#that’s why I only showed you light version previously

[fluentmoviequoter]

Special Edition

Day 4 of 12 Days of Ficmas

Pairing: Jason Todd x vigilante!fem!reader

Summary: Jason Todd doesn't like you. He does like Jane Austen, though.

Word Count: 2.2k+ words

Warnings: angst, arguments, brief description of injuries, fluff, Pride and Prejudice quotes. reader is a vigilante!

A/N: Sorry this is late; thank you for being patient and the encouraging messages!! This is my first Jason Todd fic and I am so excited because I'm madly in love with him. He may be OOC, but I didn't specify which version so you can imagine whichever Jason you want! I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

Masterlist | DC Comics Masterlist | Request Info

You are the bane of Jason Todd’s existence. He’s never said it outright, but he shows you constantly that he doesn’t like you, trust you, and certainly doesn’t want to work with you. That doesn’t deter you from trying to bring a little Christmas spirit and friendship to the man in the red hood, though. All he’s missing is a little green and some lights.

December in Gotham is cold, wet, and busy for vigilantes. With Batman breathing down your neck about staying in fighting shape no matter the weather or the time of year, it can be easy to let Christmas slip by unnoticed, and Jason usually does. Since you joined the team, though, you’ve decided it will never happen again.

“Those lights are new,” you point out as you trail behind Jason, cutting through a previously undecorated alley.

“Focus!” he snaps, his helmet turning as he looks over his shoulder at you. “Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean we stop to look at pretty lights instead of finding Scarecrow’s new hideout.”

You shrug and jog a few steps to catch up, your eyes focused on his red helmet as he slows. He pulls a grappling hook from his belt and aims it upward.

“You don’t have one do you?” he asks, his voice giving away how annoyed and tired he is.

“Pretty sure Bruce only gives those to his sons,” you answer sheepishly. “I can just take the ladder on the backside of the building. Or we can split up.”

Jason barks a single, harsh laugh. “One, Bruce isn’t sexist like that so maybe he just knows you’re incompetent. And, two, we’re not splitting up.”

“Because I’m incompetent?” you ask, smiling.

Jason’s shoulders rise and fall as he sighs before wrapping his arm around your waist and holding you against his chest until your feet meet the solid roof. His hand raises but lingers by your side as he looks down at you. Nodding to himself, he pulls his arm back and turns to look out over the freezing, dirty streets of Gotham.

“What are the chances he’d go for the water supply again?” you ask quietly.

“Not very good,” Jason answers. “Do you think before you ask those questions?”

“Think? No. But I do see Bane pushing a huge crate into the water department offices down the street.”

Jason jumps from his crouched position and moves toward you, the heat radiating off his body like a warm hug against your skin as he stands behind you. 

There’s a hint of grumbling as he raises his voice to ask, “Why didn’t you just say that?”

“Bane didn’t walk out until after you asked, Jason. I may be incompetent but I’m not a complete idiot,” you answer. 

You blame the December weather for your change in attitude; any other time, you would have made a joke and asked for his help since Bruce was working on your grappling hook and didn’t have a spare (not that you’d ever tell Jason the wire snapped and dropped you three storeys the last time he asked you to split up). But now, you’re tired and cold and want to get away from Jason before you say something you shouldn’t, so you jump off the roof and onto the fire escape as Jason’s yells fall on deaf ears while you rush toward the water department.

When you try the handle, the doorknob twists easily, but as you prepare to open it, a gloved hand wraps around your wrist and pulls you back.

“What are you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?” Jason whispers angrily.

“Why do you care, Jason? If I die, you don’t have to work with me anymore, right?”

“Just because I don’t like working with you doesn’t mean I want you dead,” he snaps.

“Then watch my back and try not to be such a Grinch.”

You tear your wrist away from him, blind to his face dropping and his jaw clenching under his mask. Pulling the door open slowly, you slip into the shadows, grateful to feel Jason behind you.

✯✯✯✯✯

“You found Scarecrow’s new hideout?” Batman asks.

Jason nods, but you keep your eyes on your feet.

“And you went in - without telling anyone - only to get into a fight with Bane and doused with Scarecrow toxin?”

Jason nods again.

“Who made the call to go in without backup?”

“I…” Jason begins.

You don’t look up as you cut him off. “I did. Jason wanted to wait but I went in without him and he followed me. It’s my fault.”

“Hood, you’re dismissed then. Alfred said you need 24 hours of rest before you can patrol again,” Batman says.

Jason turns, stopping to look down at you before walking out of the Batcave. You hear Bruce pull his cowl off, but keep your eyes trained on your shoes.

“Alfred said the only reason Jason got out unscathed is because you took most of the toxin; without a mask. Why did you rush in there, then put yourself in harm’s way when Jason is more prepared to deal with it?”

“I didn’t think about that. I saw a threat and wanted to help my fri- teammate.” He’s not your friend, you remind yourself, no matter how badly you want him to be.

Bruce sighs, then clicks his tongue. You finally look up at him, and he looks like he’s fighting an internal war between Bruce and Batman. The one who wants to bench you for being reckless and the one who wants to hug you for protecting his son, even if he didn’t need it.

“Thank you. Just- call for backup next time, okay?”

You promise that you will. “But if someone is in danger, I will not hesitate to help.”

“I know that. But try to be a little more careful in the future, okay? Are you hurt?”

“No,” you lie, your mind racing on the remnants of the toxin as your face aches from the impact of Bane’s punch.

As you exit the Batcave and cut through Wayne Manor, Jason is leaning against the front door, his mask gone and his blue eyes leveled on you.

“Did he bench you?” he asks.

“No. Just told me not to do it again.”

Jason nods and pushes off the door, walking to you and looking down into your eyes. “That was incredibly stupid and if Bruce didn’t have this attachment to you, I’d be fighting him to get rid of you or stick you with someone else.”

“Sorry you feel that way,” you mumble, skirting around him and walking outside.

You breathe in the fresh air and try to ignore the feeling of your heartbeat in your face. You’ll undoubtedly have a bruise, so maybe it’s time to finally wear the mask Bruce seems keen on convincing you is for your safety. Maybe it’ll get Jason to lighten up, too. 

✯✯✯✯✯

“Bruce must’ve given a powerful lecture if it got you in the mask,” Jason teases.

You hum, hoping you don’t have to say anything and make the pain in your jaw worse.

“Just ordinary patrol today, so we can split up if you still want to,” he offers.

You shrug, watching the helmet tilt as its unblinking eye slits stare at you.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m great,” you say. “Split up, then.”

You take the East side of your quadrant while Jason goes West. As the night goes on and your pain medicine wears off, you want to curl up into a ball on one of the roofs you're jumping across and go to sleep. You slow before stopping in the middle of a roof, gently pressing your hand against the underside of your jaw, trying to alleviate the pain.

“What are you doing?” Jason asks, his voice distorted by the mask as he appears suddenly behind you.

“Nothing,” you say, the word mumbled by your hand holding one side of your jaw closed.

You hear his footsteps as he walks around you, stopping in front of you and pulling your hand away from your face before gently lifting your mask to your nose. His sharp inhale is barely audible through the helmet, but you catch it.

“Look that good?” you joke.

“When did that happen? Tonight?”

“No. Bane punched me two nights ago; it’s getting worse, as usual.”

“You should have told someone; what if he had broken your jaw?”

“Then you wouldn’t have to hear my commentary that you love so much.”

“Can you take anything seriously?”

“Can you stop taking everything seriously?” you argue. “I got hurt, so what? You don’t even like me!”

“I never said- no matter my feelings, you’re my teammate. Just tell me this stuff.”

“Because you’re such a good listener,” you mutter.

“Let’s go. We’ll finish patrolling together.”

You nod, pulling your mask back down and following Jason to a roof with a bird’s eye view. You sit on the edge beside him, looking at the twinkling Christmas lights scattered throughout Gotham.

“What do you want for Christmas?” you ask.

Jason’s mask swings toward you. “What do I want for Christmas?” he repeats incredulously. “Oh, let’s see… a partner who doesn’t rush us both into danger, a life that isn’t marked by death and loss, a team that doesn’t look at me like I’m one second away from becoming a supervillain, and maybe, if there is anything like Christmas magic, a day where you don’t act like my life is worth more than yours!”

You hold your breath as he yells at you, releasing it when he looks back out to the skyline.

“Red, we’re here to relieve you. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night,” Red Robin says through the comm system.

Jason storms off as soon as he hears that, leaving you alone two nights before Christmas.

“I don’t think they have that on Amazon,” you whisper to Gotham, rubbing the good side of your face to stop yourself from crying.

✯✯✯✯✯

Bruce gave you a few nights off, presumably because Jason complained about you. The morning after Jason told you what he wanted for Christmas, you get a package containing the gift you thought he’d like. You wrap it, then set it on your kitchen counter, unsure whether it’s worth it to take it to him or if you should leave it at the manor while he’s gone. Shrugging, you decide you have time to make the decision and walk to your couch, queuing your favorite Christmas movie and trying to push Jason Todd out of your head. Deep down, you always believed he was mean because he cared and kept you safe by keeping you at arms’ distance, but now you’re not so sure.

On Christmas Eve, you find yourself standing outside Jason’s apartment, his gift in one hand and the other hand ready to knock. Taking a deep breath, you hope for the best and knock. The door opens a moment later, and Jason looks at you, his gaze catching on the bruise momentarily.

“Um, I just wanted to bring you this. And say that I’m sorry. Merry Christmas,” you explain as you extend the bag to him.

He takes it, pulling his eyes from yours to peek past the tissue paper. His blue eyes widen as he sees what’s in the bag before he closes the door quickly. You step back, hurt, and prepare to leave when the door opens again. Jason pulls you into his arms and into his apartment, kicking the door closed behind him as he holds you close. Your arms wrap loosely around his waist.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

Your arms immediately tighten around him, and you press your uninjured cheek against his chest.

“It’s perfect. Thank you.”

“Of course. Merry Christmas, Jay.”

“No, no,” he begins, pulling back just enough to look into your eyes, his shining like a frozen lake. “You don’t say ‘of course,’ like I deserve it. Not after everything I’ve done to you. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to apologize, but I just..”

“Push people away because you think you’re a bad guy?” you suggest quietly.

“I am a bad guy,” he responds.

“No, you’re not. Jason, do you push people away for you or for them, and their safety, because you care about them?”

Jason is quiet as he stares into your eyes, dropping his gaze to your bruise once. “I care about you,” he whispers. “You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.”

“She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes,” you quote.

“Where did you find a special edition of Pride and Prejudice this close to Christmas?” Jason asks, smiling brightly.

“I thought it was going to get here too late.”

“Thank you. For the book and for pushing back.”

“You’re worth it, Jay. Merry Christmas.”

He barely lets you finish before he pulls you in for another kiss the Christmas lights twinkling on the Gotham skyline starkly contrast the streets below, going unnoticed in the background as you realize Jason only pretended not to like you because of how much he cares for you. That, and being wrapped in his arms, is the only Christmas gift you’ve ever needed.

[flowerandblood]

Magdalene with the Smoking Flame

[modern! photographer • Aemond x female]

[warnings: oral sex, dirty talk, domination, sexual tension, fluff]

[description: Aemond is a photographer dealing with works referring to the painting of the old masters. His sister poses in class for a girl who catches his attention. He decides that she would be a perfect model for one of his photos. Lots of sexual tension and slowly built fascination.]

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

This is Part 2 of story: Girl with a Pearl Earring

_____

After the exhibition she officially became Aemond's model. He did not explain to her why he made such a decision and why she had to pose for all the photos, but she didn't ask about it. Deep down, for some reason she was excited to be in front of his camera again.

Being a painter and portraying others gave her the feeling of being somewhere behind, in the position of an observer. She could transfer all her thoughts and feelings about the model with a brush to the canvas or board, show her expression and sensitivity to colors and light.

When she was a model, all the more so, she was in the spotlight and had to demonstrate new, previously unknown skills. She also did not hide that she was glad that he was the author of the photos on which she was. After his version of Girl with a Pearl Earring, she decided to trust him completely on this matter.

Aemond wrote to her a few days later and outlined what he had planned. Now he wanted to target the works of George de La Tour, and more specifically his series with the figure of Mary Magdalene.

He created several paintings with her, and Aemond wanted to replicate all of them because they had similar scenery and lighting. All of de La Tour's paintings were based on candlelight, soft and subtle. Aemond wanted to try to recreate a similar effect.

Mary Magdalene's outfit consisted only of a white V-neck blouse and a red skirt, so she sewed them easily for herself. Aemond told her that he would take a mirror from his house and get a skull, artificial of course, but one that would look like a real one.

They met during a break between their classes to work out the details. Aemond wanted to prepare her for the fact that the session would be long and exhausting. She, however, was full of enthusiasm and didn't care at all, much to his satisfaction. They stopped mid-exchange when one of his classmates tapped Aemond on the shoulder.

"Oh, finally I can meet the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring!" Cregan said, extending his hand to her. She smiled and shaked his hand. She recognized that boy and knew that he also did portrait photography. His works was usually black&white and very minimalist.

“Indeed, you have a very photogenic face. I don't think Aemond would mind if I borrowed you for one photo shoot, would he?" He asked with a smile, and she looked at Aemond uncertainly.

He stared at Cregan, his jaw clenched slightly, but he said nothing. Aemond and she didn't sign any contract so she could really do whatever she wanted. She decided she had enough work to do with her paintings. She didn't want to be further distracted.

"Sorry, I haven't finished my paintings yet." She said softly, looking at him apologetically.

"This would be a quick shoot, I promise it won't take you long." He said amused, and Aemond suddenly exploded, apparently losing his patience.

"She told you she had a lot of work to do. What else do you not understand?” He asked, looking at him annoyed. She pursed her lips as she felt the atmosphere change suddenly. Cregan backed away from his reaction.

"I understand. Anyway, have a nice day." He said and continued down the corridor. She looked at Aemond but he looked away, pressing his lips together. She thought he regretted his outburst.

After he presented her photo in an exhibition, there were a lot of rumors about how she got herself a place with the dean's son. The girls Aemond had been in the year with had the most gossip. Neither she nor he brought up the subject, but they knew that everyone around them thought they were sleeping together.

He cleared his throat loudly, apparently returning to his neutral, cool state, and looked at her. His gaze softened a bit.

"See you on Tuesday."

***

She came to the studio ahead of time knowing he'd be there. Aemond gave her a surprised look, he was setting up a still life for her to sit and pose with.

"I'm not done yet, you'll have to wait." He said quickly, putting the mirror in the right position, staring at the print on the table. She walked over to him with a smile.

"I came early to help you." She explained, taking the candlestick in her hands. Aemond accepted her company without a word, and the two of them reached for more items and set them down, stepping back once in a while to see what it looked like.

“The candle in the painting is thick but short. To keep the composition right I bought a similar one, but unfortunately we won't have much time to take a good photo before it burns out. I'm afraid an additional light source will be needed."

Once everything was ready she went to get changed. She put on her shirt and skirt, then wrap her belt around her. The shirt had a deep V-neck and puffed sleeves. Because of how the original looked, she decided not to wear a bra underneath. Fortunately, the shirt wasn't transparent and only the outline of her breasts was visible.

She left the room and saw that Aemond had turned off all the lights, leaving only a lit candle. When he saw her, he froze for a moment, looking at her intensely. Her long hair was completely loose.

"Come here. Sit down.” He spoke low and calm as if the atmosphere of the room, the darkness surrounding them and the candlelight gave him a sense of solemnity.

She scurried barefoot across the floor quickly, sitting down in a chair, placing the skull on her thighs. She placed her hands on it as she remembered it was in the painting, and turned her head slightly backwards.

Aemond looked at her and approached her slowly. She inhaled sharply as he lifted his hand and gently turned her cheek, tilting her face away.

"Yes. Stay just like that." He said and she heard the sound of the camera shutter.

"It looks great." He grunted contentedly. He walked over to her again and adjusted the fabric of her skirt to make it fit better. His nearness and his scent made her dizzy.

She flinched as she felt his fingers in her hair. He swung them slowly over her back, running his thumb over her skin, exposing her neck more. She felt her pulse quicken. He didn't take his hand away for a moment, and she couldn't see the expression on his face because of her position.

He finally pulled away and she heard the shutter click of the camera again. Aemond was pleased with the result and said they could move on to the second setup.

She stood up and looked at him uncertainly. Her heart beat uneasily as she saw how dark and gloomy his gaze was. He stared at her, standing in the shadows as if he was about to devour her.

She swallowed loudly and sat down facing the table this time, leaning forward. Aemond had to go to the other side to take a picture of her proper profile. The skull was placed on top of the books and was supposed to be reflected in the mirror. She rested one hand on her chin, the other on her skull, staring straight ahead.

"Lean more forward. Yes, exactly." He said.

She shivered as she heard him walking towards her. His hand grabbed her hand, the one that was on the skull. She opened her mouth slightly feeling his touch, felt the space between her thighs tighten, all wet. He moved her fingers slightly away from the object.

“In the painting, she barely touches that skull. She rests her fingertips on it." He said, trying to gently put her fingers in the right position. She felt her hand tremble. Aemond must have felt it, but he said nothing. He pulled away from her, studying her form from a distance.

"Good. Look more forward, not down. Yes, stay like that." He said and she heard the shutter sound again. Aemond must have changed the previous candle for a new one. He took a few more close-up shots and ordered them to go to the final setting.

She stood up again, feeling her legs tremble. She realized with embarrassment that she was aroused, her wetness literally dripping down her thighs.

She tried not to look at him as she shifted her position, sitting sideways to the table again. She rested her face on her elbow, looking to the side, her other hand resting on the skull in her lap.

Aemond took the mirror away and placed several thick books on the table instead. Her lips quivered as she felt him standing behind her, slide her shirt off her shoulders, letting it drop just a few more millimeters and her nipples would be visible. She felt herself hot and swallowed hard, feeling beads of sweat on her neck.

She looked pleadingly at him as she saw him kneel down in front of her and lift the fabric of her skirt, so that her bare knees were visible. She knew that was exactly what the figure in the painting looked like, but the way he touched her made her whole body tremble. She thought she had never felt anything like this before in her life.

Aemond didn't look at her. She thought he was going to get up and move away, but he didn't. She stifled a moan and swallowed hard as she felt his hand brush over her bare knee and calf.

He leaned down slowly and kissed gently the bare skin of her thigh. She wondered, staring at him with her mouth parted if this was really happening. Her hot core pulsed around nothing at the sight, and she felt her nipples harden.

She felt his hand slowly return from her calf up to her knee, moving to her thigh, rubbing her hot skin with his thumb. She watched in disbelief as his fingers lifted her skirt higher and pushed aside the delicate fabric of her underwear.

"Jesus." He whispered to himself, staring in wonder and delight at the space between her thighs, all hot and wet. His thumb ran over her entrance, dripping with her juices. She threw her head back and, unable to stop herself, moaned softly.

He leaned over her wordlessly, his lips brushing her entrance as if he were kissing her lips. She shivered with pleasure, moaned loudly, involuntarily raising her hand from skull towards his hair. She started to breathe louder when she heard him undo the belt of his pants.

Her hips began to move involuntarily towards his face as she felt the gentle caresses of his tongue. He teased her with it, not inserting it all the way, licking everything that came out of her. They both started panting, all she could hear the wet click of his tongue and the quick, mechanical movements of his hand somewhere below her.

She had never been so turned on before in her life. The silence that reigned around them, the darkness and the light of the candle made her feel that this was not really happening. She thought it was some blissful dream that she would soon wake up from.

She sobbed as she felt his tongue quicken, pressing against the top wall of her hot core, massaging it where she felt the most pleasure. She thought with horror that she was about to come on his face, and there was nothing she could do about it. Her thighs responded greedily to his caresses, wanting to feel him more and deeper.

Her breathing became ragged. She drew in a deep breath and froze, her mouth slightly parted. After a second, she threw her head to the side and moaned loudly, coming so hard she felt dizzy, squeezed her eyes shut, her body convulsed. She heard his muffled groan.

He shivered all over, panting heavily, his hand suddenly released, his tongue thoroughly licking everything that came out of her. They were both panting and purring softly, delighted with what they had experienced.

Aemond gently moved away from her and grabbed the fabric of her skirt, pulling it back over her thighs as before. He got up slowly, wiping his mouth, quickly zipping up his pants. She saw drops of cum on his hand out of the corner of her eye.

He wiped his hand on the fabric on the table and reached for the camera. He looked at her through the lens as if nothing had happened.

"Good. Now you look like Mary Magdalene who deserves penance." He purred contentedly. "Lay back down just like in the painting."

She felt her whole body still tremble from the unearthly orgasm she had experienced. She shifted in her chair, swallowing loudly, and rested her head on her elbow, hiding her face in shame in her trembling hand.

"Yes. Keep your eyes on the flame. Don't purse your lips so tight." He said calmly and she did as he asked, loosening her lips slightly. She heard the sounds of the camera shutter. Aemond took a series of photos of her. He lowered the camera, staring at her with a mixture of admiration, lust, and desire.

"Perfect."

_____

Thank you so much for such a warm welcome to the first part. Here's part two. If you want to be tagged, leave a comment below. ♥

@zenka69 @melsunshine @opheliaas-stuff @chainsawsangel @tinykryptonitewerewolf @malfoytargaryen @toodlesxcuddles @fan-goddess @bellaisasleep

[vandalyssm]

Theory: Merlin's Recent Publicity and its Correlation to a Possible Sequel/Revival/Reboot (+Eoin Macken's Pseudo Merlin Project)

'Ello. Fancied sharing my thoughts on recent developments regarding BBC's Merlin.

Fair, firm warning: I'm only sharing speculations and my personal opinions on the matter, and I do not advertise them as fact whatsoever. Consider them musings (or delusions, your choice). You can use this to further fuel your hope of the slim chance that this beloved show will see the light of day once again or maybe make theories of your own. Dispelling it is also an option, as I cannot assure my arguments would be free from flaws.

Right. Without further ado...

Revival of the Official Merlin Twitter Account

Let's put this into scenario.

Imagine a dated piece of media, previously well-known worldwide and had its own golden age for a time. This media launched the last of its contents over a decade ago, yet it gained a loyal, devoted following that persisted to grow and continued the legacy of the franchise over the years. Though there were highs and lows, the community remained alive for an impressive amount of time, steadily producing art, fiction, and creations dedicated to the media, despite not having anything new to work with. This devotion is acknowledged by those from an outsider's perspective, including the creators of this media (cast, staff, and distributors alike).

To put into context, the community was left unsatisfied with how the media ended, and many wished for the media to return. Articles were written, petitions were signed, comments left on the cast' social media accounts, and even questions were asked directly to them. Although different in wording, the inquired notion remained the same: Will there be a possibility of a sequel/revival/return/reboot? The answers range from a neutral, vague reply to a more resounding no.

This cycle persisted, but the people were immovable; they were visionaries and their dream lived on in their hearts. And this did not go unnoticed.

So it continued... until one of the media's social accounts made a sudden return. Out of nowhere, without a warning. They're back for good, the account announced. It sent the community into a frenzy. But if you took a step back from the excitement, you'd notice that it's strange. Why would a media ended over a decade ago suddenly be promoted again?

Now, I'm going to explore two possibilities; pragmatic and idealistic. The previous hypothetical scenario lays the general principal of Merlin's relevance (duh).

I'll make the pragmatic perspective brief. FremantleMedia saw the opportunity to make some bucks from Merlin because of the loyal fanbase, using a no-cost yet effective method to keep us tuned in; hoping. OMG, what does this mean? Does this mean they're going make a sequel?! Holy shit, they're teasing us, aren't they? I can't believe this is happening, it's a dream come true! And so on and so forth. Evidently, it works and numbers are growing. The official Merlin twitter account is racking up more followers and likes with each post. In this possibility, there's no such thing as a sequel/whatever it is the fanbase hopes for; just a reanimated corpse doing the same silly tap dance while we holler at it, dumbly hoping that they bust out new moves.

Now, the fun part. The idealistic version!

I'm going to use a real life example for my theory: the upcoming release of Dragon's Dogma 2. With a quick Google search, you can learn that Dragon's Dogma 2 is the highly awaited sequel for its well-liked predecessor, Dragon's Dogma.

For some time, Dragon's Dogma was on sale on Steam (with a decent cut too). This was done to gain the attention of...

1. those who haven't previously dived into the franchise. It's to make them think 'Wow! This game's so good. Oh, there's a sequel of it that's gonna be released soon? With even better graphics and gameplay? Sign me the fuck up!'. You liked Blueberry Cheesecake, so it'd make sense that you'd be more open to buying Double Blueberry Cheesecake, Premium Ingredients Addition, with 2 additional paid toppings.

2. Veterans and nostalgic fans. 'They're promoting the game I liked years ago... Oh, well, it won't hurt to play it again, just for the nostalgia. It never really left my mind anyway."

In other words: hype! hype! hype!

If using this principle, then the possibility of a sequel/revival/reboot/new content exists. It's either being processed (wishful thinking, not as likely) or being considered (more likely). If it's the latter, then they're testing the waters to see how much people still care/how much money they'll make. The more attention and hype it gets, the higher the likelihood.

Simplified:

P (old media pushed for publicity) -> Q (hype built)

Q (hype built) -> R (new content)

Eoin Macken's Pseudo Merlin Project

If I recall correctly, Eoin Macken first announced a pseudo Merlin project in late 2020. It's first teased to be released in 2021, but nothing came out of it so far (at the time of writing this) except if you count the small handful of times Macken hinted it over the ongoing four year period.

Now, I understand his position. First and foremost, he needs the legal rights to actually produce anything and it's no easy feat when you're dealing with a massive company. Then there's the issue of costumes, props, sets, and equipment. A lot to consider. To put it simply, he must offer the company something worth more than the show itself or contribute in their favor in some way. Macken seems like a charming and capable guy, so he can make it work. Probably.

I lean towards the spin-off theory because a cast reunion would not take four years. As far as I know, Macken is close with the knights and they could get together at any convenient time. If the project was a zoom call or a recorded get-together, it would've been released already. To compare, by using the average of 385,000 babies born each day during the last three years, we have 421,575,000 newborns before the Pseudo Merlin Project.

I want to tie this in with the previous theory, but eh. It can connect, but not really. I don't have any further explanation or evidence since Macken hasn't given any news.

---

Anyways. That's enough of this. I hope it made sense, at least it did to me. I'm entering my third year in the fandom, so I'm relatively new and still hopeful. (Though I try hard to keep my feet on the ground while I stare up at the clouds.)

To end this post, I'd like to say: keep hoping. Hope is such a stupidly beautiful thing, and it should be nurtured. Turn that feeling into art, into efforts.

There are franchises revived 2-3 decades after, and Merlin is no exception.

[chiakery]

There's new version of the intro so here's new translation (my screenshots are mostly shit so I can't make a lot out of them, if anyone manages to take better ones, please feel free to send them my way and I'll try my best to translate more!!):

A - We've got "Ilościowa" in bold (tr. quantitative) B - handwritten part is hard to decipher but i think the first word is "klosze" (tr. shade, as in lampshade), underneath it is "nazwa" (tr. name) and underneath that is "miejsce przechowania" (tr. storage point). C - this one's interesting. We've got "Przychód" on the left side (tr. revenue) and on the right we have "Rozchód" and "Zużycie" (tr. expenditure and wear, as in how much something was used) Additionally, a moment later than I took this screenshot, the down left corner of the card becomes visible and you can make out words "Rodzaj i numer dowodu". While you can translate "dowód" as evidence, the translation that makes the most sense here would be "The type and number of the ID".

Here's the second one (that's actually connected to the third one): A - for some reason it's funny as hell to me that they took care to barely show us any other text but here we are, with a perfectly visible word "Wałek" (tr. roller) lol I mean, they probably meant is as "arbour", the kind you'd use in a lathe, but still. B - "Decyzja kier. wydz." is short for "decyzja kierownika wydziału" (tr. head of department's decision) and "Orzeczenie DKT" (tr. DKT's opinion) but it's more like ruling than someone's view on something. No idea what DKT is supposed to stand for. C - written sideways and partially obscured "Karta" (tr. card) with the second word completely covered and underneath that once again "nazwa" (tr. name). But we get to see more details in the next shot that shows the same card from a different angle!!

A - now we can see that the full phrase is "Karta zwrotu" (tr. return card). How do we know it's the same one as previously? Simple, once again we've got "Orzeczenie DKT" in B.

Unfortunatelly I couldn't make any other words on this one or the next one - they were just too blurry.

Hope some of you found it interesting! Oh, and what the fuck is up with the change in the eyes when Aabria's name is shown? Why did they change them??

(Sidenote: for a moment when i heard about 12 symbols and what they were supposed to mean I thought it was "Idź do światła", but that would translate only to "Go towards the light")

[avee-anne]

Sakuracon 2023: Studio Orange Interview

(I just learned that Japan-A-Radio has ceased operations so the interview with the director and producers of Trigun Stampede is no longer in their website. It has a lot of interesting information about Trigun Stampede so I'm reposting it here.)

Submitted by djcruzmissile on Sun, 04/16/2023 - 01:22

Sakuracon 2023 – Studio Orange Interview

By Jun Hong Pua, Sean Cruz, Matthew Fu & Lisa Su Transcribed by Jun Hong Pua Edited by Sean Cruz

Japan-A-Radio was part of a round table interview with Director Kenji Muto, and Producers Waki Kiyotaka & Yoshihiro Watanabe, members of Studio Orange, the team behind Trigun Stampede, to round out Sakuracon 2023 Sunday Afternoon. Producer Yoshihiro Watanabe started off with a brief introduction.

Yoshihiro Watanabe (W): I mainly do the distribution or strategic side of Trigun. Kiyotaka and I are from Studio Orange but Muto is a freelancer so he's only tied to our studio on a project basis.

I know it's been five years in the making, but why Trigun again?

Waki Kiyotaka (K): There are two big reasons why we chose to work on Trigun Stampede this time around. The first big reason would be that we were actually contacted by the producer, Katsuhiro Takei, who is a big fan of the original Trigun anime, and he'd always wanted to work on another anime version of Trigun.

The second reason is that we had the opportunity to employ Muto as the director. He had previously worked on the Land of the Lustrous, on both the storyboards and the animation direction. For storyboards, he did episode seven. For episode direction, he did episode ten. And so, we knew from working with him that he was able to do both action scenes and really good "feeling scenes": scenes where the feelings were really communicated well to the audience. We thought that he could do something really good with this project. And so that's why we chose to make Trigun Stampede and to do it with him as the director.

Kenji Muto (M): In my case, from the creative side, it's more of an ideological thing. When I started reading the Trigun manga by Nightow-sensei, I felt that it had many themes that were very unique and universal.

For example, there are inter-species interactions, the issues of migration, and a sci-fi approach to westerns. There's many core themes that I thought were very interesting.

How much involvement did Nightow-sensei have in the production of the show? You mentioned in your panel earlier that he just gave a green light and said to just have fun. Can you elaborate further?

K: It started with Nightow-sensei, myself, the director Muto, and also producer Takei. So four people altogether, just talking to each other for quite a long time. We heard from Nightow-sensei about what kind of a person he is, what he was thinking about when he was creating Trigun, and what he wanted to cover in that story. And that's where we started. Building on that, we moved on to the concept stage. We had two main staff members working on that.

We had Kouji Tajima, who worked on the concept art, and Takehiko Oshiki, who worked on the setup, writing the text that would describe the overall concepts of the world. Oshiki-san is a huge Trigun fan, a fan of the original anime and the manga. And so, he gathered together for us a bunch of design documents, set up documents, describing the themes that were covered in the original manga, and also the themes that were hinted at, but not really ever explored. Then, bas0kind of a world text that he had pulled together and written for us, Tajima-san started creating concept art. His goal was to create concept art that would show the overall feel of this world and help us with world building, to envision what.d on to the planet is, and he took over a year working on all the concept art.

During all of these conceptual design parts, we were continually checking in with Nightow-sensei. So, even before the usual pre-production process, we're showing him the setup text and the concept art, and he gave the okay to all of that. After being deeply involved in the concept design, he told us, "Everything, from here on out, the scripts, the character designs and so forth, the regular stuff of pre-production, you can do as you wish. That's because I'm confident now that you fully understand where you're going with this, and I've signed off on all the pre-pre-production concept designs that you've done."

It's not like he gave us completely free rein to do whatever we wanted. However, because we had actually that much deep, intense collaboration at the very start, he thought that we knew where we were going with this, and he's also good with where we chose to take this.

M: Usually, when you're adapting a book, a manga, to anime, you'd just be facing the book itself. But, in my case, I really wanted to face the person who created it first.

I'm actually really glad director Muto can be here, because he wasn't at Anime Expo, right? There was a video shown of him drinking alone on the roof.

W: (Laughs) We were still in production, so…

M: Ah, thank you so much.

So my question is actually about voice direction for Millions Knives. There's the scene where he is rejected by Vash, and he sounds very pained. This is an emotional attack; the physical ones don't really hurt him. What kind of care did he take to direct Junya Ikeda during that scene?

M: One of the first things I wanted to show, as a director, was that Knives is an actual being; a person. I mean, he's not a human, but as a person, he's not just a simple villain. That's why we're all focused on it.

At first, when we started the project in recording, on Ikeda-san’s side, he still didn't have the amount of information that we have on our side. He couldn't fully grasp his character, so there are times that he acted as a villain. At those times, I talk with him and say, "That's not the type of direction that I want for portraying Knives." As we worked together longer and longer, he was able to grasp more of the Knives that we wanted to depict. So yeah, Knives is not a bit; he is one of the main characters.

My relationship with Ikeda-san started out from episode three, where he first appeared, and kept on track ever since then. And, I think it's because of all the resolve and communication, that we were able to achieve what we were able to achieve in episode nine.

I noticed some similarities of the designs of plants with the designs of Avatar's Na'vi. And, a desert planet and worms, of course, brings to mind Dune. How much of these and other western influences got into the production?

M: I actually grew up in Chicago, when I was really young. That was the only time I spent in Chicago though. Having grown up there, I was influenced by a lot of shows, such as Ninja Turtles, Knight Rider, and White Wolf. I have a lot of respect for western culture. I tell myself, these two cultures don't really have a barrier. I treat them equally.

As a filmmaker, I have respect for Quentin Tarantino. So, it's probably not intentional, but I think his influence is very strong.

That's quite interesting, because Quentin Tarantino is about ultra-violence, while Vash is about anti-violence.

M: (Laughs)

When we are introduced to Millions Knives, we literally see a million knives, in comparison to the original series, which didn't do that. How did you come to decide on that being Knives' introduction? Just to say the animation for that sequence is, it has a feeling of being overwhelmed and a little grotesque, because of how many knives you see. So why did you decide to go in that direction?

M: Thinking of how to answer that question is a little difficult, because at the time when we were figuring out how that scene would end up, we didn't really think of that as grotesque. I've never actually thought of it that way before. At the time, we were thinking about how we wanted to portray Knives as a character? What is Knives thinking? What is he trying to do?

And really, what is inside of his head if he's only thinking about Vash and the plants. He's not thinking about humans at all, or if he is, they're on the same scale as bugs to him. So, if they're in his way, he's just going to exterminate them. He's not really thinking any more deeply about any humans than that. So yeah, that's the first time that it has actually occurred to us that it might come across that way.

Sorry, just to make a correction in terms of the grotesqueness, it's just that there's so many knives. And now that he said, it's like him squashing bugs, it makes sense. And it looks more like a cyclone or a hurricane. It was in a very circular motion, and you see all of the knives.

M: When I really think about the characters, I always think about contrast, and in this case, the contrast between Vash and Knives. I think it was out of necessity to create that contrast that Knives came out like that. Also, with the name Millions Knives, millions of knives is the reason why Knives named himself that in the manga. I was thinking about how to visualize that, and that's the answer we have.

In the case of designing him, Knives had an incident with a girl named Tesla. You can see fragments of that in episode ten. So, when you see Tesla, you see her as an eyeball, which formed a very important, strong impression. If you look at his knife at the time, there's actually an eyeball on his knife as well. That image is very strong within him. So one thing about the inspiration is that, instead of a typhoon, it's actually more eye-shaped. That's not a clear image, but more of a subconscious image from within him.

And so, for the entire layout of that entire scene, there's the city of humans called Jeneora Rock, and the eye of Tesla is looking down the Rock.

You mentioned about designing Knives, that one of the design criteria is the contrast. The original design of Knives wasn't as contrasting to Vash. And, the new Knives design feels more organic, compared to the mechanical, man-made feel of Vash's design. Can you elaborate more on how you redesigned Knives?

M: One of the things about the costume that I wanted to do, was that I did not want Knives to wear anything made by humans as much as possible. So actually, his robe is made out of knives, and his inner body suit is from the space era. In contrast, Vash, everything he wears was made by humans.

Also, for the technological contrast in the world, there's lost technology, and there's scrap parts. So things that are made out of scrap parts have certain colors used to it, and things made out of lost technology have a different tone and color to it. The tone and color adds to the contrast as well.

I think the original Vash had scrap parts rather than lost technology.

M: The reason that Vash's arm is lost technology is that Vash's entire fashion is actually designed based on one concept: That of his relationship with humans. And, his relationship with humans is very strong with people originally from Seeds. People like Rem. There are two groups of people. One group is those that are closely related to Seeds. His fashion is basically based on that. And that's what led to the change. All the designs of the fashion that they wore, it's not just a stylistic choice. It's a visualization of their identity.

So is it a contrast between not just two, but three factions, like the Seeds humans, the scrap humans and the plants?

M: Yes, those are the three elements. I think Vash has strong ties with all of them, but the strongest is with Rem, and whatever Rem is a part of, which was Seeds.

I have a question for Watanabe-san. You're very active on Twitter. You're engaging with fans and sharing the story of Trigun. How careful do you have to be to not accidentally spoil anything and especially with the final phase coming up?

W: For Trigun, we did work closely and carefully with how the information is revealed. We can't control everything because we're just the production studio (Anime is a global distribution involving many languages). And there's distribution, and different partners. And this means that we couldn't talk with everyone at the same time. We talk domestically, with domestic partners, and through them, to the international distributors.

We try to make sure that we use specific languages. So for example, July/JuLai, how July/JuLai was revealed in Japanese was that it's always phonetically described in Katakana as well. We'd never really revealed the kanji, the Chinese letters, of July/JuLai until later, but we knew that subtitles do not work like that. So that's why for subtitles, promotional written material, and the written letters shown in the series, we designed it so that people will see different types of July/JuLai at first, and they might not associate it as other people with keener senses might, but in the end, everything comes to people who notice that.

The reason that I actually do a lot of Twitter is that it's more appealing to communicate. I think it's a communication to the fans. And anime is definitely a global market. And as an anime studio in Japan, we have a heavy focus on the Japanese market. However, I myself am originally from California, that's where I grew up actually, and my career began from being a staff at an Anime Expo as a volunteer.

I feel that community is a very important part of the anime market. It's not just about the money, it is really about the passion. And it takes the passion of the fans and passion of the creators. They're different, but the energy is something that's really important to be reassuring.

About making mistakes, I actually make a lot of mistakes. (Laughs) Not the information I tweet about, but I actually do typos and actually tweet wrongfully-written tweets a lot. I delete them immediately. (Laughs)

I do want to ask about representing Studio Orange. I want to say, compared to some of the other production studios, it's more transparent. The panels you had in Anime Expo, here at Sakura-con, and I think at other American conventions. Why is it so important for Studio Orange to be so transparent to fans?

W: So this is something that happened when I joined Orange five years ago. Something I talked to Waki-san about was that I have a lot of inspirations on how anime can be enjoyed or how anime communities can be built be extended, but I couldn't act on them at the previous studios I'd been at. I was actually looking for somewhere I could be comfortable doing so. And Orange was that somewhere. He gave me the liberty to do these kinds of things.

And as we discuss daily about how we should spread Orange, how not just as a company, a brand, or even choosing projects, we really think it's important to communicate. I mean, for communication, in the company, I am the only English public speaker. There's a few other English speakers, but they're not public speakers. So, I can't really respond to everything, but I try to communicate at least. I look at a lot of people's responses and I can't reply to each of them, but as a sum, I try to respond to the people's reactions.

One of the things that is not really highlighted on your Orange Presents panels, but that I really enjoy, is the music direction of your TV shows. From the Land of the Lustrous, Beastars, and Trigun Stampede, the soundtrack and the use of the soundtrack at the correct point of the show is brilliant. Can you provide some insight into how the music direction is done?

K: When we are creating an animation at Studio Orange, we use a technique called film scoring. Although we don't use it completely, we use what we call half film scoring. That's where we have the music first, and then we adjust the imagery to match the music and the scene. Because we're doing it in that order, we find that we're actually able to produce better results. We found that more emotion is communicated by both the music and the imagery matching each other. And because we do it in that order, we really allow the people who are composing the music to have a lot of control over the emotions in the scene, so they're really motivated to produce amazing music for us. I think that's probably why we get complimented on the music in the works that we've done.

M: As Waki-san said, I feel that it's really important about establishing relationships with composers. I can only speak for the case of Trigun, of course, but for not just the composer, but for the audio team, the mixer, the sound effects team, I was actually responsible as a sound director to direct all those people as well. Basically the relationship and passion that everyone feels is very much reflected onto the quality. And I've spent time making sure that the groove is there.

In the manga, Knives actually plays the piano, just for a few frames, but that left a strong impression on me. So, I put a lot of thought on how that can be put into this anime. That became one of the things that I focused on.

I really care for the beats per minute, the rhythm, the tempo. Those are the things where we put a lot of thought into, and I got a lot of references for the music team. I've said it in a couple other interviews as well, but when I am writing the storyboard, there's already music playing in the background, and it's my job to figure out how to convey that music to the team.

I want to ask about the character concept art by Kouji Tajima. So director Muto was responsible for adapting that concept art into what we see in the anime. Going from the concept art, which is 2D, and then taking it into 3D, there's a little bit of stylistic changes with that. With Vash, he's a little bit bigger than what you see in Tajima's concept art. Much more muscular. And, as you said before, organically built out. Can you talk a little bit about the adaptation of concept art?

K: We think of the concept art as more of just the capturing of an idea as an image, as opposed to setting the actual imagery and laying out the official visuals for the show. Once that idea has been put into concept art and shared with the staff and the director, the director can decide how to interpret that idea and how to carry it forward into the rest of the production. Things that we are looking for in the character concept art would be things such as distinctive silhouettes. We want the silhouettes of each character to actually be distinct from each other so they're more recognizable. Making some characters more muscly and other people less muscly would affect how distinctive their silhouettes are. Also, we think about what extent do we want the expressions of the characters to be actually deforming the CG models that are used. That's something that we would discuss when we move on to the adaptation of concept art?

For concept art, the main purpose is to portray the attractiveness of an idea. And when you develop a design, that design has a different purpose. The purpose could be the storyline, where they come from, where they are going, what they represent. Even though it's within the same drawing, the purpose of each design and concept art is completely different. So that's why there will definitely be a difference.

M: The concept art, it's basically this ball of ideas. From there, we look at what ideas we can distill into, shaping the ideas into a more concrete form.

One of the goals for Trigun, I think you'd mentioned, was to expand the storytelling, the universe, and I think you have effectively succeeded for the first season. However, a lot of the story plotlines were just to the point, where you just briefly touch upon and then move on. I think that there's more than enough material to have a two-cour, or 24-episodes, instead of 12 episodes. Is there a reason why you chose this length?

W: For the first season.

Yeah. And for the second season, is it going to be the same length, or can we expect it to be longer?

W: So just to be clear, we've never used the term second season at this point. This doesn't mean anything. Just to get on record, we've only specifically used the term "Final Phase".

M: The amount of information that's contained in the original manga is massive. And, when you're creating a TV series, the format is first of all different so you can't take that same amount of information and drop it into the animation format. We'd love to, but as the format is completely different, it's not possible. One thing that, as a director, I was aiming for, is that I want people to enjoy this show, in as many ways as possible. So, first of all, as a simple action entertainment people can enjoy, but people also can have the joy of figuring out the world. By having things in there that people can connect the dots to, they will discover an entirely new view in the show, and also people discovering the theme of the show. So, those are different layers I tried to create so that as many people can enjoy. That's the goal that I set and tried to accomplish.

I have a question about visual storytelling. For example, when you see Knives, he's shrouded, and kind of like a hidden figure, more, you know, in terms of the visual storytelling, versus Vash, who is very open, very bright. The humans as well, they're all very brightly colored compared to the plants that are more muted. Can you talk to us a little bit about your metaphoric or visual storytelling style?

M: There's the starting point, the manga, which has concept colors. So, from the starting point, what I want to do is to make sure that we treat those fairly. Coloring-wise, even though we're using that base color of the manga as a foundation, I really put thought into the identity associated with the color as well. So, in this case, you could see that Vash has red and green, very vibrant colors, and those colors are tied very tightly with his identity. In the case of Knives, that is the blue-ish color, which is associated with the plants.

Those colors symbolize a lot of their identity as well. And for example, humans have actually resembled Western, or more to be specific, the space frontiers. So, they're migrants. I'm saying that, but that's the base, and in July, there are more Asian things. So based on that, from the start, the base color theme was already set.

In the case of Nicholas D. Wolfwood, his identity is actually shifting throughout the series, within Stampede. He's fluctuating between Nicholas the Punisher and Nicholas D. Wolfwood. In the manga, he is already established as Nicholas D. Wolfwood, but in Stampede, he is still seeking the answer for his own identity. That fluctuation is actually portrayed within the color of his shirt.

If we're going into specifics, there's going to be so much to talk about. So, I would like to end it there. (Laughs)

We know that there’s going to be like a final season of Beastars, that's going to be a final phase for Trigun. Are we going to see a second season for Land of the Lustrous? Or, do you have any future developments you can share with us?

K: To speak to that, we've shared that we have been developing Trigun Stampede and working on that since about five and a half years ago. We've been working on it that whole time, all five and a half years, but for many of those years we couldn't say anything about it, as it was confidential for a lot of that time that we were working on it. That carries over to the other projects that the studio is working on now.

Of course, we are working on many projects, but we can't say much about them. What we can say here is what we have already shared in the panels at this con. We learned a lot, and developed new tools, while working on Land of the Lustrous, Beastars and Trigun Stampede. As a studio, we want to continually challenge ourselves to achieve better results in certain areas that are difficult for CG to achieve great results. And so once we find a good approach for these difficult areas, we use it going forward and all the works that our studio works on later. So you can expect that we will be using everything that we have learned on those works in our next work going forward as well as looking at new aspects of CG that we want to really pin down and achieve greater results with.

[lucky-katebishop]

I Continue to Read Tim Drake Comics...

... and i’m getting tired. I think it’s just cause these issues were a big whole mess of unfinished stories. All these screenshots are from Robin 1993 issues 10-13. I’ve made two other posts about this :) @teenyturtle​ (if you want me to stop tagging you for these things let me know!!)

I finished reading this an hour ago and I still cannot believe this is real. What do you MEAN Robin!Dick shows up out of the blue and helps Tim out on a case? And then disappears in a flash of light?! It felt like I was reading fanfiction lol

Tim listens to metal music: confirmed (we knew this already though)

Harvey Dent. Has a robot dressed up as Robin. For him to destroy. The Arkham therapists are really top notch. 

Ouchie! Ouch! Jack Drake’s top notch parenting! I could write paragraphs about their relationship! Especially in conjunction to Tim and Bruce’s (nonexistent) relationship!

I just want to appreciate that Tim is too tiny for the batcomputer chair. The batchair if you will.

I am very confused about the placement of Jason’s plaque. I’m kinda iffy on the floorplan of the batcave in general. But why is it so... out in the open? Did Bruce do this on purpose to torture himself? I know there aren’t walls or anything, but still?

Here’s another shot of it. It’s not as close to the batcomputer as I previously thought, but in another picture it looks like it’s right next to the stairs not perched up against a wall or anything. It’s just there. Come on, Bruce!

Um. UM! Bertie Wooster reference?!!!! HELLO?! Kind of... why did they change the name? Is it ‘cause my edition is a bootlegged version? Or is this on the official comic? If it is, I’m confused, ‘cause this is ‘94, maybe ‘95 when this was released, and the Bertie books are from the 1920s (technically 1915 and copyright says that any books released before I think 1923 are deemed public domain, so why the censorship? Unless the very quick google job I did is more complicated)

Dick continues to be the only person to look out for Tim.

It’s rough going for you, lil buddy.

This letter to the columnist means literally everything to me. I, too, find everyone cute except Bruce and want Lady Shiva to beat me up for calling her cute. 

[pathos-logical]

Why I’m still copying alt text into reblogs

(Plain text: Why I’m still copying alt text into reblogs)

I’m so thrilled that tumblr has finally made alt text viewable on mobile!! It’s miles better than the white-on-purple bubble you get on PC, but it’s still not perfect. I just wanted to write this so people can understand why I’m going through the apparent redundancy of rewriting an ID in a comment rather than just reblogging the alt text version

First of all, the update hasn’t been universally rolled out yet between users, which means it’s still hidden for a lot of people! I myself had to manually update the app to get it, and that’s not even considering that it doesn’t seem to work on every device yet either

Second, it’s still not the be-all-end-all standard for accessibility. I’ve heard feedback from vision-impaired friends that mobile alt text can still be too small to comfortably read and that its formatting is less easily parsed than plain text image descriptions. And again, the formatting on pc is too low-contrast and saturated to be useful to many vision-impaired folks. (An edit: I previously claimed that alt text doesn't support paragraph breaks, but it does! Instead I'll add that the new alt button can cover part of the image and is frequently hard to see on images with light/transparent backgrounds, in my experience. It's also still not, in my opinion, the best way to transcribe text-heavy images)

Lastly, alt text has never been that reliable in my experience; I’ve already found posts which only have alt for one image out of many, and it’s far from unheard of for alt to simply not show up on images which should have it

I’m also reminded of a comment someone once made about how they have no desire to keep image descriptions hidden from abled and sighted people. Alt text is obviously an essential accessibility tool, I’m not trying to make it sound like I’m knocking it. But if main body IDs serve the same function as alt text, then I see no reason not to remind people that accessibility aids belong front-and-center on any platform. Not hidden below a readmore or made “aesthetic” with small text or tucked away for "convenience." That’s my personal opinion, but I feel strongly enough about this that I want it included

Tl;dr: Some reasons to copy alt text into main body IDs include inconsistency and unreliability with who can see it and drawbacks in how accessible alt generally is, as well keeping image descriptions visible to even people who don’t use them

[lilmeowzsworld]

Fading Secrets

Chapter One

Cold Truth Revised

pairing: min yoongi x reader

summary: You wake up in an unfamiliar place with a man threatening your life for something your father did. But you know your father and you're certain he didn't do it. The man's son, Yoongi is the only one who shows you kindness and with his help, you decide to prove your father innocent.

content warnings: kidnapping, mention of death

a/n: Previously known as 'Cold Truth', this is the revised version. I hope it doesn't disappoint this time. Also I suck at summaries, so it is what it is lol

Previous | Masterlist | Next

When you opened your eyes, bright light enveloped your vision. Your head was killing you and there was an aftertaste of something funny smelling carved into your memory. You couldn't have drunk that much, could you? When your eyes adjusted to the outside world and you glanced around the surrounding area, your blood ran cold. While you believed that you weren't intoxicated enough to provoke anyone's anger at the club you were partying at with your friends the night before, the man currently sitting across from you was undoubtedly seething with anger.

The memories of the night before were hazy and like a puzzle, so you tried putting the pieces together to try and figure out how you were sitting in front of an unfamiliar man, seemingly in his mid-forties at least. You remember drinking with your friends, then informing them of your early departure back to your apartment. On your way back, someone had put a cloth with an old scent across your face until unconsciousness took over. And now, you woke up, with your hands bound behind the chair you were sat at, barefoot and in the dress from last night.

The silence was loud as the man stared at you, not even uttering a word. The chair you were sitting at was causing you discomfort, together with the headache that was already forming. The man's gaze bore into you, a disdainful expression etched on his face. You wondered if he looked at you with such disgust because of your appearance. You knew the dress was slightly shorter that you would have preferred usually, but it was your friend's birthday celebration and she insisted for you two to wear matching dresses, only in different color. The man staring at you in that moment wasn't the first one who was disgusted at the way younger generations were dressed today.

Maybe you would regret it, but you weren't the one to keep your mouth shut when you were nervous. „Okay, if no one is going to talk, I will, “ Your voice was hoarse so you had to take a second to clear your throat. „Who are you, and why am I here? It would be appreciated if you could untie me. I have no idea what you want from me and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to help you either no matter-"

A laugh echoed from somewhere behind you and you turned your head, looking over your shoulder to see a figure standing at the doorway. It was a boy your age, give or take a year or two. His hair was light and fell over his eyes. He wore a loose-fitting black T-shirt, complemented by faded blue jeans. A silver chain hung around his neck, and on his feet, he sported a pair of worn-in sneakers. He seemed quite laid-back and chill, for a guy who kidnapped you.

You could assume his voice was deep from the laugh you've heard, but you didn't have a chance to find out because the older man spoke. „Such a mouthful on an early morning,“ He laughed. „I'm Kim Taeyong, and that is my son, Yoongi,“ Shifting your head back as much as your body allowed, you caught another glimpse of the blonde boy. He leaned against a wall, arms folded across his chest and offered a subtle wave in acknowledgment. You rolled your eyes and redirected your attention back to his father. „You, sweetheart,“ Mr. Kim leaned forward, a luxury table presenting as the only barrier between you two. „Are here to pay for your father's mistake.“

It felt as if all the air was sucked out of your lungs at once, but you tried to control yourself and not show them that you were scared out of your mind. You had watched a lot of movies and it pays off for the main character to act confident. Maybe you would even be able to throw some punches and kicks like in the movies if you tried and then escape. But maybe you were being too confident even thinking of it. So, you opted to simply glare at the older man in front of you, despite the alcohol you consumed threatening to find its way back. „My father's mistake? What are you talking about? My father would never do anything wrong, he's innocent.“

Mr. Kim's eyes turned cold; it made you even more nervous. It was as if you could feel your body freezing just from his look. This was a dangerous man sitting in front of you. „Innocence is subjective, my dear. I'll enlighten you; I owe you that much. Your father ruined my life, destroyed the one thing I held dear the most. And now, I'll destroy everything he holds dear, starting with you.“

His words sent shivers down your spine and your lip quivered. Stay strong, Y/N! No matter how much you said those words to yourself, your mind decided not to listen. And you cursed whoever tied your hands behind your back, because you couldn't wipe away the tears that began falling from your eyes. Now they will know just how scared you were.

„You can't just blame someone else for your problems! Kidnapping me won't fix whatever issues you have with my father!“ You felt a surge of anger wash over you, and you were desperate. Although, if the movies thought you right, there was no compromising with people like Mr. Kim. „Just let me go, I won't tell anyone, I promise.“ You whined.

Mr. Kim leaned back in his chair. No matter what you said, his resolve was unyielding and the coldness in his eyes did not disappear. „Let you go? If only it were that simple,“ He stood, walking to your side of the table. Your body began shivering against your own will. Is he going to hurt you right now? To your relief, Mr. Kim sat on the edge of the table and stared down at you. „Your father must understand the consequences of his actions, and you're the perfect pawn in this little game.“

Your pleas for your life fell on deaf ears. The weight of the situation was suddenly too much to bear, it pressed down on you, cutting the air from your lungs. And silent tears still streamed down your face. You felt helpless, you were at mercy of a man thirsty for vengeance and there was nothing you could do to change his mind about hurting you.

What you didn't see, was the blonde boy, Yoongi, watching the conversation between you and his father with an unreadable expression. His father was ruthless, and Yoongi was the complete opposite, but he wouldn't go against his own father. As Mr. Kim spoke, Yoongi's eyes lingered on you, and for an instant, his facade cracked. He felt bad for you, especially since you were nothing but collateral damage in this whole situation. You were young and had your whole life ahead of you. You studied medicine and would become a doctor some day and save lives. And yet, here they were, about to take that away from you.

"Please," you begged, your voice breaking, "I don't want any part in whatever revenge you're seeking. I just want to go home. I won't say anything; I'll disappear, and you'll never have to see me again."

The room fell into a heavy silence, the only sound being your sniffles and the ominous ticking of a clock in the background. Mr. Kim finally spoke, his tone unwavering. "Disappearing won't bring back my dead wife. You're here to make sure your father understands that." Mr. Kim stood up again, and you flinched, thinking he would hurt you. But he walked past you, toward the door. „Yoongi, take our guest to a room for the night.“

Yoongi obeyed, approaching you. He untied your hands and the ropes fell away, allowing you a temporary feeling of relief. Yoongi didn't make eye contact with you as he grabbed you by your arm and led you out of the room. His touch was surprisingly gentle, which only confused you further. Shouldn't he be rough, pulling you by your hair or leading you on gunpoint? He led you through a corridor, down to another one with doors on each side. He opened the door on your right and ushered you inside.

The room you were brought to was surprisingly ordinary, contrast to the ominous atmosphere of the Kim manor. In one corner was a simple bed, neatly made and a small window with the curtains open, letting in rays of sunshine. On the other side, a work desk and a closet, made of fine wood with beautiful carved designs. Yoongi released your arm and turned to leave, but you stopped him before he could close the door.

„Please wait!“ To your surprise, he really did stop. However, he kept his back turned to you. „Can I, at least, have a change of clothes?“ He hesitated for a moment before he turned to you. He looked you up and down and the gesture made you want to crawl into a hole and never crawl back out.

„Fine,“ He mumbled and left, closing the door with a soft click, leaving you alone in the room. He didn't return for a few minutes and his absence made you question whether or not he was returning. You opted to sit on the bed and wait for his return, if he does. Lucky for you, the door opened again soon, and Yoongi returned with a bundle of clothes in his hands. He wordlessly tossed them onto the bed next to you. „There. Change and don't bother making a big deal. There is no one else in the house except for me right now,“ he said. Without waiting for your response, he turned to leave again, the door closing behind him. This time, you could hear the click of the lock, meaning that he locked you inside.

You sighed and decided to try and sleep off the hangover. Now that your life wasn't in any immediate danger, you were aware of the growing nausea and hoped that sleep would push it away. You put on the sweatpants and the dark, oversized t-shirt Yoongi had brought to you, with the addition of simple, black ankle socks. The clothing was for a male and it left you wondering who it belonged to. But you didn't want to tire your mind with questions like that for now. Covering your, previously freezing, body with the blanket, you fell asleep almost immediately. You needed to be in your best form if you were to escape anyway, so an hour or two of sleep wouldn't hurt.

[sunriseverse]

What are you uh...what are you salty about? (I'm nosy as hell, give me the tea)

okay SO. disclaimer before i start: if anyone seeing this likes the youtuber mentioned, understand i am not calling her a bad person; i have some very specific umbrage with her, and i will detail why. you don't have to agree with me, but if you, in any way, inform this youtuber of this post and what i'm saying, you will be blocked, because this is meant to be on my personal blog only and a severe violation of my boundaries to tell her about this.

let's begin, shall we? (below the cut, since this got a bit long; my apologies.)

for context, since i started watching zmyx, i have been periodically checking youtube for amvs of the show so i can add them to my playlist. while doing so, i stumbled across this video by AvenueX. i had watched a video by her previously on the show under the skin, and mostly enjoyed it. i love hearing people react to batshit cdrama, well, drama, and "this show was up for bare hours before being taken down" definitely counts as something i like hearing reactions to.

i cannot directly upload the clip into this post, but i'll put the subtitles in for the relevant section, which begins at the 12:25 mark and ends at 14:59.

AX: Basically, there is a BL drama that was made quite a few years ago and hasn't come out like all the BL dramas, Zhiming Youxi. It's based on a novel called Wanghuatong [sic] and is a clear BL drama. The platform was iQiyi, and they cast Huang Junjie and Xia Zhiguang. These two guys have been multiple other stuff ever since then, and if you watch a lot of Chinese dramas, you probably have an impression of who they are. Neither of them are considered to be good actors, very young, and not really coming from professional sort of trained actor background[...]I'm not so interested in the story to start with and not interested in these two actors either, because BL dramas is hard to do well; you have to be good actors to pull it off, and you actually have to know what type of acting you need to be doing. You're not actually playing realistic gay people, you're playing imagined version of [here she makes a sound i can only transcribe as the auditory equivalent of tilting your hand back and forth], that whole complicated psychological thing on the back end, and if you're not clever and experienced enough actor you actually easily make a mess. Based on the leaked out footage I see on the internet, it's embarrassing, in terms of the acting, and they stole the most important line from Word of Honor, which is 'there's light on you and I want to grab it and take a look'. Every BL drama has a classic line[...]and this drama shamelessly took a completely, and that part of the video is online. I've watched it, and I'm like, 'oh my god, oh my god, just because you're another BL doesn't qualify you for stealing literally the line from another BL drama[...]just because of that I'm like, oh, okay, now I can make fun with other people together on this drama being living [sic] on the internet for like, what, three-four hours[...]it's a good thing this drama is buried now, and please don't show up again. I don't want to see it. It's embarrassing, it's embarrassing, okay.

bolding mine; these are the portions i have umbrage with.

let's go through the points she makes, shall we?

this show is "embarrassing", in terms of acting; presumably, this is connected to the earlier line about the actors not being known as "good actors", and not having professional acting backgrounds.

it stole a line from shl.

she thinks this drama deserves to be made fun of for "being embarrassing" because, presumably, the actors don't play bl roles the way she thinks they should, and "make a mess of it".

i must reiterate: she can have these opinions. these are opinions she is entitled to. i disagree with them, but i respect her right to have them. however, because i also have the right to my own opinion, i am allowed to be pissed about these opinions she has.

i will go through a point by point breakdown of my responses and thoughts on each point.

i think it's really stupid to judge an actor based simply on them having a professional background or not. when it comes down to it, the most important thing for actors, especially co-leads, in a show, is their ability to do their job and create believable dynamics with their co-actors. in my opinion, xia zhiguang and huang junjie do this very well in zmyx. their dynamic feels natural and realistic to me, and, more importantly than that, it compels me. i don't say this as a "fan" of either actor; it was a nice bonus to me that hjj had also played another character i like, but even if he hadn't, i would be judging this performance as lin qiushi based on its own merits. i have never seen xzg in anything, and again, i am judging his acting in this show on its own merits. also, i should add there's something hilarious about her holding up shl as a "good" bl, when you could argue that those leads aren't "good" actors, either. i mean, look at advancing bravely! or, maybe, i don't know, it's possible for actors to improve over time and do better in certain projects than others? and someone doesn't have to be the "best" in all areas of their field, just the right choice for the role they're playing??

this is just stupid, in my opinion. the line is not stolen; it is altered and becomes its own line in zmyx. in shl, the line is, as she says, "there's light on you and i want to grab it and take a look". in zmyx, the line is "there's a light on you that i don't see on others". this is, at most, a reference—and zmyx isn't the only bl that references other media! this is a silly, petty argument, in my opinion, and frankly annoying as hell. if it were a crime to reference any other media in the same genre as the media doing the referencing, we'd miss out on so much. to me, this reference doesn't read as an appropriation, but as a nod of appreciation to another bl which was heavily censored. also, if her claims are anything to go by, and zmyx did film "years ago", it's possible that, actually, zmyx used the line before shl did. even if that isn't the case, who fucking cares? genuinely, i think this is a stupid point and i hate it.

she thinks the actors made a mess of the show by not playing the roles in the specific way bl roles are "meant" to be played. we could spend years arguing about the "right" way to play a bl role, but to me, it sounds like she has a very specific idea of the roles bl actors must fit into and fulfil—specifically, that they must play an exaggerated, unrealistic mimicry of gay male relationships, or else it's a "bad" bl. i don't know AvenueX's sexuality, but as a person of the homosexual persuasion myself, if not one attracted to men, i personally don't like exaggerated mimicries of gay relationships, and i would wager a guess that many gay and bisexual men are probably in this same boat. when i watch a bl show, i prefer that the dynamics are driven not by the idea of what gay people should act like, but by 1. the plot, 2. their own characterisations and character motives, and 3. their relationships and dynamics with each other. in this regard, while zmyx isn't a "good bl", i think it's a good depiction of the relationship between two characters. i don't say this to be holier-than-thou, or to claim i'm somehow "better" than other people who do like specific exaggerated tropes in bl; i say this because i feel like AvenueX entirely disregards the possibility that the thing that she doesn't like about zmyx are things that other people will.

(additionally, while she never says this, i get the impression that one of the things she doesn't like is that the chemistry between the characters isn't the "typical" bl chemistry. i, frankly, don't give a fuck. i think the leads have fantastic chemistry, and it annoys me that she thinks they "made a mess" just because they don't fit the idea she has for what a bl "should" look like. i, for one, think it's a good thing that we're moving away from caricatured depictions of gay people in media, especially danmei and dangai. myself and other asian gay people, especially east asian gay people, have pointed out how harmful caricatured versions of gay asian characters are.)

(also, as an unrelated, and petty aside, if i remember correctly, she's a british film school grad, and not to be judgemental, but, yeah, i can fucking see it.)

so, yeah. that's my two fen and indignance on this. but, hey, what do i know, i'm just some random tumblr user ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[poohbea]

𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐏 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐌𝐘 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃, 𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓.

ken ryuguji /draken | smut, fluff, angst | gang leader!au

wordcount: 4.3k

content: pwp??, domish!draken, fem!reader, mentions of guns and death, high school sweethearts, pet names (sweetheart, baby girl, etc.), y'all tryna get fucked against a wall?, squirting, cum swallowing, unprotected sex (use protection kids), cock drunk reader, draken being a tease, a bit of a complicated relationship with history

― synopsis: the last thing you’d expect during a bank robbery is to have them somehow recognise you and immediately run. it’s impossible right? two weeks later you find out why.

note from pooh: tell me why the hell i had to make 6 different versions of this before actually getting it right?? i literally went through so many ideas for this it was so frustrating. BUT i figured it out, so here we are. this very lowkey pwp, if it's a bit choppy that's why - this post is making me very anxious not gonna lie. NO IM NOT DOING A PART 2

WARNING: this is smut, so please ensure you have your age visible on your account before interacting. Minors (below 18+), ageless and blank blogs will be BLOCKED

Hope you enjoy ♡ reblogs are greatly appreciated

They came through the spinning doors of the bank. “Nobody fucking move.” Four men clad in black shoved the patrons in line into a corner, guns raised, faces covered.

You stood stagnant, behind the counter, terrified and unsure of what to do as the situation unfolded before you. Cries could be heard from the entryway where they had your security officer pinned against the wall, the nozzle of an assault riffle buried into his neck as they snatched his gun from its waistband. It was only when you were staring down the barrel of one yourself that you finally snapped out of your daze.

“I said hands up!” The faceless man barks, gesturing to your trembling fingers hovering over the panic button beneath your desk. When you failed to move he made his way over the countertop, forcing you to cower back. “I’m not going to tell you again bitch! Move!”

His fingers tangled in your hair, dragging you around to join the other hostages on the floor. As he shoves you down your lanyard holding your ID comes free from your neck, clattering onto the floor. His partner beside him picks it up before turning it over in his hand.

“Oh fuck.” You watch his eyes grow wide, reading your name over and over again as panicked gaze rallies between you and your ID.

The one that previously had his hands in your hair shoots him a confused look, still aiming a gun at your head. “What is it?” With shaky hands his accomplice shows him the lanyard and his demeanour changes dramatically. “Shit.” He says. “Shit, shit, shit. Tell them to pack up their shit, we need to leave.”

As soon as they came they were leaving, bags and weapons slung over their shoulders, practically running into the street. The man above you studied your face for a few seconds before dropping your ID card at your feet, racing to join his aid outside.

Two weeks later that memory still plagues your mind.

Your fingers stutter over your keyboard, focus long gone from your resignation letter. Those masked faces haunted your thoughts daily. You replayed the scene over and over, conjuring any and every outcome that could’ve occurred. You could’ve died, shot point blank in front of a dozen people. Watching the light fade from the morning sun as you fell to the floor in a pool of your own blood or would it have been instant? Would anyone have cared? An ordinary bank teller shot dead, collateral damage in the grand scheme of things.

With a sigh you run a hand through your hair, mind going numb the more you thought about it. None of it actually made sense. Why would they just up and leave after going through all that trouble? Your eyes land on your ID card on the coffee table. You spent hours staring at it when you finally managed to get home. Turning it over, scanning over the simple font of your name, studying your features in your tiny ID picture. The small piece of plastic was undoubtedly your savour. But you couldn’t understand why?

Before you went down the rabbit hole of your mind again there was a soft buzz in your pocket. Confusion replaced worry as you watched an unknown number flash on your screen, out of habit you declined the call, not wanting to engage in pointless telemarketing conversation. Then your phone buzzed again. “What the hell?” You frowned, seeing the same number appear. Twice? That’s new.

Curiously you answered, bringing the device to your ear. “Hello?”

“Long time no speak, sweetheart.” Familiarity washed over you as a deep voice sounded on the other end. There was only one person on this earth that called you that.

“Draken?” To say you were surprised to hear his voice was an understatement. It had been just shy of four years since you last heard his voice, since leaving high school.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten my voice already, y/n.” You could hear him smiling over the phone, his tone making your heart pound.

“I don’t think I could forget you even if I tried.” The words came out hushed as you grew shy suddenly, but his soft chuckle told you he heard you loud and clear.

You never forget your first love. For all of high school that’s what Draken was to you. You had never felt that way about someone before, loved and cared for someone so deeply that they were the first and last thing on your mind everyday. He made you feel like the only girl in the world, you were his and he was yours, that was the connection you shared. Then high school ended and so did your fantasy.

He became consumed in a world you couldn’t be a part of. Surrounded by people who only fueled his lust for violence, a trait of his you’d tried so hard to ignore. It was all too much to bear, to worry about where he’d go at night, when he wouldn’t answer your calls or texts. He’d pop up randomly, hurt or bruised, withholding any and all information about where he’d gotten them from. Trust faded and so did the Draken you’d grown to love. Your high school sweetheart vanished, into the darkness he so openly welcomed.

“Likewise, sweetheart.” That word sent you back. To the days you’d sneak glances at him during class, feel his touch on your skin while the teacher droned on incoherently. “How’ve ya been?” He continues.

You pondered on how to answer that question, recounting the last four years of mundane life experiences. “I’ve been good. Could be better.” Optimism wasn’t enough to douse the anxiety that was the bank robbery looming over your head. “How have you been? Keeping out of trouble I hope.”

His laugh was chesty in your ears. “Mostly. But as a boss you seem to get into a lot more trouble than you think.”

“Wait a boss?” You perk at the new development. “In what? When? Tell me everything!”

“Slow down, sweetheart. We’ll get to that. That’s not why I called you.” He chuckles at your excitement, you were practically on the edge of your seat at that point.

“So why did you call me?”

“I heard there was an incident at your job a little while ago.” He pauses, the tap of something metal being put down sounding suddenly. “Just wanted to check up on ya.”

“I- uh you saw the news, huh?” Your face hide in your hand instinctively, feeling oddly embarrassed.

There was soft click this time before he spoke. “You could say that. Did they… hurt you?” His tone deadpans, making him seem disconnected from the conversation.

“Just a few bruises from being tossed around.”

You heard him hum lowly. “Anything else? Did they threaten you?”

“One of them pulled my hair… h-he held a gun to my head.” You stuttered through the memories rushing to the forefront of your mind.

Another click sounds, this one much more audible than before. It almost sounded like the cocking of a gun. “Do you want to come over for dinner tonight? We can order takeout like we used to. My treat.” Like a switch had just been flicked mid conversation, his usual playful tone returned.

Giddiness brewed in the pit of your stomach. Truth be told you still had a soft spot for the man, no matter how long it had been or what had happened. How could you say no to him after all these years? “Sure. I’d love to.”

“Good girl.” He coos. “I’ll send a driver over to pick you up at seven. Wear something comfy.” Before you could question him he hangs up on you, leaving you with the deafening silence of your apartment. How did he know where you lived?

That question echoed in your mind for the next few hours till the appointed hour rolled around. The sound of a knock at your door had your heart leaping into your chest, an unfamiliar face greeting you with a warm smile as you opened it.

“Good evening Miss, Draken sent me to fetch you.” The aged man beams, an aura of warmth surrounding his broad, suit-clad figure.

You greeted him in return, moving to collect your purse from the dining table before being led out into a gorgeous black car parked in the street. The driver takes your hand as you sit down, closing the door behind you softly. You settled into the tan leather seats, marvelling at just how clean the car was, it even had that new car smell like it had just been bought. The world passed you by for what seemed like minutes, your door re-opening, a kind hand offered to you shortly after.

You found yourself in an underground garage, a rather empty one at that, with only about five cars sprinkled around the lot. Your guide leads you to an elevator, remaining outside as you walked in. “He’s in the penthouse, just press the button at the top.” His eyes point to a button labelled ‘PH’ at the very top of the array of numbers. You give him your thanks, to which he simply nods, a soft smile on his face as the doors close.

Nervousness had you picking at your nails, overthinking as you watched the numbers increase slowly on the small screen. The ding of the elevator accompanied the doors sliding open, hitting you with a mouth watering scent of fast food.

You couldn’t help but marvel at the place as you stepped out of the elevator. An arrangement of grey marble and silver trimmings littered all over the spacious room. The city glowed a mellow hue of gold through the floor to ceiling windows, bringing a homely feel to the place.

Turning the corner you smiled, watching Draken tend to something on the stove, a plate in hand. He turns to you expectantly, the elevator most likely giving away your presence. “Hello, sweetheart.” He says in a low tone, matching your giddy expression.

“Hi.” You breathe, practically overflowing with happiness. After so long he still looked just as handsome if not more. His hair was black now, loose over his shoulder and still just as long as you remember. He mimicked your attire with a plain t-shirt and sweats. Broad shoulders filled out his plain black one, tattoos swirling around the skin of his arms before disappearing beneath the cotton.

Turning off the stove he places places the plate down on the counter with the rest of the food before approaching. The woody musk that came with him had you breathing a little faster, body dwarfing yours as he stood close enough you could feel the warmth radiating from his skin. There was comfort in the silence between you, words really couldn’t express the emotions you were feeling, it seemed it was the same for him as he pulled you into his chest. He rests his head on top of yours, hugging you so tightly out of fear you might disappear if he let you go.

Only when you felt tears drip onto your cheek did you realise you were crying. The droplets welled up in your eyes immediately, soaking into his shirt while you listened to the drum of his heart. “I missed you.” You sigh, fingers curling into his shirt.

“I missed you too, sweetheart.” He replies, laying a kiss in your hair. “So much.”

You let out a small chuckle, meeting his gaze. “How are you?”

A smile forces it’s way onto his lips, unable to be held back as he laughs a chesty laugh. “I’m doing good. Even better now that you’re here.”

“You’re so corny.” You tease with a sniffle.

“It’s why you love me.”

“Touché.” It felt as if no time had passed the more you stood there in his arms, in your own little bubble brimming with affection.

Magnetism was something undeniable between you two. Your bodies tend to have a mind of their own in close proximity, the feat of staying apart a strenuous task. In a situation like this, with him so close, galvanizing and intoxicating, it was no wonder you found your lips meeting in the middle.

It was soft, searching, safe. After so long his kiss never lost it’s influence, your body melting into him as he set you alight. The wet muscle of his tongue laved past your lips as he explored you deeper, fingers burrowed into the waist of your sweats. Your own digits found his hair, lacing with the inky strands that fell over his shoulder, desperately pulling him closer, as if you weren’t already.

Wordlessly he captures the back of your thighs, lifting you up into his arms, encouragingly wrapping your legs around his waist. Soon your back greets the wall with a soft thud, one that has him pushing his hardened tip between your folds, inciting a ragged moan as he nudged at your clit. Insanity overtook you at the same pace as his hips, rocking slow and purposefully, drawing a fog into your mind that grew between his body and the wall he leveraged you against.

“Fuck, sweetheart.” He breaks breathlessly from your lips, heat taking hold of his cheeks as it flushed them pink. “Can I?” Fingertips tug at your waistband, eager and pleading.

Your ‘yes’ was all he needed before the material was on the floor and you were back against the wall, delving into his lips once more. “Cute panties. Those for me?”

The pink lace held the perfect silhouette of your pussy, the soft mound barely covered by the translucent material as it practically devoured it. He lets his fingers wander over the curve, prying between the folds to find the sensitive bundle of nerves at the centre. Soft pads traced circles into your clit, catalyzing a spark that travelled all the way up your spine, blanketing a haze over your inhibitions.

“Draken. P-please, more.” Your moan sets him off further into his assault, the sound increasing the pressure on your clit. Before long you’ve buried yourself in his shoulder, drool marking a small patch of his shirt as you took it in your teeth to prevent your cries from escalating further.

“Your want this cock, sweetheart? You want me deep inside this pussy?” The swollen tip nestles in your slit, letting your slick soak into his sweats through your panties, painting a wet patch onto the grey material.

Your tongue paths its way from his jaw to his flushed earlobe, sucking on the skin before speaking. “I want it all, ‘Ken.” The goosebumps that wake immediately after, has a smile curving your lips, his ears were always so sensitive.

Index and middle finger hook your panties to the side, bringing your glossy slit into view, a sight that had him groaning and dipping his fingers inside, bringing them up to his lips to sample your arousal. “Just ‘s delicious as I remember.” His sweats soon accompany yours on the marble floor, letting his cock tap against his stomach softly as he let you taste yourself on his tongue.

Your gasp is lost between his lips as his tip stretches past your entrance, your pussy engulfing him in a tightness that had him weak in the knees. Little by little he reintroduced himself inside you, acquainting his cock with your gummy walls that welcomed him eagerly with each squeeze. He imprints a mark into your neck in the midst of bottoming out, pubic bone flush against your clit, the hairs there strumming a delicate pulse through your body.

Your breath puffed against his neck, control of your lungs long gone with the mapping of his lips along your skin, marking each section he’s been with his teeth, licking over the mark before continuing. “Such a good girl for me, sweetheart. So wet and tight around it, fuck.”

His hips rock into you tantalisingly slow, savouring each and every stroke like it was his last, etching the memory of your cunt into his mind, his name rolling off your tongue into his ear, the feel of your hands in his hair, skin against skin. This wasn’t just fucking, this was love, a love that had been suppressed for the last four years, festering inside you both, waiting for the day you’d reunite to make it whole again.

Your fingers dug deeper into his hair while his thumb traces your clit in mellow circles, bullying his cock along your walls to kiss the soft spot he was all too familiar with. He enjoyed torturing you like this, abusing the knowledge that a slow pace meant you were more likely to beg, easily turning to putty in his hands.

“’Ken.” As if on cue your whine sounds in his ear. “Faster, please I-I… shit.” Your gasps make you hiccup into his shoulder, overwhelmed and unable to finish the sentence.

He hums in your neck, tracing his nose along the nape. “Since you asked so nicely.” His thumb adds pressure onto your clit as he plunges his cock into you, the moan that followed making him smile.

Compliant, he’s rolling his hips faster, letting his thumb on your clit follow. His shirt scrunched in your hand, trying to clutch anything for support, to keep from being pushed off the deep end he was dragging you toward with each stroke of his cock. The pressure that built up was unbearable, almost having you in tears as his tip nudges against your spot, accompanying the work of his fingers that strummed against your pearl.

Teetering on the edge he plunges you into euphoria, pussy gushing onto his skin, coating it in a crystal sheen of cum. You squeezed him through it all, every part of you tightening as your high flooded your nervous system, guttural screams muffled in his shoulder where you had his shirt in your teeth.

“That’s it sweetheart, squirt all over this dick, just like that.” Your arousal drips down your thighs onto the pristine marble as he fucked you through it, whispering sweet nothings into your ear as he soon felt his own peak looming over him. “Fuck ‘m gonna cum.”

“Cum in my mouth.” You mewl suddenly, fucked out against him. “I wanna taste you.”

You find your footing on shaky legs as he sets you down, falling to your knees, keen with your mouth open in invitation. His fingers drag along his slicked shaft, the tip laid against your tongue in a scene that had his cum painting your throat almost instantaneously. You let the salty liquid slide down your throat with a swallow, using your hand to milk out the rest, wrapping your lips around the tip, letting your tongue cleave through the slit teasingly as you stared right into his eyes.

His hands tangled in your hair, lip between his teeth as he struggled through the overstimulation. “Fuck, baby.” Head lulling back, mouth agape, his breathing grew strained with every agonizing stroke.

With a light pop you smile, proud at his dishevelled figure now leant against the wall with his hands. “Tastes just as good as I remember.”

He huffs a tired laugh. “Smartass.”

“It’s why you love me.”

He pulls you up to meet his lips, kissing you deep and tender. “Lets eat, I bought all your favourites.” With a final kiss on your nose he lets you go, moving to pull up his sweats and hand you your own, before searching for a towel to wipe up your mess on the floor.

You squeak an apology, to which he just chuckles, ignoring your bashful demeanour before he’s throwing the cloth in the sink and reaching for two plates from a cabinet above the stove. Your fixing the draw-string as he hands you the dish, offering him a dazed thanks.

The domesticity of it was jarring but somehow still cordial, like an old married couple coming home to each other after a long day. And after good sex.

You walked beside him while plating up the food, noticing blue and purple hues blooming across his knuckles. Why haven’t you notice those before? The question pestered you enough to verbalise your concern. “What happened?”

Like a child caught in a cookie jar he froze, eyes finding the bruises before furrowing his brows. “‘S nothing, just an issue with some guys at work.” You weren’t buying it. He read like a book, a book you had memorised every minuet detail of, cover to cover, there was no hiding from you.

“You never did tell me what you did for work.” He pulled out a chair for you to sit in at the dinning table, thanking him as he rounds to find his own across from you.

The patent hesitation in his eyes was beginning to frustrate you. He takes a bite of his meal before speaking. “Do you remember in high school, how I became friend’s with Mikey?”

Mikey was a name you tried to forget, not that he ever did anything to you personally but there was something unsettling about that boy. Those eyes were always plotting something in the background, a plot you were continually omitted from. You also partially blamed him for your relationship with Draken crumbling the way it did.

“Mhm.” You hummed while placing a spoonful in your mouth.

“He and I formed a gang, Toman as it’s called now.” The air in his lungs leaves heavy in a sigh before continuing. “After finishing high school he gave me a choice. I decided to take it.”

Fury lapped at your throat amongst the new revelation that spilled from his lips. He chose him over you, a fucking group of delinquents over the person who loved him most. “So he was more important than your girlfriend?” He immediately denies it, reaching for your hands.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that.” The urge to pull free of his grasp was great, to get up and walk to the elevator and never have to see him for the rest of your life. But there was still a small part of you that wanted to hear him out. He takes your silence as the go-ahead. “There were people who could and would hurt you if they knew just how important you were to me. Shit, to this day there’re people who’d use you to get to me. I can’t couldn’t let that happen, give them that power.”

Sincerity flowered in those dark eyes of his, pleading and apologetic. You tried to remain impassive, you really did, but just like he read like an open book to you, so did you to him. The strings of your heart were being pulled and you couldn’t resist his pleas.

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

“You wouldn’t have let me go.”

You shook your head, a pained smile on your lips. “I still haven’t let you go, you idiot.” His hands tighten around yours. “It still hurts. It will always still hurt. You were my best friend for fuck sake.”

“’M sorry baby girl. I was doing what I thought was best, to keep you as safe as I could.” His lips touch your knuckles in a tender kiss that dismantled the walls you spent the past four years building.

“So where is Mikey now?” The question has his expression turning sullen.

“He’s dead. Two years ago.” It was difficult to witness just how blunt he was about it, considering they’d been so close. “Which is why I’m currently in position as leader.”

“So being a leader means this?” Your thumb runs softly over the off-coloured skin spanning his knuckles.

“This was for you.” You eye him curiously, waiting for an elaboration. “When I heard about the bank robbery… fuck I lost my shit. You’re on the no harm list, those fuckers knew that but they still touched you.”

“The no harm list? Me?”

“Ya really think I wouldn’t try and make sure these assholes out here couldn’t lay a hand on you? That’s why they ran right outta there when they figured out who you were.”

You recall the way their demeanour changed as they came to find out your identity, but it still begged the question. “How do you know that?”

“I asked.” He looks to his bruise stained hands with a smile that left you with unease. “You don’t just fuck around with someone on the top of that list and expect to walk away.”

“So what did you…” The sound of a gun cocking resonates in your memory. “They were there with you when you called me.”

His icy gaze sent a chill down your spine. “I had a funny feelin’ they were lying to me. I needed to make sure.”

A laugh was the only thing you could muster. Your brain was failing to process the reality that your wannabe perpetrators were most likely dead by the hand of the man in front of you. Was that something you actually wanted though? Did it offer you any form of relief knowing they were gone?

“I don’t know whether to thank or be terrified of you right now.” The admission came just above a whisper.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He chuckles, popping a piece of meat in his mouth.

© poohbea, all rights reserved. DO NOT copy, reupload or modify my work to other accounts and platforms. if you intend to translate any of my works please ask permission first ♡

[clonemando]

Haunted Clone Week

Written for the Day 3 prompt "Body Horror -Please Not Again"

@clonefandomevents

AO3 version here

Alpha-17 gathers the Jedi council to get permission to take action after he received a recording of some very gruesome happenings going on right under their noses.

Trigger Warnings for Body Horror, Forced Surgery, Abuse to Clones.

The Jedi Council weren’t sure why they were all being summoned, Alpha-17 could tell by their faces and how calm they all seemed as they greeted each other as those there in person took their seats and those who couldn’t be present appeared via holoprojection. 

Alpha had basically ordered Yoda to summon them all and maybe it was his own emotions being projected in the force, or maybe Yoda had heard the rumors of 17 previously declaring he would punt the little master like a football if they allowed something like what happened to Wolffe’s boys happen again. Not the death, he didn’t blame the jedi for that, but the situation afterwards where Wolffe, Comet and Sinker were not given the proper care they deserved or needed for that sort of situation. Two days leave was not enough before sticking them in another battle. Alpha had commed Obi-Wan and told him to fix it or he’d fix it himself and they’d all regret that. 

Either way, the little troll had come through and the council had been gathered. Alpha stepped forward once they were all there. “I would not have asked for you to gather if what I had to tell and show you was not critical. As you are aware, the Kaminoans are not the most moral of people and their view of clones is the same as mere product to earn them a profit. However they are a proud people who would only sell a product of high quality and standards. That is why it was one of them who brought this new horror to my attention to then bring word to you.” He said seriously looking at each of them in turn. 

“What I am about to show you is gruesome and not for faint hearts. I ask that if at any point you need me to stop the recording, or if you need to step away, please do so. A written report has also been sent out now.” He said causing several of them to look at him with concern but he ignored them and stepped side to raise a holoscreen where a recording was paused. With a final look around he began the video. 

“My name is Min-No, I am from experimental batch K-Alpha. I was asked to make this recording showing what is happening here in the deep sea labs. I’ll begin with myself. I am a clone of Jango Fett that has been spliced with Kaminoan DNA. I am the only one of my batch to survive as I was lucky that my mutations didn’t lead to suffocation via collapsing lungs or other fatal complications. My neck is a little long for a human, my eyes perceive light on the ultraviolet spectrum but leave me with migraines without special goggles, I cannot grow hair on my body. My bones and organs are made to withstand great pressure without being crushed. This is the main factor that killed the others. I was more human and it saved me.” A young feminine voice spoke and they were able to see the girl speaking in a mirror. Her limbs looked oddly long and she seemed to sway even when standing but overall she was clearly a clone just like the countless others they fought with. 

“They decided I was wasted being left in a room all day so they trained me to help with other experiments… That is what I’m supposed to show you. I… I don’t want to show you.” Her voice trembled around the camera before she carefully hid it in her scrubs to peek out of a hole in the shirt pocket. They watched her hesitate but looking at a clock in corner got her moving out of the fresher and out into what must of been the main cloning chamber.

There were rows and rows of tubes filled with clones of varying ages but none of them were standard clones. There were clones with extra limbs, clones with tendrils spilling out of their heads or half formed montrals or lekku. But all of them Min-No passed without fear or trouble. They had been born or created this way and to her they were no more horrific then her own reflection. No the horror came when she stepped through an access locked door after imputing the codes- slowly enough they could see it. 

Inside were more clones, strapped to tables, blood and other fluids left to stain their skin as if they weren’t even worth the water to rinse them off. These had limbs missing or grafted on in ways clearly meant to cause pain or allow pain to continue when it could have been prevented. 

“These are… the harvesting rooms… for spare parts and… pain tolerance testing. This is also where they do surgery to test if certain limbs or organs will work on standard clones.” She whispered as she walked through the room towards the back where a new clone was being strapped to the table under the watchful eyes of a Kaminoan scientist. 

“Ah, K-01, good. This clone was slated for decommissioning however it would be wasted not to get use out of them first. We still need to test if the eyes from the others from your batch can be used for anything useful.” The Kaminoan said clearly trying to test her. Min-No seemed to know it too. 

“Of course. Shall I retrieve the samples from cold storage?” She asked voice completely detached and cold and nothing like the voice she had used when addressing the recording. It was a good front and 17 was certain it was another reason they hadn’t just replaced her. 

“No, remain here with the test subject and begin prepping for surgery. I will gather the needed samples.” The Kaminoan told her and glided from the room. She started messing with the IVs as the trooper whined. 

“Please, not again. Please don’t make me do this again. Just kill me.” He begged blinking sightless eyes, likely the reason he was scheduled to be decommissioned. He already had scars from some other surgery done to his chest. 

“I’m going to give you some pain meds. It’s all I can do, I’m sorry.” She murmured quietly and then added some drugs to the IV that caused him to slowly stop mumbling after a while. The video continued on showing the whole procedure with all the gory details. 

Two of the Jedi on the council ended up needing to leave the room. 17 didn’t judge them.

“This… You are correct. This needs to be stopped. Do you have a plan?” Shaak Ti asked with a quiet simmering behind her eyes. Alpha 17 nodded. 

“I have a team ready but this will not be quiet. The Kaminoans will try to over their own asses once this comes to light. I need you all to deal with the fallout, not the actual mission, though you are welcome as always Master Ti.” 17 said with a grin. They were going to teach those aiwha-baits a lesson they weren’t going to forget anytime soon.

[nycbabyjoey]

Beach Babe

NSFW 18+ Only

Contains ABDL Content

The sun was out and the sky was clear! It was the perfect day for Jackie to head down to the water and show off her beach bod for all the hot college guys. There was just one problem.

"I want ice cream!"

"We'll get ice cream in a second," Jackie responded impatiently. "Just go play in the sand for a minute."

Yeah, so Jackie had promised to watch her little cousin Derek. But she wasn't going to stay cooped up in the house all day watching the little twerp! She had just bought a new bikini and she wanted to take it for a test drive.

Of course, the brat wasn't grateful and whined the whole drive that he didn't want to go to the beach. What kid doesn't want to go to the beach anyway? Regardless, Jackie was in charge and what Jackie says goes.

Derek sighed as he sat down on the hot sandy beach and began to dig a hole. He didn't even have a shovel and pail to use; the task was pretty much an attempt to occupy his mind while he waited for ice cream.

Meanwhile, Jackie laid out a towel to display herself to the nearby studs on the beach who were playing a game of Spikeball. She pulled out a bottle of sunscreen before taking her bikini top.

"Yoohoo, boys!" she called out. "Would someone help me with my sunscreen?"

The boys basically climbed over one another to get the opportunity to rub lotion on her back. Jackie giggled to herself.

Derek groaned. He was already bored. He was only seven years old, but he knew why they really came to the beach - so that Jackie could talk to boys! Why did he always have to do what grown-ups told him to do?

Digging a conch shell out of the sand, Derek decided to whisper a wish into it, hoping it would come true. "I wish I was in charge. Then, Jackie would have to do whatever I wanted to do!"

Jackie smiled as one of the hunky beach guys sensually applied sunscreen to her lower back. She had these guys in the palm of her hand. She was feeling a bit frisky, so she had the bright idea of rolling onto her back to give the men a preview of her tits. Who knows? Maybe she'd let one of the guys rub some sunscreen on them too!

She decided to flip over but, when she did, everything was different. First thing that Jackie noticed was that the guys didn't react how she expected them to. Instead of hollering with wide eyes and agape mouths, the men had fawning expressions as if she were too precious for any dirty-minded thoughts.

She looked at herself next and the reason was apparent: she had a shirt on! Her breasts were no longer on display, but stranger than that is what the shirt said: "Baby Me!" alongside a cartoon drawing of a baby with a diaper and blonde pigtails.

Finally, Jackie made the most shocking realization of all. As she looked past her shirt, she realized that she also had a diaper and blonde pigtails! She gasped and looked up horrified at the men surrounding her, humiliated that they had been looking at her ass in a thick diaper rather than small bikini bottoms.

Among the group of guys was one who hadn't been standing there before. Tall and buff with short, scruffy, light brown hair. He kind of looked like an older version of -

"Derek??" Jackie shouted in disbelief.

"Hey cuz," a grown Derek responded. "I see you've met my friends."

"She's a cute kid," one guy remarked.

"Oh yeah, she's cute," Derek smirked. "You should see her when she throws her little tantrums though. It's adorable!"

A symphony of aww's followed Derek's condescending comment as Jackie sat on the beach towel mortified. Her face simmered red in frustration. What could have caused this? Whatever had, she knew she had to get away from here. She stood up, barely reaching the chest of her previously younger cousin.

"I want to go home!" Jackie demanded, stomping her foot. "Right now!"

"What's the rush, kiddo?" Derek responded. "We just got here!"

Jackie had enough. She started to run away, hoping to make it home to change into anything else. However, she didn't make it far. She could only waddle in her thick diaper and running over shifting sand only made things harder. She made it just a few feet before falling down face first into the sand. Between the pain and humiliation, Jackie couldn't stop herself from crying and kicking her feet into the sand.

Derek came over and scooped her off the ground as if she were light as a feather. Jackie's head rested on his shoulder and her padded butt rested on his beefy arm.

He placed her back on the ground where she wiped the last of her tears away before crossing her arms and pouting.

"We'll go home when I say," Derek said with a mischievous grin. "Now, why don't you play in the sand while we go meet some of the pretty girls, ok?"

Jackie groaned as Derek walked away with his new guy friends to talk to bikini-clad women while she was stuck in a baby's diaper. All the attention from ogling beach boys was now replaced with attention from passersby about "what an adorable little girl" she was. Derek did something to swap their ages, that much was clear. And now, he was babysitting her!

She decided she had no choice but to entertain herself until Derek ruled they could leave. She hesitantly grabbed a red pail and shovel and started work on a sand castle. Maybe it'll be fun, Jackie tried to convince herself. After all, she hadn't made one since... the last time she was a baby girl.

She filled her little pail with sand and turned it upside down to make a column. She did that three more times to make the four corners of the structure. As she grabbed handfuls of sand to pack in between each of the columns, a group of young boys about eight or nine years old came over and stomped out her sandcastle.

"Hey!" Jackie shouted. "That's not nice!"

"Hehehe," one of them teased. "Crybaby!"

"I am not a crybaby!" Jackie said indignantly, resisting the urge to cry as tears began to form in her eyes once again.

"Are too!" the other responded. "Only babies poop in their pants!"

"Maybe she has a stinky diaper already!"

One of the kids pulled on the back of her diaper, causing the woman to squeal as he saw her exposed bottom. The other kid filled Jackie's pail with sand and began dumping it down the back of her diaper. Jackie shot into the air as the two children ran away, chuckling. Her diaper sagged as the large amount of sand began slowly pouring out the leg holes. Almost immediately, the weight of Jackie's loaded diaper made her tip back over, landing on her bottom. The sand redistributed throughout her diaper as she started kicking the ground in another full-blown tantrum.

Derek walked over. "Don't worry Jackie," he said. "We need to get you in your swim diaper anyway."

Jackie was humiliatingly changed out of her sandy diaper into an even more embarrassing bright pink diaper covered in unicorns and ribbons. Derek and a few beach babes he had met wanted to go in the water, but Derek still wanted to keep an eye on his new baby cousin so she would have to swim too.

Derek busted out a pair of Hello Kitty floaties to make the ensemble just an extra bit degrading.

"Please Derek," Jackie begged. "I'm sorry I took you to the beach. We should've stayed at home. But you can't make me go out there like this."

"Come on sweetie," Derek continued teasing. "You'll need them if you're going to swim all by yourself."

Jackie tilted back her head as she dubiously extended her arms so that Derek could slide the pink water wings onto them.

Now shirtless, Jackie toddled her way towards the ocean water. She had earlier wished to flash her breasts to all the boys on the beach, but now they couldn't care less. Their attention was on her thick, pink diaper.

She waded in the shallow end for only a few moments before her tummy rumbled. No, no, no! Her mind raced. All this time in a diaper and she hadn't even considered the possibility of using it! She had to find a bathroom.

She frantically began to push her way back to the shore, but the waves pushed against her and her diaper slowed her down even more. Eventually, she stopped in her tracks as she tried to stop the inevitable. She squatted in the ocean, clenching her butt cheeks as hard as possible.

"Mommy, look!" one kid pointed. "She's taking a poop!"

Children and adults alike began to rush out of the water as Jackie finally stopped straining, emptying a mushy load into the seat of her swim diaper.

"Everyone, out of the water!" a lifeguard announced over intercom as Jackie stood alone in her stinky diaper.

Derek waded towards her to dig the knife in further. "P-U!" he said, wafting the smell away mockingly. "Someone needs a diapie change before we head home."

Jackie's dirty diaper was changed publicly back on the beach shore by Derek as several of his new friends, male and female, observed. She had wanted to flaunt her body, but this is not what she had in mind.

Jackie didn't know when, or if, things would go back to normal. But as long as she was the one filling her diapers and crying over sandcastles, she knew that her once younger cousin would be in charge of her from now on.

[chibivesicle]

Trigun Stampede - Episode 4 - Stampede’s direction is clear; this is an action packed sci fi series on a desert planet.

Any resemblance to an anime or manga with an old fashioned Western setting is not the the creative direction for this.  Or as I’ve been thinking - Trigun Stampede is a sci fi series with the thin veneer of a western.  The veneer is shown at the beginning of our episode 4 with western sounding music and three random dudes grilling worm meat over a fire discussing how fresh meat is the best, though one guy wants to be all trendy and try a plant based meat product.  I think this is the writing team trying to be clever but it seems to fall flat.  The more I watch this, more of a bone I have to pick with the writers; it keeps coming off as passable but it could be much better.  This also goes into the story boarding, but we’ll get into that a little later on.

I’m also wondering how worms have muscles, but maybe we can go with alien worm biology hand waving explanation.

While enjoying their red worm meat, they spot a single individual walking alone in the desert carrying a cross, stating he’s well dressed for his own funeral and even has his own tombstone.

This is our introduction to Nicholas D. Wolfwood, the previously characterized wandering priest/clergyman who also works as a hired gun [anime] or religiously associated and trained assassin [manga].

The intro scene ends with a hot and sweaty looking Wolfwood.  I will say, they worked hard to get a nice reflection in his sunglasses and he does sport a little of his trademark stubble, but he does look a lot cleaner.

After the OP, the action returns to Meryl and Roberto listening to the news as Vash sleeps in the back of their land rover like vehicle.  Vash has been blamed for the destruction of Jeneora Rock and apparently hasn’t eaten since yesterday as Roberto offers his uneaten sandwich to Meryl.

Roberto gets to comment that only god knows why Vash is acting like Vash since young and inexperienced Meryl is expecting him both to eat more yet, struggle with sleeping due to his feelings of guilt that they are both aware of.

It really seems that Roberto is our info dump, make sure you understand our intent with our limited actions of what we decide to animate for our characters. Since the fact that Vash hasn’t eaten shows that he’s lost his motivation to live/ is feeling super depressed etc etc. has to be told to us by Roberto only with Meryl looking sadly at him.

Meryl then manages to almost drive right into Wolfwood and with Roberto’s help, she only nails him with the satellite trailer instead of hitting him head on.  This scene is very slapstick and seems oddly out of place since Stampede has been taking itself very seriously the entire time unlike the original anime or manga.

Meryl rushes to the nearest gas er - recharge station to save the strange man she just almost killed.  We see at least a nod to the original design of the plants with the light bulb station sign and a covered arch for parked vehicles.

As the group rushes in, they find the station owners shot and killed, likely looking like a station robbery.  There is a noise that allows Vash to find a child hiding in a locker who looks shocked, unable to speak.  At the same time, the injured man, seems to be quickly recovering able to add color commentary.

He takes the lead on some sort of ceremony for the remembrance of the dead, having taken a bottle of water from the station, sipping it before tossing some on the graves and attempting to do a poor ceremony.

It starts out passable but then quickly fails catching Meryl’s attention calling his possible job into question.  She asks him if he is a priest using the term 牧師 bokushi.  Interestingly, the original anime’s translation chose to use priest while the more literal translation is pastor/clergyman/reverend/minister.  Though the bus driver does call him a preacher at one point.

In this version he clearly states he’s not a priest but an undertaker.

Stampede uses the term 葬儀屋, sougi-ya, which translates to funeral home or can also describe an undertaker = funeral director.  Therefore, this is the second shift in a main character’s job in this version and will change aspects of his character by default, just like how it has changed Meryl’s in these first four episodes.

This is a good time to pause and compare Wolfwood’s introduction in Trigun and Trigun Maximum.  It will help frame how the rest of this episode plays out.

In the anime, Wolfwood doesn’t appear until episode 9, Murder Machine after Vash’s battle against Brilliant Dynamite Neon on the sandsteamer.  A glint of light catches Vash’s eye and they find a man collapsed and leaning against a cross in the desert.

After the bus driver pokes him commenting he’s a well put together dead man, he pops up and stutters that he’s been saved!  Showing that he’s got a sort of silly side.

After leaning that it was neither Milly or Meryl who saved him and introducing himself as a priest, he thanks Vash after he’d drank all of his water.  Vash is not pleased with this strange priest having consumed all of his water and this leads to the infamous giant introduction of Vash’s made up name which is blown by Milly blurting out he’s Vash the Stampede.  Once Wolfwood’s shock calms down he offers his hand to Vash and introduces himself as Wolfwood, at his service.

Of course he also can’t help but mention that if he killed Vash he’d get the $$60 billion reward and Vash would prefer he not point this out in public.

The entire introduction of Wolfwood is playful, you get the feeling that he’s a sort of prankster and has a good sense of humor though it has a dark and sarcastic undertone.

The manga is quite similar as Wolfwood introduces himself almost immediately as well.  Again, Wolfwood is shocked that this weird guy is the infamous criminal and is prevented from blurting it out to the entire bus.  I love how blunt Wolfwood is with his comment that ‘everyone’s damn dumb’.

And he again introduces himself to Vash, also offering his services as well.

Either way, both of these introductions show how playful of a character Wolfwood can be at times and how he’s portrayed as a friendly guy and very approachable - which makes sense if you are a religious official (or traveling under the guise of one).  Plus, the anime and manga both highlight that he was stranded in the desert due to his motorcycle breaking down forcing him to walk instead.  This forced him to carry his cross which is both literal and metaphorical for his character arc.

In Stampede, Vash feels a bit awkward as Meryl and the unnamed undertaker argue while the putative orphaned child looks shell shocked.  He walks over to the child and pops a lollipop in his mouth before offering another one to the kid.  This allows for him to have a small inspirational monologue to the child.

He states outright that he’s an orphan and that - No matter how heavy the cross that you carry, you still deserve to eat.  That you still deserve to laugh.

This sounds a bit like Wolfwood, a way of trying to connect with someone else.  After the kid silently looks thoughtful, he returns to give his bill to Vash for $$20,000 which causes Meryl to have another meltdown about his rip off of services.  Which with that abrupt change again makes me groan about the the awkward pacing and oddly placed slapstick style humor with his bill.

Roberto calls him out on not only his criminally high cost bill for services, but also notes that for being hit by a car he’s looking pretty good.  His reply is that he’s tough.  And that it’s his saving grace.

And with that suspicious look from Roberto, we hear a weird high pitched whine and the ground begins to rumble as the entire group is eaten by a giant sandworm, charging station and all!  The next time we get a close up on Wolfwood he’s got a crumpled cigarette instead of the pink lollipop.  This is a point were the story boarding continuity seems a bit off.  We went from him having a sucker, to likely losing it as they slid down into the worm but then the link to the cigarette is missing.  When did he pull it out?  Why now?  If they wanted to give the effect of him being level headed and cool, we would have seen him pull a cigarette out of his jacket pocket, place it in his mouth before casually lighting it.  That’s how you establish a cool smoker look.  Instead, he’s got a almost burnt down cigarette which does not look cool and collected.  He just looks annoyed.

After their fall into the depths of the belly of the giant worm where the silent child continues to act odd.  We see everyone sliding into the worm which is fine and we get to have Roberto info dump more about how worms are sort of collective organisms that have electrons to communicate with each other.

The little baby worm glows indicating that it associates with giant mama worm, hence all the little baby worms can hang out inside it unharmed.  Silent child is excited by the glowing worm and dashes off! 

Vash of course wants to save the child and with time being of the essence the nameless undertaker tells them to split up and called Vash とんがり tongari which is needle-noggin’ in the anime translation and spiky in the manga.  I always thought the anime choice of needle-noggin’ was a clutch translation decision, really getting at the teasing intent of the nickname.  With spiky hair and the fact that Vash is oblivious to things from time to time.  It is pretty early for the tongari nickname to be dropped - that’s a sort of post 2 year time skip nickname.

He proceeds to assign nicknames to everyone else as well, Meryl is little missy and Roberto is uncle downer.  Vash is surprised by the nickname - though I am too Vash! As he’s not as spiky with his more ruffled hair.  Meryl is upset and just wants a man to call her by her name and Roberto doesn’t even argue with his.  Meryl you are 100% valid, no one on the planet wants to respect you.

Though in the original he does always have nicknames for others but more of calling the insurance little sisters and variants of that instead which sort of works . . . but he isn’t particularly rude about it in the originals.

We finally see that Roberto is indeed armed with a small pistol that he loads before the split up.  Keeping with Meryl’s book smarts slowly becoming more street smarts, she’s the one who points out this entire plan is a terrible idea and they should have stuck together for safety.

She’s absolutely right and finds the missing child but clearly is attacked by something.  Eventually, the three men all end up meeting at the same location.  Is it there they started?  Or did they exit the four worm tunnels?  It looks a little unclear with the vague background but I’m reading that they returned to the start where Wolfwood is chain smoking away.  Likely, he never even went into the tunnel with all the cigarette butts around his feet.

Vash indicates that they can save both of them while the undertaker mocks him for his self-sacrifice and need to rescue them, calling him odd.  He then grabs one of the glowing baby worms and bites into it, eating it almost whole spitting out only a small part of it.  WTF is this supposed to mean? It just seems odd - I know the set up is that worms are a good source of protein, but did he need to eat one raw?  What does this do for his character establishment?  Will eat anyone to survive?

Due to him eating the worm, it causes Roberto to both tell Vash that this undertaker might be one of the people who can control worms to kill others. Roberto approaches him with his small derringer wanting to know what is the deal with the giant cross. He knows it isn’t what it appears and wants an answer from the suspicious man with them.

Of course the undertaker deflects this comment stating if he’d want to kill him, he wouldn’t be trapped there with them.  The conversation also allows for Roberto to info dump that there are people who can control worms but his theory is off since it seems that the suspicious undertaker is trapped with them.

This doesn’t allow Roberto to relax and he is clear that the statement ‘could kill with smile’ but of course Vash denies this based on his eyes.  We only get a vague line of ‘You really mess with me.’ which would have been a line intended for Milly in the anime; in this case for Vash and Vash uses this as his rationale that he won’t hurt them. Vash’s own behavior messes with the mystery man - he won’t hurt them!!  There seems to be some sort of emotional ‘something’ to go along with the statement of Vash ‘really messing with him’ but it doesn’t linger for long because Roberto is now missing.

The duo proceed to wander around lost and Vash maintains hope while his downer companion tries everything to get him to give up, they were already eaten and digested, they are lost, they should save themselves.  They proceed to be sneezed out of the worm (these sandworms apparently have animal based biology with nostrils) which has another slapstick moment of them being flung back out into the desert.  Vash tells Wolfwood to run who argues that they should both run, but both get re-eaten.  Since Vash doesn’t run and neither does Wolfwood.

They find the child who runs to Vash and hugs them as he reassures them it will be okay.  But he’s called out for being careless and let someone out of his sight all the time.  Of course Vash replies that he hasn’t been shot by the morbid man.  Yeah, that’s a great rationale there Vash for trusting a man who still hasn’t told you his name!

The kid then runs away and Vash figures out that they are the one controlling the worms with a high pitched sound leading us to the reveal of our next Gung-ho Gun.  The inside of the worm then becomes digestive/active with saliva/liquid and Vash just yells for Meryl and Roberto to be given back.  Dude!  You have a gun.  We know you are a pacifist but you can still use your gun!  Where is your brain?  Is it on vacation?  Did you leave it in Jeneora Rock?  In Vash’s moment of whatever, he begins to get sucked into the stomach of the worm and just stands there. 

It takes Wolfwood doing the big reveal of his large Punisher in what I’d say is an overly long, drawn out sequence to reveal it - is a giant gun!  Wow.  Even if you’d never seen Trigun before, you could guess it is some sort of giant weapon.   Was that really necessary Studio Orange?  No, but you think it looks cool.  You gotta animate it in all the angles.

He’s able to shoot around Vash’s feet allowing him to move and then blows a hole in the side of the worm.  Our worm whisperer escapes out the side of the worm and wishes them good luck on surviving.

Now, I’ve already made it clear that I liked the slow style storytelling of the original anime and even in the manga - Wolfwood will not show what his Punisher can do - until Trigun Maximum after the 2 year time skip.  Even though he’s revealed to be a Gung-ho Gun early on, he doesn’t show what his Punisher is capable of - just uses it as a blunt object.  We also learn that Wolfwood’s actions are those of a trapped man and not his choice, but something he can’t get out of.  The Punisher is how he’s recognized as ‘Chapel’ by Legato though Wolfwood never verbally confirms this at the Jeneora Rock Church. But with Stampede, we don’t need any of that delay - we are going to show you how badass his Punisher is now, which can apparently create a laser beam cannon that literally slices the entire worm open and blood? haemolynth? explodes out into the desert.  Wolfwood clearly has leveled up in his weapons.

We jump to a scene of the three random dudes along a campfire with them eating some of the fresh worm meat.  Wolfwood teases Meryl trying to get her to eat the worm meat while Roberto points out that a man with a giant cross machine gun is pretty damn suspicious and Vash is like ‘he’s fine, he hasn’t hurt us, he helped us.’ 

When Vash approaches, Meryl and Wolfwood are still arguing with each other about the worm meat.

Finally, around the campfire, Vash sits down and eats some worm meat, quoting Wolfwood that he still has a right to survive and eat.  Wow, deep - and Meryl is excited that sad boi is eating - he’s not going to be depressed all the time!  This is also finally when Nicholas D. Wolfwood introduces himself to Vash the Stampede and they shake hands.  It took the entire episode for him to introduce himself!

Wolfwood then invites himself into their crew telling them that they should get going - to where exactly sir undertaker?  He continues to tease Meryl and get do get a good side profile and finally one of his cheesy smiles.

Then they all go to sleep, with Vash on top of the car to show Wolfwood chain smoking on the roof of the charging station.  It then reveals that he was working with Zazie the Beast who tells him that killing his ‘friends’ is his skill and that he couldn’t care less about human lives. 

He only glances slightly oddly for a moment before replying he does the job that he has to do.  So, even though we have a fast reveal of Wolfwood as a Gung-ho Gun like in the manga, we don’t get his additional monologue that none of this is by choice.

The last scene returns to the place where Knives is collecting the plants and the Doctor is mentioning how Vash is the most human individual, which is why he can’t reach his full gate potential and this is why he’s not able to do whatever Knives wants him to.

Grey the Ninelines is still in the background along with the small blonde girl - not Zazie.  Is the small girl also a plant?  Tessla? Are they on Knives’ ark ship?

Thus the episode ends with a sort of plot from Knives to push Vash into an extreme corner.

Main points and themes from this episode

1.) Story boarding and flow are still weak.  It is still difficult to follow things at this point.  Actions and transitions aren’t quite fluid and transitions are choppy.  I already highlighted how Wolfwood goes from a lollipop, to falling and then having a cigarette already in his mouth but we never see it happen.  There are too many blink and you miss it moments and orientation is perhaps supposed to be frantic.  Based on the current pacing if we are to get more of the Gung-ho Guns including Livio, are we looking at a 12-13 episode complete series?  Maybe - it would explain the action non-stop pacing.

Along with this point is the writing continuing to be average at best.  This is a sci fi story where all the characters are checking particular boxes.  I was almost expecting Wolfwood to ask Vash ‘Whose side are you on?’ but we didn’t get that, just him being a morbid, rude, jerk.  I think the male character default in Stampede is unless you are Vash, you are a jerk. Roberto is now slightly less of jerk, so Wolfwood is the new jerk.

Does the CGI look pretty?  Yes, yes, it does.  As my meta nerd friend Merdopseudo put it:

In fact, "Trigun Stampede", more than an adaptation of a manga in anime, it is a demo to promote Studio Orange and its 3D.

And thus spoke the Merdo!  Is this a snazzy series with generic character to get as many eyeballs as possible?  Looks like it.  Is it really sourcing the original material - eh, not the characterization, nor the original themes.  We like to invent all sorts of terms and we’ve decided that this is an example of ‘mainstreamification’ taking a series that was modestly successful in Japan and more of a cult hit outside due to its quirky nature.  Meryl is now your cute little waifu instead of being an experience insurance adjuster with her junior partner Milly.

This then leads into our characters . . .

2.) Current status of the main cast, now fully assembled per the promotional poster!

i.) Vash - Was pretty lame in this episode, his sad boi trend continues as he is so depressed from Knives most recent actions he won’t eat a sandwich and tries to sleep in the back of the car.  He is considerate of Zazie when he thinks she’s a victim of a robbery while Meryl and Wolfwood argue, but puts a lot of faith and trust in a man who is suspicious as all hell based on what he sees in his eyes - through his sunglasses?  Which just like Vash, Wolfwood wears his glasses all the time.

Additionally, Vash is rather useless the entire episode, again chooses to plead with Zazie to release his friends, get sucked into the stomach of the worm, unable to move and all this stuff happens and he never even thinks to draw his gun?  Look, he may be a technical pacifist, but Vash knows if he shoots the worm with a bullet or two release his feet, the worm is not gonna die.  Yet, he never uses his gun at all.

Are we to interpret this as Vash being ‘frozen’ and unable to act?  Is this why he needs Wolfwood to do all the work for him?  Where is his creative brain coming up with solutions?  Why is he so helpless?  Does this mean that Wolfwood inspired him to regain his confidence that he lost in episode 3 when he quotes Wolfwood’s words to Zazie?  By eating?

Crisis averted - Vash has decided to live by Wolfwood’s deep words (which I’ll get to in a bit). ii.) Meryl - or Can I just get some respect on this planet? Meryl continues to struggle in a male dominated group and has bickered with Roberto, then Vash and now, Wolfwood throughout the episode.  She still has to be assisted/rescued etc but at least realized that Wolfwood’s plan was reckless and dangerous - but told no one but herself crawling through the wormtube.  She’s intelligent but lacks agency and authority.

She also gets a lot of scenes bickering with Wolfwood and he gets a bit friendly with her trying to force feed her the worm steak? flank?  She doesn’t look thrilled and they continue to argue until Vash sits down and eats and she is happy that Vash isn’t refusing to eat.

Without Milly Thompson as a potential romantic interest like in the original anime, are we to see Meryl x Wolfwood as a possibility?  It would explain why they keep getting into each other’s faces.

If this is the case, I’m not so keen on it, though Wolfwood in this episode is rather rude and morbid making him not very friendly or attractive.  Please don’t go this direction Studio Orange if you are thinking about it.

iii.) Roberto -  Our old man info dump.  Yep, now with a derringer to match the promotional poster.  You need to know more information about this planet and organizations - he’s got it.  You need to know how to read a scene or interpret something?  He’ll tell you. 

I’m sorry Roberto but you are not Milly and we shouldn’t hold that against you.  But really, you don’t add much to the plot.  At least you didn’t take a single drink all episode, but still haven’t fixed your shirt these past few days.

He doesn’t trust anyone, or organization but he’s just chillin’.  Why?  What’s your deal man?  Or are you just there to have four people in the main cast?

iv.) Wolfwood - Studio Orange what have you done to my man?  I gotta be dramatic when it comes to Wolfwood.  This is a case where a very nuanced character has been simplified to a rude guy who has no friends and will do his ‘job’.

I don’t even want to dwell too much on his now generic Tokyo hipster design, they shrank his nose and made him have a fair skin tone.  Also, why does he also have an untucked dress shirt? 

I have more of an issue with who and what he does based on this episode.  First, is the change in his occupation when he is traveling around meeting others.  In Stampede, Meryl asks him if he’s a priest and he says he’s an undertaker.  This is a change from the anime and manga where he originally said boukushi = priest/clergyman but always translated as priest in both; while he’s now, a sougiya or undertaker/funeral director.  Hahaha, so funny Studio Orange, a hired gun is an undertaker because he makes people dead.  lols. The change from priest makes a huge shift in how he acts.  In this episode alone, Wolfwood gives Vash shit for being ‘self-sacrificing’ and mocks him about it while they are in the worm trying to rescue others.

Stampede Wolfwood is not a nice person nor willing to help others because it is the right thing to do.

In contrast both the manga and anime have Wolfwood introduce himself as a priest and later we see him trying to strike a deal with the bus driver as he’s short the full bus fare.  He states if he gives up any more money, he’ll starve and the man allows for him to ride for $$80 instead of $$100 (which to be fair, he picked him up midway).  This then gives Vash a reason to ask him how he makes money as a priest and why he needs money to help support orphans associated with his church.  All of this makes sense, most people who take religious vows/occupations are not flush with cash and Wolfwood is no exception.  But what happens next is how Wolfwood demonstrates self-sacrifice towards others.

In the manga young children beg him for assistance and he of course gives all he can dividing it between himself and the children equally, even though he’s an adult.  We know he’s not lying, we just saw him haggling with the bus driver.

In the anime, we have a similar scene where he offers two of his three meal blocks to hungry children as well.

Their mother thanks him and the children understand the importance of their gifts even stating they will not waste a crumb. They respect his sacrifice for them.  These two scenes show us that Wolfwood very much cares for humanity and innocents who need help from adults.  Does he also understand that there is evil in the world? Yes, but it doesn’t make him isolate himself from others and helps in anyway he can. 

Afterwards, he walks back to see Vash beaming with a soft genuine smile, which prompts him to state that he was worried that Vash couldn’t smile - you know really smile - not fake cover the empty pain sort of smile.  These scenes alone make sense why Wolfwood makes sense to be traveling as a priest/hired gun as in the anime or a religious assassin in the manga.  In both cases, we know that despite his failings, he has the underpinnings of religious beliefs and actions.  His faith guides his morals and drives the conflict inside himself which eats at him even though he eventually finds peace and acceptance in both versions.

In the anime episode 9-11 allows for ample Wolfwood character development with the rest of the group as he reveals his precision shooting skills to Vash despite lying in Murder Machine - but Vash also states that Wolfwood’s prayer worked and God saved them.  Episode 10 Quick Draw has him twisting Vash’s arm into a contest to help out a woman and her son but also gets into the mix, revealing that he’s got multiple guns in addition to his fine marksmanship.  Lastly, 11 Escape from Pain has him getting into a philosophical argument with Julius, Milly, and Vash before departing the group.  The scene where pulls out his pistol and holds it to his temple to test Julius and Moore.

Murder Machine was an episode where an unarmed Wolfwood jumped into action with Vash to save a single child!  This is a man who understands self-sacrifice.  We also get his entire uncool dodging of laser beams here:

If we turn back to episode 4 of Stampede - Hungry we can’t even take his interaction with Zazie seriously nor compare it to what he offered previously unknown children.  He eats a lollipop for himself and offers the other to Zazie because she might be hungry?  We know he gave Vash and Meryl a crazy invoice but nothing says he’s on a budget, nor is giving up a single piece of candy self-sacrificing.  Did you get the point Studio Orange?  No, because you decided that he’s not that type of character anymore. 

Who is this character in Stampede? Not one I recognize from the anime or manga that’s for certain. He’s rude, has his gun Punisher which is now vastly more powerful than previously and is not friendly at all!  We know he’s got a job to do for Knives but he’s not really selling himself as a great traveling companion or friend for Vash.

I think that Wolfwood is such a popular character due to his humanity that he displayed in the original series; how he has an internal conflict struggling to navigate life on a shit planet either as a gun for hire in the anime or trained assassin in the manga.  He drinks, gambles, smokes and is willing to kill others if they will hurt innocents.  Yet, he strives to do his best as indicated by his inner thoughts while playing chess against the random guy in episode 11.  He realized it was dumb to bet his entire fare on this chess game and thinks about head butting the man and making a run for it - only to correct himself by reminding him to think of his profession as a priest.

He is also a jackpot character for fans - he’s a priest and a gunman who has principles yet also sins - what’s not to love about that set up?  As Merdo put it, even as an atheist, you can’t help but love a character like him.  Why Studio Orange passed on this aspect of his character and the leverage of such a trope baffles both of us.

Come on, you missed this golden line when the bus driver and two other guys toss his ‘luggage’ down to him.  The bus driver remarks that the damn thing is heavy and to what Wolfwood replies:

Which is the best clever joke that it is full of mercy, if you ever met it, you will have a swift and merciful death.

Or lastly, his words of blessing when he departs from the group which is totally in line with him being religiously affiliated.

3.) Themes for this week.  I really don’t have anything obvious.  Eat to live?  Life sucks sometimes but if you don’t eat you die?  Not very motivational all in all.  With Wolfwood no longer a priest (or under the guise of being one), the line of a heavy cross to bear rings hollow.  BTW, Knives is still really evil. 

[chromatophorium]

Right, the second abandoned soma project i talked about. This one isn’t as abandoned, I worked on it today actually. Got some inspiration yesterday. But yeah. It’s Splatoon au fanart, so, like, if you don’t know splatoon all things might not make sense. And If you find this from knowing splatoon and not soma, things might also not make sense. 

The project is two pieces of fan art for Soma x Splatoon that I haven’t finished. oh yeah. See other soma splatoon stuff I have made here. (there is more unfinished artwork and refrence I made for the boys in more splatoon proportions, ha. I’ll show that off here too, at the end. I like it.)

they’re battle pose things for turf war. The fist one I even colored, and I mingt shade and texture it sometime, Idk. Feels like a lot. I’ve got the brushes for it now though. 

Agent 8 and agent 4 are there in plain clothes too. making their ink color black since the boys can’t change their ‘ink’ color. Lol. Yeah. this is basically ink=structure gel. they’re both goops. so yea. Also this is from before splatoon 3 was a thing and that’s why the agent’s inktanks are the splatoon 2 version. I copied poses from official artwork, because I could and the poses are awesome. 

Second artwork!

This is just a sketch, as you can see. (I’m actually working on line art/my cleaner sketch, but idk when that will be done if ever so you get this)  (also stole the poses here too, from more official splatoon artwork.)

they have custom weapons now! Based on cameras, since that is a splatoon-ish thing to base a weapon on that also has a Soma theme. When getting scanned, the first two times at least, they reference cameras, and Simon has a camera and a bit of a photography hobby, as seen by the pictures and camera in his apartment. I made the weapons in blender because I love 3d modeling sometimes and I love getting reference pictures of complicated objects wit hthe right perspective. 

here are the renders that I used as ref

the polaroid slosher! You can see the inspiration better if you turn it around upside down. Should maybe chanfe that but it works for the pose of the sketch. It also has a inktank that is a previously used diver’s air tank (Simon 2′s in fact the top one of his back pack thing!) because I wanted to get references to diving equipment into the design, since that is also a soma/simon theme.

The DSLR brella! Based on a dslr camera, zoom lenses for a dslr camera, a camera tripod and the umbrella light things that photo studios have. Sadly no diving equipment in this one, tried to get it in but it just wouldn’t fit with the design. Brellas are pretty sleek, can’t fit that much on them, designwise. 

oh yeah. And the reference for the splatoon-style design of the boys. 

they can turn into little ink creatures, my god! they have four limbs/tentacles in that form, no more, because that is how many limbs they have in humanoid form. also icons. Because i love the style of the splatoon dialogue box icons. 

(Also you may have noticed the inconsistent prosthetic of Simon 3 in these designs. In the sketch thing, I just forgot about it honestly, only noticed it now. we all make mistages. Like that one. Mistackes. Mistakes. we all make ‘em.)

[rezonan]

Why do people use OOC/Irrelevant stories to justify their hatred for characters?

I'll admit I got this question from reddit but seeing as you are a big fan of Iron Man and certain characters afflicted by this issue I thought I would ask

Comic book characters and the consistency of favored portrayals

Why do people do the exact opposite to justify how cool they think a character is?

Look this is probably the worst kind of question to ask me, back when I was in high school my classmates hated me cause when it came to arguments I would always 'Stand on the fence' or 'Never pick a side' and I agree, even when I disagree or agree I can't help but see the other side of things with some questions.

I think one of the biggest things comic fans need to accept with our medium is that, the only real continuity that exists is the one we try and brute force and make in our heads, some writers themselves don't really care, Geoff Jones ignored Batman previously basically begging for Hal Jordan to come back to life when he was The Spectre to writing Batman basically complaining that Hal was back because to him that is what he thinks Batman should act like with Hal, and considering he probably grew up with a comic like Dark Knight Returns the asshole authoritarian was probably was he knew of the character, who knows I don't know his personal life.

I think we can all say that you have fallen in love with a character based of Non Canon stories, Hell my favorite comic for Superman and the one that got me into liking the character was All-Star Superman. The exact opposite of that like what you asked tho, Hating a character because a story depicted them poorly whether it's canon or not is valid as well, I mean it's pretty damn short-sighted if they have been exposed to better represented sides of those characters, but it doesn’t change the impact they initially felt, wether they can get past that is on the person. Like for example, I fucking hated Superman growing up cause the first movies I remember seeing him in was the freaking Dark Knight Returns duology and certain parts of Young Justice Season 1 but overtime seeing better versions and representations of the characters and also hearing put fans on what he represents has pushed him up to my 5th favorite hero, I do understand not everyone can do this. People just want to support their view of the character.

I also do think people who hate certain characters do reach a lot of the time, sharing panels of stories older than their parents sometimes probably not even knowing what comic it even came from, just happy they have this image of the character they don't like being abusive or something. It's even worse then the he outright go out of their way to find these panels or stories to use for hate on purpose even after knowing it's generally agreed upon it's a shitty representation of the character. Seriously nobody should bring up All Star Batman and Robin as some 'Got Ya!' moment in an argument, just no. Sometimes some people have just predetermined in their mind they want to hate a character and will go out of their way to farm for anything that can paint them in the worst light possible.

With Iron Man it's people bringing up Civil War again and again and again continuously like the 40 years of stories before that don't show why Tony would never do any of that in his right mind. With Superman it's people bringing up injustice in literally any relation to him or people bringing up a scene of Jason Todd blaming Bruce for his death as evidence of how whiny he is even when one of the highlight lines of his first appearance as Red Hood is 'Bruce I forgive you for not saving me but-'

With characters like say, Hal Jordan, Magneto or Venom and meny more, it gets more interesting here. Here what the characters did that was bad IS/WAS(considering reboots in Hal's case) in continuity but a version of the characters that were received much more popularly then makes fans disregard these past appearances as wrong, say they have had this entirely new portrayal longer than they had that one or writers themselves will retcon them away by making them, in the case of former villians now refromed, seem less evil than they were. No no those people Magneto killed weren't innocent humans in the silver age, they were actually anti-mutant bigots that killed a little girl for being a mutant. One of my favorite examples of this is Hulk. Yes Hulk the rampaging monster from movies to series to comics, in comics in I think 2008 was retconned to have never and I mean never killed a single person in all his rampages In the in-universe 12 years at that point, not even indirectly because Bruce Banner was subconsciously calculating all the angles of where he would throw or smash stuff apprently. All those crumbled buildings, nope, nothing.

And you know what? I can agree with some of that (that Hulk retcon is still dumb) because let me tell you the real truth to all this.

Consistency

People love consistency, They don't care about Magneto killing innocents in the 60s or Venom eating people in the 90s, they care about the take that has been supported consistently in their view for longer or just showed more consistently in what they have seen. Even for the haters it's the same, if for example my only experience with Batman was All Star and Certain Post New 52 issues, I would be happy knowing I hate this borderline sociopathic dude that's what I know Batman as.

You see it even with the movies, When The Amazing Spider-Man came out you had people saying it was an inaccurate take or not liking the changes even though it was actually more comic accurate that what came before but fans of the Raimi movies have consistently seen Peter as a meek and nice kid before being Spider-Man not an asshole, they have consistently seen him with organic webbing not with web shooters. Anything that breaks the portrayal they have known the most if gonna make them react either well or badly. People who only knew Tony Stark from Civil War probably reacted well to his MCU version seeing as he broke the consistent borderline villian they knew him from the comics.

So the big issue is people trying to force their own consistent idea of a character on others when comics just aren't consistent, everyone like I said at the start has their own makeshift continuity in their head they made up with books they liked or think fit, the consistent portrayal they know about, so this is why you get people arguing about if Batman is the real identity or Bruce Wayne or if Clark Kent should wear trunks or not I could go on and on like if Wonder Woman should use a sword? Someone who is used to the New 52 version would say yes and someone used to the Post Crisis version would say no. Or maybe it's what love interest Spidey should end up with, people who say Gwen probably grew up with TASM and Spectacular Spider-Man. Better for people to just respectly discuss the takes of characters different people have instead of childishly pushing the version they have in their head as the correct version and putting down everyone else's pretty damn subjective takes. That's with superhero comics of course, the nature of what is canon and isn't and how fans of this stuff talk about it with different 'takes' is way more unique than talking about disliking MCU Spider-Man or talking about why you hate Sasuke or something.

I don't really have a good way to end all this cause that's just it, all about consistency if I didn't get that across the 10 times I used that word. As usual feel free to disagree with me and if possible tell me how and why.

[melliotwrites]

So, I've been rewatching Adamandi. Far too much. Probably too much for my own good. And each time I watch, a new detail sticks out to me. There's so many layers to this musical, and so much worldbilding. As a fanfic author, I love it so much!

Pre-A Little Bit More In Love, during the Portia-Quincy and Beatrix-Vincent conversations, I've been thinking on some of the implications behind the conversations. The Portia-Quincy friendship lore is so interesting! I was wondering what was being referenced between Beatrix and Vincent, with the lines "Do you want to unpack that?" / "Whaaat's there to unpack?"

While, obviously, I noticed the lines from the first watch on, it only recently hit me like an absolute truck how it was delivered in such a way that definitely makes me think there was something being referenced that might need to be unpacked. WHile I know line delivery is often up to the actor, and the actor alone, I still wonder if you two, as the writers, had come up with any thoughts about that that hadn't made it into the script, or if there were past versions of the script that elaborated, or, even, if you two just had Mind Lore for this that never would see the light of day.

(This was a much longer ask than I intended it to be. TLDR: What's the context behind Beatrix's "Whaaaat's there to unpack?" in act 1?)

I'm glad you're thinking about the show in such detail! The line "wanna unpack that" is referencing Bea's previous line -- "She makes me excited to go to the newsroom, I guess. Last night after editing articles, we chatted for so long that we ended up falling asleep against the presses. I haven’t done that since freshman year." Vincent's asking if they should unpack why Portia specifically makes Beatrix feels so happy in a way she hasn't felt in a while (wink wink nudge nudge you have a crush on her etc.) Beatrix's "What's there to unpack?" is defensive and confused -- at this point they aren't aware of their crush yet, although Vincent can tell it's beginning to form. Writing-wise, it's intended to seem like she's lying or in denial, which we thought came through quite well in the filmed version!

In an early version, we were thinking about Portia being Beatrix's romantic or gay awakening -- either previously, Bea was purely work-minded and didn't consider dating at all, or maybe Bea never considered dating a girl. That didn't make it explicitly into this draft, but it's there by implication if you look hard enough (like in this line!)