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pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer · 8 months

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Games in 2023: Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless

(I know it’s 2024 the game came out late 2023 so even if I didn’t get it until now it didn’t feel right saying it was “in 2024” okay)

I’ve been a longtime (if somewhat casual) fan of the Disgaea series. It has that one-two punch of lighthearted tone and surprisingly serious plot developments that I tend to enjoy, and relishes in being perhaps the best example of over-the-top cartoon violence ever seen. These games are absolutely STUFFED with things to do, but enticing as that is, it can also be a double-edged sword when trying to actually dig into them. I’ve played at least a little of everything but Disgaea D2, yet 7 marks only the third time I’ve beaten the main story of a Disgaea game—and the first one I beat (2) took several attempts over a few years. So this won’t be entirely comprehensive; nevertheless, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself thus far, and 35 hours seems like a good enough chunk that I’m qualified to recommend it to people.

First, a spoiler-free tl;dr: Disgaea 7 has all the whacky humor and engrossing gameplay the series is known for, with many mechanics being streamlined to make it one of the most accessible entries for players both new and returning. The plot draws on familiar themes and takes some really interesting turns, helped by a very solid main cast, and as it neared its resolution I just couldn’t put the game down. Definitely give the free demo a try if you’re at all curious! That was all it took to hook me!

From what I’ve heard, Disgaea 6 wasn’t especially well-received. I’ve only tried the demo, but it’s true that something about it just didn’t hit. Nippon Ichi apparently took a lot of feedback on 6 into account when making Disgaea 7, and while I don’t have the experience to properly compare the two, playing the demo for 7 made me immediately want to get my hands on the full game, so that’s a stark difference. The setting we’re exploring this time is Hinomoto, a cluster of closely connected Netherworlds based on feudal Japan; while the demons here were once known for their unusually undemonic code of honor, bushido, the realm has since fallen on hard times and has become just as rowdy as most other Netherworlds we’ve seen. This is all the result of Hinomoto’s long-standing isolationist policy being forcibly ended by our villain, Demmodore Opener…just like how Japan’s isolationist policy was ended in real life! Well, with the caveat that Opener has conquered Hinomoto and taken direct control over it. It’s a funny way to draw as deeply from the inspiration as possible. Under Opener’s rule, Hinomoto has declined in both honor and prosperity, but none dare stand up to him: he killed the Netherworld’s greatest warrior, the legendary Mugai, after all. Things certainly look bleak for the demons living here.

Into this stumbles Pirilika, a ray of sunshine cat-gyaru demon who owns her own fashion brand and is a self-proclaimed “Hinomoto Otaku”, having fallen in love with the Netherworld from all the stories she’s heard about the age of bushido. In other words, she’s a literal weeaboo rolling up to feudal Japan. Only in Disgaea, man. She soon crosses paths with Fuji, a dragon demon ronin who has an allergy to empathy that makes him cough up blood any time somebody’s nice to him; a situation presents itself where Fuji agrees to be Pirilika’s bodyguard for an enormous fee (he’s in deep debt), but Pirilika’s Prinny secretary rigs the contract so that he’ll only get his money after Pirilika has accomplished her goals in Hinomoto. Determined to get paid, Fuji declares he’ll “do his worst”, and grumpily follows Pirilika on her adventures. Oh, and they become wanted criminals for getting into an altercation with shogunate forces. Hilarity ensues!

The demo lets you play through the first two chapters of the story, both of which end with a tutorial for a new mechanic. At the end of chapter one, Pirilika offers Fuji a sword as a sort of down payment, and upon taking it he realizes that it’s actually one of the legendary Infernal Treasures said to be the greatest weapons in all of Hinomoto. He’s curious as to why she has it, but he’s perfectly willing to put it to use, thus unlocking Hell Mode. If you’ve played Disgaea 5, this is somewhat similar to Revenge Mode: a character builds up their gauge to achieve a power boost for 3 turns, though quite a few changes have been made. First of all, since Hell Mode is tied to the Infernal Treasures, only a select few characters have access to it, and not all of them have their Treasure (or their Hell Mode) in all chapters. Secondly, each character has their own conditions for charging their gauge: deal damage, take damage, do team attacks, and more. Thirdly, Hell Mode is activated manually, not automatically. Fourthly, the effects of each Hell Mode are also unique rather than a uniform buff. Fuji’s attacks become able to ignore a portion of the enemy’s defense stat; another character gets to act twice per turn; another gets an insanely long attack range; etc. And finally, as a sort of replacement for Overloads, Hell Mode also enables a very powerful skill that costs 0 SP, but does end Hell Mode early if you use it. I think I’d need to go back and play more of 5 to really see if I like this or Revenge Mode better, but Hell Mode is plenty fun in and of itself; I definitely appreciate that activation has been made manual as it lets you be more strategic about when to use the power-up.

The end of the second chapter introduces…Jumbification. I still hate the name. Anyway, there’s a shared RAGE meter that charges when your units take and deal damage, and when it’s full you can have one of your units become a giant outside the bounds of the map. As someone who never liked Dynamax, hearing about this made me hesitate checking the game out, but I wound up using it quite a bit. Each unique character and each character class have their own passive ability that goes into effect once they Jumbify (it’s called a “Jumbility”…); these affect both allies and enemies equally, which means you need to think about which side will benefit more from this effect. You must pick one of the four sides of the map for your giant unit to appear, and if enemies make it to that edge of the map, they can attack and potentially kill the unit. The giant only has two options: either a normal attack, which has them hit a 5x5 area anywhere on the map; or, if an enemy unit Jumbifies, they can use a “Gigasaster Attack” to attack them instead. After 3 turns, the unit shrinks back down and reappears on the map, but there’s nothing stopping them from Jumbifying again if you build up enough RAGE. Somehow, I ended up really liking this mechanic! It being available to every unit makes the exclusivity of Hell Mode a non-issue, every unit having their own passive effect on the map adds an interesting extra dimension to using it, and Jumbifying heals a character to full, which can save you in some tight spots. Enemies Jumbifying is usually manageable, though they remain that way indefinitely which can feel unfair at times. The boss of the Jumbifying tutorial can be a little tough, and when I was fighting the final story boss, I whittled their HP down significantly only to see them then Jumbify the next turn to heal completely. That kinda sucked. But I won so it really just made for an even more tense battle I guess.

Another small mechanic introduced past where the demo ends is Netherworld Sightseeing: after clearing a chapter, you can press a button in the stage select to go to one of its maps and walk around the same as if it was a second hub world. There are treasure chests scattered about, miscellaneous characters you can chat with, a few generic class units you can actually fight one-on-one to recruit (and unlock a bonus color for that class), and some even have specialized shops you can browse. It’s a simple little addition, but it’s got it’s own charm, I appreciate its inclusion. There are also two special features you can access through sightseeing: Demon Shogi and the Netherworld Martial Arts Tournament. Demon Shogi gives you a stage with preset units set to auto-battle and asks you to tweak their AI to clear the stage as quickly as possible; I haven’t messed around much with this, but I suppose it puts an interesting spin on the core mechanics. The tournament is, well…a tournament. You select a tier and then have to fight through three maps to win, with each tier being farther and farther up the level curve. It can be a fun distraction, a way to spice up grinding; it seems like some fights have gimmicks, but I haven’t really seen many, just attempted a higher tier and was immediately faced with pre-Jumbified level 300 enemies. Yikes.

Most of the returning mechanics you’d expect are also here. They did keep the Juice Bar from Disgaea 6, which stores EXP, Mana, and stat points you can then freely distribute to your units; this can be a really great way to buff units at risk of falling behind, or to make your strongest characters even stronger right away. I don’t recall how the Hospital was handled in 6, but new to me at least is that instead of giving milestone rewards, healing now earns you points you can spend on a gacha to randomly get rare items, money, points for the Juice Bar, even Innocents. There were also changes made to the Item World, letting you do things like farm Innocents and reincarnate items, but probably the biggest change is in the size of Item World dungeons. Previously, Common items had 30 floors, Rare had 60, and Legendary had 100; now, Common has 10 floors, Rare has 20, and Legendary has 30. While it is sad to see it reduced so much, this does make leveling your items far more approachable and feasible, and is probably the right call considering how many floors you’ll still need to go through to deck out all your key characters in high-level equipment. Also worth noting that the RAGE and Hell Mode meters both carry over between Item World floors, and I like how that opens the option to save your charge until you see what the next floor has to offer. Very useful when you know you’re nearing a boss floor.

Regardless of where you’re battling, I like the selection of classes you can battle with. Most humanoid classes have both a male and female variant, and both they and the monster classes draw from all over the series history. I still want Wood Golem back, but I am LOVING the Pincer Shell and its gentlemanly disposition. Also I can still make my recurring Lady Samurai unit, that’s a tradition that’s very important to me. The story characters are nothing to scoff at either, of course: Fuji is your sword-wielding protag with big stats and a fire skill; Pirilika learns healing spells and buffs and is decent with a bow; you get a mage type, a thief type, a monster unit, and another strong melee fighter as you go through the game, providing good coverage whatever your playstyle entails. Their Hell Modes are all suitably unique, though Pirilika doesn’t get hers until the very last chapter…but seeing as it revives all dead units, that makes sense from a balance perspective. Why don’t I go into more detail on those other characters to transition into talking about the story?

Someone I ended up liking more than I was expecting is Ceefore, a girl who shows up in the story as early as the demo but can’t be recruited until after where it ends. She’s a phantom thief who snorts gunpowder and gets off on causing explosions. Only in Disgaea, man. Where Pirilika is a Hinomoto Otaku, Ceefore is a Weapon Otaku, and has a particular fascination with the Infernal Treasures. We soon learn that this is in part because she has amnesia, and coming into contact with Infernal Treasures helps her regain her memories. She’s a very fun character, both in story and gameplay—when killing an enemy she has a chance to automatically steal their equipment, which I greatly enjoy as someone who’s never felt like bothering with stealing before! Not to mention her Hell Mode skill attacks a straight line with infinite range. That’s pretty cool. When she does recover her memories it’s made clear she always loved weapons, and it’s for that reason she was sent to investigate the Infernal Treasures on behalf of Celestia. Yep, she’s actually an angel! While she can be very kind, overall she fits in more with demons than other angels, and it’s always nice to see Disgaea crushing their own in-universe stereotypes like this. That’s once again a larger theme in the plot, so Ceefore’s contribution to it really goes a long way.

There’s also Higan Zesshousai, Fuji’s old master. She’s a six-foot tall (plus horns) super-busty demon lady recognized as the strongest warrior in all of Hinomoto; her hobbies include fighting, eating sweets, and shoving her spear up people’s butts. Eat your heart out, Tumblr. She’s a mostly static character, which I mean as a positive, and I really enjoy the dynamic she and Fuji have. They’ll yell and complain and crack jokes, sure, but it’s always apparent that Fuji is grateful to Higan and respects her, and that Higan cares about Fuji’s well-being and is always ready to support him. And it never got weird! It was just a very genuine representation of a student-teacher relationship! Love that! She also has this insanely cool scene later on where she uses her spear’s time-manipulating powers to turn a villain’s regeneration against them, she’s almost certainly the most badass character in the game.

As for Yeyasu…I both do and don’t like him? Like, I think he’s pretty well-written and has some great moments, his selfish idiocy being revealed to be a form of denial was an interesting direction to take, but at the same time…I’m still really annoyed and put-off by his behavior most of the time. He has a solid foundation beneath a veil of crap, and that’s exactly the point of his character development so it’s hard to outright hate him. Last of the main bunch is Suisen, a robot boy who’s actually a living Infernal Treasure. After losing a game with the party, they just kinda abduct him, and he just kinda goes along with it to honor the terms of the game. Funny as hell, definitely, but also sort of a weird way to transplant a new main character into the fold? He does want to learn to look past the numbers and believe in friendship and determination, which is serviceable, and he’s at the heart of a pretty big reveal about mid-way through the story. Turns out, Infernal Treasures contain heaps of souls, and the dominant soul inside Suisen is the soul of Yeyasu’s little brother who was taken by Demmodore Opener as a hostage a long time ago. Messed up! But aside from leading to more interaction between Yeyasu and Suisen, not a whole lot really comes of this, and it can feel like Suisen is underreacting to this terrible knowledge. I dunno, your mileage may vary; I like Suisen well enough, but I do wonder if he could have been more compelling.

The story these characters tell is engaging and well-paced…though I’m not sure how best to summarize it quickly without it looking messy. A lot of things happen. I’ll give it a shot, though! The game is divided into three acts, the first of which is largely an episodic string of antics that serve to assemble the party and get a few Infernal Treasures in their hands—good, light-hearted fun. Act 2 is when things start to get intense, following one continuous thread where the party, after dealing with some distraction tactics, learn about the Treasures being forged from massive numbers of souls and see an opportunity to take the fight directly to Opener. This is where we start to really delve into backstories and see some character development, a good place for it now that we’ve had time to get to know and care about this group. A boss fight with Opener then paves the way for Act 3, which reveals there’s way more going on than we initially realized, and we have a much bigger problem to solve. Plot twists, but if you ask me they’re handled pretty well. Here comes the tricky part of the summary…

Demmodore Opener is Pirilika’s father, with her mother being the evil scientist who revealed the truth about Infernal Treasures to them. Turns out the REAL reason Pirilika came here was because, when her parents came to visit Hinomoto, she suddenly lost contact with them, and they’re both now acting very unlike themselves. Also, that legendary hero Mugai who died fighting Opener? He’s Fuji’s father, he created the Infernal Treasures, and he’s not dead, he was actually possessing Opener this whole time. This was all part of his master plan to get Hinomoto to abandon the honor of bushido, to embrace violence and selfishness and become more…well, demonic. That’s how he thinks the Netherworld should be, and he’s going to force that view on others by holding a televised execution of Opener so that he can cast a curse on all of Hinomoto in one fell swoop. That curse? Empathy Killer. If the afflicted feels any positive emotion, the curse causes them extreme pain, and could even kill them…usually it makes them cough up blood. Yep, while Laharl’s aversion to good feelings was just a joke, Fuji’s “allergy” is actually a potentially fatal curse. I like how they’ve iterated upon the idea! I don’t recall anything specific pointing towards the connection between Pirilika and Opener, though once her mother appears, it’s obvious they have a strong resemblance and she specifically mentions fighting her child, so that’s in the back of your mind all through Act 2. We’re told of Fuji’s relation to Mugai relatively early on, and he’s quick to scoff every time someone talks about how great Mugai was, so we know something’s off about the guy well before he makes his grand return. With many of our questions answered, now we’re off to stop Mugai…well, after a few grueling rounds with him.

With Opener’s boss fight, I dunno if I just placed my units in exactly the right spots or what, but after dealing with his lackies my army launched a united attack on him and killed him before he even took a single action. I found this funny. The NEXT fight, though, is your first battle with Mugai, your 10 units against just him, and this fight was HARD. His skills deal double damage, he can’t be attacked from range, he has a chance to turn around when attacked from the back or side, and he immediately activates his Hell Mode (which is permanent for enemies), the effect of which prevents any unit he attacks from acting at all during their next turn. I, uh, had to stop and grind a little for this one. There’s still one or two more fights with him after that, but his Evilities are changed to be much more manageable, even with lackies. My take is that it was just approaching the point of being too much, enough fights in a row to feel long and drawn out but not entirely tedious, which helps create the sense of this being a hopeless battle due to Mugai’s ability to regenerate from fatal damage. He’s a neat villain, though I can’t quite decide if the gold teeth facemask is cool or awkward-looking…

Now there is another major character who I haven’t really had a good opportunity to bring up thus far. All throughout the game, a little girl named Ao will occasionally pop up out of nowhere and cause mass destruction, and she claims to be Fuji’s daughter. Fuji is vague about the details up until Act 3: since Fuji is Mugai’s son, he knows how to make Infernal Treasures, and following an incident where Mugai slaughtered the students he was training with, he thought combining their souls into an Infernal Treasure would be better than just letting them die. Ao is the result—a living Infernal Treasure. At first, all Fuji cared about was getting back at Mugai, and he spent a lot of time doing nothing but train Ao for that purpose. However, he eventually realized he was being a shitty dad just like Mugai, so he stopped, told Ao she didn’t have to fight and should go do whatever she wants, and left her. Problem being. What Ao wants is to be with Fuji. But through a combination of shame, trying to forget the past, and the Empathy Killer curse, Fuji has continued to push her away without any real explanation why. Tragic! I did feel Ao’s random appearances through Acts 1 and 2 felt a bit out of nowhere, but she greatly elevates the story of Act 3, where Fuji decides he’s going to fix things with Ao even if it kills him. And it nearly does! Ao’s body has become unstable and is on the verge of breaking down, so Fuji uses his knowledge of restoring Infernal Treasures (previously displayed in Act 2 to heal Suisen) to put her back in good health. Ao tries to stop him because she doesn’t want his curse to kill him, but he carries out his fatherly responsibilities, saying it’s “proof that [he] loves [her] to death.” I uh. That, um, might be the most a Disgaea game has ever emotionally fucked me up. Good shit. The narration even tells you that this is the end of the story to twist the knife! But Pirilika bursts onscreen and refuses to let things end this way, finally getting an Infernal Treasure (a bow that Ao had been holding onto) and using its healing power to save Fuji’s life. The party brings Ao with them, though she’s still weak so she doesn’t actually become playable until the post-game; nevertheless, they follow Mugai into a hidden realm known as the Infernal Sanctuary, ready to decide it all with one final battle.

Mugai, who has now powered up to “Super-Deity Mugai” (it just makes me think of Super Kami Guru), is quite the obstacle to overcome. Like I mentioned earlier, he can Jumbify to restore his health and make the fight a smidge more complicated, but while this was certainly a close call I still have to say his first battle was the toughest one. Before dying, Mugai tells us his motivation more completely than he did earlier: after his first fight with Opener, the Demmodore spared his life and said they should become friends (he’s just as big a weeaboo as Pirilika), which made Mugai feel utterly humiliated. It was then he discovered the Infernal Sanctuary, which is actually Hell. Like, I know the Netherworlds are supposed to be a myriad of hells, but this is HELL Hell, a fiery vortex filled with the anguished souls of demons who can’t let go of the life they’ve left behind and are trapped here for eternity. Mugai took this as a sign that empathy, compassion, emotion as a whole, was a weakness with no purpose other than to damn those who feel it, and that it was his responsibility to rid demonkind of it to ensure no more souls became bound to the Sanctuary. That’s a solid motive if you ask me. You’re given the context necessary to follow his train of thought, but aren’t asked to sympathize with or forgive him, and he’s decisively proven wrong. The party talks about how Pirilika’s empathy and positivity has impacted all of them, and how they’re stronger because of their bonds with one another; the souls in the Infernal Sanctuary resonate with the souls in the Infernal Treasures, and with their power, Fuji is able to cut open the dimension and let the souls escape, accomplishing Mugai’s goal using exactly what he sought to throw aside. It’s a good ending, IMO.

I really appreciated how the theme of generational change came out in the game. The end of Japan’s isolationist policy was itself a changing of generations, making it a very fitting inspiration for the setting. Mugai’s plot to force his own rigid views on the younger generation is…distressingly familiar…I’m not saying he’s a boomer, but, y’know. Fuji himself realized he was in danger of repeating his father’s mistake, and redeems himself by making the conscious decision to break the cycle of generational trauma. Even Fuji and Pirilika’s friendship is a more positive counterpart to the antagonistic relationship between their fathers Mugai and Opener. There’s a plot thread about Yeyasu being compared to his father, Gachiyasu, even if it is more of a background thing. A certain character is scarred by memories of their past life; another late-game enemy is a prototype Infernal Treasure motivated by loyalty to his creator and his jealousy of Ao; hell, you could even view expanding reincarnation to apply to items now as another manifestation of generational change. It’s all so cohesive! And it’s something that can resonate with many, many players for one reason or another. The Disgaea series itself is also experimenting with some radical change, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s part of why the developers went with this theme: Disgaea is entering a new generation, and though it may have gotten off on the wrong foot with 6, Nippon Ichi is committed to listening to fans, improving the series, and steering towards a better future. I for one look forward to seeing what the madlads cook up next. …Dood.

#Disgaea #Disgaea 7 #Games in 2023 #Game Night

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omgtaiyo-blog · 4 years

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The born of Sunrise

In August 2019, almost at the end of the month, I took a part in a Community GameJam. I was supposed to make a game in a week. And, surprisingly, I did it. It is called lovely and you can find it on my itch.io page, but I wouldn’t recommend playing it. It was my first completed game ever and it shows. No pause menu. No options menu. Weird scene transitions. And even the art looks… weird.

However, it wasn’t the worst thing ever. It had some kind of story and you can actually look at the game. Plus, the animation isn’t the worst. With the given time, I think I did decently. I learned so, so much thanks to it – not only how important it is to complete games I start, but how much it helps me to grow. And many of things I learned with lovely I used in my second game, Homerun To Earth.

Homerun To Earth started as a little side-project, a small break from my two big projects – Icarus and Planet Called Moon. I wanted something short and simple to learn more things in Unity. And, of course, to practice my drawing skills, because I wasn’t doing much for a few months. I was busy with school and life in general, but I also lost a motivation to do anything up to February, when I started with the Homerun To Earth. However, then I took another little break until April, when I got back to this side project. And here we are now – June 2020. The Homerun To Earth is published along with lovely. And I got inspired to do my probably best project ever.

It started rather simply. I just wanted to do something with mental illnesses. And, since the theme is close to me, I got an idea to do it about BPD, or also known as Borderline Personality Disorder. But that still was too little to work with. And one evening, while thinking about completely different thing… I got it. The idea I knew that could work. Sunrise was born.

It didn’t take me long to do a concept art of the main character. A little guy with unknown gender and a mask and a cape to hide their face. After some time, they also obtained a katana, Japanese sword, because… well, I want him to attack enemies. And it is based in Japan. So it would make sense to be even more weeaboo and use this, right?

It didn’t take me long to decide which kind of background I want to have. Something that would scream Japan, but not in a too obvious way. Something that will show the beauty of the landscape and nature there. Something somewhat unique and treating the whole culture with respect. When someone says Japan, more than anime you would like to be reminded of their traditions. Of their forests and myths. At least I want to remember this when I hear about the country.

And so on spring of 2020 I realized something that was too obvious from the start, I was just too stupid to understand it completely: the most important thing about gamedev is doing a game you have passion for. You enjoy working on it 24/7, sometimes, you even forget the day-to-day necessities because of it. And I finally found my passion with the born of Sunrise.

And with that, I would like to invite you on the same journey. On the journey to find the Sun of your life. Even if sometimes they are clouds and storm is playing with you, even though you are inside a terrible typhoon without obvious way out, the Sun is still there, patiently waiting for you to get out.

This is the game I want to invite you to experience with me.

#sunrise #homerun-to-earth #game #gamedev #solodev

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bscully · 5 years

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Berserk AU where everything is the same, except whenever Casca sees Guts with a sword, Long Long Man theme plays.

Only weeaboos would know about this shit I swear to schnoz

#berserk #ask #Anonymous

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fedorasaurus · 5 years

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For the character ask thing, how about Sodom and Rolento? :3

Huhuhuhu, I am always so thrilled to discuss my favorite crime boys!

favorite thing about them - Sodom – He’s so funny, a classic “weeaboo.” Moreso in his winquotes in the Japanese version, where he says things like “DIE JOB DEATH CAR?” in an attempt to use phrases like “daijobu desu ka?” I know that the joke is at the expense of dumb Americans who obsess over Japanese culture and wear random kanji on their shirts, but GOD Sodom is adorable in all his cringe. He looks big and scary, but he’s actually a huge nerd and is probably the least dangerous person in the entire Mad Gear gang.Rolento – His thighs. His theme song is really, really good!

least favorite thing about them - Sodom – He hasn’t been in a SF game for a long time and I just find that really frustrating. All the new and returning characters are fun, don’t get me wrong, but I get the feeling that Sodom has been kinda ignored. I think he was considered for SFV in the early planning stages, but they seem to have changed their minds since then (not that I have anything against the other Final Fight characters we’ve been getting)!Rolento – As silly and over-the-top as his military fixation is, when you think about it, it’s really unnerving that he thinks he can solve the world’s problems/create a nation of peace by using war tactics. But he canonically respects free will, so uh, I guess that’s something! (That, and he has Sodom to keep him in check and call him out when he starts doing something questionable, like GOD I could go on about their friendship/relationship, but I’ll contain myself).

favorite line - Sodom – “I’m not trash! I really have class, I tell you!”Rolento – “I guess I’ll have to rebuild my empire… ON YOUR FACE!”

brOTP - I really think Ibuki is/would be close friends with both of them. In fact, I think that a friendship with Sodom might explain how she ended up teaming up with Rolento in SF x Tekken. She’s like, their wingman or something!

OTP - YES

nOTP - I’m not necessarily put off by other ships, but I’m not very interested in pairings that aren’t each other. Their bond is just too powerful in my eyes. I can’t say I’ve ever been uncomfortable with other ships, it’s just more of a “I don’t get it, but that art is nice” sort of thing.

random headcanon - Rolento’s comment in Street Fighter Alpha 3 about them being “blood brothers” is literal, as in, I headcanon that they actually performed a ritual blood bond to officiate their mutual loyalty to one another.

unpopular opinion - Sodom – From what I understand, originally when they released Final Fight in the U.S., they changed Sodom’s name to “Katana” because it wasn’t as suggestive, or something. But honestly I think the name generally works better for him. Like, it fits his personality that he’d be so into Japanese culture that he’d name himself after a Japanese sword.Rolento – I don’t like his English voice that much in Street Fighter 4. This isn’t a negative about Dameon Clarke or anything (I loved him as Jack in the Borderlands series), I just feel like the voice itself sounds younger than what I imagine Rolento would sound like.

song i associate with them - Sodom – Panda Bear by Owl CityRolento – The Phoenix by Fall Out Boy

favorite picture of them - I’m sure I’ve mentioned these a lot, but I really love the Street Fighter Alpha concept art for these losers.

Rolento’s tiny waist is sending me, also why is he chewing on a bat? The bat, by the way, looks even meaner than him and his two goons COMBINED.

Really good reference picture of Sodom’s armor, but more importantly, Poison doing eyes emoji at his ass. She is truly all of us in this moment.

#long post #asks #answers #anonymous #character asks #Sodom #Rolento Schugerg #SodomRol #hehehe

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shidiand · 5 years

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How do you imagine Tenco's Story ending in your head?

that is a GREAT but UNEXPECTED QUESTION freshlybaked "spider" bread and i'm really happy to have the opportunity to try and answer this ageless question that has burned within all of us in the tenco's story iv waiting room community since 2013. it is an incredible coincidence (or is it? 👀) that i was just talking to Risa about tenco's this (edit: yesterday) morning so i am extra double super in the mood to talk about Tenco's Story today. so excellent of a coincidence is this that i am tempted to refer you to them in case you wanted to hear their thoughts on the matter that would probably turn out super cool, but that is neither here nor there; let us talk Tenco's Story.

i of course must mention my unadvertised and modestly detailed commentary on tenco's i-iii at https://shidiand.tumblr.com/tencos, presenting slightly interesting facts in an unwieldy and difficult-to-use format, but as it dates back to june 2017, i want to take some time to understand my feelings about the series once more.

tenco's story is a series that has a lot of meaning to me.

i took on my current name of shidiand in november of 2013. i was still in 11th grade at the time, 4th year of high school, and a very socially isolated person. i should say i was introduced to touhou in 7th grade, 2010, so i was still working through a 3 years-strong phase of trying to simultaneously both find an outlet for and bottle up an endless wellspring of awkward weeaboo-gamer nerd energy at the time.

i had my first real foray onto the internet in 2010, tried out twitter, followed some RPers and other people who had Cool Touhou Usernames. didn't really go anywhere. i had maybe 50 followers, i dont really know the count but it was definitely a) double digits and b) pretty low. didn't know what to tweet about. didn't know how to hit it off with others. i think there was basically maybe only 3 other people i ever properly interacted with. oh shit i was playing league of legends at the time. oh my god. i really did play league of .. oh my god. let's move on.

aw shit im super digressing amn't i. well.

this is just how it goes when i write essays on tumblr.com.

i'm afraid you're just along for the ride at this point so please do your best to enjoy it.

i got kind of tired of twitter at the time because i didnt know what to do with it. didnt know how to interact with people and didnt find the people i was following interesting, so i ghosted on out of there by the end of 2012. didnt deactivate it until like 2015 but at that point that was just burning away my dark history. anyways. november 2013.

--im taking a lot of time here trawling through old files on my computer, my tumblr blog, notification emails still lying around in my gmail inbox from twitter, the dropbox i didn't actually use but it had several tenco's story pictures on it but i deleted them so this was useless, ... to trace the timeline of this story and im really seeing a lot of remnants of dark history here you know? did you know i wrote a letter to a girl i had a crush on valentine's day 2014, slipped it into her locker, and anxiously hung around nearby at lunchtime to see how she reacted at lunchtime? i certainly didn't, or at least i made darn ass sure to forget about this incredible virgin incident and not remember it, ever, until i came across the records of it that i thoughtfully preserved for the me of 5 years later today. ok well now i have to read the letter to see if it was as bad as it just sounded there brb

ok so the good news is that it was actually very focused on being positive and full of admiration for the cool things she did instead of being a confession letter so i am very glad i was able to be a respectful chad 5 years ago, but the bad news is that the jokes, the actual sentences i put together. oh my god. but i mean. well. at least i got the spirit. its certainly a step up from this other person in my grade, WEEABOO ANDREW, YOU MAY RECALL THIS STORY AND HIS NAME FROM PREVIOUS STORYTIMES, THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND who came to school on halloween once cosplaying kirito from sword art online and got very possessive about people asking if they could hold his black replica plastic sword, and probably worse, dropped a "will you be my girlfriend" letter into the locker of my homie and fellow trombonist samantha, who was a little bit nerdy, hung out with the anime-likers who were actually sociable and fun to be around so you can imagine why weeaboo andrew was into her, which had i) a direct quotation from SAO chapter 16.5 (origin of the famous "glopping noise" line), and ii) a condom. jesus christ. i dont want to talk about this any more. next topic.

i also put this drawing of iku nagae and her skarmory (actually an albinoss from 18 DRAGONS) on the other side of the letter because it was the coolest thing i could think of drawing at the time. and i completely agree with 2014 me because it IS super fucking cool. hell fuckin yeah

https://shidiand.tumblr.com/post/76301993387/iku-nagae-ft-that-thing-that-supposedly-is-a

alright that was a fun little trip down memory lane but lets get back on track. november 2013. i started anew as shidiand. still awkward, still learning how to express myself and looking for my place among others. i followed some touhou bloggers, hung around r/touhou a lot as well. in december i got my first tablet for christmas, a wacom bamboo splash. i still use this thing! the usb cable disconnects if you bump it so i have to find just the perfect position to sit in whenever i want to draw, but its served me well. anyways. i was just starting to play around with digital art but i remember, probably just before new years, for some reason i wanted to find out more about tenshi hinanawi (i don't remember why. tenshi wasn't even one of my favourite characters at the time) so i went googling and right there on zerochan i found this:

https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23525572

this was during my dark souls phase so i just went BANANAS at the sight of this. this was literally the coolest image i had ever seen in my internet life. That image alone made me want to draw in hopes that I could make something as cool as that someday.

it wasn't immediately after but i soon discovered tenco's story, and it was love. kannnu was my very first artistic inspiration, and for a long time, my only one. i absolutely idolized them at the time. since then, ive found other artists to look up to, in a more healthy manner, but to this day i still look up to kannnu, still admire their work a lot.

i played around with drawing, followed the lives of people on tumblr, started reading touhou fanfiction, made a new twitter. i met a lot of new people along the way. some people i havent stuck with, some i cut ties with, and some people i still keep in contact with today. over those long 5 years of being shidiand, i found a name (i used to use shidian and then shid, but someone called me shidi once and i realized that was a lot better), how to reach out to others, how to express myself, places that i could feel included in. this is why i owe a blood debt to evelyn, who permitted me to kneel at her throne and was like "yea ok you can join my discord server u seem cool". evelyn, if you were confused by me ominously mentioning this blood debt/blood oath in a tumblr reply 1-2 years ago, this is the context. those 5 years were like a coming of age of sorts, that i never had when i was in high school.

and my love for tenco's story, that inspired me to draw that day, has been with me since almost the very beginning of my time as shidiand. from the beginning, i have always encouraged people to READ TENCO'S STORY, like the kin of those who cry PLAY MELTY or WATCH SYMPHOGEAR. i think my very first sidebar description was something akin to a prayer, written in very choral language, hoping for the day tenco's story iv was completed, ..., "meanwhile, furious shitposting". kannnu's work, finding delight in whatever they chose to draw, has been at my side, all along. my true mentor, my guiding moonlight...

so that's why i still to this day love tenco's story so much.

let's talk about tenco's story.

tenco's story is a story told through single pictures. the plot is vague, and details are sparse. dialogue is rare. we only know what has happened; we seldom know why. furthermore, there are many gaps between scenes that the reader is left to fill in for themselves; we see only snapshots that form an hazy outline of the events that occurred, and must imagine the rest. motivations and explanations fail me. but even with a barebones plot, tenco's story has themes, and if nothing else, those have to be carried through.

the main theme, of course, is journey and travel, but there are also other ideas, too. i actually think they start to change as the series goes on:

book i, where tenshi runs away from home, is about striking out on your own. it's a very fun and unpredictable journey, together with a friend.

book ii, where tenshi and iku are separated, forces tenshi to find and rely on companions of her own even more. but they do so, and they are able overcome hardships, and there is food and festival.

book iii marks a climax, reasserting tenshi's goal of finding the sword of hisou. i feel like the journey shifts from a travel (visiting) to a path forwards (making your way through). perhaps this is just something i get from knowing the locations from dark souls (Anor Londo, New Londo Ruins, the Great Hollow), but the locations start to give more of a sense of verticality, like they're emphasizing tenshi's climb to the summit. the hardships and enemies are the greatest they've been yet, and right when they near the top, tenshi and iku start to bleed. the book ends on an uncertain note.

if i had to describe the type of journey and travel that tenshi and iku undertake, there's this sense of wonder at discovering new places, wandering from vista to vista in delight, but also a sense of conquering, making it through a difficult patch. the sequence from pages 2-44 to 2-51, taken together, convey this sense of overcoming the best. it's one of my favourite parts. again, although the tone definitely starts to lean towards struggle in book iii, i think tenco's sense of wonder really is the heart of the series. there's no map of the world, no predicting where tenshi and iku will end up next. and through their travels, though they come across many enemies, they also find friends -- places of refuge, places full of life, people who will look after them for a few days, companions who will stay with them for the rest of the journey. at the end of book iii, we see a long haired tenshi with purple hair being impaled by the sword of hisou (3-33, see also this extra illustration that risa pointed out to me http://sinnnkai.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-195.html), and regular short haired tenshi continuing on her journey (3-42). if we ignore the out-of-story images where tenshi has the sword of hisou, tenshi has actually only ever used her sunlight blade (2-24, 3-26, etc), so i think that the long haired tenshi on 3-33 is a different person altogether. (if i had to guess, she might be the purple haired woman in the top left of https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35443328 as we have never seen that woman appear anywhere.) she probably has something to do with the flashbacks at the end of book ii and she might somehow be short-haired tenshi at the same time, but this is just speculation.

however, in 3-43, tenshi's hair is rather blue, so i don't know if this is the purple haired woman or not. if it is, tenshi is probably still fine and closing in on the summit, but if it isn't, then it's very worrying to see a picture of tenshi without any of her companions. it's very ominous.

meanwhile, iku, while climbing the red carpeted corridor, is stabbed, and disappears for a few pages. there's a black page, a shot of a shrine that strongly resembles the hakurei shrine, and a picture of iku standing behind someone in a tux, with the line "In the past, I was saved by the lady I was serving, you see?". and then iku wakes up in a field of flowers.

i think what this scene makes clear is a theme that has continued to appear and reappear throughout every book of "being saved, being aided by someone's kindness".

i think another theme that is implied and has to be addressed by this story of running away from home is "return". something im imagining is that the reason tenshi makes finding the sword of hisou her goal is because she wants to have something to prove herself with, to vindicate her when she comes home. but i don't think she needs to prove anything, and i ultimately think that she would be happier spending the rest of her life exploring.

so i think this should be what happens in the ending.

open on iku's journey, and give her a long sequence of travel without seeing tenshi. underline her newfound resolve. she climbs to the summit with albinoss, and finds the rest of tenshi's companions fallen. and in the last room is sword of hisou tenshi, who has lost herself, and it comes down to iku to bring her back. after a difficult battle, when both of them are on their last legs, iku is unable to stand any longer. but at this moment tenshi sees her companions struggling to get back up and reach her, and that's what brings her to her senses. and iku gets to see how many friends tenshi's been able to make on her own, and they finally and properly reunite. together, tenshi and iku carry each other out of the last room.

i don't think it's necessary to return to heaven. as a conclusion, dedicate some time to tenshi and iku travelling together. they're on their way back, revisiting old friends who helped them along the way, enjoying the journey. their last stop is the house of the elderly nawis (1-42). tenshi shows off the sword of hisou; she decided to keep it not as a trophy to show her family but as proof of the bonds of her companions. surrounded by friends, tenshi and iku decide to part ways with each other, knowing that the other will be alright. iku drifts among the clouds once more, and tenshi sets off for the horizon.

that's the plot that i'd write/just wrote. i don't really expect tenco's story iv to ever come out, though. i mentioned my first sidebar description earlier in this essay, but of course, you can see that it's been changed. 2 years ago, i read my hopeful prayer once more and was struck with a terrible melancholy, so now it reads this: "having come to terms with the fact that tenco's story iv will never be released, i can still live, knowing that the spirit of the journey will live on through kannnu's original works [...] meanwhile, furious shitposting".

on one level, tenco's story is a story, but in the process of following it, i came to think of the work itself as a journey too. you can constantly see kannnu's improvement between and even within each book. they have always drawn whatever they liked; what plot matters in the face of "I wanted to draw a beautiful sky." "I wanted to draw a fantastic battle." "I wanted to draw Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and Pokemon and Brave Fencer Musashi and Bokura no Taiyou and Touhou."

its not really kannnu's style to go back and tie up old ends. they just draw whatever makes them happy. so as i watch them continue to draw beautiful places and fantastic creatures, new characters heading out on journeys of their own or just enjoying their everyday lives, it's as if tenco's story never ended. the limits and consistency of that world ignored, and a new one springs up; in a way, the world of tenco's, which had such thin boundaries, just gets bigger.

but even so, having said all that, i still see them draw that short-haired tenshi from time to time. it makes me happy to see them remember tenco's story with such fondness. often crossing over with orion or roar or elweiss, you can see tenshi on another journey.

#tenco's story #freshlybakedspiderbread

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beneath-our-masks · 6 years

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Meet Our Characters: The Kid Heroes

Hey everyone! Here’s a questionnaire filled out for each of our OC’s! 5 were created by Mod Concerned, and 5 were created by Mod Ten. We love questions about (or for) our characters, so feel free to send them in!!

Current Taglist: @aconstantcrisis

Name: Siham Almasi/"Midorikiri" (they change it later but that's what it starts as)

Pronouns: They/Them

Nicknames: n/a?

Age: 14

Physical Description: Siham is a slightly thin but muscled hyperactive teenager. They're dark-skinned and wear hijab, and often like to dress in jeans and large sweatshirts.

Height: 5'5

Superpowers: None--they just use some heccin good swords

Strength: Determined! Will Survive! Will Do Good Things!

Weakness: Naïve. They don't ever really believe they could get hurt so they aren't cautious.

One Unique Thing: They're an absolute weeaboo.

Name: Riley O'Malley/”Bells” or “Whistles”

Pronouns: They/Them

Nicknames: Ry

Age: 17

Physical description or picture: Skinny androgynous child. Short black hair, usually shorter on the sides than on the top. Wears leggings/skinny jeans and larger, flowy shirts.

Height: 5'4

Superpowers: Emotion control

Strength: Hacking (into anything and everything - loves to break the law, it’s actually how they got onto the team)

Weakness: Bad at expressing themself - joker who makes others the butt of their jokes

One Unique Thing: They’re adopted and has a little sister they will kill for

Name: Dakota Lee/ "The Charging Bull"

Pronouns: He/Him

Nicknames: n/a

Age: 16

Physical description or picture: Dakota is, as Mod Concerned puts it, Dorito shaped. He's a big hunk of muscle whose hands are usually scraped up. His hair goes down to his shoulders and it's usually either down or in a low ponytail. Native American descent, tanned skin and dark brown hair. Usually wears t-shirts and jeans or if he's being Fancy a nicer shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Height: 5'8

Superpowers: Superhuman strength (especially when angry)

Strength: Punching. Realistically is very physically strong and is also pretty mentally strong.

Weakness: Tends to doubt himself; thinks of himself as a monster/brute and is very slow to trust as he assumes that others feel the same way.

One Unique Thing: His father was a Native American craftsman so Dakota picked up some of it, he likes to work with his hands and do super delicate things.

Name: Hakim Nazari/”Tanin”

Pronouns: He/Him

Nicknames: Haki or Ki

Age: 18

Physical description or picture: Chubby boye, Middle-Eastern. Shorter black curly hair. Wears flannels and jeans mostly.

Height: 5'8

Superpowers: Telekinesis, Body Transmutation, and Vitality Absorption.

Strength: Extremely empathetic, good planner

Weakness: Too soft

One Unique Thing: Likes video games

Name: Ha-eun Choi/ "Taeyang"

Pronouns: She/Her

Nicknames: Eun, Tae

Age: 15

Physical description or picture: Korean, long black hair that's usually in a high ponytail, pear-shaped, kind of short. Also is the flannel and jean queen.

Height: 5'3

Superpowers: Cosmic energies (Can do things like create black holes and flaming stars)

Strength: Compassion. She fully believes in not hating people and giving second chances, and interacting with people with understanding.

Weakness: She’s terrified of her powers, meaning her emotional flares make her powers flare, meaning she’s more afraid...vicious cycle

One Unique Thing: She got her superhero name from her father, who called her "my little star" (in Korean) when she started developing her powers

Name: Aeicekh (Ace)/ "The Ace"(They're an alien, so their given name is too difficult to pronounce and doesn't work super well in our language, so it's shortened always to Ace)

Pronouns: They/Them

Nicknames: Ace, if it counts

Age: 19 in human years, but since their species ages differently, they've got the maturity level of more a 13/14 year old

Physical description or picture: Pink slightly luminescent skin, eyes that look like sapphires, what we would consider a bit chubby. They have vestigial bits of skin that are sort of ears but not quite, they almost look like a bull's horns but move with Ace's emotions.

Height: 5'7

Superpowers: Flight, telepathy/telekinesis, pheromone manipulation (though they usually don't know that they do that)

Strength: Curious and persistent! If they don't get something, they'll study until they DO understand it and they are determined to figure out as much as they can.

Weakness: Inexperienced/immature. They're just a Baby on their home planet so they don't know things like how to control their powers as well.

One Unique Thing: Their planet doesn't have any mammals aside from Ace's species, so they think mammals are GREAT and love things like cats and dogs and mice.

Name: Kai Stanton/”Zephyr”

Pronouns: He/Him

Nicknames: n/a

Age: 19

Physical description or picture: Really skinny, hunched over guy, very pale. Short, dirty blond hair. Wears very cheap clothes, from Goodwill.

Height: 6'2 - 6'3

Superpowers: Regeneration, Phasing, Air Manipulation

Strength: Resilient

Weakness: Tends to lash out when he’s insecure/hurt/worried and hurts others around him

One Unique Thing: His parents and grandparents were heroes.

Name: Skyler Whittaker/"The Golden Beetle"

Pronouns: They/Them

Nicknames: Sky

Age: 15

Physical description or picture: Long, brown hair, usually in a ponytail, chubby, lighter skin. Dresses in cheaper clothes, no cohesive style.

Height: 5’5

Superpowers: Rodent/Insect Control, Substance Mimicry

Strength: Skyler does really really well in school, and is very smart.

Weakness: Skyler overthinks and overworks themselves.

One Unique Thing: They have pet rats and pet insects.

Name: Kira Williams/”Wisteria”

Pronouns: She/Her

Nicknames: Kiki

Age: 14

Physical description or picture: Vines for hair, usually down to her lower back. Her skin is a muddy brown, but she also has hues of dark green within it. It looks sort of like vitiligo. Likes to wear dresses. Not skinny, average body type.

Height: 5'0

Superpowers: Plant affinity, Technopathy

Strength: Sees the best in everyone, idealistic

Weakness: Perpetually nervous, anxious bean

One Unique Thing: Her family owns a plant shop

Name: Bayleigh Wood/ “The Mirror”

Pronouns: She/her

Nicknames: Bay

Age: 17

Physical description or picture: Small, leanly muscled girl (has some muscle bulk on the arms but that’s where most of it is), short, wavy blond hair that’s usually got some sort of different color at the tips/streaked into it. Usually wears her school uniform or exercise clothing.

Height: 5’4

Superpowers: Superhuman combat skill, power mimicry

Strength: Strong leader, ready to help people and be a proud hero

Weakness: Can be a little bit low on compassion to people who’ve hurt her and can hold grudges.

One Unique Thing: Is the usual driver of the team and has done some (kinda) stunt driving

#meet the oc's #meet the characters #bayleigh #bay #siham #dakota #riley #kai #kira #skyler #hakim #haeun #superhero #hero stories #represenation #queer rep #aeicekh/ace #aeicekh #ace

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elizas-writing · 6 years

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When Wish Fulfillment Fantasies Meet Reality: A Re-Examination of Twilight

**CW/TW: The following piece discusses dating violence with brief mentions to sexual assault and self-harm.**

This year, the last Fifty Shades movie finally came and went, and as its popularity slowly morphs into a bad memory for pop culture, I’m thinking again about the fiction’s effect on reality, particularly wish fulfillment fantasies, self-insert stories, etc etc.

This train of thought began with the Twilight series after watching Lindsay Ellis’s video essay, “Dear Stephenie Meyer,” where she revisits the hatred surrounding said franchise. While it’s definitely not without serious flaws, Twilight was not really as bad as people made it out to be. And most of the criticism was solely about millions of young girls and their moms liking a thing because, what a shock, our society tends to hate anything feminine. I was definitely one of those teenage girls who wanted nothing to do with Twilight, surprising no one probably. Even though I had enough plot summary from friends to pick up the actual problems of the story, I just had fun hating it for the sake of hating it and disassociating with anything feminine because I was neck-deep in my weeaboo phase.

Cut to about seven years later, I took a Vampires in Pop Culture class and Twilight (the first of the series) was on the reading list. With a more mature mind, I sat down, read it, and yeah, it really was not as bad as I thought. Yes, Bella’s too one-dimensional, Edward’s still pretty creepy, and the dialogue and prose is at best, ridiculous and at worst, stale. It knows its target audience is tweens and reads as such, which unfortunately doesn’t grip me as an adult. I gave up at the baseball scene cause I was ready to gouge my eyes out if I read one more description of the weather. And give credit where it’s due, the side characters have way more fascinating stories than Bella or Edward, and it’s a shame Meyer didn’t take a chance to further expand them instead. I couldn’t find much to be angry about with the first book, and I was honestly more bored than anything. But I also cannot deny the wish fulfillment fantasy driving the narrative which drew in a large audience all those years ago.

And wish fulfillment is fine. Self-insert is fine. Teenage girls are just figuring out what confidence is, and there is some reassurance in a fantasy where the totally out-of-league man of your dreams still finds you the most fascinating human being in the world and wants to give you all his undivided attention. Not every female lead needs to be a strong independent woman who don’t need no man. I still see people write self-insert fanfictions from time to time, and they’re very sweet and tender to imagine being loved by a favorite character. We actually consume these stories more than we like to admit.

Hell, one of my favorite guilty pleasure films is The Princess Diaries. In many ways, it hits the same notes as Twilight. It’s a pure wish fulfillment fantasy where the main girl is smart, but clumsy and awkward and just wants to be invisible. Yet she finds herself on a whirlwind journey of self-discovery where others find value in her, and she even falls in love with a boy who adores her regardless of how she perceives herself. Yet The Princess Diaries is such a popular chick flick among people my age. So why is something like The Princess Diaries fondly remembered as an integral part of a millenial/Gen Z childhood while Twilight is met with disdain and disgust?

The major differences boil down to the main female protagonists: Mia and Bella. While not an overly complex character, Mia has, well, a personality. Her journey is more personal of overcoming her social anxiety and realizing how much she can contribute to the world as a public figure if she just takes the leap of faith. Getting a romance in the end is just icing on the cake when she remembers who was there for her even when she was the awkward nerd and will love her regardless of appearance or social status. It’s cheesy and hokey as chick flicks do, but it’s a satisfying wish fulfillment fantasy where the protagonist is better off than where she started and what she was looking for was right there all along.

With Bella, I barely know who she is outside of her romantic interests. Sure, the books go into more detail of her intelligence and social anxiety, but it’s never seen in film. Her life completely revolves around her relationships to the point of obsession, but we never almost see what she’s like when not caught up in the supernatural love triangle. And unfortunately, it’s a problem which worsens with each sequel. The Twilight franchise frames romance as something Bella can’t live without to the point of shutting herself in for months when the Cullens leave in New Moon, refusing to talk to her friends and family, and getting night terrors. It’s intended to make you feel sorry for Bella, but her backwards priorities make her completely pathetic on how much of her life she misses because of some boy who didn’t hesitate to cut her from his life, and she was totally fine with him leaving if he didn’t turn her into a vampire.

Prioritizing unrequited love over your own well being is such an unhealthy idea to romanticize because there is far more to life than some dumb boy who won’t return your feelings. I saw my fair share of unsatisfying romances in young adulthood hanging on by a thread for some idealized love that’s never going to happen. Even though a break up is the simplest and most effective solution for both people to take care of themselves, they continue wasting their time being unhappy with each other and latching on to the rose-tinted view of how they first fell in love. I know some people don’t like the idea that you have to love yourself before someone else, but there’s still truth to the saying where you have to understand that being in a romantic relationship will not automatically fix all your problems and guarantee a happily ever after.

Aside from getting married and having a baby which almost kills her during pregnancy, Bella doesn’t grow as a character or develop any personality, and she just gets her happy ending anyway. The Volturi hint that Bella is special because she’s unaffected by vampire powers, but that detail is shuffled to the sidelines to get more of Jacob and Edward butting heads on who she’ll choose. Most of the story’s events are outside her control and she doesn’t explore further into what they mean about her being special, and even her turning into a vampire-- not even of her own volition, but as a last ditch attempt to save her while dying in childbirth-- doesn’t change that much about her except now she’s immortal and she can bang Edward without getting knocked unconscious again.

I know Twilight is commercial romantic fiction meant to go in one ear and out the other, but it’s still such a damn waste of great lore and build up with no pay off. And Bella is such a bore of a protagonist to follow the entire time even for a blank slate who is meant to be easily identifiable for teenage readers. Again, not every female character needs to wield a sword or be flawless at everything they do, but having an engaging arc is the simplest bare minimum when writing your story’s protagonist. But that got lost in drawn out weather descriptions and, of course, the unhealthiest romances in fiction.

In a 2013 interview with TIME about her book, The Host, Meyer says she never thinks much about if her protagonists are good role models because “it’s fiction... I don’t think you should be using fictional characters as role models.” To that, I strongly disagree and am rather surprised to hear from Meyer given the great battles of Team Edward vs Team Jacob as each of the films released in theaters. Granted, this is an old interview, and I don’t know how much her opinion changed, but it still irks me.

Whether you like to admit it or not-- especially on the wonderful world of Tumblr.com--, fiction affects our reality. It alters our perception on politics, race, gender, lifestyles, and yes, even romance. Especially as kids and teenagers, we can’t help but find role models to base our ever-changing identities on and look up to so we can be better people for ourselves and society. It’s the reason why so many people define themselves on what Hogwarts house they’re in, why Disney milks Star Wars as long as they can, and why black communities arranged trips for everyone to see Black Panther. And unfortunately, I can’t bring myself to say Twilight is completely harmless in how it portrays the romances.

Just type in any search engine about abusive relationships in Twilight, and you get millions upon millions of analyses on how Edward and Jacob check off as abusers. They’re controlling, aggressive, easy to become jealous, and lacking any notion of personal boundaries. However, one abuser often forgotten in this conversation is Bella, who is such a despicable, emotional manipulator.

Remember how ridiculously depressed she gets in New Moon when Edward leaves? Well, she starts seeing visions of Edward checking in on her whenever she seems to be in danger. And she gets the bright idea to keep purposefully doing so-- including hanging out with shady gang members, crashing a motorcycle and jumping off a cliff-- just to get his attention and hopefully coax him to return to Forks. I’m surprised she didn’t just straight up say “If you leave me, I’ll kill myself” because it’s such textbook gaslighting. And when Edward is led to believe Bella died, then he attempts suicide! And she’s seriously surprised he would given how much needless self-harm she did over the months? What else did you think was going to happen?! I can’t even laugh at some of the badness of New Moon because Bella’s toxic behavior leaves such a sour taste in my mouth. Her severe romantic dependency went from being a damsel-in-distress to an abusive, emotionally manipulative screwball. And that’s just scraping the tip of the iceberg, folks.

Upon actually watching all the films for the first time, Edward’s behavior isn’t nearly as bad as my first perceptions when I was in middle school, but his possessiveness and lack of personal space are still incredibly uncomfortable. I know we all wrote that fanfiction where person A gets saved by person B from attempted gang rape, but Edward is so overbearingly and exhaustively protective, and it just gets worse in the sequels up until Bella’s finally transformed into a vampire. It is to the point where he hardly trusts Bella to do anything by herself knowing how massive of a klutz she is, and will pop into her home without permission, warning or respect of her personal space. As such, she never grows independence, much less learn how to protect herself or be prepared when supernatural forces come for her while the Cullens leave.

Edward may have good intentions to think of Bella’s safety with the context of other vampires mercilessly killing humans in Washington state, but he’s also on a slippery slope of controlling nearly every aspect of her life, especially when she might start feeling romantic for someone else, because guess what dude? You left for over half a year. This continuing behavior throughout the series heavily contributes to Bella’s unhealthy dependency on a romantic partner to the point where she feels like she can’t live without them. Granted, that doesn’t excuse her emotional manipulation, but because she never learns self-defense on the off chance no one else is there to save her, it’s no wonder why she has severe issues with separation and loneliness. Like I said before, you can’t have a healthy romantic relationship if you think it’s going to automatically fix all your problems. Your romantic partner isn’t your therapist or coping mechanism, especially if you can’t handle a simple break up or if said partner wasn’t even that great to begin with.

You’d think Jacob would be off the hook since he at least doesn’t watch Bella while she’s sleeping, but he’s not escaping unscathed. Despite how the series tries to explain what imprinting is, it’s glanced over so quickly on the now creepy relationship between Jacob and Bella’s daughter, even all things considered for a rapidly growing vampire child. He also has a ton of aggressive tendencies as part of the werewolf gene to the point where he will inevitably hurt Bella-- as illustrated with another pack member’s live-in girlfriend who has scars across her face--, and has zero respect for consent as he forcibly kisses her on multiple occasions. Yeah, cause painting your Native American characters-- and only prominent characters of color-- as inevitable, aggressive predators sure is good representation and definitely not some awful racial stereotype. Jacob embodies the most basic descriptors of toxic masculinity between his sense of entitlement that Bella should choose him over Edward and the “boys will be boys” mentality as though Jacob is completely incapable of any self-control, werewolf or not. Given the recent news surrounding Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination and his defenders claiming “what boy hasn’t done this” and that he shouldn’t be punished for his actions as a young man, Jacob’s character is one of the most dangerous aspects of the series to be romanticized as a wish fulfillment fantasy. He’s not only based on gross racial stereotypes, but also on harmful patriarchal ideas of men thinking they’re entitled to women without any consideration to their autonomy. Normalizing this behavior as attractive qualities in a partner allows men to run from their actions without consequence.

And this toxic masculinity only heightened when Fifty Shades of Grey entered the spotlight for pop culture to bash, but had much more legitimate criticisms to garner hatred.

Fifty Shades of Grey changes up the wish fulfillment fantasy where instead of a vampire, the clumsy and awkward female lead, Anastasia Steele, is swept away by billionaire, Christian Grey, who’s happy to spoil her with grand luxuries but has a troubled past which makes it difficult for him to love. Oh, and he’s into BDSM and writes up a questionable contract for Anastasia on all the kinky shit he wants to do. And Anastasia is so sweet and innocent she doesn’t even know what an anal plug is (like, it’s right there in the name, sweetheart. You can’t be this dumb). As you do, things go wrong, they take a break, Christian dumps his tragic anime backstory on Anastasia as a pathetic excuse to apologize, people from his past show up because reasons, and they eventually live happily ever after, married with a baby on the way.

Not only does Christian hit the same abuser red flags as Edward, Jacob and Bella on top of being the worst dom in history, but the series passes off that anyone can be fixed with the power of love. Once again, your romantic partner isn’t your therapist. Trauma may explain his behavior, but that doesn’t excuse what he put Anastasia through, and neither is it suddenly her job to fix him. And abusers like Christian are never reformed so easily with love; more often than not, they use it as leverage to manipulate and keep the relationship going for the sake of control. Sure, it sounds hot to be in a BDSM relationship with a billionaire ready to spoil you, but do the ends really justify the means of that sweet wish fulfillment? Is it really that great of a fantasy to play your partner’s therapist and humor their extreme control and possessiveness to the point where you’re almost not allowed to be an individual?

It’s one thing to have guilty pleasures and wish fulfillment fantasies. But after a while, you wonder what it is about a certain piece of media which makes it a guilty pleasure. It’s one thing if Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey are guilty pleasures in some of the enjoyably bad writing, unnatural dialogue or squandered potential. But upholding these romances as ideal and disregarding all the blatant warning signs of abusive relationships? That’s where we really need to take a step back and wonder why this is remotely okay to normalize, especially for impressionable teenage girls. Even though I was mostly amused by the films’ bad writing and these poor actors pushing through for their paychecks, there was also a fair amount of content which was too uncomfortable to laugh at-- Bella’s emotional manipulation, the portrayal of werewolves, and the unsubtle anti-abortion message in Breaking Dawn: Part 1 just to name a few. It’s baffling how these properties became cultural phenomenons for their “romances of the century” when most of these character really need couples’ counseling.

Thankfully, these franchises didn’t made too lasting impressions and for the most part are forgotten. Stephenie Meyer quietly retired to continue taking care of her kids, and EL James just kinda disappeared from the media spotlight since the last film released. Maybe Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey aren’t the worst series to happen to mainstream media, but they still heavily reflect a society which to this day hesitates to call dating violence what it is. Where finding love in another takes priority over self-care. Where people still struggle to define abuse because “if that’s abuse, then everyone I know has been abused.” Where despite sexual assault survivors’ testimonies, polygraph tests, supporters, and grueling mental exhaustion to tell their stories, their abusers roam free without consequence and are still allowed power with their nasty holier-than-thou attitudes to silence anyone who dares question their character.

We’re slowly getting better in these kind of fantasies for teens with films like Love, Simon and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before with genuinely health romances where the characters have to confront their flaws and grow. We’re a lot more critical of relationship dynamics in film than we were over a decade ago, especially with #MeToo in the last year. But part of me is still worried if we’ll have another trend like Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey where it’s blindly defended because it’s fiction and disregard when people romanticize the severely problematic elements which don’t guarantee happily-ever-afters for couples’ in reality. As the possibility of reverting to pre-Roe vs. Wade days becomes more of a likelihood, at what point do we finally acknowledge that a simple fantasy isn’t automatically above criticism?

If you enjoyed this analysis and what I do here, consider buying me a ko-fi to show your support!

#twilight #new moon #eclipse #breaking dawn #fifty shades #fifty shades of grey #wish fulfillment #self insert #editorial #opinion #my writing #stephenie meyer #el james #fantasy #fiction #reality

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dcmissionaries · 6 years

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DokiDokiCon V2: Time to Save the World!

"Welcome to Daten City's AMAZING Annual Anime Con: DokiDoki Con!" The reporter greeted on the screen, many people milling around behind her, "This is such an amazing time of year, isn't it? Hopefully you people back home can find the time to attend our funnest and most loved convention!" Yes, many cosplayers, weeaboos, and casual fans alike were excitedly reporting to the convention center to attend their beloved con. A quick look around could easily spot some sinister grins and dashing heroic smiles! However... Strappon sat at the Abbey, shutting the television off and sighing. The last DokiDoki Con was a mess. Why did they keep these things going...? "Hey, any news on ghosts or anything?" Overshirt asked, wandering into the Rec Room. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I wonder what they're up to... They must have something planned if the city has been safe for so long..." Strappon grumbled, scratching the back of his head. There was a rumble above the Abbey, causing the two to look up. Strappon was struck by a thunderbolt. Overshirt caught the paper and looked it over while Strappon coughed the soot out of his lungs and shook himself of. "Hero." The boy read, giving Strap a perplexed look, "Well, then. Spoke too soon?" "I have a feeling I know exactly where this is going..." The Pink-haired Templar said, his gaze moving to the television.

DOKIDOKICON: HERO EDITION! What is this place filled with so many wonders~? Anime cons are the best place for Angels-- And Ghosts. --------

The convention was just as lively as you would consider one to be- Large amounts of people both big and small of all varieties and scents conglomerated into one large convention center. Some cosplaying, some just wearing what they would consider their best or coolest outfits. Yes, it was an atmosphere filled with excitement!

BRIT: Strappon looked around the crowd, almost in disappointment. How the hell would they be able to find a disguised ghost here? There were so many... People in costumes.

"Don't worry, Strap!" Overshirt chuckled with a pat to his cousin's back, "We brought the Angels! We should have a relative amount of success." "Relative." Strappon repeated.

KUMA: Pasties was at the main floor of the convention. She had gotten caught up with a group of cosplayers and was currently posing for a photo. When that one was done, another set of fans with phones and cameras came up. She gave a smile as more pictures were taken. Of course she didn't mind the attention.

OSCARK9: Gloves walks in the DokiDoki Con for his first time ever in Daten City. He was dress up as Ragna from BlazBlue, his favorite character to be in. For his first time in the Con was excited for him. Seeing all his favorite characters in the convention was inspire to see. Not only that you can see your favorite characters in cosplay, but to bring a cool weapon in a covention. Which he brings in 'Ragna Sword' in the convention, (don't worry, its only plastic).

"Wow! First time ever in a Convention. I can't wait to see what they have here." He said in his happy tone and off he went in the crowd of cosplays.

KRO: Another excuse to show off how obsessed he is with a particular MOBA, Shades was more than excited to participate in the con again. The last time was interesting to say the least. He scanned the perimeter to spot a familiar face but all he got was Strappon's familiar hair color. Sneaking up behind the templar, he leaned in and whispered, " ___Death comes... ___ "

COFFINCAT: Mary was looking around in the crowd for a familiar face, having not found anyone he hides under a vacant booth. He hugs his teddy bear. The little one was cosplaying Honey senpai from Ouran highschool host club. He takes out his little sketch book and he draws Gloves.

BRIT: Strappon screamed and spun around, punching Shades in the face as hard as he could. "YOU BLOODY WANKER. I WILL END YOU if you come THAT CLOSe to me--" He hissed before realizing what he had done, "--Oh, I am so sorry."

EMI-DESU: Tee hung close to his brother (much to his dismay) and looked uninterestedly at Shady.

"Wow, another Kylo Ren. I can't believe it."

Tee insisted on having him and Ovy cosplay together, and something simple. He adjusted Ovy's hat and black shirt (with a signature red R on it) and pulled out a couple Pokeballs. "Atop goofing around! We got a Ghost to catch right? Can't be that hard to find..."

EMI-DESU: *Stop

GAMER-GODDESS: "So this is a 'Con', it is rather wonderful to see so many people so eager to participate." Fib'yuh'luh giggled as they skipped up to the entrance. They were clad in a Sailor Moon costume that Thigh High had spent at least a week or so putting together for them.

"Yeah yeah, just try not to mess up your outfit will ya? It'd be a shame if something happened to it. I spent a lot of time putting this together, I totally forgot to get something for myself!" Thigh High stated as she kept smoothing over the Throne's outfit to make sure it looked just right.

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Fascinator walked into Doki Doki con dress as Rin Kagamine, second design. He was wearing a skirt that were also shorts with a blonde wig and sailor top. His white bows twitched happily as he skipped in. He looked so androgynous that many people whispered if he was a man or a young Japanese girl. Knittens walked next to him as Midoriya Izuku, proud of his look. Fascinator looked around and pouted, he was about to scream for Jeokori, but said alien waved over to him, relaxing. Headphones, dressed as the fairy Kyu from Hunie Pop and reading his newly bought hentai. Life is sweet.

KRO: "No, you're not!" Shades was lucky enough to remove his mask before getting what he probablu deserved. He felt his eye shut from the swelling. Touching it stung, guess an ice pack is required.

"What a bossy Rocket Grunt," Shades commented, "Anyways, I agree. We should keep an eye out for... cosplays stars..." he said, squinting one sole eye.

OSCARK9: While walking around in the convention, he was looking around to different booths to see what they have here in the convention. While doing that, he spotted a little boy that was under the vacant booth with a sketch book in his hand. He wonders to himself if he's having any fun in the convention. So he walks over too him and ask him a question.

"Hey there, little fella. Are you having fun in a convention?" He asked him while giving him a smile.

BRIT: "Tee, we can't catch it with balls." Overshirt sighed, "Patience is going to be the best option at the moment. Maybe we can lure it out! But we have no idea what it does..."

"Doesn't matter, still gonna find it!" Jacket laughed, adjusting his Rocket Grunt attire. He grinned at Trenchcoat. "And we're gonna beat its face in."

"Shades, oh god. I am so sorry." Strappon whispered, holding his hand out to help him up.

SAIYAN: "We're gonna have great success now that I'm here" Tuxedo Jacket said to Strap. Dressed up as Gohan from the Cell Games, cape and all. The new kid on the block really made a reputation for himself for the short time in the Abbey.

Undershirt dressed as Vegito looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Please we're all gonna work together and find this thing" Undershirt said.

Wristband got dressed up as Android 18 because why not. "Yeah besides, last time this happened it took a whole team effort to take down Yurei-chan." She wasn't there to witness it herself, but she heard Undershirt tell the story. She still giggled about Baby Cop to this day.

Meanwhile, Bowtie was dressed as Satsuki in her kamui, trying to see if there was any of her comrades around.

KUMA: Eventually Pasties pulled herself away from the fellow Love Live cosplayers, giving them a friendly wave. If a ghost /was/ going to show up, she wanted to enjoy the con a bit before that. Since everything would probably slow down or stop completely after that. She looked back towards the Angels and others that she had arrived with. She could always go exploring the con by herself, but that might be less fun. To her, it'd be a bonus for the other person since they would get to hang out with her.

KRO: "Damn, you were aiming to make me blind again... I deserve this..." Shades held up his hands a litte defensively, trying to make sure Strappon at least touched the injury carefully.

COFFINCAT: A limo pulls up to the main entrance and Sneaker heels steps out of it. She adjusts her red glasses and she pats her dress. Camera men flocked to her and she sighs , walking right past just about everyone of them. She'd decided to go as Rize Kamishiro from Tokyo Ghoul. She stretched and walked over to her booth, sitting down as her assistance set everything up. Fox Stole dawned her best Tomb Raider cosplay and sauntered around, taking pictures with people who'd walked up to her. Mary moved out from under the unoccupied booth and ran to a stand. He took out his piggy bank and he bought an ice pack. He walks over to shades and he hides behind Strappon, holding out the ice pack to Shades, "H-here you go Mr."

EMI-DESU: Tee frowned deeply and shook his balls at Ovy. This was his first time out with his brother in a long while and he doesn't even take it seriously. "Let's go, gang! Last one to find a Ghost gets a bullet in the knee!!"

Trench crossed his arms and got tugged along begrudgingly by his parner, wondering how Jacket got him out of bed today at all. Oh, that's right. He BROKE it. He BROKE his bed. "Let's just get this over with already..." He grumbled.

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Knittens ran from Fascinator as he does in every crowded place and runs past Strappon and Shady before screeching to a stop and looking at Shades with awe. He exclaims with excitement "You look cool! What're you?" Fascinator was about to stop Knittens but after seeing where he went he didn't bother afterwards. Turning back to his alien friend, he asks, "So how're you liking your first con, Cho-cho?" Jeokori took a minute to write down his answer and replied, "Didn't you say that celebration of costumes was a week from now?"

BRIT: Surrounded by so many people, Duster really just wanted to find Hot Pants and find this dumb ghost. People kept stopping him and asking him for pictures, calling him "Sephiroth" or something like that. He let them take pictures and moved on, hoping it would appease the strange people.

"You're too self-punishing." Strap sighed, and looked around for those medic people they always have at large gatherings. "At least Angels can enjoy themselves now... I wonder if Ampallang made it here alright."

"Yep! I'd rather not get a bullet to the knee..." Jacket said, visibly wilting for only a half-second before springing up again and grabbing Trench's arm. "LET'S EXPLORE!"

KRO: "I'm sure he made it here fine..." He blinked, looking behind Strap and smiled at the young child offering him the ice back.

"Hey, thanks." He said, gently placing it on his eye. Suddenly Knittens entered the frame as Tee's gang seemed to be off on their own shenanigans. Shades beamed with light, not literally, at his question, "Oh well, I'm a character called Reaper. I'm wearing an alternate outfit for him."

COFFINCAT: Mary nods with a little smile and he hugs his teddy bear close to him. He sees Kittens and he waves . He gently boops him to say hello .

KRO: A force yanked Duster from wherever the man was standing to the ground. The source? A grumpy Hot Pants who looked more than tired. In front of him, there was Chocobo in a baby carrier taking in the sights of the con. "Jesus, where were __you__ ? I like, turn around for one second and the next you were just gone. I have tiny legs, I can't keep up!"

BRIT: Strappon gave Tuxedo Jacket a look of disinterest and then put his attention back to the other Angels. "If you all want, we can separate and make sure we cover more ground?" He looked particularly at Pasties, who was... New and seemed to want to explore.

"I... Well, I got swallowed up by the crowd. So many people wanted my picture." Duster said, pushing Hot Pants off him and dusting himself off. "I heard there's supposed to be a ghost in this area... And I'd like to go back to Heaven sometime."

EMI-DESU: "Dear Ampallang won't be making it, I'm afraid..." A voice replied from behind Strappon. Out stepped a tall pale man, flicking his pink and purple hair. "I've been looking for you, tiny human man."

OSCARK9: "I guess that was a yes." Seeing him run off to do something leaves him a unanswered thought from him. ("Oh well, at least he's having fun.") He said to himself and continues walking in the convention.

KUMA: Pasties caught Strappon's look towards her.

"I'm okay with anyone else joining me. Just as long as they can keep up. There's a lot of things I want to see."

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Knittens was about to answer until he got booped. Well, someone started the boop war. Knittens bops him back in self defense, but it was gentle to infer friendliness. Unlike Fasci, where Knittens tries to break his nose. Jekoroi followed up with another note, "Also... Are you a young girl or?" Fascinator chuckles, avoiding the question as he takes out a small box from god knows where, revealing the small figurine set. Jeokori's eyes lit up and his soul threads were almost wagging in happiness. After watching Sailor Moon together, Jeokori almost couldn't believe Fasci when he said he could get a mini version of his favorite character but there she was. If Jeokori could make a sound, he would be squealing. Headphones was chillind on the fountain as he flipped the pages of his hentai, every now and then remarking, "Nice."

KRO: Suddenly a sparkly and well decorated cardboard box slid into the scene. This was getting to be too much for Shades, but he just let it happen. Daten's weird enough. The box then sprouted two legs and stood up all proud and tall as two arms, one holding a microphone, popped out. "Hello, lovely monsters of the Underground! I'm just here to introduce a lovely little friend that's been looking for the priest. Be niiiice."

Shades squinted even harder at the person in the cardboard box, you can hear it. It was indeed Go-Go Boots as Mettaton. How befitting.

COFFINCAT: Mary makes a smol gasp and he giggles , returning a soft boop. He smiled and his cheeks dusted pink, "H-hi , I'm M-Mary. " He said as he offered the other his teddy bear for a hug. He sees Go-Go and he almost squeels in delight.

BRIT: "Lots of things to see?" Jacket mused, "Sounds like we'll work well together-- Uh... What's your name?" The Rocket Grunt tilted his head at Pasties.

Strappon blinked, turning to see a stranger and a... Box. "How do you know where Ampallang is?" He asked, crossing his arms. It was obvious the box was someone he knew.

KRO: Seeing Bowtie waiting around, what appears to be an old lady that came straight out of Mad Max: Fury Road came up to her. They grabbed Bowtie's hand and handed some homemade candy to her in the shape of little ghosts and bats. "Nice Satsuki outfit, nerd." The voice didn't match the face. That's because it was actually Hairpin dressed up as none other than Ana Amari. He just wanted to do a group cosplay group with Shades, don't mind him.

"Have ya seen anybody else from work around here?" He asked Bowtie.

Hot Pants would have crossed his arms if Chocobo wasn't strapped on to his chest, so he simply ruffled the bird's feathers, "Well, you do look like my figurine that I ordered some time ago.. ANYWAYS. You have a plan of action for that? Because I'm just thinking of blowing this week's paycheck on some stuff I've wanted."

KUMA: "Me? I'm Pasties," she said with a little wink. "Do you want go with me then?"

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Knittens looked at the teddy and patted it's head. He wasn't too sure what to do but he

EMI-DESU: The white-clad man bowed lightly. "My name would be Dermal." He gestured to the peircing on his collarbone. "Ampallang is a brother of mine, and he's gone off to do important Seraph business, so I volunteered to take his place for now."

Dermal straightened up and looked around at the scattered fallen angels about, having themselves a merry old time. "Quite an organized bunch, I see. I think I have a lot of work to do..."

Trenchcoat pulled his arm out of Jacket's grip and pushed him out of the way, clearing his throat and smiling at Pasties. "Hi, I'm Trenchcoat. Jacket's got a lot of things to do too, so I'll go with you instead!"

OSCARK9: Walking back to the booths. He was looking at the booths to see what they have here in DokiDoki Con. So far for him was some comic books, action figures, and some video games. He wanted to buy something for himself, but it was so hard for him to choose.

"Hmm? What to choose? What to choose?" He said to himself while scratching his head next to the booth.

CRACKEMWALNUTS: was friendly, atleast. Fascinator and Jeokori looked at the sights with Fasci mostly talking. But when Jeokori bothered to look at him, Fasci was cosplaying as a completely different outfit and seemed to just magically transform into 707. What. Jeokori blinked in disbelief as he poked Fasci, making sure he wasn't seeing things. Fascinator tried to ignore the poke as he waved to Go-Go and screamed, "HEY NICE LEGS!"

KUMA: Pasties blinked at Trenchcoat's interuption, but didn't seemed bothered by it.

"Its too bad that he's busy when there's so much fun stuff to do here! Oh well!" She addressed Jacket, "If you find some time, you could meet up with me later."

She then turned back to Trenchcoat, "Thanks for coming with me."

KRO: Go-Go removed the box, as it was getting a little too hot. "But no daisy dukes to make a man go, sadly." At least Go-Go was appropriately dressed as Mettaton EX.

BRIT: "I didn't know you were that kind of dork." Duster mused, "Huh." He pet Chocobo before hearing another set of girls squeel somewhere behind him. Oh no, it begins again.

"Oh... I see." Strappon replied, rubbing his chin. "I wish he'd told me ahead of time... I guess you'll do in his place. You're a lot nicer." The Templar held out his hand to Dermal. "I'm Strappon. This boy next to me is my cousin, Overshirt." Overshirt gave him a small wave.

Jacket blinked and snorted at Trenchcoat. "Nah, he always acts like a dweeb around pretty ladies. We'll all go together! Pasties, huh? That's a weird name. Anyway, let's get goin!" He blabbered off, grabbing them both by the hands and skipping off in another direction.

SAIYAN: "Hey HP. Didn't know you were into Cross Dressing" Bowtie said as she grabbed the candy. "No, didn't actually. No one came with you I take it?"

"Damn son" Undershirt said as he watched Shades grab his face. He then looked at Dermal. "That's interesting. I didn

COFFINCAT: Heels exits her booth and she sneaks over to the doujinshi section of the con. She casually buys some Love Stage manga and she goes off , leaving her body guards in charge. She hears her name called on the loud speaker and she curses , going off to perform some anime openings. Out of many she was asked to perform , Lithium from Elfen Lied was the first.

Mary fiddles with his hands and he looks up at him, " D-Do you wanna um be partners ..for t-the ghost hunt?" He asked shyly.

BRIT: "Not into crossdressing? He's basically a woman." Amulet snorted, adjusting part of his coat. He was cosplaying Sephiroth, so he was showing more skin than he was used to.

SAIYAN: 't know that he had a brother" he said.

Wristband and Tuxedo looked at each other and then shrugged. They were in the same boat as Undershirt was.

SAIYAN: "OOOOH MOM GET THE CAMERA" Bowtie yelled at Amulet's comment. That was fucking savage Amulet.

KRO: Hot Pants jumped in front of Duster protectively, hissing at the mob of girls, "___BACK OFF, he's mine. ___ Come on, let's go before they actually catch up with us."

"Let me express myself how I want, dear. And I want to be a murderous old woman, so nyeh," Hairpin stuck his tongue out at Bowtie before looking away, thinking. "Well, at least there's the three of us." He said, handing Amulet a ghost shaped candy, "Here, try this one out."

"Yeah, Amp's got brothers," Shades chimed in, "I actually had the privilege of meeting one of his brothers that resides in Northern Heaven. Pretty cool dude."

EMI-DESU: "Well, it's nice for you to meet me, then." Dermal said flashing a sparkling grin, tentitively taking Strappon's hand. "Humans are so fascinating, it's a wonder how they could be so easy to manipulate."

He released his hand and placed it on his hip, gently wiping it on his pants. "But you are God's precious children and must be protected at all costs, I suppose. Anyway, we're looking for a Ghost that seems to blend in with THIS crowd. It could be anywhere, so let's stay on our toes?"

Trenchcoat's grin turned sour again when Jacket grabbed them both and tugged. He was the biggest cockblock ever...

CRACKEMWALNUTS: "I don't know, I'm sure at least one guy man." Fascinator replied, ignoring that Jeokori was currently questioning if the human knew black magic. Seriously, a costume change that fast? "Plus I'm sure your daisy dukes makes boys into men." Knittens nods to mark as he replied, Sure, I mean mom said no weapons until Christmas so... Hope you got something."

SAIYAN: '

KUMA: "Hmph, I don't think my name is weird at all," Pasties said with a little pout. She did go along with Jacket and Trenchcoat as she was was pulled. She looked around at the things they passed and decided she'd stop the two if anything grabbed her attention.

"So what are you two dressed up as?"

COFFINCAT: Mary nods and smiles ," My teddy is a tazer too!" He stood beside him and held his teddy close. "Do you wanna look anywhere in particular?" He tilts his head.

BRIT: "Follow you dreams, _dear._" Amulet said, taking the candy and tossing it into his mouth, "Where's the ghost, anyway? Didn't Shroud want us to keep tabs?" Something felt off about this atmosphere... He could see the Angels in the distance, along with Gogo and a new face...

"Yes... Staying on our toes is advisable. Well, let's get a move on and see if we can't find it before it causes to much damage." Strappon said, quirking a brow.

"Oh, we're Rocket Grunts from Pokemon!" Jacket said with a huge grin, "Our whole gang is dressed alike! Not my usual costume 'cuz I like to be unique and stuff." Considering his last costume...

Duster nodded in agreement with Hot Pants, still a little stunned by his reaction. "You know, I'm used to the atention. It's not terrible." He said, "You're weird."

SAIYAN: “Whatever” Bowtie said to HP as she munched on her chocolate. That still didn't change the fact that he was a cross dresser and she knew it.

Undershirt looked at Shades. “Huh, I never knew that” he said. He felt that it would be something he would mention to them.

“Maybe he has some kind of dark past” Tuxedo whispered to Wristband, causing her to giggle in her hand”

KUMA: "Oh Team Rocket!" Pasties was familiar with what that was, but she had never played a Pokemon game herself.

"Please don't steal my Pokemon then!" she said playfully and jokingly, "But what do you normally dress up as?"

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Knittens shakes his head and replies, "If it's a ghost then it'll show up. Trust me. Wanna check out the latest edition of that mecha cartoon?" Fascinator changed once again into Viktor in a blink of an eye. Seriously. Can he stop? Like its so sudden. Jeokori was frightened at this point. How could this even happen? Is anyone gonna notice? Seriously? Headphones glanced over and waved to whoever and finished his first book. To the next volume.

Meanwhile, people throughout the convention were experiencing some... Odd difficulties. Some people were found and being detained by the con staff for their strange behavior. Someone had literally had to be fetched from the cieling.

EMI-DESU: "A pile of Garbage," Trenchcoat replied for him. "But that's his usual attire, not a costume." Trench tried to pull his arm out of Jacket's iron grip with no avail.

BRIT: "Hey, now!" Jacket shouted at him, "I was a couple things last time... A couple things at once. I was a duelist, Akira, Ness..." He counted the things we was, but it was difficult to remember.

COFFINCAT: His eyes light up and he nods eagerly. "O-oh boy.. Um s-sure, can we check out the stuffed animals next?" He gulps a little bit , seeing someone floating on the ceiling ,"Do people here..n-normally do that?" He points to the random pedestrian.

KUMA: Pasties stopped moving and pointed at a booth that was selling various figurines.

"Hey let's stop here!" she said, starting to move in the direction towards it. She seemed to either have been ignoring the tension between the two or trying to find a distraction to stop them from arguing.

OSCARK9: "Man. What to choose for myself?" He said to himself again. Thinking of what to buy in the convention was tough for him. There was so many cool things to buy here, that one can't decide on what to buy. When he walk over to the next booth where a bunch of clothes is at, his eyes was caught his interest on a shirt that has a picture of 'Ash-Greninja and Ash' in front of the picture and its telling him that he found what he's looking for. "Ah, yes!" He said in his happy tone.

OSCARK9: *In front of the shirt

CRACKEMWALNUTS: "Nope! Unless they discovered anti-gravity stuff. So uh... Found it!" Knittens announced for anyone to hear. He should be captain obvious. Fascinator was definitely attracting attention as Viktor. Mostly Yuri on Ice fans. Good luck boy. "Anything good at con this year?" he asks, unknowing if he was even talking to someone at this point. The contacts he's wearing is messing with his vision.

KRO: "Well I think /you're/ weird," Hot Pants replied, "What, you want me to confess my undying love for you? Cause I'm not doing that. Too... /cliche/ ." He pulled along Duster to some merchant stands, looking at particular plushies and figurines. "Uh.. You want anything. Not this, but like food or a drink?"

"My, why thank you dear," Go-Go didn't know whether to take that as a compliment or not. But they did have shapely legs.

What should be a simple cosplay had a fully functional mask. He activated it but nothing seemed to be getting picked up, "If there's a ghost here, I'll see it before it can see us."

Shades took off the ice pack from his eye and donned his mask back on, "Anyways, I'm gonna go into the booths to buy stuff. If you wanna come, knock yourself out."

SUPERBIO: Flying around the convention, The Greatest Hero was giving the honorable citizens of Daten City what they deserve! Everyone here wanted to be a Hero, right? That's why they were so willing to dress like them!

"Halt, Citizen!" He said to someone, "You look like you would love to join me in my quest to destroy the scum of this earth!"

The person looked around and pointed to himself.

With that, he was zapped with Super Beams and given a special power of his own.

He didn't feel any different, but taking a step forward zoomed him straight into a wall.

"Another satisfied customer!" Superbio boomed before flying away to find more heroes.

SAIYAN: Bowtie looked at HP as he activated his scanner thing.

“Didn’t it not work the last time you tried this?” Bowtie asked him, folding her arms. She wasn’t convinced that it still wouldn’t work. Meanwhile, back at the ranch. The gang mulled over Shades’ offer to go look at stuff. Undershirt seemed to be on board but T.J. seemed to have a different idea. “You guys are such nerds!” Tuxedo said to Shades and the rest of them.

Undershirt sighed. “Yeah let’s go. It beats standing around here. You want to come too, Wristband?”

Wristband nodded her head and T.J. begrudgingly decided to go too.

COFFINCAT: Mary hides behind knittens and holds the teddy bear close, the fur started to fluff up and Mary's hair fluffed with it, the little fella was charging up. " S-so do we attack it or d-do we run?" He asked a bit spooked.

BRIT: "Oh shit, whaddup?" Jacket said, backing it up to look over the figurines. "They got one of ULTRAMAAAAAAAN!" He posed like Ultraman. Way to break character.

"Thanks." Duster snorted, "Yes, I would love food. I'm starving and everything here is... Expensive."

Amulet peered over HP's shoulder. "Uh... Dear. There's a child that ran himself into a wall at breakneck speed." He said, pointing in that direction.

Strappon looked over at Knittens and then up at the person on the cieling. "Oh, bloody hell." He said, "Good job, lad." He gestured for everyone to follow him. That would be best.

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Headband looked at the ghost, and slowly rolls off the fountain and decided to help for once. Following the others, he adjusted his fairy panties. Knittens stood like a rock in bravery and responds, "Well it didn't notice us so let's stay away." Fascinator was just wandering around lost, his vision was blurring too much and he was tempted to take the contacts off. Jeokori stood behind Strappon and pointed at the person and held up a note asking, "Do humans do this?"

KUMA: Pasties got distracted looking at figures of well, cute anime girls. She didn't seem bothered by ones in revealing clothes or provocative poses. None of them were full on explicit, but they were getting there.

"I totally have to have some of these," she said, looking them over.

COFFINCAT: Mary swoons a little bit and he shakes his head, "R-right! I-I mean right." He holds his teddy. "I-I found a hiding spot , but you gotta keep it a secret." He holds out his pinkie for the ultimate promise.

KRO: "I refined the technology, so now it's fully operational. You're talking to a genius after all, these things get worked out pretty fast," Hairpin boasted. He was proud of finally making his scanner work. Hopefully it didn't fry his face, this is the first finished scanner he finished so anything goes. Hairpin quickly turned to the direction Amulet pointed to, "Shit." Too bad Hairpin didn't have a biotic rifle for healing.

Shades shrugged at Tuxedo Jacket, "You're saying that as if it hurts me," says the guy whose Twitter handle is currently cyborg fucker 2k16, "Oh right, you're the new guy. I think I heard some mentions of you from these two," He said, pointing at the twins. His plans were changed as Strappon seemed to have picked something up and skedaddled his way back to the Templar, "What's up."

"You're lucky I feel like spoiling you today and willing to blow my entire paycheck...I don't think you want something from Mickey D's, huh?" Hot Pants asked, looking around to see if the other Angels caught the ghost's trail.

OSCARK9: "One XL shirt, please." The man at the booth gave him the shirt that he want the most and Gloves pay the man $59.99 for the shirt. Expensive as it is, it was worth spending on. "You're coming home with me." He said to the shirt. While enjoying his buying shirt, he heard some commotion from the Angels right behind his back. So he runs over to them to see what's up. "What did I miss?"

BRIT: "I think I can afford something a little higher class." Duster snorted, "Really."

Strappon pointed to the kid on the cieling. "Our ghost is hard at work." He said, "Let's try to track it down. I think I heard some commotion about a kid running himself into a wall. We may get more information out of him."

"Those are silly!" Jacket said, trying to copy one of the sexy poses of the figures, "Wow-- This is hard!"

KUMA: "I think they're cute," Pasties commented while paying the person at the booth for the two figures she decided to buy. She turned around and laughed slightly at Jacket's imitation of the pose. She set her bag down for a moment and copied the pose herself.

"If you bend like this its more comfortable, see?"

KRO: "What, you want to go to those fancy restaurants? In all seriousness." This guy wouldn't settle for something like Mickey D's, huh.

"Hopefully the kid isn't knocked out," Shades added.

EMI-DESU: Trenchcoat spat out the drink he just bought all over Jacket.

Dermal watched Strappon as the other angels sort of gathered together, following their own agendas. He pulled out a PDA and started taking notes.

SAIYAN: “Did they tell you how awesome I was?” Tuxedo asked to Shades. Of course, it would only be good things. He was just that awesome.

Undershirt looked up at the ceiling and saw the man up there. “How the hell did that happen?” he asked. That was something new. He was pretty sure that that shouldn’t normally happen. “Well you don’t see that every day” Wristband said as she too looked up at the poor man stuck on the ceiling. “Think we should help him?”

“HAHAHA look at that!” Tuxedo laughed. He really wasn’t being productive. That dude on the ceiling was having a bad day.

KRO: "Really? A PDA? Honey, that's sooooo 2002. Here, have one of these instead." Go-Go handed Dermal an expensive tablet that must have been pulled from the ether, "Don't let me catch you with outdated /anything/ . Otherwise I'll provide for you."

KUMA: Pasties turned towards Trenchcoat and raised an eyebrow. "Is everything okay over there? You didn't choke did you?"

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Knittens nods and exclaims, "Lead the way!" Did he know the meaning of secrets? Fascinator finally took off his contacts and could see. Strangely, he again changed his cosplay into Hampnie Hambert. Bless. That's when he spotted one of his favorite otome games apparently has a booth. He was literally a blur as he sprinted over to buy all the merch. That nerd.

OSCARK9: Gloves looked up at the ceiling where Strappon pointed to and saw a Men up there. "Ouch." He said to himself. If he was him, he'll be in so much pain. Poor man.

EMI-DESU: Dermal turned to Go-Go with a soft smiled and swiped the device out of his hand. "My, how helpful you are. I think we're going to get along just fine..." He said, staring at him with a grin for a full minute before turning back to the activities before him. "They still haven't caught the Ghost. How wonderful. I want to see what these broken angels can do..."

COFFINCAT: Mary raises an eyebrow and he shrugs, must be a custom here. He takes the others hand and he leads him to the empty booth. Mary crawls under and holds up the black table skirt for him to crawl under. "Y-you gotta be quiet o-okay? So the ghost can't find us." He whispers and pats the space next to him.

EMI-DESU: Trenchcoat wiped his face off and threw his cup at Jacket. "OH, NOPE. I'M JUST FINE. JUST... THIRSTY HAHA." He said half screaming. He kind of yelled when he was nervous.

KRO: "You're just saying that in hopes of making me feel better after your... /idol blunder/ that broke us apart." Go-Go promptly shoved the tablet back into Dermal's hands. If this kid wants to go, they'll go alright. To a nice restaurant.

BRIT: Jacket- now covered in sticky soda or something- wrung out his costume. He gave the guy a glare as the cup bounced off his forhead. "Yeah... Thirsty." He said.

TIMERIFTS: Onesie looked around the convention, extremely lost but ready to take on the challange. She was dressed up as the blue powerpuff girl, Bubbles. She skipped happily, not aware of the hell breaking loose around her, how could she miss it, who knows but she is. She wondered if any of her friends were here, since she wouldn't really recognize them when they were all dressed up

EMI-DESU: "Please, Go-Go, I know you missed me and my gorgeous face, but there are more important things at the moment. We can make up later, you know." Dermal waved dismissively at him.

KUMA: "It sucks if you're thirsty, since your drink is all over Jacket now. You can always buy another one though."

Pasties gathered up her stuff. She seemed a bit unaware of the real cause of Trenchoat being 'thirsty' and looked around. "Did you two want to buy anything from this booth or should we keep looking?"

KRO: "Oh, /missed you/? Not really since at least after you left, Daddy started giving me more attention. Anyways, I'll see you in a nice restaurant later, ciao~" And there goes Go-Go.

EMI-DESU: Dermal's head snapped around. "/Do not/." He hissed in a slightly lower tone than normal, snapping the old PDA he had. Oh, this was going to be fun with him around...

CRACKEMWALNUTS: "Sure!!" Knittens shouted, being an unhelpful child. Crawling underneath, he peeked out to see what was happening every now and then.Seeing Onesie, he waved underneath the table excitedly and shouting that he was there. Knittens is the definition of secrecy. Fasciantor literally had several bag fulls of merch of animes he liked like a dork and tackled Jeokori's back with a hug. Noticing Headphones, he shouts at his friend, "Dude, I can see your junk through that transparent lingerie, you wanna get decent?!" Headphones shouts back with his fairy wings fluttering in the breeze, "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME DAD!" "Nor do I want to!" Fascinator replies, changing into Beli cosplay to fit his friend's theme. Can Fasci even socialize with anyone else at this point?

TIMERIFTS: Onesie noticed her best friend, squealing excitedly, racing over "Knittens!!" she exclaimed happily "look I'm Bubbles" she smiled, crawling under the table with him, she just went with the flow. "Why are we hiding?" she asked him, settling in and lying beside him

BRIT: "Honestly, I'm for anything. But now I think there's a large commotion..." Duster said, looking idly off in the direction of the poor man that was in a wall.

"Let's go to another booth!" Jacket suggested, seemingly fine now. "I'd love to buy some cool merch for Ultraman!" He grinned at Trenchcoat, pulling him away from the booth.

Strappon furrowed his brow at the interraction between Go-Go and Dermal. Well, maybe they were old friends... "We can deal with the man on the cieling later, let's just go interview the man in the wall and pray he's still intact for questioning." He said, motioning them along with him and heading in the direction of the poor man.

EMI-DESU: Trenchcoat groaned, knowing it was his money he was going to be spending. Being wealthy was a curse sometimes, at least when you weren't in your cosy mansion in Heaven...

KUMA: Pasties walked along with them, trailing slightly behind.

"So what's Ultraman? Is he from an anime? A game?" she asked.

COFFINCAT: "Um.." he hides behind Knittens and he holds his bear tightly. "The ghost might get us if we aren't quiet m-ms. " He whispers as he gently boops Knittens with his bear.

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Knittens proudly claims, "Well we're hiding from the ghost right now and letting everyone else handle it." He bravely accepts that he is the most cowardly right now. He pouted at the boop and grumbles, "I knooow..." "Anyways, I think the ghost is making people fly? I don't know saw a guy in the ceiling though." Fascinator was now carried bridal style by Jeokori who walked him over anything he wanted to see since he was done here and Cufflink wasn't gonna pick him up any time soon. Headphones forgot why he was there so he tagged along, even though a lot of people looked at his not so well hidden crotch area. He bought some new samples of yaoi and just sins in public view. Fasci waved to Jacket and Trenchcoat, giving a friendly greeting, "Hey! What's up guys?"

BRIT: "He's only from one of _the best_ Hero series in the entire universe!" Jacket said, waving his arms around a little, "He's a Super Hero from a show in the 60s that's been ridiculosuly popular ever since. He's only the best." He was grinning like a dork. "Oh, hey, Fascinator!" He waved at him.

SUPERBIO: Another few people started springing up around the convention with... Strange powers. Superbio started looking for new people to recruit when he spotted a rather menacing looking tall man carrying a smaller, more effeminate man.

"Halt!" He said, flying right up to them, "Sir, I do believe this innocent man can walk on his own. Unless you need me to help you!"

BRIT: Jacket stared in awe. This was the first time a ghost _came to them_. It was the most perfect time! He turned his Rocket hat backwards.

COFFINCAT: Mary feels the cowardly aura ooze off of Knittens and he pouts, how is he supposed to swoon when he's being a baby? Mary is the baby here. He shakes his head and crawls out from under the table, teddy in hand. "If I ever wanna be an a-angel I've gotta fight like one !" He exclaims with his chest puffed out. "Knittens, Ms Onesie c'mon!"

KUMA: Pasties also looked at Superbio. That was guy was /flying/. Talk about to dedication. When she looked at Jacket, she realized that guy might be the ghost they were here for in the first place. She pulled the top of her dress away from her chest, reached her hand in, and peeled off one her sparkly pink pasties. (It matched her cosplay nicely).

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Knittens looked at Mary and crawled out with now resupplied courage. "Alright! Chaaaarge!!" he shouted, like he could do something. Fascinator changed cosplay into Yuno Gasai as Jeokori, bored out of his mind carried Fasci next to Jacket. Headphones followed slowly as he got to the very... Intense part. The explicit cover was tame compared to the raw stuff inside. "Yo! What're you-" Fascinator blinked at the ghost before clearing his throat, "Well I'm okay! Really." Jeokori was in no mood for anything. Glaring coldly, you could almost see the rage building inside of his soul. Well, who pissed in his cheerios?

COFFINCAT: Mary took Knittens hand and he charged at the ghost , swinging around his teddy tazer like his life depended on it. His hair was puffed out from the static the bear created. He lets out a girly battle cry while running with Knittens , in hot pursuit of that ghost booty.

SUPERBIO: "I see how sinister you are! Fiend, I shall make you pay!" Superbio boomed, igniting lazer in his eyes. This hit both Fascinator and Jeokori.

[FASCINATOR: Shoots eye Lazers at anyone he's attracted to] [JEOKORI:Lazer eyes that just cause the target limb to go numb]

He turned to the others in shock and Jacket and the others looked well ready for FISTICUFFS. "You want some too? HAVE AT YOU!"

He shot his lazers at them, seeming not to see little Knittens JUST YET.

[PASTIES: Stop time, but only when you're holding your breath] [JACKET: the ability to control another person's limbs, but only through the power of dance] [TRENCHCOAT: See into the future but only all the possibilities your current decision will do]

KUMA: Pasties braced herself for the impact of the laser beam. In doing so, she subconsciously held her breath. When she opened her eyes and realized she was wasn't injured, she let out a sigh of relief, breathing normally. She did, however, notice that until she exhaled, everything seemed like it was paused.

BRIT: Jacket screamed, but it didn't hurt. He blinked and looked around. What just fucking happened??? He whipped off his jacket. "Whatevs, dude!" He shouted, "We're gonna take you out!" He felt the urge to dance with someone, but it didn't seem like a good time... But he wanted to.

KRO: Shades blinked.

(( OOC: FOR THOSE WHO WOULD LIKE TO FIGHT, we have our thread: http://dcmissionaries.boards.net/thread/155/ghost-superbio To new members; Please read the guide or ask a mod if you're not sure how it works! ))

EMI-DESU: Dermal, watching this hell unleashed before him from the window he was adoring his reflection in, slowly slid behind something more sturdy and started furiously taking notes.

Trenchcoat tried, shocked at the tingling that overcame him, started thinking of pushing Jacket in the way of another blast when he stopped. It was like switching through channels quickly and he could see before him the repercussions of his actions. All the death and distruction, he could see people he loved and cared about getting seriously hurt and those he could trust betraying him. All of this. All of it. He just slowly sat down on the ground and moved his hands a way from Jacket.

KUMA: Deciding not to hesitate, Pasties removed her other pasty. With a quick flourish, both of them turned into her knives.

"I can handle this one! A foe who can't hurt me will be easy to take down!"

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Fascinator yells in shock at the laser but after seeing that he was fine as well as his friend, he didn't understand what happened. He was about to say something but then he felt something stir in his heart. He flashed to every time he ever felt a crush but it seemed to pass. Fasci looked around in panic before he saw a rather nice looking gentleman. He felt his heart flutter, and burning feelings of attraction as his feelings gathered together and formed a mysterious ray of light from his eyes! It struck the innocent bystander and vaporized him. Rest in peace good looking guy, may you rest in peace. Fasci was in utter shock, but another ray shot out as these feelings continued! Causing an explosion of a far off wall. Jeokori looked down at Fasciantor in shock. Seriously, could humans really do this!? Biting his lip he felt a sensation coming from his eyes as well but he won't let this ghost thing manipulate him! Headphones groaned and took of his namesake. Looks like it's time to rumble!

COFFINCAT: MJ he continues his now silent sprint and he swings his teddy as hard as he can , aiming at the ass of Superbio. Moms spankings usually hurt so he figured this would probably hurt like the dickins. He runs and he trips! Falling right on his face.

(( OOC: Just a reminder for people, here's the Combat System! It's been updated: http://dcmissionaries.boards.net/thread/100/combat-system-works ))

KUMA: With both of her knives ready, Pasties ran towards the ghost. She intended to go for some quick slashes, but noticed everything had paused around her again. Then she realized she was holding her breath. She exhaled for a moment and then took in a deeper breath. She then went to town with her quick slashes and stabs, able to get in more hits then she could have normally. With an exhale, Pasties jumped back and admired her work.

"Perfect."

MLLERMANDA: A bad time to look for ghosts.

Gauges was very sick and had to force himself to come to this convention. Something about a ghost that the angels have to hunt down. "Maaaaaaaaaaaaaan..." He whines to himself as he dressed up as Liang Qi from Cannan. " Out of all the days I could had been sick, it had to be during a mission, looking for a ghost." He wobbles side to side as others were busy fighting the ghost that caused trouble or seeing the scene with a superhero ghost. Gauges didn't like this and turns his head, noticing how the ghost fought. " And the worst part of all is that no one is notic-" He sneezes, " Me." And like that, hewhen he saw that, it caught his eye as he takes out his weapon, getting ready to fight even though he felt terrible and was weaker than normally. "Ey! Mr. Super Hero ghost? What you doing he-" He sneezes loudly as he drops his weapon. Stumbling around, he tries to attack the ghost.

SUPERBIO: Superbio couldn't move when she paused time and it left him with a large chunk out of him.

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Knittens politely helps Mary up and pats off the dirt. He's seen Fasci mess up enough to know what to do. But speaking of Fasci, he gawked at his cousin and asked, "Fasci did you just kill someone?!" Fascinator looked at Knittens in panic and stumbled, "No! He's just uh.... In a pocket dimension. I swear!" Knittens shook his head, at least take responsibility. But lasers?! To all of the people, the most undisciplined!? Fascinator felt his heart beating of control as more lasers shot of his eyes, unable to control how he feels. The chaos caused only because he loves too many people. {HP: 25} Headphones scratched his head as he shrugs, may as well throw Lucky Hit around. Twirling his grappling hook he swings at Superbio, the sharp ends meeting with the ghost. Looks like Lucky Hit stood true with it's name!

SUPERBIO: He turned to look at all those around him and gasped. There were so many villains, even a sick one!! He tried to fly into the air, away from them to recollect his thoughts.

"You fiends! You're using your gifts against me!" He shouted at them.

KRO: Clearly ignoring his duties, Shades pretends to just now see the chaos unfolding in the convention. He sighed as he went back to look at the wares, not wanting another ghost to ruin this con. It was the best local con, after all! Hairpin walked up to Shades, immediately recognizing the guy's dumb bird-like cosplay. "....Candy for these trying times?" he asked, handing Shades a chocolate candy.

"Thanks, granny."

"Uh, well. I'm currently an ineffective human. You gonna do anything about that?" asked Hot Pants. First of all he doesn't have an appropriate weapon due to the rules. Second of all, he had his baby with him, he's not putting the rascal in danger.

BRIT: Jacket looked at Trenchcoat in concern. Was he going to be alright...? He summoned Dual Pride and threw it toward Superbio, just nicking him. Damn! He heard music started playing over the loudspeakers and got and idea, starting to dance instead of attack. He pointed over at Trenchcoat, and watched him start to dance. "Heyyy! It works!" He laughed.

MLLERMANDA: Gauges turns his head, becoming more confused than ever on what was going on. He tries to speak to Superbio as he tries to move closer to him. He whines as he speaks, " What gifts? I want one!" He tries to swing his weapon but just drags it with him instead. " Gimme a gif-" He coughs as he takes a breather and tries to take care of himself.

EMI-DESU: Trenchcoat gets up an shouts. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO ME BUT I'M GONNA--" He shouted, about to run and throw a kick when his mind filled with thoughts of failure, missing and hitting the ground like a moron, people laughing. Going broke, doing illegal things. So illegal he accidentally sells his soul to a demon. His brothers cackling at him as they dragged him down to Hell. He choked back a sob and sat back down.

OSCARK9: Gloves heard some fighting going on in the convention. Maybe the others found the ghost already. "Finally some action!" Gloves runs to the scene of the fight and spotted a Superhero ghost attacking his friends. "Well if he want to fight, then here I come!" He said to himself while he spread his wing from his back and flys into the battle.

"Alright Ghost..." He said to him while he change his gloves into Gauntlets. "Lets do this!" He shouted at him. Gloves flew towards to the ghost and punch his right hand into his abdomen.

COFFINCAT: Mary thanks him and he picks his cheek, dashing off to cut some ghost ass. He twirls his tazer and his bunny ears flow behind him. He throws it up at him and it wacks the ghost as hard as it can on the rump.

SUPERBIO: In an attempt to thwart his attackers, Superbio let out a sonic scream that would at the very least give them a small knick.

COFFINCAT: Pecks-

SUPERBIO: He took the hit from Gauntlets and shot him with a beam, giving him a terrrible superpower. [GAUNTLETS: Flying but only backwards!]

He turned to punch Mary-Janes, but stopped and took the hit when he realized he was just a child.

BRIT: Jacket sighed, picked Trenchcoat up off the floor, and started dancing again. "C'MON BUDDY. I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY!" he started singing along.

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Knittens cheered for Mary and gave an encouraging thumbs-up. Jeokori grabs Fascinator, trying to prevent him from looking at people but when Fasci faces him, another laser shoots straight at him. Jeokori dodges in time but his claws suffered greatly, his four claw fingers vaporized. Looking at his declawed hand, Jeokori's adrenaline spiked and a laser shot straight at Fasci's arm, causing it to go completely limp. Fasciantor shakes his now dead arm and gulped. {HP: 22} Headphones cursed as the scream pierced his ear drums, man did he wish he had his namesake on to drown out this noise. He swung again at the ghost but it just the wall instead and got stuck.

SAIYAN: The amount of commotion going on caused Undershirt, Wristband and T.J. to look over and saw the ghost being battled by the angels. "Oh look it's Super Man" Undershirt said unconcerned as he took a seat on a bench near by.

"And you're just going to do nothing?" Wristband asked.

"Yep" Undershirt replied. "Look they've got everything under control."

T.J. looked over and saw that indeed that the Angels had the ghost on the ropes.

"Looks like they don't even need my help" he said with a cocky smile.

The three of them continued to watch the fight progress.

KUMA: Taking the sonic scream attack but not too shaken up by it, Pasties moved in for another attack. The set up seemed like everything would go according to her plan, but she forgot to inhale enough air and had to stop and breathe. Caught off guard by this, her attack missed.

She turned to look over at Jacket and Trenchcoat. "You can dance later you know!"

BRIT: "Holy shit." Duster said, watching the fight go down."Seems pretty weak. We should just go get food." He looked down at Hot Pants.

BRIT: "NO I HAVE A PLAN!" Jacket shouted at Pasties.

MLLERMANDA: Gauges takes a deep breath as he attempts once more to attack the ghost. Totally hating the ghost right now for not giving Gauge what he wants but was too passive to argue. He coughs harshly as he aims for the ghost, or at least tries too.

EMI-DESU: Suddenly, Trenchcoat couldn't control his own limbs. He felt his body moving on it's own, DANCING on it's own. He panicked slightly and looked back at Jacket, who was boogieing to the same beat.

"WHAT ARE-- YOU DOING?!" He shouted through the funky fresh beat Jacket was shrieking to.

Before he could struggle more, he felt his body lurch toward Superbio, and he punched him in the face with all of his (not really his) force. He felt the crack of his weak knuckles under his force and then crane-kicked him in the jaw.

He slumped on the floor.

COFFINCAT: MJ's cheeks turn red from Knittens encouragement and he trys again, missing! He pouts and runs, picking up his teddy. He runs back to protect Knittens.

SUPERBIO: Superbio screamed at the sudden lurching toward him-- WHAT WAS GOING ON?? He got a really hard kick to the jaw, and apparently a final slash from someone's blade. He hit the ground, almost in slow-motion...

"Curse... YOU!" He whispered from the ground, reaching his hand up before...

Exploding.

OSCARK9: "Ahh! My ears!" He said in a painful tone. Gloves was push back from the sonic scream and was hit by the beam. He blink and didn't feel anything different from that attack. He shocked his head from his confusion and tries to attack. However, instead of going forwards, his flying went backwards and went straight towards the wall. Ouch.

BRIT: "Good job, Angels!" Strappon shouted over to them, running up to the group. "Wow, that was surprisingly quick. You should work together more often..."

"Yeah, even if it was Jacket." Overshirt said, kind of in the background, "Good joooooob!"

COFFINCAT: Mary turns seeing the ghost blow up. He watches in awe and he smiles. In a fit of excitement he runs around with his teddy ," This'll be the best comic page ever!"

KUMA: The explosion was very satisfying. Pasties' weapons returned back to their previous form and she down into her dress to put them back on.

"Wow that dancing really did work, but of course my first attack was pretty great right? Like loosening up a really tight pickle jar! No need to thank me."

BRIT: "People should be back to normal, now." Jacket said, his dancing stopping, "I would have loved to keep that power..."

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Fascinator's eyes finally went back to normal and went red before all the trouble he caused. Oh boy... This wasn't good at all. Jeokori stared at his hand in shock, his claws were now stumps on his left hand. He wasn't mad, just.... Horrified. Knittens cheered and hugged Mary, "You did great!!" headphones finally got Lucky Hit unstuck before realizing it was already dead. Well that was a waste of time. Oh well. Back to reading porn.

KRO: "Make up your mind. Fine, we'll go to Gouda. There's one across the road," Hot Pants looked down at Chocobo, ruffling it's feathers as he started walking towards the exit. Scratch that, the ghost exploded, he took cover by a table, not wanting his precious child getting injured. "HEY. WATCH WHERE YA BLOWING YA BITS."

Shades tapped Undershirt's shoulder, "Hey dude, which one," he asked in reference to two identical figures but each having different colors. This was important.

Hairpin looked on at the poor ghost and snapped his fingers in disappointment, "Damn. Well, at least we know that ghost wasn't worth it."

COFFINCAT: Mary has little fireworks go off in his head and he hugs Knittens back,"Y-you really t-think so?" He pulled away with the biggest smile ever.

Fox walks over with a crap ton of hentai and a body pillow. "I leave for like two seconds."

EMI-DESU: Dermal walked out clapping. "Well done! Such coordination! I didn't think Fallen Angels were capable of taking down even a weak Ghost such as that! I could have helped you, but I felt like it would be a waste of your potential." He flicked his hair again. "Good job, Angels."

MLLERMANDA: Gauges turns away as he was happy that someone killed the ghost. However, he was irritated that all these angels were getting attention which in return makes him jealous. "Those lucky angels....Hmph." He tries to sneeze at the ground but ends up sneezing on himself, messing up the outfit. "Ugh. Why me." He wobbles towards a stand where food was at and decides to stay there for now, trying to get a snack during the process.

BRIT: "Yeah, but they got quite a few Heavens for that..." Amulet snorted, crossing his arms, "What a waste."

"Sounds... Gouda to me." Duster said with a completely straight face. He walked away from Hot Pants in the direction of the restaurant.

Strappon looked over at Dermal. "You... I take back what I said about you being nice. That was really back-handed." He said, shaking his head and looking over the convention, "There's so much destruction, and people are still having fun..."

SAIYAN: Bowtie looked at her watch. "Look at that time, it's a new record" She said. Those angels managed to kill that thing nearly instantly. "All that build up for nothing. Kind of disappointing, wouldn't you agree?" she asked HP and Amulet.

"Hmmmm...the right one" Undershirt said as the ghost exploded behind him.

The others just looked at the light dissipating and the heavens raining down from the sky.

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Jeokori bent his newly freed fingers, studying how they bent now and worked. Flashes of being just a boy went through his mind as he didn't know how to take this. Fascinator crept behind Jeokori and shakily apologized, "O-Oh... I'm so sorry Cho-cho,,, I didn't mean to, I swear! You're my best friend, I'd never want to hurt you-" Jeokori hugged Fasci, accepting his apology quite easily. Carrying him again he went towards the other demons, just not.... Looking at anyone. Headphones rolled his eyes at the Heavens and trots towards Fox Stole.

"Neat stuff, where'd you get it?"

OSCARK9: Gloves feels the pain from his back, but manage to stand with his legs. "Ouch! Now I know what flying towards the wall feels like." He said as he walking slowly towards a sitting booth while rubbing his back.

COFFINCAT: Fox stretches ,"Me? OH the last vendor by the corner. You should hurry if you want stuff they're packin up." She blows a gum bubble.

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Headphones nods as he waltzes towards the sin. Considering a job in porn dealing since god damn these people charge top dollar. Fascinator waved at Amulet and HP meekly, still feeling guilty about what he did to Jeokori. Jeokori still did not look at anyone. Knittens replies excited, "Yeah! So cool!!"

KRO: Hot Pants kept leading, only to stop abruptly to hit Duster on the arm, "I swear." How dare he pun to him.

"I agree with the both of you," Hairpin said, "Anyways, I want to get rid of this candy basket, so I'm gonna hand this off to the Angels. Unless the two of you want to keep it for yourselves." Seeing a hand being waved in their general direction, Hairpin pointed at the three of them to make sure Fascinator was referring to them.

Shades nodded and payed the clerk, "You have good taste in colors, just needed a second opinion."

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Fascinator nods as he tapped Jeokori to walk towards them, he joked a little flustered, "Lack luster ghost guys, but uh... interesting side effects." Jeokori finally began to accept his trimmed nails as he now started to appreciate how handy hands were. Neat. But he finally faced other people so that was nice. Today wasn't a good day for him, so excuse the sour expression.

COFFINCAT: Mary giggles and holds his teddy close , " You think my moms gonna believe my adventures today? " he happily twerls around.

Heels had sneakily recorded the fight and of course posted it on twitter, freakin worldstar kinda shit these days. She walks down the sidewalk, her body guards in random locations watching her.

SAIYAN: "I can taste the rainbow Shades" Undershirt said. The best comeback

"Yeah, I'll take candy" Bowtie said. "I need something sweet in my house. Unless Amulet wants some."

TIMERIFTS: Onesie looked at the two friends, feeling herself heat up. She was not happy about this new development "Hey, uh I gotta go. You know convention stuff" she flashed a smile before scurrying to her feet and making off so she wouldn't have to deal with this situation. She didn't like sharing and Knittens was her friend, and she wasn't going to deal with that.

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Knittens was pumped and he remarks, "I hope mine does!- Onesie? Hey wait! I can join you! I'll be quieter I swear! Is it the shoe thing?!" He chased after Onesie, not getting those 'I don't want to see you' hints.

KRO: Hairpin shrugged, "Well, it wasn't ours. If we managed to tame it before it went on the offensive, it could have lasted a little longer."

"Haha, real funny," Shades crossed his arms, "What are you, the skittles guy now?"

Before Hot Pants could open the door to the exit, it burst open. Policemen entered the scene like swarming flies with one in particular pointing his finger like a gun. As if that can do damage. "ALRIGHT, WHAT'S THE EMERGENCY!" All the policemen including Necktie, the one sticking his finger out, looked for any signs of a scuffle but... everything appeared to be normal. How embarrassing.

"Oh...Uh. Wow. This was less destruction than from last time..."

MLLERMANDA: Gauges eats his snack lazily as he eventually goes to the bathroom for the moment to change back into his normal clothes."Hmph. Maybe someone will notice me." He notices some strangers who were with the bathroom with him and tries to get thier attetion by flanuting at them. "Like what you se--" However he accidently coughs on to them and they get disgusted, leaving the scene. "Crap." He gets out of the bathroom after trying to fix himself up with some tissues or in this case, toilet paper. He coughs and sniffles the whole way as he heads back to a bench that was at the corner of the convention. "Maaaan, today suckkkkkkksss." He whines to himself as he sneezes some more. Once, he did that he lays on the bench, trying to get some sleep. However, he hears the policemen and tries to turn his head, trying to see what was going on but quits. "FML." He whines to himself as he snuggles himself up, trying to get some sleep.

BRIT: "Well I hope the next ghost is more... I dunno, fun?" Jacket asked, looking at the other Angels."WELL NOW I CAN BUY MERCH!"

Amulet took the entire bowl. "Thanks." He said, stuffing a handful in his mouth.

Duster was a little shocked at the sudden influx of cops past himself and Hot Pants... Hoo boy.

"Can we help you, officers?" Strappon asked, "It's been a while since we've seen you here. Thanks for coming by, but we've got it handled." He kinda liked being cheeky.

COFFINCAT: Mary he laughs and he tilts his head, his smile fading as Knittens left. He frowns and looks down at his teddy , walking off to the booth of plushies. Ouchy.

TIMERIFTS: Onesie shrugged "Oh you don't have too!" she smiled sweetly, waving at him, even though she wanted to clench her teeth and make a scene "Keep being happy with your new friend, it's okay~" she giggled "Not the shoe thing don't worry. Hey they are leaving, they look pretty bummed out, better go save them!!" she shrugged, she should find red to talk about this weird feeling in her tummy, dad would know what to do.

KUMA: "Yeah the con isn't over yet and I still want to look around!" Pasties agreed. "Let's keep going then."

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Fasci just hoped they don't discover he killed a person, hopefully it'll be like last time where they had no evidence. Fascinator didn't need to be threatened with jail time. He kinda got a phobia of cops since... The incident. He snuggled closer to Jeokori and the alien seemed to get the idea as he protectively held him closer. Seriously, did they have a thing for each other or...? Knittens was out of breathe as he looked at both of them. If he couldn't even vote for the president, he is not choosing friends. Swallowing his spit, he grabs Onesie's arm and drags her to Mary and announces, "We should have fun at the con as a group! C'mon I think they have the space cartoon I like, you know the one right Onesie?"

KRO: "I gotta give you guys props for not destroying the place like last time..." Necktie admitted. "ALRIGHT MEN. DISPERSE." And as quick as they appeared, they disappeared. Into the day. Like majestic eagles.

This was too much for Hot Pants, he just wanted to eat, "Ugh. Let's just GO."

Hairpin snickered a little at Amulet, "Well I'm glad you guys like my candy. If you want, Bowtie, I can make you another bucket? Like just give me like a couple of bucks and we got a deal."

COFFINCAT: Mary was pretty shocked when onesie was dragged over too."W..we should?" He looked down at his teddy, feeling a bit uncomfortable. He was the awkward boner in the room. " Um..I-if you want to..." You could cut through that uncomfortable atmosphere with a dull plastic spork.

TIMERIFTS: Onesie flashed him a smile "Oh yeah, if that's what knittens thinks we should do" she did her best to not show how salty she was "Yeah let's go find that cartoons booth, an extra set of eyes couldn't hurt!!" she exclaimed, lowkey throwing glares at knittens, hoping no one would notice. She Really hated sharing

CRACKEMWALNUTS: Knittens dragged both of them around, oblivious to the fact that this was just a not so good time. Dear god, please let this end not in blood. Fascinator spotted Knittens and the uh... Scary atmosphere. Calling out to his younger cousin, "Hey Knittens! Cufflink is gonna picks us up soon! So maybe say good bye to your friends (?)" Knittens nods and waves good bye to both of them; smiling happy and saying that he'd like to hang out with them again. how could this child just not get the message? They all walked out of the con where Cufflink begrudgingly drove them all home.

COFFINCAT: Mj he waves goodbye to Knittens and he makes his teddy wave too. " Bye Knittens!" He smiled a little bit. He looked up at onesie and he backed away a little bit. "U-um.."

TIMERIFTS: "Byee!!" she exclaimedOnesie waved to knittens as he left, then turned to MJ "It was nice meeting you, What's your teddies name?" she asked, being the best fake nice our there.

OSCARK9: "Well, that was fun." He said to himself. "Even though that was epic, I'm going home early and get my 9 hrs nap." Gloves slowly got up from the sitting booth, walked to the nearest food stand to order some Vanilla Milkshake, got his 'Ash-Greninja with Ash' shirt, call the cab, and off he went back to the Abbey.

COFFINCAT: "Nice..meeting you too I guess.." MJ hugs his teddy close to him. "It's Mommy's love.." he moved away from her. "M- Ms Onesie..if you um..don't like me..you don't have to pretend.." He said quietly.

TIMERIFTS: Onesie nodded "Ohh nice! Very cute" she smiled at him "Oh no see I just don't do well with sharing. I have no issue with you as a person" she shrugged, leaning in closer to him "wanna go check out the convention? I spent a long time working on this costume and it would be a shame if it went to waste hmm? I'm sure you put a lotta effort into yours as well"

COFFINCAT: Mary manages to make the cutest 'really bitch?' face possible. "But Knitten's is my friend too.." he pouts and squeezes his teddy, moving away. " And I think I'll be just f-fine on my own Ms. Onesie..enjoy your con!" Mj bows and basically drops the mic of the conversation.

TIMERIFTS: Onesie kept a smile throughout the whole thing "Oh if that's what you'd like" she shrugged "Oh that's nice" she turned, then skipped away after MJ had finished "Have fun!! See you around" she turned back "call me if you need anything though, protecting innocents is what I do as an angel" she waved sweetly before turning to go find some stuffed animals

COFFINCAT: Fox watched in the bushes, softly whispering, " Yo you just got told by a twelve year old fetus!"

#DCMissionaries #angel rp #ghost rp

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