to your team through various means. Some demons exist in the overworld though, and can be talked to normally, they’re chill most of the time, unless you do something to tick them off. ‘Demon’ is not taken literally by the Christian definition, they are based off of various figures in folklore and religion around the world, some are even based on Gods and Angels.

Law vs Chaos: Many SMT games have multiple endings based on these two alignments, along with the neutral alignment. It is usually decided by some important decisions the player makes throughout the game. I’m most aware of the SMT 4 ending, in which the route you are on decides the final dungeon, the character you team with for the ending, and the final boss (its either Satan or the in-game version of God). It’s based off of the traditional interpretation of these two, where Law represents the importance of authority, and Chaos represents the importance of freedom. 

Another note is that a lot of SMT games take place in a post-apocalyptic world of some kind, which, spoiler, is the case here.

General Plot Details and Worldbuilding:

- Techno dies in the prison. The stasis chamber fails and Quackity succeeds in killing him. Permanently. 

- Despite dying, he wakes up again in the main prison cell, but things are different. The lava isn’t blocking the entrance anymore, (in fact there isn’t any lava at all), and he’s alone. Upon peering outside the main cell, he notices a bit of sky peeking through the prison ceiling, like it had been broken into. 

- The drop down to the bottom floor is long, but he’s dead, so he just shrugs and jumps down so he can see what’s going on. Turns out there are several holes in this part of the prison, in fact there are multiple on the ground, likely where the lava had escaped from. (Obviously Minecraft lava specifically doesn’t work like that, I’m pretty sure in the DreamSMP the bottom is all source blocks, but just ignore that bit). 

- He exits from the back wall of the prison, and everything there so far looks normal, except for the fact that there appears to be less trees than normal. Of the trees that are still there, many of them were cut down and never collected, and some appear to have fallen over due to some damage.

- Techno goes around the prison to the front, and that’s when he notices some things that are very wrong. Various parts of the prison, not just the main cell, are also sitting destroyed. Many cracks, scuff marks and full-on chunks are missing on the walls. The usual entrance which houses the nether portal is hardly still standing, and he can see straight into the main lobby where the portal would lead into once you were let through. 

- The surrounding areas are not much better. Tommy’s outpost is toppled over in the distance, only the base and bottom floor are left standing. The tents near the beach are collapsed and destroyed, the only remnants of one of them is a small piece of fabric ripped from the main bit and laying on the ground. Skeppy and Badboyhalo’s mansion is crumbling where it stands, half of the back wall and ceiling are gone. And that’s only what’s visible from here. 

- The rest of the server is also in various states of destruction, the spawn walls are hardly left standing, the main nether portal area is covered in potholes, none of the portals are active. The prime path is rotted and broken in most areas, the buildings along it are not faring much better than the ones he’d seen before. And the further he gets away from the prison, the more the plants themselves appear to be dead or dying. 

- L’manburg’s crater looks much the same as it once did right after its destruction, albeit with more debris at the bottom which had fallen from the sides as they slowly eroded. The flag at the bottom is torn up and discoloured, honestly its hardly recognizable. The nature that had finally begun to reclaim the land has slowly been dying instead over time, and the bridge overtop has completely collapsed. The only thing still standing, is the ever present obsidian grid that looms over it in the sky. He supposes that whatever disaster had caused this wasn’t able to reach that high up, or that it was at least in part done by someone that liked the way it looked. Not that there seems to be a need for the reminder anymore. 

- Something something, he finds out DreamXD is here, and that he might have had something to do with how this world looks. And as much as it shouldn’t matter in the afterlife, he did promise Phil he would be killing God sooooo he goes on a mission to do just that. He can do pretty much anything now that he really doesn’t have to worry about dying, so why not. He has no reason to care about some God, especially when they’re the only ones left.

- Some DSMP people hang around the world and are represented by certain demons, the mostly chill ones that kinda just hang around in the apocalyptic scenery. They don’t recognize him, it isn’t really the people he knows after all, but they are willing to talk to him since they can tell he isn’t human either. He learns little bits of what happened through them, and learns where DreamXD resides, that being one of the strongholds that’s a bit further out. 

- Unfortunately, due to the portals being inactive, and his inability to break anything efficiently, or even at all, he has to travel using the overworld. Along the way he manages to speak to some others, this allows him to better locate where the God is, although it doesn’t seem to be hiding out. He even sees it sometimes flying around, which he uses to follow where its hiding. 

- Some of the random demons he runs into recognize that he’s not supposed to be here (according to them at least), so he has to fight his way through them. Luckily, many of the friendly demons that he talks to end up tagging along in order to help, thus making up a team he can use to get through them instead.

 - There’s probably a demon that seems to resemble Phil somewhere, living alone (alone for so so long) away from everyone in an arctic house perhaps. If I wanted to really up the angst, the demon takes a liking to Techno right away, which is partly how Techno is able to tell its him so quickly. The more they talk, the more Techno realizes how lonely the Phil he knows must be without him there, how upset he’d be once he reads the will and finds out what happened to him. Thus he’s more motivated to, you know, fight God, in an attempt to figure out what the hell happened. (DXD is the only entity existing here that also exists where he’s from, he can guess pretty easily that maybe, just maybe, they are one and the same). Thus, he is given a choice that he knows he will have to make in the future. 

- Eventually he manages to find the stronghold and comes face to face with DreamXD himself. DreamXD is just kinda chillin there, they fight, through DreamXD doesn’t seem to be putting in too much effort, almost like it does not want to win. 

- Techno wins (duh), and he is left with a choice, a choice to finish the job, or spare the god and allow it to go free. And, well, he feels that he doesn’t really have the right to decide whether it lives or dies, and while its possible that DreamXD caused whatever disaster created the current state of the world, but he doesn’t know that for sure. DreamXD has done nothing this whole time he’s been here, and its done nothing to him or his companions.

- He chooses to leave it alone, and DreamXD seems to know that it was always going to end that way. 

- DreamXD disappears, and Techno wakes up in the cell again post-revival, the prison and the world around it is the same as he remembers

(I don’t remember the exact real-world to limbo time difference but I imagine that it felt like, a day, maybe half that, while irl it was only a few minutes to an hour.)

Some other notes/details:

- The other possible ending would have resulted in Techno killing DreamXD and being given ANOTHER choice to take its power over the world, or just leave and stay there forever. Basically DreamXD’s existence is vital to the power of the revival book, and it’s death would have resulted in Dream not being successful in his revival attempts. Obviously we have no idea how the powers actually work yet, but I just came up with an explanation because I thought it would be interesting. You can decide on your own which of these endings fall into Law, Chaos or Neutral because uh, its complicated given the scenario. You can also decide if letting DreamXD live even fits into his character! Idk! But its not like DreamXD’s being oppressive by any means, not that there’s anyone to oppress here anyways. That’s my logic anyways.

- I don’t know what demons would represent specific people, I’d like to use one of the Angels for Phil but the Demons based on Angels usually have an important role in the plot that is in line with the Law alignment and like, protecting god or whatever, so no. There are a couple bird ones but idk if they fit the vibe, idk it could work, I’d have to look at a list if I want to go into this further.

- I kinda want Eret to be an Inugami because it’s body does that thing that ferret’s do when they’re all stretched out :) The only reason I’m hesitant is because Inugami is a dog, and Goose deserves representation.

- The reason I imagined for why Techno can’t break anything is because the mining fatigue lasted throughout this because he died with it, it’d get in the way of fighting too but at least it isn’t weakness, and he’s not alone either.

Uhhhhh that’s it for now I think!

(will potentially add to this if I figure something else out in the future)

[eldritchdraaks]

Here is a more comprehensive explanation of this whole anime pilot dream I had, but without the frantic writings of a man who just woke up from said dream.

(If you didn’t see the last post, I had a very vivid dream about a short anime pilot and I’ve been hyper-fixated since.)

The world is close to your average modern setting seen in most down to earth anime, but with a BNA, Beastars, Amazing World of Gumball kind of spin to it. Plenty of humans, plenty of other creatures that share ancestry with flora and fauna of earth, and even some robots, but nothing is of the supernatural. things are about as peaceful as regular earth, so yeah there is racism, but it's not the theme being explored here. Other similar settings have done the racism theme better. This is more in line with a happier District 9. A more specific city setting would be like a gentrified urban downtown.

The main character whom I've dubbed Bug Guy since my dream didn't come with any names, starts out as human. You never get a good look at what Bug Guy looks like before his transformation. It's always back of the head or neck down shots of him, but you know he's human, there's no doubt about it. He has no family, no friends, and hardly any social life. His only drive is pursuing his career in music. His talent is EDM, because why not. He has a laptop with all his tech on it. Despite being a loner, he knows he must branch out and collaborate to get his name out there and start making profits. There's a local studio he wants to hit up where a Music Group of a few young twenty somethings often hangout and record, as well as take lessons and give them. It's whatever floats down there. 

The leader of this group is a tall blonde girl, white or white passing. She wears a red visor and her hair in a ponytail from the top of her head, and it sticks up like a paint brush. She wears a white button up polo, plaid-patched black jeans, and has a guitar case over her shoulder, since she plays guitar.

His encounter with the Mafia-type group is a wrong place, wrong time scenario. After a good first impression down at the studio and introducing himself to the Music Group, Bug Guy takes a train to a darker part of the city to visit his favorite café. It's not much but he likes how quiet and empty it usually is during certain hours. However he doesn't make it to the café. Mafia is doing a heist and they derail the train in order to crash it into a building as it’s passing. Might be a bank or lab or government facility, that's undecided, but the people are the train who survive the crash need to be disposed of, since they were witnesses.

Now, the Mafia group (dubbed Bug Mafia by one of my friends) is just a group of shady people, like the evil teams from Pokémon. They're doing some shady shit and they can't have any witnesses or otherwise getting in the way. I'm not entirely sure why or how, but the best way to achieve this goal is to transform Bug Guy into a strange bug thing not based on a specific insect. Alternatively, it's a made up rare species. 

The reason he can be transformed is because all non-human people are humanoid, and thus have DNA relating to humans. So, a human's DNA can be altered to become a creature. Yep, that's my reasoning; Deal with it. 

Mafia don't really care how they get rid of the witnesses, and changing Bug Guy into a bug was probably just incidental, something related to their work or the heist and they think it worked out in their favor. Probably think they killed a human and there was an unrelated bug person looking 'dead' on the ground. Whatever the case, Bug Guy remembers nothing about the crash or what came after.

Bug Guy wakes up in the morgue because bug people are notoriously difficult to declare alive or dead, maybe. IDK anything about insects. His realization/freak-out doesn't come ‘til he gets home, because nothing about his situation sets in until he can see himself in the mirror. However he doesn't believe he's doomed or his life is over. He gets over it fairly quickly and chooses to resign himself to this fate. His partial amnesia isn't helping either, because at times he's not sure if he ever was a human. Are his memories lying to him? Looking at old pictures helps, but they always include his family and friends, and it just makes him hurt. He's pretty sure he was human, but he always needs to be reminded, grounded to reality.

So from there on he tries to live his life as normally as he did, dressing the same, acting the same, etc. of course after a few days he'd figure out his anatomy is all different, he needs different hygiene routines, and a new nutritional diet. He's been getting sick from eating the same old food he always used to. 

Bug Guy goes to the studio, gets some strange looks, and meets with the Music Group. They don't recognize him, and there's a back and forth of misunderstandings before Bug Guy uses his one braincell to tell them that he is the guy from before. The group, notably the leader, are stunned. From there the Music Group pledge to help him get through his current crisis, even though he doesn't want any help. But nah, they want to help and that's how they make him their friend. Bug Guy learns to open up again and appreciate having people in his life again. They help him find out what happened to him and go up against Mafia and that's kind of all I have. 

By the end, Bug Guy is DEFINITLY stuck as a bug, but it would be built up enough that you'd think he'd get his human form back, only for hope to be ripped away at the end. Coming to terms that he would be a bug for the rest of his life is a good way for him to close the chapter on the old him, the loner that cut himself off from everyone when his family died. He's a new person now. 

And he vapes sugar water!

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Alright HERE WE GO...SOME PRESS!

By which I mean, Tom King was on ComicPop discussing Supergirl! So we have CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND INFO! WOO!

Gonna get into it below, but my recommendation, as always: the best way to have an informed opinion is to get the info firsthand, so don’t just take my word for it! Go forth! Watch the thing! (Language advisory, though. There is some swearing.)

Okay. With that out of the way, LET’S GO!

Gonna lead off with a summary of the Supergirl bits, as they discuss a variety of things, from Strange Adventures to Batman/Catwoman to the canned New Gods project:

How Tom King came to be the writer of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow:

King’s longtime editor, Jaime Rich, was moved from the Bat books to the Super books. 

King, historically, likes to take on characters that ‘need help.’ He cites the example of Kirby who, upon coming to DC, asked what their lowest-selling title was, which is how he ended up on Jimmy Olsen.

So, when King asks which character needs help, Rich, to King: Supergirl. We have trouble selling that book.

King, describing Supergirl: ‘She’s singular in a way Mr. Miracle and Vision are not.’ Says that if you ask any four year old who Supergirl is, they know.

Editors asked him, ‘what’s your take? what are you gonna do with her?’

King then discusses the difference between his approach to Bat people vs. Super people.

Bat people: It’s a deconstruction approach. King brings up Kite Man from his Batman run. You tear the character down and build them back up, a la Dark Knight Returns

Super people: It’s not about deconstruction. Let them be themselves. They’re wonderful, let them be wonderful. 

But he does mention sort of stripping down the character to their purest form; he describes it as chiseling off the barnacles that have built up on the character, over the years.

Additionally, he says ‘evil doesn’t work for the Super family of characters.’

He mentions Superman: Up in the Sky. He says that there’s deep stuff in Up in the Sky, but the theme of every page is simply: Superman is awesome.

King: “I don’t want to make Kara mean or sad. I want to test her.”

The host compares ‘angry Kara’ stories to ‘evil Superman’ stories in that there are many of them, such to the point that people think Kara is relatable because she’s miserable and angry all the time. 

The host: I don’t get that.

(Same dude, same.)

King talked to Steve Orlando

They discussed the fact that Supergirl knew her planet; the people who died were her friends, family, classmates.

King summarizes Kara’s original Silver Age origin: she witnessed three huge, traumatic losses of life. First, when Krypton exploded. Then again when the Kryptonite started killing Argo residents, and then again when the meteorites destroyed the lead shielding that was keeping Argo safe. 

King: “That’s some f-ing trauma! I don’t know if you’ve read my books, but I love the trauma in characters.”

King thus describes Kara as world-weary, she swears, ‘she has seen some sh*t’.

On the new character, Ruthye:

She’s a child on a vengeance quest.

She’s named after King’s niece, Ruthie.

The pronunciation for the comic character, though, is Ruth-Eye.

One of his sons told him to add the ‘e’ on the end to make it look cooler.

Further discussion of Kara herself:

King noted that there’s sometimes a tendency to be very precious with the character.

King: ‘Let’s not be precious with Supergirl.’

This is not the story of a sixteen-year-old girl discovering the world; King says that Supergirl has been that sixteen-year-old for a long time now.

He describes it more as a move from Supergirl to Superwoman.

Art and Influences:

Talking about the red sun planet that Kara visits for her twenty-first birthday, King says he was reading a lot of Conan, which influenced the look of that portion of the story.

The impetus for getting Evely on the book: King said his editor emailed him, ‘Hey, how about Bilquis?’ King: “And I did a happy dance!”

Evely sent King a mood board of the types of things she wanted to draw; Moebius, Kirby, Wally Wood, landscapes in particular. 

Also, King says Evely is fast! She’s already halfway through the book, art-wise, and King is confident the book will release on time.

The host asked him, following up on King’s description of the book as a fantasy/western, ‘Is this True Grit?’

King: “It’s True Grit inspired. The novel AND the movie.”

If asked to give the Hollywood pitch: ‘It’s True Grit in space with Supergirl as Rooster Cogburn.’

Details about this book, as compared to Other Tom King titles:

He’s using captions on this comic--he’d thrown out captions as a storytelling device after Batman, but he found a ‘good voice’ for this comic.

King was prepared to do his usual twelve issues, but they said no one buys Supergirl comics, so it’s eight issues.

King says that Strange Adventures, Rorschach, and to a lesser extent, Batman/Catwoman, were written at a time when the world felt very apocalyptic.

He considers them to be angrier books; they are about what happens when evil is in our life, and how we deal with that.

Supergirl is the start of the ‘next generation’ of titles. 

It was written during the pandemic, but King hoped that by the time it was released, the pandemic and this very dark time in our history would be past.

He says it’s a ‘roaring 20s’ book. Not about anger, or trauma, it’s about stepping into the future and kicking a**. 

THUS CONCLUDES the Supergirl portion of the interview. 

Okay, so! Now that we’ve been objective and presented the information in a straightforward, unbiased manner...SOME THOUGHTS AND OPINONS!

The thing I was most curious about was how King got the book, so I was EXTREMELY PLEASED to get the full story.

This wasn’t like. King desperately wanting to do a Supergirl book, nor was it DC coming to King like, ‘Take Supergirl!’

Sadly, it was, ‘which book needs the most help right now? In the Superman lineup?’

He even said that Supergirl was kind of just sitting around, no one was doing anything with her/there were no plans.

(So the idea that King stole this opportunity from a woman is not true. There were NO PLANS.)

(Also it’s not based on the FS stuff, I suspect they gave the FS team some ideas from his pitch to work with, as that entire event was sort of a stop-gap/fill-in as they hurried to relaunch their line.) 

Anyways!

My initial thought that this is DC’s attempt to sell some dang Supergirl books? Not that far off! XD

Boy, I hope it works.

(Important to note: This is not news. Supergirl has historically always sold poorly. I’ve heard from actual Supergirl writers that the trades do not sell, which is a huge problem.

So King, who is KNOWN for having really good trade sales, is as solid a gamble as they could probably hope for.

He said Superman: Up in the Sky is his third best-selling trade. A WAL-MART BOOK! Is just behind Vision and Mr. Miracle!

Basically: If this doesn’t work, I don’t know that anything will.) 

As for the specifics of King’s take in particular!

Again...I really want to see it, before I pass judgement on it.

I liked the Andreyko run! And that was pretty edgy! 

Also, we have never seen a twenty-something Kara, post-Crisis. She’s always been a teenager. Thus I’m pretty willing to go along with this approach because it’s entirely new territory.

And it does seem like King is enjoying leaning into the idea of a Super who swears and kicks butt and is just a little ‘done’ with it all.

It might not mesh with my ideal Kara but again. I need to see it, before I come to any firm conclusions. 

Honestly the thing that gives me the most pause? Is that King says this book really focuses on Supergirl, not Kara, which is a more recent identity for her.

(That is somewhat true! The ‘Kara Danvers’ identity is wholly new to the show; she’s always been Linda Lee, Linda Danvers, Kara Kent, or Linda Lang, when she has a secret identity. Sometimes she doesn’t.)

(Also of note: Tom pronounces it ‘Care-a’, like the cartoon.)

(PERSONALLY I like KAHr-a, like in the show, because it creates a phonetic consistency with ‘KAHl-el’ but that’s not really relevant to a comic book. You can mentally pronounce it however you choose! XD)

So, yeah, I like the Kara Danvers part of her identity, I like earth-bound Supergirl stories, but. This isn’t that. Which I’ll need to make peace with, I guess. XD

Otherwise? Tell me a story, Mr. King. Even if I hate it, Evely will draw it beautifully, Lopes will color it masterfully, and that’s half the battle, right there. 

I’m sad King didn’t mention the Gates/Igle run! But I also understand he’s probably been looking at more recent stuff; those Gates/Igle comics are fifteen years old, oh man, oh geez, how are they that old already.

King did confirm that this is 100% in-continuity, and will affect the character going into the future.

But, IDK, given the sort of. Grim beginnings of how this book came to be, what with the reminder that the Supergirl title doesn’t sell well...who knows what the future will look like, for Kara!

I stand by my guess that Kara will graduate to ‘Superwoman’ and the Supergirl mantle will pass to someone else, maybe Ruthye? She might be a bit young, though.

Mmm. What else, what else?

Oh, this is pretty funny, IMO: when King first teased the new character, Ruthye, a bunch of SG fans rushed to google to see if there was any clue as to like. What it could mean.

And they freaked out over some obscure connection where that name appears but hey, turns out! It’s just a made up name! Based on King’s niece!

It’s funny because SG fans never learn, man. Just chill out, read the dang book, then get all upset and huff and puff and blow your twitter house down.

They briefly mentioned the Peter David run; King said the PAD stuff was great.

He’s already teased that ‘treat’ and, okay. Time for some rumination on that specifically.

I’ve read the whole PAD run. It wasn’t my cup of tea, I don’t really like the DnD, angels and demons stuff. Also, it wasn’t Kara; it’s an entirely different character who uses the name ‘Supergirl.’

Also, stuff from that run didn’t age well.

And on top of that, PAD turned out to be...kind of a jerk! As so many folks in the comic industry are.

There’s also...an extremely weird, mean-spirited vibe through the whole back half of the run; I thought maybe I was imagining it at the time, but I recently went back to “Many Happy Returns”, the final story arc of the title, and David’s introduction in the trade...it doesn’t read like a guy who was in it for the love of the character, you know?

All of which to say! I’m not excited about connections to the PAD stuff. 

But I know a lot of fans who love that run, love that version of the character.

So like. Eh! Not for me, but to the folks who enjoy it, I hope it’s cool/fun, whatever it is.

(Still think it’ll be a variant or an easter egg or something, but we’ll see.)

(Oh, hmmm! Evely *did* post a WIP of like. Some creepy skull gate that they presumably encounter...hmmmmm.)

Okay, this is crazy long, and there’s no fun art or anything to go with it--OR IS THERE?!?!?!

BOOM. From Bilquis Evely’s twitter today. (GO. FOLLOW. HER. FOR THE GOOD ART.)

(LIKE!!! I look at this and I just! Can’t! Bring myself to not be hyped as all heck! LOOK AT THIS! AND iT’S JUST THE PENCILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

God, wish that Supergirl sold better, so we could get a full year of this. HNNNNGGGGGGG.

Oh! That was another thing King discussed in detail; that 8 is way different from his usual 12, in terms of pacing and story. The beats fall at different places (obviously) so it was a bit of a challenge for him.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it...maybe 8 will be good. Issue 10 just dropped for Strange Adventures, and wow, it has felt LONG. (I mean, the last four? Three? issues are also bi-monthly so that doesn’t help but. Still.)

(Superman: Up in the Sky was twelve issues but half the length, because it was a Wal-Mart book, so it was more like six.)

OKAY! For real, I’ve gone on long enough. XD 

SOON. Soon. June 15th, to be exact. Mark yer calendars!

[windblooms]

I saw you giving advice and I hope you can maybe help me? I dont usually play this style of game so I'm not used to building teams (I mean with Pokémon I barely used stat boosts/field moves. Just tried to cover all types with STAB). Ultimately I'd like to have Keqing, Xiao, and Diluc (if he ever comes home sob) on my team. I currently have Qiqi and kind of building Ningguang to use her shield powers, but idk what to do or if I should replace anyone? I like to play based on (p1)

(p2) characters I like but because of that I'm not sure if I'm accidentally using too many dps characters, idk what I'm doing with support, etc... I'm so lost lol. Should I replace anyone? Or just get nice artifacts/buffs to make them too strong so it doesn't matter (is that even possible?)? I'm all over the place sorry but I was also considering going for Venti and Zhongli if he gets a rerun. Thanks for any help! 😣

hi there!  what i’m going to say is based off of my experience of the game (playing since october, currently ar55).  feel free to dismiss this advice if it doesn’t vibe with you!!  it’s ultimately your game and i’m only trying to give guidelines, but if you should enjoy this game the way you want.

also, anon who asked for albedo dps, im working on it rn!!  i just don’t own him so i need to read up more than usual.

SHOULD YOU REPLACE ANYONE?  i don’t see any problem with having keqing, xiao, qiqi, diluc (when he comes home to you) and ning on the same team or rotating in and out in overworld.  it sounds like you’re a new-ish player, so i don’t think you’re in spiral abyss yet - and if you are in spiral, definitely in later levels, you shouldn’t organize your teams this way.  as you progress more and more throughout genshin (i’d say starting ar45), you’re going to need to focus on strategic team comp more, get used to switching out characters for abilities and comboing, etc.  so my answer to this question is that, if you’re below ar45, you shouldn’t stress about being particular with overworld team comp.

but if you want my recommendation for overworld?  i don’t know which characters you have right now, so i’ll just name teams (of 4star characters) that i think would suit keqing, xiao, and diluc.

team keqing:  keqing, beidou, xinyan, diona. 

team xiao:  xiao, razor, diona, bennett.

team diluc:  diluc, xingqiu, sucrose, diona. 

DON’T BUILD NINGGUANG AS A SHIELDER.  i don’t think building ningguang for her shields is an efficient use of her abilities; ning is inherently made as a dps character, and all of her abilities are offensive, with her screen serving dual purposes as offensive and defensive.  molding all of her potential (normal attack, skill, burst) into a different role than initially designed will take more resources and you will make this an extra challenge for yourself.  if you want a shielder, why not try noelle, or diona, or xinyan?  they all have build-in shields that are more instantaneous and flexible than going out of your way to make ningguang a full support. 

shield strength made from geo interactions scales off of the elemental mastery of the character the shield is on.  think about this for a bit: shields made from geo crystals are the most effective when they match the element of the attack being dealt towards your character.  but this assumes that you can pick up that element to react with geo in the first place, which is impractical, considering that the only common enemies that have elements on them are abyss mages and whopperflowers - and even then, whopperflowers don’t generate those elements all the time on themselves.  so if you continue to build ningguang as a shielder, i’d say around 80% of the time in overworld, you won’t be making effective shields and are stunting her damage-dealing capabilities (because shielder ning would be stacked with elemental mastery instead of attack). 

USING TOO MANY DPS CHARACTERS?  again, this isn’t a problem in overworld.  in later adventure ranks, you’ll start realizing though that you won’t need the majority of your current team to be dps/damage-oriented.  practically, why would you load all of  your sources on damage when all of that damage isn’t necessary?  (that was just what i myself came to realize as well around ar40, so personal opinion right there.)  overworld is very lax though, so again i will stress, no need to fuss over team-comps in overworld.  

MAKE THEM TOO STRONG SO IT DOESN’T MATTER?  in overworld, yes, it is possible to do this.  you can absolutely solo-character-carry yourself with buff units, assuming you get good artifacts.  but i really, really would recommend you not focus on artifacts until around ar40+, and then start getting picky with them after ar45+.  this is because the endgame goal is to get all 5star artifacts for your main characters, since they provide the highest stats.  you are guaranteed at least one 5star artifact per level 90 artifact domain run starting at ar45, so if you try farming for them beforehand, a lot of your resin will be wasted.

on the off chance that you’re attempting hardcore spiral, i’ll put this here: in spiral, the logic “make them too strong [off of artifacts] so it doesn’t matter” flies straight out of the window.  you cannot solo-character-carry yourself through the later floors of spiral, especially floors 9-12.  not putting this next bit into boast, but just instead to prove my point: both my keqing and xiao (my main dps characters) have over 200% crit damage and over 55% crit rate, with over 1,800 attack each.  keqing has a maxed normal attack (level 10) and xiao has his ultimate maxed (level 10 as well).  both have, essentially, pay to play weapons.  i still get my ass kicked on floor 11.  

so, no, unless you are a whale, you can’t solo-character-carry yourself through spiral abyss.  in later spiral floors, you will need to get used to switching between characters, and building supportive characters like sucrose, bennett, xingqiu, diona, etc.  

VENTI OR ZHONGLI?  venit is broken in overworld.  he’s so accessible in co-op as well that i’m tempted to say venti > zhongli.  however, for spiral abyss floors 9-12, zhongli will actually be more useful than venti because venti’s ultimate won’t pick up the monsters in those floors, which is all he is practically useful for.  so from a practical, midcore/hardcore standpoint, i would recommend zhongli over venti for spiral. 

long answer, whew.  let me know if i can help with anything else!

[j-mysticalien]

🔫 the oc content, hand it over /lh

you don’t have to if u don’t want to lol I just saw you said something about ocs and 👀 I am interested

FIRST OF ALL 🥺🥺🥺

SECOND OF ALL OKAY OKAY HERE TAKE IT 

(I ended up dumping a lot ... I saw the opportunity and ran with it I didn’t mean to oops)

These guys have been in my head for y e a r s and even though I'll abandon them for months at a time, there are plot points I've forgotten, it’s very very unfinished, and clearly influenced by my freshman year interests, they're some of my favorites to imagine and write like every time I do a picrew chain or something I make them too for myself okay okay-

So. Exposition. For ages the demons and dark things have slipped between the veil and into the world. As evil rises, so do those who stand against it. In some parts of the world The Order was established not to eradicate or wage war against the demons, just to keep everything in their proper dimensions and destroy those who refuse. Members of the Order work in groups with assigned roles, often passed down generations. 1: trained in the physical aspects of fighting creatures, they have the unique and mysterious ability to survive in the other dimension-at least better than the average mortal. 2, “Alchemist”: Usually a witch, human descendant of a magical being, or a particularly skilled mortal even. they provide the magical aid since the other cannot perform magic themselves. (Though Witches tend to form their own communities or work with the demon realm which historically has caused tensions) While fewer and well hidden, this secret society guards the mortal realm to this day... 

There’s a small, quiet town in the northeast. Nothing much happens- the power may go out or the weather may turn within seconds and figures may appear and shift into the shadows but it all turns out fine eventually. Nothing to worry about. But those who know a  little too much know where to go when things need to be taken care off. Bloom’s Florist and Garden Shop, a sweet little store in the middle of town staffed by the owner’s two teenaged kids. They’ve got a lovely selection of flowers and herbs. If you hear noises from their basement, best to ignore it. If you see the kids sprinting down the street, best to stay out of their way. If they tell you to avoid the woods one night, you listen...

OCS MY BELOVED HERE THEY ARE

 Dante Achilles Sindweller. He is type 1.  He’s tall, thin but muscular, almost dangerously pale. His hair is blue, eyes blue though they sometimes look red. Riddles with piercings and pale scars. Cocky bastard but well deserved. Friendly and deadly all at once. He’s good at what he does and is always up for a challenge. Low key high key losing his sense of humanity. You see actually being in the demon dimension is draining because of the pure chaos of it but returning to reality is rough too. Because of the hunter’s ability (I’m pretty sure they have this ability bc the og demon hunters secretly fucked a bunch of demons so Hunters have demon blood and cannot “die” in the hell dimension but idfk at this point) they can adapt to the word with a combination of demonic attributes and idealized forms that disappear when he gets back. So um the mental toll is very much a thing that he hides very well...at least at first. He doesn’t actually have to travel too often thought, just during emergencies and later he genuinely visits some chill demon friends there.

Cordelia Emerys Bloom, “Cordie”. 5′2″, dark brown skin, black hair she keeps in two short braids, round rimmed glasses. She’s the alchemist. a few of her far off ancestors were fae. Her own magical battery is low so she’s become skilled in working with. potions and magical plants. She’s the most serious member. of the trio. She knows the job, she has a rhythm, she doesn’t like change. This group had three braincells and 90% of the time she has all of them. She likes her plants, her books, and Dante. She’s a little high strung and stubborn but she’s clever, intelligent, and really warm person once you get past her shields. She grew up way too fast and with all her adult figures gone, Dante slowly slipping (though she denies it to the point where Alice bright it up and they didn’t talk for a week), and this irritation turned fear that Alice’s presence is temporary leaves her with some issues but it’s okay im determined to let her be happy, she just has to let herself accept happiness.

Alice Barnet. A witch. Thick, bright red  hair, hazel/ blue eyes. Absolutely stunning. and a fashion icon. She moved to attend to uppity private school right outside of town. She stumbled upon the shop and immediately sensed the great power hidden in there. So she just walked in- because of the dimensional portal not because the girl at the register she saw through the window was so pretty what are you talking about it was witch instinct only- and announced herself and offered her services. She’s a flirt, though a sincere one. She projects a confident, fun vibes even if she doesn't actually feel it. Fake it until you make it I guess. Coffee addict will memorize your birth chart, Starbucks order, and all the little behavioral things. Most of my early drabbles with her involve her sitting on Cordie’s desk sipping her iced coffee while Cordie is like “how tf did you get in here” “good question. Better one: they didn’t have the black tea you like is green okay?” She actually is part of an informal coven but that’s a whole side story with its own cast of characters I haven’t touched in ages

Dynamics dynamics so Cordie and Dante are siblings in all but blood, they’ve been together for almost their entire lives. (Cordie’s parents are almost always away-either on Order business or just vibing idk they’re cool though. Dante’s parents are dead but only Dante himself seems to know that-Something about demon blood and dimension hopping doesn’t let their kind live long) They’re really close. If they met at this point in life they probably would never have been friends and Cordie probably would despise him but as they are they love each other and *know* each other. Technically Dante is older but Cordie is the eldest sister of the relationship.

The two of them have opposite reactions when Alice enters their life. (This entrance is one of the few *full* scenes I actually wrote down) Dante is allured-not by her but by the potential adventure she represents. She states her case and he’s like oh this’ll be interesting. They become best friends almost instantly. Their sass, confidence, and more adventurous sides click harmoniously- much of the time to Cordie’s dismay. To Cordelia, Alice is something unknown, something potentially dangerous. She makes her assumptions (prissy, incompetent, entitled, inexperienced) and tolerated her. Alice has had a crush on her since day 1. She was determined to prove herself to the group and really she’d just like to get her trust and friendship at some point, gushy feelings be damned. They fall in love slowly, they learn to trust and be weak and learn to know each other and be themselves Alice is genuinely interested in all the stuff Cordie knows about the magical world and Cordie gets to try to be a person outside of that world. The recent stuff I’ve actually written down involves a lot of sleepy conversations and whispered confessions and soft touched and hhh

Some of the non-human characters

“Lady”: the ghost that haunts the basement/ Order base. She can’t really speak and isn't always visible, never fully. They don’t know who she was or why she’s there. She helps out when she can though. Might help Dante in the very end. 

All of the actual demons are off ideas. Like each deadly sin has it’s own demon (they didn’t realize some humans had grouped them together for some time but they think it’s funny, sometimes they hang out just because of that) The gang doesn't directly meet a lot of them but 

Curiosity aka “Apple” aka “Heather” aka “Bee”aka...:The spark that fuels innovation ne the spiral of a downfall. frequently visits human world, team switches between stopping them from blowing up a building to playing Mario kart together. Like he definitely causes trouble and should not keep escaping through the portal but like...he’s fun to got to the mall with. Funky Lil dude who’s there for a good time and some chaos. Changes aliases all the time.

Nostalgia aka “Honey-Lavender”: the kind that leaves the ghost of a smile on your face, the kind that drowns you in the past, the kind that makes you want to go back, or forget. mostly stays in hell. One of the demons Dante visits and is acquainted with. They lay and talk. She can be a downer but he doesn’t mind, he appreciates the company and some days she keeps him tethered to his life and sanity (on the bad says she has the opposite effect, she can’t help it)

OKAY AHAHA THATS ENOUGH OUT OF ME THERE THEY ARE THANKS

[themilky-way]

paris {s.r}

gif credit: sincerelycalum on tumblr

pairing: spencer reid x female! reader

summary: while working on a case in paris, you and spencer realize that there may be more to your friendship than you think. how long until the city of love casts a spell on you? based on this song.

warnings: none i think it’s just fluff  (like everything I write lol)

author’s note:  this long af bc this was supposed to be a series and this would’ve been the second part but the first one i posted didn’t do well lmao. so instead, just enjoy this one shot and maybe i’ll post the first one again if u guys want but idk. also we a lil bold in this fic bc we love confident queens

grabbing your go bag and cell phone from the charging port, you quickly made your way to the jet that was already waiting for departure. the team was ready to make their way to paris, france on a case for a serial killer that migrated from california. it had been difficult for everyone, considering the unsub wasn’t leaving much evidence. 

despite it being for work, you and the team were excited to explore one of the most beautiful cities in the world. if you thought about it, it was kind of like killing two birds with one stone: the opportunity to finally catch a gruesome killer and a vacation. morgan was practically shaking with anticipation as he kept getting up from his seat and bothering garcia every five minutes and then going back. 

“just think about it, baby, all the smokin’ hot people we’re gonna meet. I mean, it’s called the “city of love” for a reason!” derek rambled to penelope as she typed away rapidly on her computer. 

“this isn’t a vacation, sugar, but yes I’m aware of all the potential babes we might encounter. and for that, I prepared another bag,” she giggled as derek started to laugh along with her. he raised his hand to high five her and she lifted hers too, lightly patting it. 

“oh you’re bad bad aren’t you,” he laughed, and they both continued to talk too rapidly for the others to understand. meanwhile, you had grabbed your seat next to emily and right across from you was spencer. you and emily were talking about god knows what, the range going from guessing the types of desserts paris had to perhaps renting a motorcycle for your stay. the banter between the both of you was endless, and you even started watching a french movie to get some pointers on the language. 

between the jokes and wondering remarks, you didn’t really notice that spencer was observing you the whole time. sure, he could play it off as if he were judging both of his coworkers for their lack of knowledge on french culture and linguistics, but he wasn’t really doing that, was he? no, in fact, he was watching you in such depth, the way he’d look at the pages of a book, and taking in every aspect that you had to present. he was, in the most simplest way it can be described as, mesmerized.

the day spencer realized that he looked at you this way shocked him. to be completely honest, it scared the hell out of him. he never pictured you as anything more than a friend, and he always thought you were too relaxed for a job like this. he told himself that he’d leave the matter alone, that their would be no thinking or second-guessing of any kind. but the second he’d lay his eyes on you, it’s like the rules he made up never quite existed. however, the more he looked back on it, there was one question that urged this matter forward: am I gonna find out why?

he shook out of his deep concentration to look up at the voice that was now speaking to him. his eyes focused again and he stared at you confused.

“reid, you okay? you’re spacing out on me, buddy,” you said, head turned slightly from the position you were seated in. you had shifted in your seat to face emily, your left leg bent on the cushion and your right giving you stability on the ground. 

“sorry, I was busy thinking.”

“well, try not to use that big ol’ brain of yours too much yet, we’re gonna need it when we land,” you said, giving him a small wink. he gave you a small smile while a tiny smear of rose-colored blush crept its way onto his cheeks. it was a friendly gesture; everyone on the team did it so you thought, “why the hell not?”

reid opted to read a little bit while on the plane so that he could get in some new interrogating tactics for when they met the unsub. you and emily continued to watch french movies and spot all of the hot actors and actresses you thought would be fake, penny and morgan, well they were on a whole different level of fun. the only ones quiet and doing some work was hotch, jj, and rossi. 

the plane slowly began to descend, butterflies erupting in your stomach from the fall, before the captain announced, “we are now ready to descend and are getting ready for arrival.”

when the captain finished, hotch began, “alright, listen up, team. the location of this case was by chance and we shouldn’t get distracted by anything or anyone. do your job quickly and efficiently as you’ve always had.” he spoke sternly, his shoulders were straight and his face emotionless and heavy with sleep. to any other person, hotch would be a zombie who helped solve murder cases, but to the bau team, he was their leader and they admired him. 

“oh, come on, hotch! if we work extra hard these few days and have enough time by the end of the wee-” you began before getting cut off. 

“yes, we can stay a while and explore the city. the unsub and the evidence altogether looks promising, so hopefully we can wrap it up quick. but don’t stray from your path in the meantime.”

everybody nodded and “yes, sir’d” before standing up and grabbing their luggage from the compartments at the top of their seats. everyone walked out in pairs and headed for the taxi cars that were waiting for them. you took emily, morgan took reid, jj and penelope partnered up, and of of course rossi and hotchner stuck together. at different paces, the team agreed at a nearby hotel closest to the paris police department that had called them. getting your bags in the car, along with the rest of the girls’, you made your way to the hotel to check in and drop your luggage off.

at first glance, it looked like a simple building; a cream color adorning the walls and some very intricate, sophisticated street lamps aligned on the perimeter of the parking entrance. before entering, there was a sort of roundabout you had to pass in order to reach to valet parking, and in the center of the roundabout, was a water fountain. it was simple, yes, but to parisians only. to outsiders, like the bau, it was already quite elegant. the ladies, including you, pitched in a little to pay for the ride and once you got out, there was a young man who offered to take your bags inside. 

“avez-vous besoin d'aide, madame?” the boy said. all of you looked at each other a little confused because even though you thought it might’ve helped, watching french movies for nine hours with emily wasn’t doing it. 

“he’s asking if you need help with these. here,” penny clarified before putting her tiny hello kitty handbag in yours, “let me handle it.”

she walked up to the somewhat tall boy, looked him over once, and said in the thickest french accent there was, “oui je fais mon doux muffin merci beaucoup.” she did a tiny hair flip to her blonde curls and came back to where the rest of you were standing.

“penny, uh, what exactly did you tell that boy?” emily said, stifling down a small giggle.

“nothing, i just said “yes” that I needed help and “thank you very much.”

“no, no, the other part. there must’ve been another part to it. tell us!” jj said, grabbing penelope by the shoulders and shaking them lightly. 

“what other part?”

“the one where you made a boy dressed in victorian era clothing blush like a maniac over some luggage,” you laughed. to this, garcia started to laugh too and then even harder. you and the rest of the girls had puzzled grins on their faces, but the inkling of seeing your friend laugh so hard was reaching your guys’ throats too. 

when she finally caught a breath to speak, she said, “I called him my sweet muffin!” at this, you and the girls broke into heaves of laughter, and couldn’t stop. you and jj had to bend down and place a hand on your stomachs’ to stop them from hurting a little. after a while, there was no words just the intake of small breaths and exhaling them out for control. when the fun comedy was over, you guys followed the boy and his friend inside the hotel lobby. `you took turns registering, and when you were all done, you saw that the rest of the team had beat you to it. they were sitting down in a cushion area near the front desk and were waiting for you guys. 

“okay, now that the rooms are ready, you all can pick a partner to dorm with. it doesn’t really matter, but just choose wisely. I know some people get too crazy when they’re together,” hotch announced, flashing a look at you and garcia before handing out keys. you and emily teamed up per usual, and the rest pairing up in the same order they had been in before. once everyone was ready, you started to make your way up to your rooms while making small chatter with the rest of the gang. emily inserted the key into the lock of the door, and as soon she opened the door, your eyes’ were met with the most delicate and luxurious room you both have ever encountered. 

on either side of the room were two king sized beds with victorian style bed sheets; the design on them were floral, the pastel shades of the roses tracing the outline of the bed beautifully. the ends of the sheets were long, but shabby, which added a nice, elegant, and almost romantic feel to it. 

in the middle of the two beds was a small isle that allowed one person to walk on it at a time. at the end of it, was the entrance to the balcony, which gave view to the famed Eiffel Tower. the small cities, parks, and lakes, that made up the ground portion of the tower were now completely lit up, giving way to an entire new feeling for you. you set your bags on the bed, pushing the cushion down with your hand to feel the softness of it, and made way to the balcony.

“i’ll be right out here, em, if you need me,” you said, waiting for the small “yup” that came from her before proceeding. as soon as your leg crossed the small threshold to the other side, the fresh, cool breeze of the night flooded your senses. you smiled and took in the emotion it gave you, fully crossing over to stand against the railing now. you took in the sights first. the trees that shaped the parks swiveled against the current of the wind, couples of all ages walking hand in hand, admiring how the moon and the stars matched so well to their love. the lights of the tower gleaming brightly and almost seemingly looking at you, as if they asked you, “don’t you realize, (y/n)? don’t you pay attention?” 

paris, and everything it was offering you at that moment, put you through a trance. one where you began to actually speak to the lights, the very same ones that millions of others had fallen in love under. “realize what? I do pay attention, i always have, but what is it I need to notice?”

you kept staring and looking around, if the lights actually were talking to you and this wasn’t a dream, and that you weren’t crazy. you looked around the balcony and walked on it to spy a tiny clue your instincts informed you about. soon enough, you noticed that the balcony was shared by the room next door. you placed your right hand on the rail to kneel down a bit and see if you could figure out who the room belonged to.  

“maybe it’s penny, oh god please be penny. i’m not in the mood to see rossi in scooby-doo underpants...” you whispered fairly. just when you saw a dainty silhouette about to exit the restroom, you turned around to your end of the balcony. 

“(y/n)? are you spying on- (y/n), we’ve been here one hour! our hot, paris boyfriends can wait until we catch the unsub,” emily, whose head was the only part of her body on the outside of the balcony, whispered. “come on, get changed into some comfy clothes. we can take a look at the victimology together.”

standing up, you made one quick glance at the room and the figure was already gone and so was the light. thanks for that, eiffel tower lights, you thought. you crossed to you room again and took a shower before arranging your clothes according to the days of your stay. you put your pajamas on and climbed onto one side of emily’s bed to wait for her to come out of the restroom, since you guys took turns brushing your teeth. 

after about a half and hour of rearranging victimology statements and connecting photos from the crime scene, the both of you were ready to go to sleep. emily turned off her lights and you took one last glance at the view before doing the same. 

and then you heard footsteps on your balcony. 

----------

“you guys think I can woo a french girl tonight?”

“honey, with those shoes? not a chance,” garcia pointed out. morgan made a pout at her response and then acted as if he was offended. the team laughed and then raised their glass in unison and took a sip. the case, overall, went well. you guys managed to catch the unsub in an isolated tunnel and brought him over to the parisian authorities. you and jj had taken the only victim left alive to the station to make one final statement to the news. the rest of bodies were given proper burial and the families were finally given closure. 

because the team had performed beyond excellent, and there were still a few days left before your departure, the team opted on celebrating on a night out. currently, you and your friends were seated around a small circular table inside a local bar, chatting away at whatever came to mind. 

you chose to only drink mineral water, mostly because you knew that you were technically still at work and you didn’t want to risk being drunk in case of an emergency. reid, in a similar manner, chose a glass of soda to toast with. but while doing so, he found himself looking at you in the same way he did on the plane. he hadn’t been able to take in your features that night, but as everyone was so deeply distracted, he began to notice everything. 

he looked over your outfit for tonight, a red, plaid mini skirt with a black turtleneck. the shirt itself was fitted to your body and allowed your angles and curves to be accentuated perfectly. the skirt permitted your legs to be highlighted in a decent, and elegant manner. your hair was loose tonight, and with every breeze that made its way through the bar windows, it caused small strands to caress your face lightly and some to stick to your lip gloss. the heels, oh god, the heels. it drove him crazy; the delicate way in which they clicked when you walked on the concrete, how they would sometimes cause you discomfort and force you to stop and fix it,  how your gentle hand had grasp his shoulder for balance or else you’d fall. 

everything about you tonight was immaculate. no matter how hard he forced himself to look away from you, to stop thinking of you in any other way than a coworker, and to just drink his soda which was becoming less carbonated with every passing second, he just couldn’t. and it was scaring the hell out of him. 

you on the other hand, were still trying to decipher what the tower lights had asked you. what was there to realize? you were here, in paris, the city where millions of people fall in love, to fight a serial killer. the chances of you finding love, especially on a balcony where you had spied on a stranger, were slim. 

by the time you finished your thought process, you noticed that hotch was looking at you with a puzzled expression. 

“everything alright, (y/n)?” he softly asked you. 

“yes, sir, just thinking. is it okay if I head back to my hotel?”

“yes, of course, you might even catch reid on the way there. he left a couple of minutes ago.”

“thank you, sir. good night,” you spoke and got up from your chair, adjusting your skirt as you did so. huh, he left? weird, you thought. you left a tip for the waiter and bid farewell to the rest of your companions before grabbing your coat and clutch and exiting the bar. 

it was rather close to your hotel, so within a few minutes you had reached your dorm and set your things down. sitting down on the edge of the bed, you bent over slightly to unlatch your heels and slip them off your feet. you set them aside and you laid on your back for a few minutes. the only light in your room was the bathroom’s as you didn’t like strong lights shining during the night, so these dimmed ones would do. 

you closed your eyes for a little while and just let the sounds of the city flow through you. you had one opportunity to experience paris, and you weren’t gonna take it for granted. for a while, only your small inhales and exhales of breath were audible, the aura of the room peaceful. 

it wasn’t until you heard footsteps, the very same ones from that other night, on your balcony. your eyes flew open and you pushed your body upward to look back at your window. this is my shot, my chance, you thought. could it be a super old man who was here on vacation? yes. could it rossi, who might’ve gotten the dorm next to yours? maybe. were the possibilities of who the hell was on your balcony in a parisian hotel endless? again, yes. 

but you had to see for yourself, figure out what exactly the universe, paris, was telling you. so you got up from your bed and creeped quietly to the window and slid it up. you crossed the threshold, and even though your light was limited, you were able to make out a tall, thin figure. you inched a little closer, hands crossed over your chest to appear somewhat like a normal human. you wouldn’t have figured it out until he spoke. 

“(y/n)?”

his voice sent shivers down every inch of your body, and no, it wasn’t the cold air of the city, it was him. it was spencer. it caught you by surprise, the feeling his voice gave you, but you tried to play it off. he never made you feel this way, why now? 

“(y/n)? you okay?” he spoke again. this time you lightly shook your head and walked closer to where he was standing so you could lean on the railing now. his body followed yours, and now you were able to make out the perpexled look on his eyes. 

“hi, yeah, I’m good. just didn’t expect to find you here, that’s all,” you spoke quietly, unsure of yourself. he noticed, obviously he noticed, it’s spencer. 

“yeah, same here. I heard footsteps the other night here but I had just taken a shower so I didn’t come out until later.” you glanced up at him when you realized that he was the figure that was in the restroom you’d seen. the one you had spied on and probably would’ve seen naked if emily hadn’t interrupted. a tiny blush made its way onto your cheeks, and you were quite thankful the dark covered the rosy color a little. 

but spencer wasn’t dumb, much less stupid, and if he noticed every little detail about you tonight, he saw how you became around him. and god, he sure did like it. “oh, well that’s good, i guess,” was all you could mutter. so you turned your body now to face the tower, elbows on the railing and hands folded together. he saw the shift in stance and he followed, so now you were both side by side and looking at a view that somehow resembled your emotions for one another. 

“hey spence?”

“yeah?”

“have you ever fallen in love?”

his voice hitched a little and he felt his throat tighten. he let out a small cough to mask the impact of your question, but he found the strength in his voice to retort.

“what makes you ask?”

“no, no reason, i was just curious, ya know. being in paris and all,” you answered. you began to feel intrusive for asking such a personal question, but it had seemed easy for you to do so because of your friendship. you were looking at him as you replied, but then looked back towards the view again. the both of you stood in silence for a couple minutes, your guilt seeping in more at this point. 

“only once. it didn’t end well for the both of us,” he broke the silence. you turned your head to look at him, and you were about to open your mouth to say something when he spoke again. 

“but it happened a long time ago. i don’t think about her anymore.”

you straightened up a little and you continued to face him, prying a little deeper than you should be. “so who do you think about now?”

he glanced at you, his face quickly returning back to the nature displayed in front of him and then looked back to you. a small grin began tugging at his lips, as if he meant to ask, “is this your way of playing with me?”

you gazed up at him and took this sudden swerve of confidence to glance at his lips, and then back up to him, your own smile forming. 

“she’s standing on a balcony with me in paris.” 

[wiinterrose]

          ( xavier serrano , cis male , he / him, 23 ) no way ! i swear i saw 𝐌𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐄𝐋 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐒 walking down danforth avenue ! i just saw a post about them on 6secrets ! i think it said something like “𝐌𝐈𝐊𝐄𝐘 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐒 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐄 𝐀𝐓 𝟓 𝐀𝐌 : 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐑 𝐘𝐄𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 ?”. isn’t that wild ? i guess that makes sense since they’re apparently 𝐃𝐔𝐏𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐎𝐔𝐒 and 𝐂𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆. fans will claim that they’re 𝐎𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂 and 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐂.  i mean , it’s not like i know them personally — they’re a famous 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐑 / 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐔𝐁𝐄𝐑. whenever i think of them, i think of 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐓-𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐒, 𝐔𝐍𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐘 𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐋𝐒 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐒, & 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐋𝐈𝐓 𝐒𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐌 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒. i wish i would have asked for an autograph ! ( oliver, they / them, 22, est ).

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘

— mikey was born and raised in winnipeg because i think it’s funny when characters are from winnipeg. if you’re from winnipeg i’m so sorry. definitely was born on the coldest day of that year ( so like some point in january )

— but because of those long, cold harsh winters, mikey found himself in a dance studio a lot. his aunt was a dance teacher and with rather absent parents who meant well but both had long hours at the local hospital, he spent a lot of time with her. he fell in love with dance pretty early on, always having a certain fluidity and grace even when he was young.

— random but he also played hockey up until he was like 16 or whatever because he’s canadian and i’m not stupid. it happened. he can still skate tho. in a slightly different life he probably would have been a pretty good figure skater huh 🤔🤔🤔 but anyway...

— also feel like it makes sense that he did gymnastics. and trained in classical ballet.

— he went to university of toronto for college, studying kinesology and dance, and danced at one of the prestigious studios in the city.

— his big break moment was when in his sophomore year at ut, he made it onto the second season of world of dance in early 2017 ( lets pretend that show has been on longer than it has bc i don’t want it to be the first season of it sldk ). he made it all the way to the finals and quickly become a fan favorite along the way. though he ultimately placed second and missed out on the million dollars, that was the beginning of many doors opening for him. ( for those who, might have the vaguest clue what i’m talking about : i’m highkey feeling like, michael dameski style which is an idea i had after i named him michael so don’t @ me for him having the same first name ).

— millions watched that show, including some prominent agents and scouts who were able to help him launch a professional dance career : something he never thought he’d see himself actually doing. his first big gig was making the dance team for some singer’s north american tour, and he ended up not returning to ut to pursue a professional dance career full time. since then he’s danced in a few music videos for some uber famous musican ( same one he went on tour with or not idk ?? also a wc ?? maybe ?? ), a tv show, couple movies, and other various gigs around the city. he works part time at a studio when he has time, and has been honing his choreography skills as well.

— he makes enough dancing, but certainly not enough to make him RICH. no, that come from an impromptu vlog he did while on tour with aforementioned singer. having already garnered a following from world of dance, he soon rose to youtube fame as well, something he never could have predicted. i feel like his videos are very just, day in a life with various random athletic challenges mixed in, and various workout and flexibility tips. he also still does pieces and duets with other prominent dancers just for fun too. his natural charisma and attitude really just carries him through easily lmao.

— mikey developed a bit of a habit of sleeping around when he left for college, all the newfound freedom was just intoxicating and well. he was hot so. it wasn’t like it was hard alsdkjf. that stuck around well into his blossoming dance career. nothing that was enough to be scandalous, but he made his way around. and then a year and a half into this unforeseen new life, he met matthew glass.

— he’d had a couple serious relationships before, one in high school, one his freshman year of college but neither of them could hold a flame to what he felt when he was with matt. perfection wasn’t something mikey believed in, but he almost did with what they had.

— it was like for over a year and a half he lived in this insane dream, and then mikey and matt broke up and he was devastated ( behind closed doors and with curtains pulled tightly shut ).

— he then proceeded to broadcast how perfectly fine he was doing by going back to his old ways and sleeping around obsessively, this time with very little regard as to how many headlines he was making. as far as coping mechanisms go, i guess sex is better than alcohol ?? not to say he wasn’t also drunk at times l o l.

𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐂

— mikey gets around. has definitely been trying to forget matty with other warm bodies but honestly it’s not working

— very bi. very much does not care. if the world didn’t know he was before, it definitely does now lmao. he hasn’t come out in the sense he’s like posted a video about it and said “i’m bisexual” but it’s pretty obvious from the media and maybe he has gotten asked in interviews and has just shrugged and been like does it matter ?? i’m sorry he’s not the vocal bi ally we need. perhaps we will work on that.

— hasn’t dated anyone since matt bc he’s highkey lowkey still hung up on him but no one needs to know that right. outwardly, he’s very much the same : seemingly happy, but he’s a lot more careful with his heart and letting people close to him. if anything he’s become a bit of a two-way mirror, always seeing out but never really letting people see in, just what they want to see.

— probably goes without saying but extremely flexible. idk if any of you know who juuse saros is but apparently he can twerk in a split and i’m not saying mikey can but like. he just might be able to...

— straight up does not get cold. never wears more than a hoodie, probably danced shirtless in the middle of winter just fine. at least being from winnipeg is good for one ( 1 ) thing.

— i feel like people call him flower. idk guys. maybe im just thinking too much abt hockey goalies.

— always posting on instagram stories. u kno the type.

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

— he tends to be extremely underestimated as he comes across a bit dumb and generally has a pretty positive outlook on life which people confuse for him being naive when that isn’t the case. but he’s found he can use that it his advantage and that sometimes, people will tell him things they think he can’t understand but he hears and remembers everything. it’s helped him out of a few difficult situations before.

— i feel like he has a bit of ethan dolan’s personality & dumbass energy idk guys...

— live in the moment kind of dude. his motto is probably like : you just gotta know what you want to do next. i mean looking back on his life it’s been pretty crazy and that’s only solidified his outlook that like, you really can’t control too much. just let it go where it takes you.

— people do like him though and they like talking to him for whatever reason. generally has pretty trustworthy vibes but he’s more slippery than he comes across. he’s a selfish person at heart and always has his own best interests in mind, even if it doesn’t seem that way at first.

— extroverted. i think ??

𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄

— 6′1″. chocolate brown eyes. curly brown hair. he has a lithe but extremely fit build due to his career. his core strength is especially impressive.

— he has a monochromatic lineart tattoo of a rose on his left forearm / wrist and a butterfly ( again monochromatic & just lineart ) on his right shoulder. small scar at the base of his neck by his ear from an unfortunate hockey accident.

— needs glasses but usually only wears contacts unless he’s in his apartment late at night.

— he’s not overly fashionable, going more for comfort than how he generally looks. on a regular day, he’s probably got the whole... college athlete look going if you know what i mean. a big fan of mirrored aviator sunglasses. wouldn’t know what dressing up meant even if it slapped him in the face.

— PINTEREST BOARD

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

first and foremost i want to say that i like to vibe and brainstorm with people to come up with unique connections between our characters but here are a few ideas :

— ( f ) a close friend he has had on his channel a few times and fans passionately ship them but they’re really just good friends. maybe they play into the drama a few times as well tho. — the singer whose tour he danced on — singer whose music videos he’s been in — mayhaps even actors for that tv show / movie he was in ( v small role but whatevs. maybe they just Vibed yknow ) — flirtationship 😔 — always ye ol good hookup l o l — we keep running into each other idk maybe we should talk ??

TAKEN CONNECTIONS PAGE HERE

𝐎𝐎𝐂

         hey guys, i’m ollie. my intros are either written really eloquently or a big mess bc im trying to rub together a couple braincells at 1 am and whatever comes out, comes out. no need to guess which category this one falls into lmAO. anyway, i’m a slow plotter bc i’m easily overwhelmed trying to do too many things at once but i swear i will try to get to as many people as i can. and yeah this entire character is inspired by my love of world of dance don’t @ me... if u made it all the way down here u should watch this bc 😳 & mikey has the same athleticism and strength.

[sol1056]

hey im the anon who asked about how you knew the stuff, sorry i wasn't too clear on what. i just read the post explaining EPs and how the behind the scene stuff worked and i wanted to know how you knew all that, like are you involved in the industry? or just a nerd?

gotcha! Well, remember how back in S1/S2, people kept pointing out Hunk could be… awfully nosy? always getting into things, asking questions?

I was over here going, YES HUNK IS MY PEOPLE. 

It’s a hallmark of a certain type of engineer: insatiable curiosity, and never satisfied with only one answer, always sure there’s more to discover. Okay, we’re not all engineers — a lot of us are Russian Lit majors — but the key is our drive to discover. We take apart, put back together, connect dots close and far, turn things around and study them from a new direction. We’re those people who randomly show up in your part of the building, poke our heads in the room and say, “so, what do all y’all do here? what’s this do? hey, what’s that?”

Despite the fact that most of us seem to be (strangely) strong introverts, that doesn’t stop us. We’ve got questions for everyone. We’ll talk to total strangers all day if we’re on the trail of a particularly interesting idea. In a nutshell, we’re utterly shameless.

I did post-production back when NLE was relatively new and the compositing applications required massive nearly-mainframe computing power. I was mostly in the sfx/cg areas, but I weaseled my way into the color suite pretty regularly. I sat in on editing sessions and was a happy lunch-fetching lackey if it got me a chance to watch the compositing team. Any lull meant a chance to chat up directors, cinematographers, producers, etc. I totally took advantage. 

It’s been awhile since I did that – and since then I’ve been a roady, a mental health & substance abuse admin, a doorman, and even owned a bookstore, before going corporate. But for every wacky thing I’ve done, I’ve also kept in touch with people I met. Frex: the friend who got me the post-production job is now an executive producer. Yes, I do call him with questions. He’s used to it. If he doesn’t know an answer, he sends me to someone who does. (Another reason we’ve been friends for so long.) One answer is never sufficient, never a reason to stop there.

Meet one novelist, get introduced to six more, and three of them write for TV. Oh, that’s handy. Should save that contact, could be useful someday. It’s actually rare for someone to say no, come to think of it. idk, as long as I can get access, I can usually get the person to tell me something I can use. 

However, since my actual area of expertise applies across many industries, I’ve worked all kinds of places. A lot of it’s client-facing, and if you think that means I’m not wandering around the client site poking my head into rooms and cheerfully interviewing people on the spot, then you haven’t been paying attention.

Now that I work at a multinational corporation, I have literally thousands of people in my network, including everyone who’s moved on to a new place. You might be surprised how many people are fine with, “hey, I work at X with Y, and Y told me you’d know this.” Of course, everyone has a bias and a view limited to their own experience, so you can’t stop there. You can’t really understand a situation without knowing the agendas of all the players. You gotta ask a bunch of people, make sure you’re getting the most rounded sense of things. 

Not really a hardship for me. It’s kinda the whole point. 

People are people everywhere (outside cultural quirks), and it’s rare I’m ever researching a single person (I’m not an investigative journalist, if you were wondering). Most of the time, I’m looking for the industry-based cultural expectations. As in, “given X and Y, what would someone who does A generally think is a reasonable action, in this situation?”  

The key is to have a believable reason for asking, and being a writer definitely qualifies. “I’m researching for a story, and I have a character who do X. I wanted to know if it’s realistic for them to know Y. Who do you think would be the best person to ask?” I frequently cold-call, and I never ask “is there someone there,” I ask who they think is the best person. A lot of times it ends up being someone that the phone operator knows (personally or by reputation) who’s full of bizarre trivia and enjoys a chance to show it off. (Plus, it’s amazing what you can learn about a person from all the other subtle cues people are unaware they’re telling, when they’re focused on their area of expertise.)

That’s how I ended up interviewing the Director of the DEA about whether a non-US-university degree would satisfy the education requirement. His letter of introduction got me monthly lunches for awhile with the DEA director in my city. (Oh, the stories I heard.) It’s how I learned about sheep subsidies from one of the top execs at the USDA, and that there’s a single surviving Civil War widow still getting a VA pension. Going in person is even more fun. You could wind up talking to one of the very few artists in the world whose speciality is touching up pre-Renaissance books so the repairs aren’t visible. Or the art historian whose job is going through the nation’s attic and identifying century-old fakes. 

I’ve talked to embassy officials from five different countries, NASA biophysicists and astrophysicists, OSHA inspectors, Nobel prize-winning economists, police detectives, celebrity chefs, environmental lawyers, arena-level sound-people, race-car drivers, potters, opera singers, patent examiners, train mechanics, fire marshals, foley artists, and club DJs. I’ve interviewed fashion photographers, farriers, puppeteers, lighting designers, Catholic bishops, bioethicists, rabbis, fighter pilots, public radio personalities, newspaper editors, chemists, club organizers, war correspondents, Episcopalian nuns (yes they exist), textile artists, prison architects, midwives, cabinetmakers, tall ship sailors, haute couture seamstresses, and civil engineers. On and on and on. 

Don’t neglect official avenues, either. The Department of Labor, the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, the Screen Writers’ Guild, the list is nearly endless — any organization, union, or federal/state dept that sets or guides policy. Everyone has a bias, so what people consider normal is sometimes… not. Or they just didn’t know (or saw no need to know, the fools) the reason for A over B. You have to check the rules, because a discrepancy between what you’re told should be done versus what people tell you is actually done… is also useful to know. 

(Labor practices are definitely one of those areas, since federal labor policy is something every company must observe. It’s the law. So when a workplace seems to be violating the law, it raises a lot of interesting questions.) 

And finally, of course, there’s traditional research. Textbooks written by people in an industry can be particularly interesting, especially if it’s a book meant for readers outside that industry (which usually means a lot of firsthand anecdotes to round out the gaps). Popular articles, academic essays, post-mortem white papers, TED talks, interviews. You need to do your basic homework, because there’s no waste of someone’s time quite like asking them a question that’s patently absurd once you get past common assumptions. 

I once explained the plot of a popular SF show to a NASA astrophysicist, and his response was simply, “Every word you used was English, but those words in that order make absolutely no sense at all.” Kind of a dead-end, there. You can’t come at a top-level expert with intro-level questions. 

Since I don’t always know who I’ll stumble over next, being an information sponge means I at least have a whole encyclopedia of analogies. If I can find  common ground (cars and houses are two of the best), I can at least get a basic idea of the person’s meaning. “Oh, so it’s like when you turn the key in the ignition, and the lights don’t come on because the battery is dead?” 

It’s asking the right questions, using an open and friendly approach, and having the right timing. Remember: there is no such thing as unskilled labor; there is only undervalued labor. That is, their time is also valuable, so be brief, open, and sincere. Treat every person as if they’re an authority in something, even if you haven’t figured out what that is. 

The world is a massively complex place, and contains more things than are dreamt of in our philosophies, all of it waiting to be discovered.

Or, the shorter version:

btw: I don’t actually recommend going in person to the Dept of the Interior, though. You’ll get lost. Like, instantly. That place is MASSIVE.

[miximax-hell]

There have been people, some truly wonderful souls, who have followed my blog during my long period of absence. For that, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don’t deserve that kindness. With that out of the way, hello! Once again, it’s been so long... And that’s exactly we won’t delve in the past now. Let’s get right to it!

Today’s miximax is one that can barely be recognised at all unless you’re specifically told who the vessel and aura are. So, just in case my handwriting is THAT awful, we’ll be talking about Sakuma’s miximax today! For him, I’ve chosen a wonderful character that is, quite literally, part of the history of videogames as a whole. After the news about a new Smash coming soon, the promise of Metroid Prime 4 for Switch, and the very successful (AND SPANISH) remake of Metroid II, it feels like a great time to bring Samus Aran into the battle! The coolest intergalactic bounty hunter there ever was makes for a very simple-looking miximax, but it was still quite tough to draw because of RUST. Ah well. No one to blame but myself.

Anyway, I think this deserves a proper explanation, so let’s see why these two make for a fantastic combo! For more on that, please check under the cut. As usual.

Well, you’ve made it this far, so let’s delve a little in the past now. ww Just yesterday, I finally finished writing my graduation thesis!! That means I’m finally free... for a little while. Just enough to enjoy half a month of debauchery AND SPEND TIME WITH MY GIRLFRIEND, WHOM I MISS VERY MUCH. Oh, and my internship ended about two and a half weeks ago, too. While I am free in that sense as well, I can’t say I’m a scriptwriter and game designer right now, which kinda sucks. But they might still hire me...! And I’m ruminating some exciting ideas of my own. I highly doubt the company I worked for will be interested in them, but, well, it’s worth a shot. And good practice, in any case. So, yeah! I hope you’ve all been well!

Anyway, let’s get right to it. A single paragraph of my life struggles was enough. ww

This is still a fairly small blog with less than 100 followers. And it will always be because of how niche it is. ww Not only that, but most of said (active) followers aren’t even friends of mine, but the aforementioned kind souls who, somehow, grace me with their presence here. That means that, for example, if I were to go on Twitter to talk about my projects for this blog (as I’ve done a couple of times in the past), only one or two of my friends would give a crap about it. And that’s assuming they see those specific tweets at all! Otherwise, the reactions I get are non-existent unless I’m specifically mentioning someone. And even that is far from being failproof. So, whenever I want to share my ideas with someone, develop them through conversation or brainstorm, there’s only one person I can rely on: my lovely girlfriend. She’s patient and super supportive of my work. Bless her soul. I’m so in love with her.

Anyway, thanks to how much I’ve ranted to her about SakuSamus, I’ve already typed down most of what needs to be said about why I think these two work so well together. I can also get away with mostly copying and pasting what I already told her over Skype and simply adjusting it a bit to make it more readable as a blog post and adding some extra details. ww So, let’s get to it!

Coming up with proper combinations for this blog can sometimes be a chore and require a lot of overthinking. However, as the wonderful @miyukiko​ would say, great ideas suddenly come to you sometimes. This had a bit of both. I'll try to skip the uninteresting bits of the creative process, but this is the important part.

Now that we've seen Sakuma in Ares and he's obviously won a lot of... prominence, if you may put it that way, it felt like a good time to take a closer look at him. Sakuma is a forward, and a pretty talented one, at that. When he becomes captain in the Ares timeline, though, his team comes to rely on him on a much deeper level too. Or so it seems, at least. To top it off, his descriptions in the original games say that he helps Kidou and acts as a strategist that coordinates the team. That’s pretty much the base we can build upon.

As a forward, he seems pretty thorough and tries to stay cool and calm, since that's the kind of soccer they play at Teikoku. And, from what we've seen in Ares, as a captain, he worries so much about his team's well-being and about being a good leader for them. You know, the usual "Am I fit to be captain?" thing that IE loves so much. ww

But there's a lot of bad stuff about Sakuma, too.

For one, despite his cool act, when he loses it, he loses it good. We all know how he reacted when he was part of Shin Teikoku and how extremely mad he would get with Kageyama, for example. Also, when he does lose it (and, arguably, even when he’s still somewhat sane), he's very self-destructive.

I think that's somehow linked to his fears: he simply doesn't want to be left alone. He panics when Kidou leaves Teikoku and, again, loses it completely. When his insanity reaches that kind of point, nothing else seems to matter, so he goes all out even if it can cost him his life. Or his legs, at least.

Related to that, and this is much more relevant in terms of sheer gameplay, he is extremely dependent of others.

He's supposed to be some super cool ace striker, but absolutely all of his shots are combo hissatsus no matter what timeline or age you’re looking at. Koutei Penguin 2gou and 3gou, Twin Boost, Death Zone, Deep Jungle... They all need 2-3 people, and, usually, Kidou's involved.

So, tough as it is to say, if Sakuma isn't by Kidou's side, he's subpar. And if he's all alone, he's basically worthless. And to add insult to injury:

He usually depends on people who aren't even forwards to score goals.

He is turned into a defender as an adult because, as I said, he's subpar as a forward if he's alone.

That makes Sakuma a very interesting case: in a universe that is all about the power you get from of your teammates, what he lacks is individuality. ...Especially when you consider that his only motivation to play soccer seems to be to play with Kidou. www

As he is, he's the absolute definition of support character. Pretty sad, if you ask me. (Oh. And many of his in-game hissatsus are very dirty and the referee complains more often than not about them. That counts too. ww)

So, here comes the difficult question: who can give Sakuma the strength, the individuality and, partially, the safety that he needs to be relevant without killing himself? After thinking about it for quite a long time, I felt like he could really use the power of Samus Aran.

(Not to go all BuzzFeed on you guys, but the answer would’ve surprised you if I hadn’t said it from the very beginning. ww)

On a technical level, Samus is strong af. Not only has she survived to and successfully finished every mission she's embarked on (as far as I’m aware), but she's pretty much exterminated full races, DESTROYED PLANETS and killed the same evil pterodactyl alien... thing that wants her dead like 11 times by now.

And what's more: she's done all of this completely alone. (Except maybe for Other M. I haven’t played that game yet, but it looked like there were more people, idk) All in all, she's a beast. But that's not all, of course. There are many heroes who go and do their thing alone. It could've easily been Lara Croft too, for example--at least in the original games.

Sakuma, as I said, seems to be driven by a will to be with Kidou and is very much dependent of other people. And when things go wrong and he loses it, he is... spiteful, to say the least. And I don’t know if you guys were aware of this, but Samus is 120% salt. I read a post about the hatred between Ridley and Samus that when Ridley was announced for Smash and all, but I sadly can’t find it right now. If any of you guys know that post, please let me know and I’ll add the link here because it was SO GOOD.

According to my limited knowledge on the Metroid Series, Samus fights three main things: metroids (you never saw that one coming, I'm sure), space pirates, and Ridley (who is the leader of the space pirates, but is not a space pirate because I, too, would listen to my Evil Pterodactyl Lord if he were to give me orders).

Long story short, the space pirates and Ridley killed Samus’s parents. She was adopted by people from a civilization called the Chozo, but the space pirates killed the Chozo too. And when Samus found a baby metroid that saw her as its mother, the space pirates and Ridley kidnapped the metroid and it eventually died because of them.

Samus doesn't fight for the greater good. Samus fights because she's fucking pissed.

But, unlike Sakuma, she uses that rage against the right people and in the right way: she is still salty as hell, but she stays cool, kicks ass, makes everyone go boom, and she's out. She does what Sakuma does, but better. Even when she's pissed. Oh, and she does things the way they should be done: with legal permission, without turning evil and stuff. And she's super respected and feared because of it, which is precisely what a captain and a forward should be like, respectively.

And the icing on the cake?

In IE3, when Sakuma has levelled up enough, he learns how to use Space Penguin. also, Samus has a visor thing that can replace Sakuma's patch and that sounded cool to me

Anyway, that would be the gist of it! As I said earlier, I’m not the biggest Metroid connoisseur in the world: I’ve only beaten Fusion and Zero Mission, and I’m currently playing Prime and Return of Samus. As such, excuse me if some other game I haven’t played debunks all I’ve said, but I haven’t found any traces of such a thing. ww

However, despite my few experiences with Metroid games, Samus is a character I love and have very fond memories of. This series represent what I love the most about the video game genre: that sense of continuous and hard-earned improvement that only comes from experiences that are constantly giving you new abilities (and even new looks) to reflect your progress. It’s similar to RPGs, a genre I love as well, but RPGs reward you more for personal progress and dedication, such as grinding for levels, and not (usually) so much for just pushing forward and defeating bosses.

Last (and least), for those who have made it this far, here’s a little something you might be interested in knowing: I’ve been inactive here, but I’m still constantly trying hard to come up with interesting ideas for miximaxes! And I think I have found some cool stuff for both Kidou and Shishido, so feel free to tell me on which of those you’d like me to work on next. They’re both very challenging to draw and fiddle with, but I’m always happy to shift my priorities in any way you guys want me to. ww

[the-cryptographer]

wrapped up playing final fantasy ix

yeah, idk, at some point it became clear to me that the game wasn’t really heading in the directions i wanted it to. that was... a while ago, lol. but i’m usually committed to finishing these things once i start them, even if they’re less than what i’d hoped.

on the game side of things... it’s a final fantasy game. it’s got all the regular final fantasy stuff going on. for this one in particular, i guess i like this type of ability system. otherwise it’s your standard, mostly-mindless turned based combat. summons take way to long to play. as usual i tend to favour physical combat interspersed with a healer that can cast holy. but i ended up relying a lot on Frog Drop and Dragon Crest, heh. my favourite team is something like Eiko and pick 2 {Quina, Freya, Amarant}.

Also this final fantasy gets credit for finally getting me to like moogles. they are... so cute in this. Stiltzkin is pretty great, as was Mogmi and Moguta being silly in love, but my absolute favourite was Moorock, who gets so gd excited about writing a letter and loudly exclaims ‘I love Mognet!’ even though he’s never heard of it before. why are he and Mozme not on disk four tho?! tell me they made it out okay D’x  Although, hmm, I’m not sure why we trusted Artemicion with more superslick at the end there. Since he apparently he got high snorting the last bottle. god, don’t trust the addict with more of his substance.

idk, I guess I’ll go through the story characters. and just... kind of hope I cover everything that way.

Quina

I... love them. And I tend to like gag characters but... I love them. Such ambition... to eat everything. So cute. So silly. So relatable. I also really like the nightgown/smock kind of thing going on. Need more characters dressed like granny that are trying to eat us out of house and home.

Amarant

Um... there seemed to be a lot going on in this sector of the story that kind of... needed more time. Or otherwise needed cutting out, probably. I find it conceptually interesting, at least: loners being confronted with the boundaries of their... determination to be alone. So I like him in spite of myself. But Zidane’s played a pretty shitty trick on him, once upon a time, and it’s a little hard to justify the kind of devotion Amarant has in lieu of that. Because... yes... it is devotion... somehow. And it’s a little hard to buy the way he becomes so easily enamored with how Zidane’s mind works with so little development.

Eiko

Mmm, again, there was some interesting stuff here about her growing up alone, and the way she immediately clung to Zidane as a way to escape that loneliness. But her crush on him is taken a bit too seriously by the narrative, like she’s really in love with him, and that gets a bit creepy, imo. The stuff with Mog is interesting, but kind of too much trying to tug on the heartstrings when the heartstrings haven’t been wound and tuned, if you know what I mean. I suppose, at the end of the day, I didn’t end up liking her all that much. But feel like I could have and should have if they had written her even a little better.

Freya

I love this aesthetic... so much. Kind of a mix of red mage and dragoon, both of which I love individually, plus rat person. She is one of my faves on this basis alone. In terms of her actual personality... it’s so sparse and inconsistent. Ah, there are some landmarks I like - the kind of quiet and sternly professional bits, the loyalty to her homeland, she has some good moments deciding to fight after the destruction of Cleyra, and talking with Amarant too. Just- I’m left feeling like she was never pushed to a workable extreme anywhere in the narrative, and so she doesn’t really have any clear, defining personality characteristic. It’s more like... a lot of shit happens to her, and she’s sad but not too sad, and strong but not too strong. And it’s kind of lacklustre at the end of the day.

Steiner

I don’t really know how to say this except to say it. He’s funny and sweet at times. Overly distracted by rules and decorum, of course. But he also veers hard into being rather annoying to watch at times. He is... not a practical person. Overall, I’m kind of impressed with his bit in the story, though. Even if it fades as the narrative progresses. His relationship with Beatrice was kind of a bright spot in the narrative as a whole for me. I maybe... can’t help but like the fact that this hypercompetent, beautiful lady falls for his bumbling ass. Beatrice in general strikes a neat line between being chilly and needy and, really, way too good for anyone else in the cast.

Vivi

A great character and... ultimately a huge copout. There was a lot of build up to Vivi dying and, ultimately, it felt rather unsatisfying. It felt like they were trying to rob the sadness out of it by limiting what they showed us of him in the epilogue to his breed of offspring. But, even before then, they touched on so many themes about him in a way that really attempted to distance itself from the fear of human mortality. Like, this isn’t something that only happens to weird artificially constructed lifeforms. Human being sometimes find out they only have a couple months or a year left to live, and have to come to terms with that. Hell, all of humanity is on a timer - and not once did anyone really say to Vivi, ‘yeah, it’s true for all of us. We could all die at any moment. We’re only going to last so long, whether it’s a year or ten or a hundred.’ Kuja came kind of close to communicating some of this ‘i’m going to die, just like the Black Mages’. But never in a way that emotionally impacted Vivi, which ws kind of shitty writing, imo.

Dagger/Garnet

I don’t know. She’s rather generic. Which... doesn’t necessarily preclude my attachment in of itself. But, yeah, she’s generic in a way that doesn’t resonate with me, heh. She leans super hard on Zidane the whole narrative, and it’s really not even a little fun. There was some interesting stuff with Ramuh, and with Eiko and her being from the same summoner clan, and her relationship with her mother was great as well. I liked that Dagger got to be sad about Brahne - because let her be sad about losing the people who loved her and who she loved. But... Brahne herself is such a conundrum. I don’t dislike her character and her design as a whole. But I don’t like the game’s ‘fat and ugly are evil’ vibes. And I also don’t like the way she’s immediately forgiven in the public eye, and the eyes of the narrative, once she dies. She... literally destroys cities and kills thousands of people. That’s not really forgivable.

But, regarding Garnet... I started liking her a bit more once she cut her hair and started smiling in her in-game portrait. so, if nothing else, we know I am very shallow.

Zidane

Aaaaand, if I wasn’t already, this is where I start really running into problems. When you don’t really like the main character. When you’re not invested in the main character’s romance that is front and centre of the story and its ending. When you really don’t believe the strength of the emotional connections between the cast that the game is attempting to sell you on... It just makes it really hard to enjoy things. Zidane often seems dismissive, in his own head, and even shallow in the way he attempts to relate to the rest of the cast. It’s everyone else that has to come around to his way of thinking and learn from him, rather than the narrative making much of an effort to teach him about how to actually empathise with others. and it’s kind of grating then that we hear them praise him so casually.

I think, then, combined with the womanising aspect of his character... I don’t know, because I’m certainly not opposed to somebody wanting to sleep with all the ladies. That is an A+ relatable feeling. But, for someone that’s so casual about cozying up to every woman he runs across, I was left feeling like the only woman he had any kind of legitimate connection to was Garnet. (The game tells us he’s good friends with Freya, but does it really show us why? or how?) Which is... I suppose why Garnet, and not Ruby and Freya, was propped up as being Zidane’s major romance. But... idk, it feels a little too much like entitlement. He’s allowed to hit on all the ladies and look good while doing it, while he has a serious relationship developing with Dagger and she’s arguably right there to see him hit on other women, and he also has basically no interest in providing any kind of emotional support or developing any kind of connection with pretty much any woman (except maybe Dagger). Combine this with Cid cheating on Hilda and then she jealously turns him into a beetle - but, wait, this is a happy marriage, the game tells us. and the fact that the game’s major villain is pointedly described as ‘not a skirt chaser like you’... it’s just deifying an entitled straight boy ‘boys will be boys’ kind of attitude when that’s already an accepted social norm. and it’s kind of disgusting. I think there are better ways to talk about infidelity and promiscuity and the desire for the ladies, ones that are still sympathetic to all the parties involved. I think the final fantasy series /has/ talked about it better. With Edgar, who wants to get with all the ladies, but who lets Terra and Celes into his protection and the bounty of Figaro castle without touching either of them, and who is pointedly single even though he’s the sole heir of a kingdom and pushing thirty. And with Tidus, who had a power fantasy dream where Yuna and Rikku are hanging off each of his arms as they roast his father, but that’s before he gets to know each of them better as people. once he does the objectification wanes. I’m not saying that Edgar and Tidus are perfect heroes and wonderfully written, but I think this aspect of them was delivered with more nuance and a more critical eye, and it makes a huge difference.

Also... Are you a team player, Zidane? Or are you just a team player until you’re angry, or decide your pride is on the line? For a kind of ‘friendship is everything’ message, it certainly gets muddled everytime Zidane’s in a snit. Running back into Ispen Castle alone was a weird moment when we’re just getting done telling Amarant not to run around alone. Only okay when I do it(tm) And when he’s being kind of an insufferable bastard at the end of disc 3... just... why are you chasing after him guys? and why, after all that hoopla about accepting his friends’ help, does he deny it when going after Kuja at the end? I'm not saying that there aren’t things one needs to do alone just- why is Zidane always right when he says he needs to do things alone, but everyone else is wrong when they say the same thing? it’s a terrible case of protagonist-centred morality, and it’s really terrible and trite.

idk, I just- I understand why people are sick of the angsty final fantasy heroes after Cloud and Squall (the former I love, the latter I don’t). But I feel Zidane basically fell short in every way that wasn’t being upbeat and energetic, and I’m not sure what everyone sees in him.

Kuja

I can’t help but like this flamboyant bastard. God, he... soooo did not need a tacked on redemption arc. Again, mass genocide isn’t really forgivable. He is a terrible person. full stop. But I’m irrationally pleased he got some sympathy from the narrative anyhow. He’s just... I never liked Sephiroth, but Kuja has convinced me I could have liked Sephiroth if Sephiroth had even a fraction of a personality in ff7.

other than that... the wind/earth/water/fire shrine part of the game was weird. give me real dungeons, devs. also the coffee sidequest is nigh impossible to complete and then the game guilted me, and i hate that.

in the end, i suppose i feel the game was messy. the tone whip-lashed quick between whimsy and pure horror - which should be my jam but, idk, it didn’t work here for me. and a lot of the major characters and storylines lacked depth, or otherwise lacked nuance, or otherwise lacked payoff. it’s kind of hard to watch so much effort and so many good ideas flop so hard, but it flopped hard for me. i don’t get the hype about this game.

[bigbangbuff]

Tagged by @silverphantomcat again~ ^~^ This one looks really neat!  I like that you make up your own set of questions when you pass it along :0

1.  What are at least three songs I must listen to?

I feel like we’ve got pretty different tastes in music, Aris, but the entire Made in Abyss soundtrack is amazing and I think you’d appreciate it :0  My top three songs from that are Pathway, Tomorrow, and First Layer!

2. What are three of your favorite characters?

Oh man... um... not necessarily my TOP three, because that’s a NASTY question, but three OF my favorite characters are (in no particular order) Ahsoka Tano (SW:TCW), Viral (TTGL), and Lavi Bookman (DGM).

3. Opinions on water as a beverage?

It... really depends on where it came from, I guess?  Water DOES have a taste, and there IS such a thing as bad tasting water.  I’m pretty ambivalent most of the time, but if there’s another option I’ll usually go for that instead.  I don’t hydrate enough in general, though, so I’ve been trying to drink more water.

4. What is the question of Life, The Universe, and Everything?

Dude, if Deep Thought couldn’t figure it out in seven and a half million years, I don’t think I’ve got much of a shot .w.

5. Pens, pencils, or crayons?

Pens, assuming I’m writing and not drawing.  Otherwise, pencils.

6. Do you have a nickname?

Yeeeeeeeep, and I go by it every day.  Not even my PARENTS use my legal name - not even when they’re angry at me!  It’s a super common name though, so it’s nothing special, haha ^^;

7. If not, do you wish you did?

I have a nickname, but I kinda wish I went by something a little more uncommon; I know like four people who share it on my crew team alone ;;=.=)

8. What’s a subject you want to learn more about?

Physics or computer science :3

9. What’s a relatively obscure book that you would recommend?

I haven’t read very much recently, so I’m going to go all the way back to a book I read in middle school: The Warrior Heir, by Cinda Williams Chima.  It’s a solid contemporary fantasy with nice world building, a likeable and believable main character, and great pacing!  I wasn’t too fond of its sequels, but the ending’s tidy enough that it can stand alone, so it’s all good =w=)b

10. Do you have a favorite Shakespeare play?

Romeo & Juliet, but ONLY if you interpret it as a comedy - bonus points if you’re reading it aloud in ninth grade English class and the roles are completely ridiculous.  Without those conditions, Macbeth - although I haven’t read as much Shakespeare as I would like, so that could easily change.

11.  What’s a weird dream you’ve had?

A few weeks ago, I dreamed I traveled to an alternate high-fantasy dimension where everyone had cat ears the subconscious weeb is strong >~> and I joined a rebellion against an oppressive government.  That in itself wasn’t too odd, but the emphasis of the dream was not on the rebellion, magic, or cat ears - it was on the fact that, in this AU, I was the only person who was able to use both feet to push while ice skating.

I’ve definitely had some weirder dreams, but the rest of them are pretty detailed, and I don’t really feel like typing them out pfft

Alright, so I guess it’s my turn to ask some questions now!  There weren’t rules on @silverphantomcat‘s post, but I’m assuming I ask 11?

Stealing the first two I was asked since they’re good questions :0

What are at least three songs I must listen to?

What are three of your favorite characters?

If you could be any kind of dinosaur, what kind of dinosaur would you be and why?

Got any book recommendations for me?

How many individual pieces of macaroni would you estimate you’ve eaten in your lifetime?

If you could become instantly good at one sport, what sport would it be and why?

What are the top three sexiest instruments?

On a scale of one to nature valley granola bar, how much is your life falling apart?

In a hypothetical zombie apocalypse, where would you make your base?

What’s your favorite eeveelution?

Assuming all three are stocked equally with the supplies you need to survive, would you rather live on a spaceship, a submarine, or an underground bunker?

Tagging @l-treat @eggmil @theamubrigade @jo-llipop @ilovezoenightshade @kingarkay @banaajnaha @wingding-apollo @sminiki @indicinis and anyone else who wants to answer these!  kinda wanna tag @silverphantomcat, too, but since you tagged me, idk if that’s allowed ^^;

[ravenvsfox]

Can you do pynch for the ship thing please <3

YOU BET YOUR SWEET ASS I CAN 

(god FINALLY)

SEND ME A SHIP AND I’LL TELL YOU…

who is more likely to hurt the other?

I mean. Adam doesn’t usually get hurt by ronan so much as he gets annoyed. disappointed. pissed. He never lets ronan’s venom actually get to his veins, he’s too busy telling him how unnecessary the flash of fang is. ronan on the other hand. like. he’s easy to hurt. adam would never in his life want to hurt ronan (it’s his honest to god nightmare) but I think ronan works himself into such a despair at the smallest jealousies and perceived injustices that adam could make one careless comment and ronan would fixate on it

who is emotionally stronger?

ohhhh adam. it’s adam. He’s been dragging so much emotional rubble for so long that he’s built up a tolerance. strong is like The Most adam adjective that I can think of. ronan never had to get to adam’s level of detachment and dissociation bc the first 15 years of his life were gorgeous and easy, and he’s still growing into his protective shell. Adam had to be born in his

who is physically stronger?

it’s ronan tbH he has the upper body strength of a boxer and the broad shoulders of a lynch (but also adam has clever hands and muscular thighs from years of biking everywhere and he can handle himself)

who is more likely to break a bone? 

ouch. They’re both capital R Reckless when they’re together and they have some brutal years under their belts. adam has some poorly set knobbly fingers and ronan has an old snapped clavicle that took forever to heal and constantly bruised knuckles so like. idk. In the future, when adam parrish has escaped from his childhood prison, I’d like to think that they both get ugly minor injuries from doing joyful ramp and dolly and shopping cart type activities only

who knows best what to say to upset the other? 

surprisingly difficult question to answer bc I mean. It’s ronan. but is it? he systematically winds people up and adam is so deeply irritated by him that he straight up walks away, but also adam can be ice cold?? it’s so easy to get to ronan. They both fumble and call each other mean names when they want to compliment each other it’s a big mess

who is most likely to apologize first after an argument? 

holy shit would you believe neither??? the most stubborn humans on this earth!! record holders!! we got some emotional repression folks! hooooo boy

adam never starts arguments for no reason so he’s always thinking it through and coming to the conclusion that he’s in the right?? surprise he ain’t apologizing

meanwhile ronan can’t stop being cruel even though he knows it’s hurting people, it’s this vicious self-protective instinct that hurts so good and so wrong. and then his pride gets in the way once he’s cooled down. but he will come to st agnes on his knees and grab adam’s hand and try to make it clear that he’d step on his own pride on the way to adam’s door

who treats who’s wounds more often? 

sad & unfortunate :(( adam treats ronan’s solely bc ronan doesn’t know how the fuck to treat an injury and also ‘none of them wanted to hurt adam parrish’, so ronan’s got his stupid pointless anger related scrapes and adam’s got his anti-bacterial gel and they are a dream team

who is in constant need of comfort? 

neither of them come out on top here man. They’ve had some shared harrowing experiences, and some separate trauma that they’re trying to tell each other about (if their stories could just stop. sticking. when they try to say them out loud). in v different ways, neither of their families are families. Ronan doesn’t let himself fall asleep, and he doesn’t let himself go through things, and the repression starts to calcify into cruelty like it did right after his father died. adam can’t stop thinking about gansey on the roadside, and he can’t be touched some days, most days. he can’t stop swimming or he’ll die. He can’t keep swimming or he’ll die. The gangsey is a critical support system made of so many weak beams

who gets more jealous? 

are u fucking serious,,, it’s both of them pal. remember when every combination of his friends that didn’t include him made adam like. sick with jealousy. remember when ronan saw gansey talking on the phone with adam and wanted to put his hand through a wall. or when adam brought blue along on their quest and he spouted nasty shit the whole day. they both deeply want each others attention and they don’t seem to realize that they already have it? always?

who’s most likely to walk out on the other? 

ohh god. oh man. oh boy. Here’s the thing. adam’s gonna walk away from ronan, but he’s not gonna walk OUT on him. he’s going to walk away because he’s not on a leash, he’s gonna spread those beautiful fucking self-made wings. And ronan is too!! in his own time he’s gonna build his own spaces that aren’t the barns and he’s going to realize what home means to him and they’re both gonna walk out the door and back but never close it behind them

who will propose? 

a controversial topic! I’m on team adam for this one pals. I was on team ‘adam’s gonna kiss ronan first’ for a while before trk like a FOOL and I realized the error of my ways bc ronan is physical as fuck! and a risk-taker! of course he kissed adam smh. But a proposal? That’s a contract. That’s a speech. That’s a chess move. Ronan wouldn’t corner adam like that. Adam knows how ronan feels and more importantly he knows how HE feels himself, and I think one day ten years into their relationship the practicalities are gonna beckon and he’s gonna look ronan in the back of the head while he’s sleeping and roll over into the curve of his spine and tell him he wants a ring on his finger 

who has the most difficult parents?

omg... fuck off

who initiates hand-holding when they’re out in public? 

tactile bastards! both of them! ronan especially wants adam’s hands...., any which way he can get them. I mean. He will kiss adam’s hands when they’re at dinner at nino’s and he’ll hook their fingers together even for the 20 second walk from the BMW to monmouth’s front door like he LIVES FOR IT (adam feels nervy and exhilarated every time it’s gay)

who comes up for the other all the time? 

i mean they’re always together so they don’t really bring each other up. if they’re not together they’re with gansey/blue/henry or even fox way babes/vancouver crowd etc and those ppl get real tired of it real quick. adam usually keeps his ronan related musings to himself though like he has self-control unlike... R.N.L. himself

who hogs the blankets? 

ronan does tbh adam has never hogged anything in his life and ronan is a shit

who gets more sad? 

an unfair Q, man. They’ve both had a super rough time, especially right post-trk?? those few months are hard. Ronan cries a lot. Adam gets numb and far away a lot. They have a lot to be sad about. (But more to be happy about. They made it. They honestly just stare at each other and laugh breathlessly and touch foreheads and hands and scars and can’t believe their luck)

who is better at cheering the other up? 

I sorta said this with ronsey but I think ronan is THE BEST at doing dumb shit to take his mind off of things. Like all that stuff about making adam quiet and turning off the lists and anxieties in his head so that they can do smth mindless and dangerous? yeah that. memes and songs and poor decisions. depression whom?

who’s the one that playfully slaps the other all the time after they make silly jokes?

this never happens wtf they’re not really ‘playful slappers’ HOWEVER adam will glare at ronan so hard that it probably feels like a slap

who is more streetwise?

it reeeeally depends on your definition of streetwise?? Like if we’re talking survival it’s unquestionably adam. He can fix your car and bandage your wounds and figure out your taxes and make himself invisible and blend his accent into whoever’s around him. He’s wicked sharp and fast on his feet. But i mean. he can’t quite drive stick. and he wouldn’t be caught dead in the sort of underground that ronan ends up in. ronan is streetwise in terms of the actual street, and he knows the most brutal avenues a person can end up on, the real life nightmares that feel closest to the ones in his head. Ronan is smart enough to navigate the chaos, but adam is smart enough to avoid it altogether

who is more wise?

adam. easily. ronan is intelligent and instinctive and talented (or adam wouldn’t get him as well as he does) but adam is a genius and that look behind his eyes..... he’s lived about 1 billion times more than he should’ve by age 19

who’s the shyest? 

neither of them are shy exactly they’re just buried under 9 surface level personalities that you have to crack open with your bare fuckin hands

but if you met either of them in the hallowed halls of aglionby you would think adam was shy and ronan was a rampant fuckwad so based on appearance?? adam. he keeps his head down.

who boasts about the other more? 

as soon as adam is officially his bf ronan takes a ten year long victory lap he’s so embarrassing

who sits on who’s lap?

y’all. we all know ronan sits in adam’s. it’s a fact of life. he probably had a sexy dream about it when he was 17 and took his morning shower in holy water

[dailydoseofcolor]

Taking Stock of Units in Fire Emblem Heroes, Part 3

I’ve already written a small novella at this point, but I have the motivation, so it’s time to keep going. Next is character archetypes in this game that I don’t yet have merged, and would be beneficial to my enjoyment of the game. At this point, I’m in T21 for Aether Raids, and consistently make T24/T25. I do not need to be T27, that’s just too much. On the other side, I’m usually T19.5 in Arena. I just don’t have the resources to keep up with Arena scoring. I actively dislike that mode, All I need are units that will get me through every aspect of the game and keep me from falling to T17 in Arena. 

Now for the hard part. I think what I would really love is to, one day, have a +10 character on hand for every combat role in the game across a large variety of weapon/color types. Obviously there’s Player Phase, Enemy Phase, Mixed Phase, and Support. But within those, I feel like there’s more niche roles: Player Phase:  1) Nuke / One Shot (Lilina, Lysithea) 2) Galeforce (OG Eliwood, Tibarn, Raven) 3) Double / Quad Builds (Maybe a subset of Galeforce, but serves a different purpose on maps with inflated stats; Est, Cordelia, etc)

Enemy Phase:  1) Retaliatory Nuke (Rinkah with Bonfire) 2) Sustain Tank (Aether Builds like Legendary Ike) 3) Stall Tank (Brave Ike and other more niche builds) Mixed Phase:  1) DPS (Special Spiral Builds like NY!Alfonse) 2) Duelist (Ross, Donnel, Itsuki, etc) 3) Omnitanks (More of an AR choice, but the characters that can dish it out either in PP or EP; Again, Brave Ike, Ross, Echidna)

Support:  1) Full Support (Dancers/Healers with zero combat prowess) 2) Tank Support (Tanky Healers that can be on the front lines with Close Counter; doesn’t always require actually high defense) 3) Closers (Those random characters that accompany you on maps that only see combat every now and again due to one very specific niche they handle, or are good at moving characters around the field, and can block an entrance for a hit or two if need be / or support characters with combat prowess, like Dance!Reinhardt and Dance!Ishtar). _____ 

So if we take those roles into account, the characters I already have fully merged or are Merge Projects are: Nowi (+10): Enemy Phase Sustain Tank Sothe (+10): Player Phase Double Build Ross (+10): Mixed Phase Duelist Lyon (+7): Enemy Phase Stall Tank Micaiah (+5): Enemy Phase Retaliatory Nuke OR Player Phase Nuke (Depending on the enemy type) Mia (+3): Her most obvious build is a Desperation build for a Player Phase Double, but I submit that her Res stat is actually pretty good, and she’d be a decent Mixed Phase Duelist OG Eliwood (+3): Player Phase Galeforce, honestly one of the best ones Joshua (+2): Mixed Phase Duelist (that high Res stat tho) Donnel (+2): His stats allow for so much flexibility: Player Phase Quad with his new Refine, Enemy Phase Sustain Tank, Mixed Phase Duelist....he fits a lot of niches now that I think about it. Rath (+2): Player Phase Double Build Saber (+1): Honestly more of an Enemy Phase Stall Tank, but he can move into a Mixed Phase DPS given the right build.  Black Knight (+1): Again, super flexible because of the Fighter skills; but likely a Player Phase Double build with Bold Fighter. I have plenty of Bold Fighter fodder, and would love to watch him delete things off the map.  Nephenee (+1): Best niche is as an Enemy Phase Retaliatory Tank with Bonfire/Ignis Altena (+1): Pure Enemy Phase as a Stall Tank, especially against Bows. Even some Green units just can’t touch her Young Minerva (+1): Again, super flexible because of her speed. I like her as an Enemy Phase Stall Tank, though Matthew (+1): Enemy Phase Stall Tank, although magic really kicks him in the ass

____

Okay. Zero support units and very few Player Phase units. I def have a preferred playstyle. Although, I’ll submit that the units I get a lot of use from that aren’t merged helps cover that. Let’s go through and see if I have any options for Merge Projects that are sitting unmerged right now: 

Sword: Roy: Roy’s our boy! Roy’s our boy! I have his merges available, but I’ve been waiting to bite the bullet. His Res is just on the underside to make him a full Omnitank, so he’s definitely more of a Enemy Phase Sustain Tank. But he is getting a Resplendent soon... Soleil: Major Player Phase action. Honestly, along with Mia, could be an actually good contender for any future Close Call/Repel fodder I get.  Ares: Unlimited Bonfire makes for a strong DPS candidate. I worry that merging him and Eliwood would be too much, even though they serve completely different purposed. I hesitate only because I don’t know anything about him, really.  Fallen Ashnard: Fuck. His design is just *chef’s kiss.* I need to build him, and I have time, since he won’t hit the Grail market for another two months at least. But I feel like Ashnard, Altena, Young Minerva, and Myrrh would be a hilariously physically bulky team. 

Lance:  Valter: Disgusting villain, one you just love to hate. Smaller grail cost than others, since he’s been around a while. And he has to be up for a refine within the next 6 months. He’s high on the list. He could serve as a strong Player Phase Nuke Cormag: Much higher grail cost than Valter, but with a more balanced stat-line. More of a dream than anything.  Effie: Is it past time to build Effie’s? She was all the rage a year and a half ago. Although she can still put in work with her attack stat, and her speed is more than covered by Fighter skills. I just really have a hard time with Armor units.  Est: I see Est builds floating around and people rave about her. I wonder if it’s time to bite the bullet and build one myself.  Ferdinand: Shitty stat line, character I detested from 3H...why did I even put him on this list.  Oscar: Before this: WHERE IS BOYD. For fuck’s sake, it’s been years. Boyd deserves to be in 3H if Oscar is. Again, not a character I love, but has a refine that gives a niche(?). I honestly never see Oscar builds around, which tells me all I need to know.  Axe:  Raven: Easy to merge, great refine, easy to use Player Phase potential. One of the stronger Galeforce infantry units. Worth consideration.  Cherche: Similar to above, but as a nuke. I’ve seen her just delete characters off the map.  Titania: Super strong support capabilities. Tactics skills are pretty fucking dope most of the time.  Bow:  Norne: Incredible stat line, and I have a Midori that I could sink into her if I feel so inclined....now I just need merges. Clarisse: Honestly, her new refine is pretty sick, although she’s a very high level Grail cost. Might need to wait and see on this one, at least until her refine is fixed. Claude: I legitimately think that, if I decided this is what I wanted, I could get a +10 Claude. But that would me a LOT of Lull fodder that I don’t use. I’d love this, but I don’t think so. Halloween Rolf: Fucking adorable character and design, Grail cost is too high. 

Dagger:  Kronya: Stupid character, amazing options. Hard to justify with Sothe and Matthew above her in priority of characters I love.  Tethys: I dismissed Tethys way back when she launched, but I actually feel like she’s found a niche with her high Res stat? Again, hard to justify, though.  Winter Jaffar: Great character art, honestly. Top Tier. Decent combat potential, but his green coloring hurts him pretty hard. Also he’s armor, I just have a hard time with armors. 

Red Mage: OG Tharja: She’s on a similar level as Nino, for me. But has a refine that gives her a really interesting niche. I go back and forth, I need to test her out in combat more.  Aversa: Incredible support, especially in large maps like Grand Conquests. Her merges would be mostly about getting that HP stat up. I don’t really need her to be combative.  Arvis: I love his character design and he can have some really fun builds with his special B skill. I’m waiting for a refine before I make any decisions, though.  Iago: New character that I don’t love in terms of base game, but interesting support potential.  Male Morgan: He’s shown up so many times I could build two +10 versions of him (which crosses my mind sometimes). I wish his defensive stats were higher, it would make for a slightly more interesting unit.  Blue Mage:  Fallen Delthea: I realize that I really do love a lot of the Fallen character’s designs...except for Celica. Delthea has a strong presence and she could be worth the Grails. Brunnya: I’m seeing Brunnya everywhere on Reddit. I should pay more attention to her builds, I think. Why are there so many decent Grail units?? Reinhardt: Not a hot take: don’t love Reinhardt. But fuck if he isn’t super useful sometimes. It’s really remarkable how well he’s stayed either inside or right outside the meta. Still not gonna build him.  L’Arachel: I love her character and personality, and I just have this sinking feeling that her refine is gonna suck. So idk, hard to tell at the moment. 

Green Mage: Soren: Also capable of the Triple Chill strategy, but with more Combat Prowess. I don’t have enough for a +10 though right now. Definitely on the backburner.  Halloween L’Arachel: A person can dream, right? I have one and would love more. Maybe in the future.  Staff:  Silque: One of my favorite characters from SoV. And I just love defensive healers. I could get her to +2 right now, and I think it might be worth it to have her be a long term goal.  Forrest: I don’t have enough to +10 Forrest, but I do love his design. It leans into the aesthetic very well. His stats are pretty lackluster, unfortunately.  Mercedes: Pretty sure I could just copy and paste from above. Mercedes is one of the best characters from 3H, but her stat line and a lack of copies at the moment...hard to justify.  Brady: Another great defensive healer. Easier to merge than Silque, but his personality is kinda meh for me. Pass. 

Dragon:  Myrrh: Myrrh was on my “most wanted list” with OG Ephraim for forever. I only pulled an pitybreaker Myrrh a month ago. Her refine is INCREDIBLE, and I would love to try to get more merges for her. She has an upcoming banner coming up, and if I can score a couple of merges, I’ll be a happy camper. 

Beast:  Reyson: I’m close to being able to +10 Reyson soon. He gets a decent amount of work just as a dancer, if I fully kit him, he’d be able to hold highly with L!Azura in terms of usage, if only because of his weapon effect. Good solid passive healing is always hard to come by unless you use the healing specials. He’s worth a further look. 

I’ll analyze the rest of this tomorrow...Part 3, Section 2 will have to wait.