#wish i had the originality to think of poses myself

[shortbreadly]

my daddy said ‘the devil looks a lot like you’

[xitsensunmoon]

My first ever comic con! And first cosplay too. Of course it's gonna be my boy :] Ramblings about the process are under the cut(Let me know if?? You would want me to elaborate with process images for any of the steps?)

The costume took me forever to make, as I've never done any machine sewing, sculpting, fabric dying or spray painting before but learning all of these was so fucking fun!! I never realised just how many different skills go into making a cosplay but it was so worth it!!!

Almost all of the clothes(except the hat) were purchased first as bases, but all of the detailing was added by me. All of the fabric used was originally just scraps that I was given for free so I needed to learn how to dye and dye all of the stars, they were originally white.

The sewing machine was its own beast that brought me tons of frustration from the lack of skill and knowledge (it was devastating to find out that 95% of fuck ups were my fault and not the machine's lmao). But as a result, a hat sewn from scratch, all of the fur trims, embroidery on the corset, stars and the collar(which is very hard to see on the pictures unfortunately) was all added manually. The stars and the stripes(on the back of the cape) were attached using heat-and-bond adhesive (I WISH I knew about such thing just when I started working on this. It would save me so much time and nerves.)

Then I found out about polymorph(mouldable plastic) and it has become the next thing I wanted to learn, to sculpt the claws and the fangs(yes, they're handmade jfksjs). The claws I then primed and painted in trillion coats because I wasn't satisfied with the colour of the spray paint. The fangs I moulded to my own teeth and then stained with tea to match the colour of my teeth :)c

As for makeup, I used Mehron Paradise water activated paints. At first I wanted to try to save money and bought myself Snazaroo instead, which unfortunately turned out to be a waste. Snazaroo didn't hold on my face for longer than 2 hours, cracking and peeling awfully. Mehron on the other hand survived 11 hours of me smiling, talking, emoting and such and didn't even crease at the smile lines(I'm actually shocked about that). It obviously works like any other makeup which means your skin texture and wrinkles won't go anywhere but Mehron's elasticity pleasantly surprised me. It did obviously smear from sweat and saliva(if you're eating and licking your lips) but if you don't touch the skin it just dries again, self setting. But if it's dry it's fully smear-proof. Highly recommend!

And last but not least, I've decided against painting my hands as it was very risky that I will stain everything I touch at the smallest hint of sweat. So instead I got myself gloves-tights(? Not sure how they're called but it's made from the same fabric as tights) and painted them with normal acrylic paint(did you know you could dye fabric with acrylic paint? I personally didn't), then heat set with an iron and voilà, they're reusable, my hands are not stained after an exhausting day and I don't stain everything I touch. It worked wonderfully which honestly was a surprise as I was really sceptical that acrylic paint will somehow stay in place.

I think this whole thing took me minimum of 6 months with big-big breaks for my school and life in general. But I'm really proud! This project taught me so many new skills and I couldn't have been happier about learning new knowledge, even if it sucked to fail in the meantime.

Everyone at the con was really nice and gave me a large confidence boost even tho it was my first time and I had no idea what I was doing. Taking photos with other people was really awkward/new for me as I hate cameras so I really had no idea how to pose/behave in front of one. But that's okay I think. This whole experience definitely made me want to do this again, so I think that will come with experience. Thank you for reading this far, hope you enjoyed this little summary :)

[kozachenko]

(Click the image for better quality)

Yipeeee that Keiki and Mayumi fanart I posted the WIP of is finally done woooo- This piece was a very experimental one that I'm kind of OK on. Maybe because I've just gone insane looking at it for so long and I'm my own worst critic lol.

Artist's Notes;

So I've once again been playing around with my rendering style, mainly because I have been wanting to improve my lighting for a while now and as I was just scrolling through Tumblr, I saw some of the official art for that one webcomic-turned-animated-TV-Show Lackadaisy and was immediately inspired. I also have seen a technique a few times in the past where the lineart and shading are merged together, so I've been meaning to try that for a little while.

I did some experimentation on this one sketch of Keiki I posted in my sketch dump and I really liked the results of it, so I carried those over to this piece.

I ended up scaling up Keiki and Mayumi from the original WIP because I felt like they were both getting lost in the composition, and I'm glad for that because I think it works a lot better. I'm not a fan of how Mayumi's sword turned out at all, but it's not really meant to be the focus of the piece so eh. Overall, I think I could do better with my colours, probably because with Keiki and Mayumi's colours, I did them flat in greyscale and then used a brush on the overlay blend mode to colour all of them over, after which I changed the base layer for their colours from white to yellow and then lowered the opacity so it all went together better. I also decided to use gradient maps for a lot of the background elements, mainly to experiment with getting in my values first to make them pop out more. I ended up finding a really nice sky gradient on Clip Studio Paint that I really liked, and that kinda helped to establish the colour scheme of the background a lot. I think the whole "start in greyscale then colour" thing really works better with painterly styles rather than more illustrative ones, and while it is good at making sure your values are more readable, I honestly don't think I have the skill level to pull that off yet. Honestly, I think I've been looking at this drawing too long or maybe I added too much to it, but I wish I could've made the colours less monochromatic, but I'll just save that for the next piece I do.

I do love how the flame (...well it's more of a weird space rift than anything in this piece) and the lighting turned out, those were fun to do. I was initially struggling with the flame and how Mayumi is positioned in front of it before realizing "Oh wait! This is a weird abstraction of a weird creature! I don't have to follow the laws of anatomy!" and just dislocated it's flamey bottom jaw from the main body. I also changed the colours of it since I was really not liking how incredibly bright it was when it had lighter colours. Again, the gradient maps served the more painterly style of the flames well.

I also love how Mayumi turned out. I could do her sleeves better but that's more of just me needing to study how those types of sleeves fold in that position more. I'm also very happy with the posing, the technique I used for that was taking photos of myself in the positions I wanted, blocking in the silhouette and then modifying that by adjusting it to my lines of action that I drew on top of the original photos, and then sketching over the silhouettes and drawing in the shapes of the hands overtop of the photo if I needed to get the fine details right. As for what I do to take the pictures myself, I use a tall chair I have, prop up my phone with a phone stand, put on a ten second timer and scramble to get in position. Yes, I did have to use a bunch of thin markers I had to try and get the hand positioning on Keiki's pose right, yes I do have a fake sword that I used to get the positioning of Mayumi's arms and hand right, the sword was for an old Halloween costume from several years ago. I really like how both Keiki and Mayumi turned out in this drawing, I'll have to play around with these designs for them more in future drawings.

Also, if you wanna know why I draw buildings like that, when I watched Fantasia 2000 as a kid (One of the Disney movies where they make really beautiful animations to classical music) the way they drew the buildings in the first few sections Rhapsody in Blue segment (the jazz one with the cities) changed my brain chemistry and now whenever I need to draw buildings really quickly, I refer back to that. Since the buildings aren't really the main subject, I didn't put much thought into them.

As you can tell I am very tired of this piece, mainly because I made things harder for myself by overcomplicating the process compared to what I usually do, mainly with the whole "starting in grayscale then adding colour." I'd honestly just prefer having a black layer set to colour that I can just toggle on and off when I need to see the values, but it was good to experiment. And that was mainly the point of this whole drawing, to experiment. I'm definitely going to have to play around with this new style I'm going for, mainly because I liked how it turned out a lot in the augmented Keiki sketch, and also because I want to find ways of making it suit my style more. I also really want to keep experimenting with my lighting like this, it's very fun. Last but not least I am never starting in greyscale again because dear god I do not like the workflow it forced me into. I don't have a problem with the method itself it's mainly just a skill issue lol.

If you wanna read my headcanons for these two, I put them in my WIP post, so you can read them there if you want to. The more I look at this the more I prefer the simplicity of my WIP. I might go back to this and just take away the fancy colours and effects to see what it looks like without all of that stuff and reblog this post with that drawing, but for now, I don't think I can look at this drawing again for a while.

[heyhay13]

Lightning Round QnA!

We had over 250 questions in the form and we focused on ones that were very open to anyone in the cast. So specific detail questions got left out :(

Here's a lightning round of questions to answer for y'all and my ask box is open if you have more!

Rae/Heyhay Questions

What happened to Icarus's birds?? We know Rae said he'd take care of them, but with the birds being wacked and Icarus whole memory type thing, what would happen with that.

Sherb and I talked about this a bit and landed on the birds seeking out Rae and he builds an aviary for the strange new little friends following him around. I might even write a fic for it!

Heyhay how long did the scrapbook (shown at the end) take to be made?

I worked on it for nearly a month and a half between organizing with the artists and making it myself!

How did you come up with Vaeh's Name?

It's from Fenris' sister Nevaeh!

Will you continue to cosplay the characters after this?

Absolutely!

To Rae/Hayhay: what was your favorite memory to make in the Always Remember Book?

I think probably all of the wedding details. I loved talking with my friends to plan out the details and outfits SO MUCH and a lot of the poses are based on my own wedding photos!

Are there any plot lines that you wish you could have done or explored more in depth, but couldn't due to time?

We initially had some ideas for finding a few more Telchin temples, including Project Protetus. I really like building the temple/facilities so that would have been fun!!

How did lore planning/pre stream work?

We usually plan out rough ideas for a stream in dms and then meet 30 minutes before a stream to go over everything, dry run some things like flight paths, and do sound checks!

Out of all the characters on fable smp, which one do you think you could win in a fight against?

Ven lol

Will we see other versions of the fable characters in other smp's like Bound?

You might >:3

If your character didn’t ascend, what would they be the god of? And if they did ascend, were there any other domains they could have been the god of other than the domain they got?

Rae's took FOREVER to actually land on. I was really stuck on wanting something that felt more correct than Knowledge and we tossed around a lot of ideas until landing on Wonder.

How much of the relationship constellation was planned?

Literally only Raax and Ocie's original partners (Rust, Jerry, Shawn) were planned! The others came about naturally as the lore progressed.

Did Rae ever get better at baking/cooking?

YES! At least slightly-

How old is Rae in the time period that Rye made in Rae’s epilogue

Not an exact age for Rae, but his epilogue takes place when Vaeh is roughly 4-5 years old.

The first two seasons have “names” (endstone reset and skulk reset) but what would be season three’s?

I like to think it'd be called the "Last Reset"

What is your favourite kind of fanfictions written about your character? (Tropes/themes/etc)

I'm a massive sucker for Hurt/Comfort fics-

Clarification Questions

What was that one gold aura building near the temple of creation in S1?

It was a build from Sherb's hardcore world at that time!

Why did Rae remember Icarus? I thought everyone was supposed to forget but I might’ve misunderstood

Rae remembers Icarus as a child up until when Icarus' first death would have been! Isla would also remember Icarusa as a child as well.

Was the release me book from season one written by fable?

Yes!

What is Haley? She came back from the dead but no body ever said if Midas made her come back or if she was a god.

Midas brought her back, switching her and Fable's places so he would go back into Purgatory

Why couldn’t Haley see quixis’ changes from purgatory?(and fable)

There is no record of Quixis in the Akashic Records. This is also why Icarus is missing from the records in Rae's epilogue!

General Questions

Are you guys gonna do another smp where its everyone as the same cast?

Nope, not with this exact cast at this time, but we all are on a bunch of other smps you can check out! Mer, Bound, Siege, and more!

Is there a reason behind all of the seeds you use in Minecraft? Or is it just the first biome that pops up is the new setting for the season?

We actually look really hard for a good world seed that we like. For season 3, we really wanted a good spot that the tree could be near the ocean and this seed worked out great for that!

Will we be able to have a world file of S3?

YES - it's coming soon!

[thewanderersminuet]

Dear lover this is the last time

Rating: T

Relationship:Toxigriffe/Marigriffe

Tags: Paris Special, reverse crush, light angst, rated T for cursing

Summary:

Try as she might, Marinette hasn't been able to get Griffe Noire out of her head. That's why it's such a shock when he turns up on her balcony.

I wrote the first work in this series in a daze of inspiration and had originally planned to just leave it at that. A lot of people wanted more, and when I saw that day 1 of @marinettemarch was Shadybug I realized I had to write this as a follow up. (Even if she's not Toxinelle through most of this.) This is a sequel, while I would reccomend reading the first work in this series, if you haven't the main takeaway is that Toxigriffe got their own umbrella moment and now Marinette is down bad.

Thank you so much to @ladyofthenoodle for looking this over for me. The title is from the same song as the first work.

[Previous work]

[Read on AO3]

The noise of spray paint filled Toxinelle's ears. Another boring day of looking for leads to the hole Hesperia crawled into. Another boring day of coming up empty handed. Toxinelle found it hard to complain however; she was too busy being transfixed on Griffe's goofy grin as he spray painted a cat on the wall. 

She was only a split second too late to look away when he turned back to her. 

“Admiring the view?” He waggled his eyebrows at her and struck an exaggerated pose. 

Her heart beat hard in her chest. This time it wasn't her embarrassingly huge crush, but fear. She had to remind herself that the feeling of bugs crawling up and down her arms was just in her head.

Deny, deny deny. 

“I was just thinking about how stupid you looked with paint on your face.” Somehow her voice managed to come out even despite her panic. 

His face twisted comically into shock. He pulled out his baton to use as a mirror to see his face. The paint was on the cheek that had been faced away from her, she didn't see it until he turned to her. She hoped he didn't notice. 

He grinned as he placed his hand at his chin and examined himself. It was so goofy and Toxinelle wanted to scream when she realized she found it cute. 

“I don't know,” He said, putting his baton away and shooting her a shit-eating grin. “I think I look awfully char-meow-ing myself. Maybe you're just projecting, Cockroach.” 

“Whatever.” She wrapped her arms protectively around herself and turned away from him. 

It was fine. She'd been called worse. Besides, she'd been the one to start the insults. 

Still, she couldn't help but wish he wouldn't take to their back and forth with such glee. 

She let out a frustrated sigh and pulled her yo-yo out. 

“Leaving so soon?” He said. 

She couldn't decide if she wanted to punch that grin off his face or kiss it. 

“Sorry, watching you paint cats that look like they need to be put down is not exactly my idea of fun.” She turned her burning face away from him before he could accuse her of being the liar that she was.

“Suit yourself.” He said. 

The sound of spray paint filled her ears once more. Somehow, that hurt more than any of his insults. 

*******************************************************

Marinette dropped from her skylight and onto her bed. As soon as she dropped her transformation she buried her face in her pillow. She couldn't bear to see the pity she knew would be in Tikki's eyes. The supreme had told her that the kwami was nothing more than a means to an end. An object to allow her to transform. Despite this, sometimes Marinette swore she could see Tikki looking at her with genuine care.

She hated it .

It made her feel too raw, too vulnerable. It was too close to everything she really wanted. The fact that Tikki, by all rights, should hate her only made it worse.

Marinette rolled over onto her side and wrapped her arms around herself protectively. Her thoughts drifted to Griffe Noire and that day they’d eaten snacks under his umbrella.

The Supreme had made it clear, although they were to work together, only one of them would be spared once the missing Miraculous were retrieved. Griffe had no reason to show her the kindness he did that day.

...but that stupid cat did, and now she couldn't get him out of her head.

It drove her crazy. It was stupid that she was secretly excited to drop everything to fight one of Hesperia's champions just because it meant she would get to see him. It was annoying that she could hear his stupid jokes playing in her head when he wasn't around. She hated the hours she wasted fantasizing about another life, with hamsters, cats, and a boy who's name she didn't know.

Marinette clutched a pillow to her chest. It hurt. It hurt that she would never know what he was like outside of the mask. What his normal life was like. That her fantasy would only ever be a fantasy. Even without their Miraculous slowly killing them, she knew Griffe would never see her that way.

There were some days that she caught glimpses of the Griffe she saw in that alley. On patrols where everything would melt away and they could just laugh and enjoy each others company. She would eat up every crumb as if it was the only thing keeping her from starving.

...but most days weren't like that. Most days they argued and bickered. Most days she couldn't help but pick at her stitches.

Griffe was an easy target. Especially when he gave it right back.

A small weight settled on her arm. Marinette turned to find Tikki, her blue eyes wide and filled with exactly what she didn't want to see. Her eyes burned.

She was not going to cry.

Marinette sat up, pointedly avoiding Tikki's gaze.

Air. Air would be good.

Climbing onto her balcony, Marinette felt nothing but relief when she felt the cool night air hit her face. She leaned against the railing and let out a sigh.

Only to be interrupted by the sound of a flower pot falling over and shattering.

“Fuck.”

Marinette recognized that voice long before she whipped around to see who her intruder was. Griffe was frozen next to her murdered pothos.

“Please don't freak out.” Griffe lifted his hands placatingly.

Marinette didn't say anything. She had no idea how to react in this situation. Maybe she should have acted scared to protect her identity, but she was stuck between being pissed at him for breaking her plants, and being giddy at the sight of him on /her/ balcony.

Instead, she crossed her arms and stared back at him.

“Wow.” Griffe said breathlessly. “Most people freak out when they see us.”

“I'm not most people.” Marinette said flatly.

“You're not are you?” Griffe had a look on his face that Marinette had never seen before.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” Marinette desperately tried to keep her voice even despite her nerves.

Griffe perked up and instantly started looking around for something at his feet. Upon finding what he was looking for, he bent to grab it before presenting it to her.

A single red rose.

...That was slightly crushed. The stem was slightly bent and a petal fell off as they both stared at it.

“Uh... sorry about that-” He scratched the back of his neck.

“What's this?” Marinette could barely hear her own words over the way her heart threatened to beat out of her chest.

“It's for you!” A goofy grin spread across his face until he seemed to catch himself. He coughed and straightened up before holding the rose out to her again.

Briefly, Marinette wondered if she was dreaming. It made no sense for Griffe to be bringing Marinette a flower. He didn't even know her. She hesitantly reached out to take it. As if everything might dissolve away the second she made contact.

To her surprise, the world stayed intact as she brought the rose up to her face to sniff it. With nothing else to do with it, she tucked the stem behind her ear. Looking back at Griffe, she was surprised to see a soft smile splitting across his features.

“You don't even know me.” She whispered.

“Well..” Griffe rubbed the back of his neck. “I know you're too cool to be afraid of The Griffe Noire. I think that's enough to merit a flower, don't you?”

“I wouldn't know.” Marinette wrapped her arms around herself and avoided his gaze. Silence fell between them. It seemed even Griffe was left with nothing to say for once. 

“Hey, uh…” Griffe spoke up. “How do you feel about ice cream?” 

“Ice cream?” Marinette swung her head back towards him. 

“Yeah, we could go get some. My treat.” Griffe grinned and held a hand out for her. “I bet you've never traveled by stick before.” 

Marinette eyed the baton on his back warily. He was right, and she wondered how strange it would feel to travel his way for once. 

She turned her attention to his outstretched hand. Part of her screamed to run back inside. Pretend this never happened. He had no reason to be inviting her out, what if it was a trap? Or some elaborate prank? 

Her eyes drifted back up to meet his own. As soon as they did he averted his gaze and Marinette swore she could see a tinge of pink stain his cheeks. 

It was too hard to say no.

A smile spread across her face as she took his hand. Her stomach fluttered with butterflies as she watched his face mirror her own. He pulled her closer and wrapped one arm around her waist. Every point where their bodies made contact felt like it was on fire, and Marinette never wanted it to stop.

“Hold on tight.” He whispered as she wrapped her arms around his neck. 

She was right. It was a completely different feeling to travel over the city in Griffe's arms then via yo-yo. For a moment, she wondered if things had been different if this would be more common. Griffe helping her when there was nothing for her yo-yo to grab onto. Her swooping in to grab Griffe and pull him out of danger at the last moment. 

Griffe sat her on his lap and extended his baton high above the city. From here she could see the city lights stretching for what seemed like forever. She took a moment to drink it all in. Despite having seen such sights as Toxinelle before, she was certain she'd never get used to it. 

Marinette turned back to Griffe, but whatever she had planned to say died in her throat when she noticed him looking at her. His eyes widened comically. Her own cheeks burned and she quickly looked back down to the streets below them. 

“Ice cream?” She squeaked out. 

“O-of course. Uh…” She more felt then saw his head swiveling around, looking for his destination.  “There!” 

He tightened his grip on her and took off fast enough to make her head spin. When they eventually landed, Griffe gently let her down. Marinette quickly realized where they were when she saw the ice cream cart. 

“Andre?” Marinette turned to look at Griffe in surprise. This wasn't just any ice cream. 

Griffe jumped and averted his gaze. He rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Shall we?” He gave her a nervous smile and once again, Marinette was struck by seeing this side of him. 

She took his hand and lead the way. He squeezed her hand as she pulled them to the end of the line. For a moment, everything was strangely normal. Just another couple in line for sweethearts ice cream. 

Until the couple in front of them looked back. 

They screamed. Soon everyone else in line was screaming and running. Griffe and Marinette looked at each other and shrugged. 

“Looks like they're letting us go first.” Griffe flashed her a grin.

“How kind of them.” Marinette couldn't help but return his grin. 

Andre was rushing to try to pack up his own cart. Marinette found it absurd that he could be that scared of Griffe and still take his time to try and save his cart. 

“Hey! Where are you going?” Griffe put a hand on the cart to keep him from fleeing. “All we want is some ice cream.” 

“B-b-b-b-b-b-but- My ice cream is for-” Andre glanced at Marinette and she found herself wondering what he thought was going on. “-for lovers!” 

“And? What's the problem?” Griffe asked. 

Andre didn't answer. He just looked between them as if that'd tell him what to do. 

Marinette caught a familiar grin spreading across Griffe's face. She crossed her arms and took a step back. 

Griffe called on his cataclysm and hovered it over the cart. 

“One ice cream cone and nothing has to be broken tonight.” 

A few minutes later and they were walking down the bank of the Seine, looking for a private place to stop and eat. Griffe carried their cone in one hand. It was raspberry and mint. Marinette was pretty sure the raspberry had to be for her, but the mint confused her. Sure, Griffe had green hair, but it was a lot darker then the color of mint. She wondered if he was just as confused about where the red came from. 

“Have you ever had this ice cream before?” He asked. 

“No.” 

“I'm surprised.” He said. “You seem like the kind of girl to have everyone clamoring to buy her ice cream.” 

Marinette scoffed. What kind of impression did he have of her? “Not really, no.” 

Another uncomfortable silence fell between them. Marinette pretended the billboards were suddenly very interesting. 

At least a Gabriel ad caught her eye. 

She let out a groan. Of course it had Adrien Agreste on it. Did they even have any other models? 

Griffe stopped and followed her line of sight. Once he caught sight of what she was groaning at he froze. 

“Wh-what's the problem?” 

“It’s-” Marinette hesitated, unsure if she wanted to get into it. “It’s the model in that ad.” 

“Not a fan?” Griffe's tail lashed behind him. 

“It's a long story.” 

“I have time.” 

Marinette looked at him, but he refused to meet her gaze, instead focusing on the ice cream. She sighed. 

“Chloé Bourgeois was in the bakery the other day. She had a friend with her.” She gestured over her shoulder to the billboard. “She was bragging about being friends with super famous, super handsome model Adrien Agreste. They were being rude to our other customers so I had to kick them out.” 

Griffe quickly turned to look at her. “Both of them?” 

Marinette blinked, unsure where he was going with this. 

“I mean, they were together.” 

“But—” Griffe tapped his foot. “What makes you so sure he was acting like that too?”

“I—” She was thoroughly confused now. It's not like Griffe had been there. Why did he care anyway? “Yeah, sure. I guess technically Chloe was the only one causing problems but… he's her friend. I have no reason to believe he's any different.”

Griffe went silent again. He wouldn't even look at her. Marinette started to wonder if she did something wrong, but she couldn't figure out what. 

Maybe coming out was a mistake. 

“I— I should go.” She started to step away, only for him to reach out and grab her wrist. 

“Wait. don't go— uh…” He frowned and suddenly it hit her. 

“You don't know my name do you?” She asked. 

“I-” He let go of her and used that hand to rub the back of his neck. “You never gave it to me.” 

“How many times have you had sweethearts’ ice cream before?” She wrapped her arms around herself and looked away. 

Maybe she wasn't being very fair. But it hurt. It hurt to know that he would bring a stranger out to get ice cream with him, but never Toxinelle. 

“N-never!” He said quickly. “Maybe we should start over!” He struck a goofy pose. “My name is Griffe Noire! What's yours?” 

She considered telling him. Telling him and pretending this conversation never happened. Pretend he actually cared about her. 

Instead, she shook her head. 

“Goodbye, Kitty.” 

She shoved her hands in her pockets and took off. Leaving him alone with their untouched ice cream. 

[hellhound5925]

HERE IT IS 🙌🏻 THE MOMENT LONG AWAITED

Cyare Verd

*OC Raven x Hunter

A/N: Welcome back! I apologize for taking so long but ☝🏼 I edited my original story up to the fourth chapter only to decide I still didn’t like it so guess what I edited the same four chapters again 😅

I’ll start by saying, yes it still follows the season two storyline of The Bad Batch (unoriginal I know) but I did change it up quite a bit. If your looking for Omega (lol) shes gone 👋🏼 I was never a huge fan of her so I wrote her out 🫣 otherwise, I hope you enjoy the new version of my fic. I will be taking it off Wattpad and AO3 in the meantime so I can finish making edits.

Oh, one last thing. If you would like to be tagged please drop a comment or send me a message ☺️ Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking time out of your day to read this. It means the world to me.

Anyways. Without further ado 🤲🏻 I present to you my updated fic 💖

Prologue/Background

Raven (If you see this. It’s the Pov for the following)

​Before order 66 went down, I spent my time on Kamino training new batches of clones for the Grand Army of the Republic. I met many of the troopers who lived there during the time including Sargent Hunter of the infamous Clone Force 99. Our interactions were usually quite brief but there was a certain charm about him I enjoyed from our very first encounter. However, I was there to perform my duty to my clan and that always came first.

​It was an honor to continue the legacy my father - Kal Skirata - left behind. He and my brothers - the Null ARC’s - have been off trying to thwart a plot they didn’t realize would lead to order 66.

​During that time, Kal’Buir had asked that I stay on Kamino not only for intel but also to get out any defecting troopers.

A friend of mine, who is another Mandalorian by the name of Aspen, posed as a supply ship for myself. She would drop off supplies or bring me an array of random items I asked for to validate her being there. Aspen would then smuggle troopers to Mandalore where they were to live out their days as they wished. A part of our clan. Clan Skirata.

When order 66 did finally happen, my brother Ordo had warned me to prepare for something big that would be happening soon. Whether or not he knew exactly what I’ll never know.

For the first few days, I lingered on Kamino waiting for any one of my brothers or Kal’Buir to contact me but it didn’t come. About a week later a droid appeared in my quarters with a message. ‘Get out now. You’re in danger Sen’ika (little bird).’ Kal’Buir was the only one who ever called me Sen’ika - mostly because I hated it but he could get away with anything.

Shortly thereafter, I packed my things discreetly and called for Aspen. She came within a rotation claiming the usual - that she was here to deliver supplies for me - and to my surprise they let her in.

The minute I was on her ship, the two of us left. We ended up on the planet in the mid rim. Where Ord Mantell became our temporary home.

Chapter One: Cid’s Parlor

Raven

Standing out in the busy streets of Ord Mantell, the sun beats down on my beskar fighting the darkness that rests on my shoulders. I will my feet to move it’s as if this weight is too much for them to carry.

My irritation radiates off me as the thunderous pitter patter pounds in my head each time a citizen passes by - must be nice to live so carefree - I think to myself. Yet they pay me no mind, even though the very nature of my armor is intimidating.

The dull black shein of a well-worn helmet that sits upon my head, with the infamous T shaped visor. The rest of the plates are the same color with a few iridescent feathers poking out from underneath. Ironic right.

This armor is my pride and joy. It was a coming of age gift - if that's what you want to call it - from my father. Kal’Buir was by far one of the greatest Mandalorians in the history of our people - though my opinion might be biased.

A wave of sadness washes over me at the thought of him, my family, my brothers, and my best friend Aspen. Shaking the thoughts from my mind I tell myself they wouldn’t want me to sulk. Aspen would smack me if she were here. Unfortunately, the two of us had to go our separate ways after getting into some trouble. What else is new?

Aspen has always been the friend I can count on for anything. We met as kids on Mandalore and practically grew up together. Once we were old enough, the two of us would drink - a little too much - and run our mouths. Sometimes I’d come home with a black eye and Kal’Buir would say ‘I hope the other guy looks worse’. With a osik (shit) eating grin he knew I could handle myself.

Eventually that trouble caught up to us. When I had been on Ord Mantell before, she and I got into it with a group of merc’s and Cid saved our skin. Usually I didn’t pick fights we couldn’t win but that time I did.

That was just after our home was bombed by the Empire. My family. My clan was there as far as I know. Rumor has it the surface is no longer safe. The blast destroyed everything and killed everyone. Grief does funny things to people.

Since then Cid feels we owe her every time she calls. Aspen was smart enough to ignore her but I can’t leave business unfinished. I don’t like owing people anything.

Bitterness courses through my veins and I find my feet moving through the doorway.

Hunter

Cid's Parlor is loud and crowded - as usual. Which for enhanced senses is why I prefer the solitude of the ship. Let’s not even get into the stench of hot bodies and alcohol might put me over the edge.

I take a deep breath to steady myself and push out the overwhelming sounds and smells, in an attempt to tune back into my brother's conversation. Echo and I were discussing whether or not the Marauder needs maintenance. Which is true it does. However, we don’t have the credits.

One glance over at Wrecker and its obvious Tech is beating him - again - at dejarik.

With a sigh and a gentle swirl of the pint in my hand, I watch as the amber liquid spins like a world pool. The sickly-sweet smell of blood orange and yeast reaches my nose. I let myself get lost in it for a moment, the scent totally washing over me.

The weight of the things we have had to endure begins creeping in. My men. Their safety and well-being are my responsibility. Crosshair.

Before I’m sucked too far into the void, my senses pick up something that wasn’t there a moment ago. Dark, sweet raspberry, rose. I’d recognize that scent anywhere after the hours I’d spent committing it to memory.

Lifting my gaze from my glass, it’s pulled like a force of gravity as a Mandalorian female enters the parlor. A warmth washes over me mixed with a little relief at seeing that all too familiar T-visor. I can’t contain the shock that creeps on my face at her presence or the memory—

‘Alright everyone, today we go over the basics.’ Her voice is crisp but not cold, giving orders and yet…silky smooth. I could listen to her speak to the regs all day.

She continues barking out orders which I recognize as the basics for hand-to-hand combat. I stop listening about half way through just to commit her to memory.

Covered head to toe in dark black beskar, her visor drifts over the group of men before her. The small frame is quite a contrast to the 6ft Clone troopers in formation. She has such a commanding presence, exuding confidence. My eyes roam over her curves and stop at the dual westar -35’s attached to either side of her thighs. For a moment I swear my heart might leap out of my chest—

Raven Skirata.

My trousers suddenly become constricting forcing me to shift uncomfortably. We only ever ran into one another a few times on Kamino. Mostly casual conversation about war efforts. The sound of her laugh when I told her about some of the things we’d improvised on missions, is one my brain never lets me forget. I never did get the courage to ask her about herself.

Raven crosses over to the bar and my eyes follow her every move. It’s only now that I notice she’s skinnier than I remember. Her complexion is quite pale in comparison to the dark circles under her eyes. The sight causes my chest to tighten. What the hell happened?

"Long time no see. I was starting to think you wised up" the Twi-lek bartender says by way of greeting. There's a long pause as the Raven drops her shoulders considerably.

"Unfortunately, I'm a little low on rations to be wise" she shoots back, that silky smooth voice taking on a sarcastic tone.

Having caught the attention of a rather large man - whose been talking loud enough for everyone in here to hear - he leans over to speak to her.

"Wow, that must be real beskar.......Wonder what kind of price someone would pay for th-that...." He slurs a little at the end.

In one smooth motion, Raven ejects her vibro-blade from her vambrace - the steel practically sings - slamming his head into the bar top with the other hand. A loud thud follows. Some of the patrons stop talking to stare while the Twi-lek laughs.

Pressing her blade to his throat she leans in close she sneers, "Try to take it from me and I'll find out how much someone will pay for your head.”

The man proceeds to mumble and she cocks her head at the bar tender as if in annoyance. Letting go of the man he slumps to his knees before getting up and stumbling away, hand pressed to his temple.

I have to work had to suppress the smile that threatens to creep onto my face, the corner of my mouth twitches anyways.

"Don't mess with Mandalorians" Echo chuckles, drawing attention. Raven glances our way tensing. Mentally I command myself to look away but I can’t. For a moment I swear, even through her visor we make eye contact.

Raven

After I’m satisfied I’ve put this man in his place, I let go and he slumps to the floor. Comments fly from over my shoulder but there’s that voice I’ve heard thousands of times that stands out.

I can’t help but turn and that when I see them. The red and white plastoid. Thanking my ancestors for the helmet, I roll my eyes at just how ironic it is they are here. Sargent Hunter and the Bad Batch. He and I have spoken a few times on Kamino but the others I’ve never officially met.

Frozen in place, I stare for a second. The Sargent doesn’t take his eyes off me with an unreadable expression. If I’m lucky he won’t recognize me - I think to myself. Forcing myself to move, I turn back to the bartender with a finger in the air, signaling I’d like a shot.

My gloved hands make their way to my helmet and gently slide it off, letting my messy blonde braid at the back of my head fall. Lately I find myself caring less and less about what I look like.

Placing my helmet on the bar top, I take a breath to steady myself before taking the shot. The burning liquid a welcomed punishment if nothing else.

The bartender nods over my shoulder and I sign knowing what's coming.

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes" Cid says, throwing an arm over me like we are old pals.

I roll my hazel eyes "I'm not here because I want to be. Lets get on with it" I grumble.

"No 'Hi Cid, how are you?'" She asks.

"Nar'sheb (shove it)" I say in my native tongue with a polite smile on my face. She has no idea what I said to her but there's a snicker from someone close by.

————

"Remember what happened last time you threw your attitude around like that? " Cid scolds me as we enter her office.

Picking dust off my flight suit I sass, "I'm not here to discuss my 'attitude'. What's the mission?"

Cid moves behind her desk and crosses her arms "Fine, I need you to help out a group of fine gentlemen." She starts to explain, her tone a little too...chipper.

I raise a brow, shifting my weight and hum my dissatisfaction.

Cid immediately gets defensive, “Look it’s not my fault you mandos like to find trouble. You’re just lucky I was there to bail you out. Besides, these guys could really use someone with your skills. Dooku's private stash is being relocated by the Empire and I want you to help them get as much as possible".

The fact that she said Empire had my attention and attitude immediately shifts.

"I thought you might like that and I promise I'll give you 20%" she continues noticing my mood lighten.

"30 and it's a deal" I counter.

"Hey! I gotta pay those other guys too. I feel I'm being quite generous.”

I guess for considering who I’m speaking with… "Fine 20%, Now who are these guys?"

"They call themselves the Bad Batch. Wait here I'll go get them" she doesn’t give me a chance to respond before she heads out the door.

For a moment I stay where she left me and contemplate my next move. I can either play it like I don’t know them and take the chance their Sargent will recognize me or…

With an annoyed sigh, I stride over to her desk and set my helmet down before scanning the book shelves. Most of these I’ve read during my ‘spare time’ when Cid let me crash here before. Not surprisingly, there’s nothing new.

Leaning my back against one I take my gloves off and unbraid my hair. The blonde waves fall loosely over one shoulder ending just below my breast. It’s a wonder I ever let it get this long but a part of me just can’t bring myself to cut it.

I make myself comfortable at her desk, leaning back and kicking my boots up on it, When Cid flings the door open and scowls at me. My stomach ties itself into knots but I try to seem disinterested by playing with my hair.

There’s a chance these guys decided like the others to side with the Empire. But the odds they did and they are here? Slim but not zero.

Pushing off the desk I stand and stroll around to the front, leaning against it. A few golden strands fall into my face with the movement. My hands naturally side down towards my blasters holstered at my sides. A defense position that’s become muscle memory. The Sargent eyes follow my every move.

"Take it easy there Mando these are the good guys."

Cid rolls her eyes after seeing my body language. Once again in typical Cid fashion she hid this from me, likely knowing I wouldn’t come.

The largest one of the 4 pushes past.

"I'm Wrecker! I like to blow stuff up!" He says very loudly, sticking out his hand. My body is further tensing.

I hesitantly shake his hand, which compared to mine - even with gloves on - looks like it could easily crush it.

"Wrecker, I feel that last part was not necessary" says the one holding a datapad.

"I am Tech by the way.”

Nodding by way of greeting, I quickly glance over at their Sargent. Had I blinked I would have missed the split second of recognition before the mask of a leader slid into place.

The one with a socket arm glances over at him. Probably from the tension radiating off of me. Those amber eyes see me for exactly who I am.

My breathing picks up, but I quickly get it back under control. The former doesn’t seem to notice, not taking his eyes off me.

I decide to meet his gaze with a challenging one. Hoping to hide whatever it is he sees.

Shaking his head like he’s having a difficult time dragging himself from thought, introduces himself.

“I'm their Sargent-well was their Sargent...Hunter and this is Echo" he gestures to socket arm.

Echo waves at me with his socket and a soft smile. I nod slowly and clear my throat.

“I know who you are.”

Tech lifts his eyes from his datapad to look at me once again. Before he or anyone else can I say anything I continue,

“Raven. Raven Skirata.”

————

When I start towards my ship - alright so it's not really my ship, I stole it - I was so deep in thought I almost didn’t hear someone call out to me.

"Wouldn't it just be easier if we all went together?"

I stop not bothering to turn around "How do I know you won't leave me behind?"

If these are the clones I’ve heard so much about, there’s a good chance I can trust them. However, my instincts are telling me not to. Echo, almost like he is reading my mind says,

"You can trust us, we aren't like the others".

The sorrow in his voice fills the space between us, making me uncomfortable. I roll my shoulders, hands flexing at my sides.

Without saying anything I head up the ramp to my ship, gather a few things in my pack, and come back out to see Echo standing where I left him. The rest of the group must have gone to their ship. With a small nod he leads the way.

As we approach, I stop for a moment before heading up the ramp to admire the hull before me. An Omicron class attack shuttle but it’s been modified. It’s just as impressive if not more so in person. My brothers - specifically Mereel and Jaing - would have loved this thing, I can practically hear them fighting with even Ordo for who would pilot.

With a few steps up the ramp, I peer inside and it’s notably clean. Briefly I take in the surroundings noting the others up front in the cockpit area. Echo glances back at me sensing my hesitation.

“I’ll show you around”

I tip my visor towards him appreciatively, without saying a word.

————

Echo finishes the tour with the bunks, two on the left and two on the right. He gestures to the right, showing me which one is mine and offers me a gentle smile. With a quick glance I realize there are only 4 of them.

“Hunter usually stays up in the cockpit. You get his bunk.”

Great.

I nod my appreciation again and take my pack off my shoulder. The only things in it are a couple changes of regular clothes and some rations. I've not got much to lose that isn't my beskar these days.

Placing my pack on the lower bunk, the mythosaur skull on the back of my gloves stare back at me with hollow eyes. It’s almost like they know. Our people are gone. For a moment I wonder if anyone will even remember what it means.

I forgot Echo was still standing there until his throat clears. He says carefully, “Your father is Kal Skirata.”

My heart starts to thunder in my chest at the mention of his name. I finish settling my pack before I turn to face him. A part of me wants to answer but it feels like my mouth is full of cotton. I mentally thank my ancestors for the visor between us.

“He was one of my instructors. In my early days I mean. He was always really good to us. I heard about what he did...he got some of us out.”

Silence fills the space. I slide my helmet off, tucking it under an arm. Unable to look him in the eye, my boots seemingly interesting all the sudden.

“He’s gone.” My voice almost doesn’t sound like my own. Distant.

“Too many good people have been lost because of the war. I’m sorry to hear that.”

In his kind words, the galaxy feels a little less lonely. I finally lift my head and meet his gaze, seeing the loss there.

“I’m sorry for your loss too.”

Echo only offers me a somber smile in response. My walls go back up and I decide to change the subject. It comes out a little sassier than I had intended.

“So, you all have enhanced something or other right? I mean I was on Kamino and spoke to your Sargent a few times but mostly what I know is what I’ve heard.”

”Each of us had a unique quality. Wrecker is brute strength, Hunter has enhanced senses, and Tech is really smart.”

”Wasn’t there another member? Crosshair?”

Another sad look from him, “He chose the Empire.”

“Ah” I nod my understanding. “How do you fit in here?”

He rubs the back of his neck and chuckles.

“I was originally with the 501st under General Skywalker. We were on Skako minor and I was blown up. Captured by the Techno union and they made me mostly a machine.” Echo lifts his socket arm as a reference.

“My Captain. Rex. He and the Bad Batch rescued me. I owe them everything.”

That name. Captain Rex. It sounds familiar. ”No offense but you just met me and you trust me enough to tell me all this?” My sass once more evident.

He smiles and says “Your father spoke highly of you.”

My throat closes up at the same time pride washes over me. When I don’t respond he continues.

“I’ll leave you to get settled in” and with that he turns and heads toward the cockpit.

I watch as he reaches the others and takes a seat. Unable to do anything else other than process what he just said.

————

It takes me a while to recover from the conversation. A part of me hesitates to comm Aspen but I can’t risk compromising her.

Instead, I take my time to check my weapons (two blasters at my hip, vibro blade in my vambrace, and the various blades stashed in my boots and under my back plate). No one bothers to check on me, which is just as well. Finally, I end with checking the HUD in my helmet - which seems to be functioning fine.

Discarding my helmet on the bunk, I head for the cockpit where the others are chatting quietly. The hushed tones likely to prevent me from overhearing. Hunter stiffens as I approach which only confirms my thought.

The four seats at the front were taken up by each of the members. Leaning against the doorway I cross my arms over my chest plate.

"We don't have a reason to trust each other but once this mission is over and I'm paid, I'm gone. You won't have to worry after that.” The annoyance plastered on my face is visible to all.

They all glance at one another except Hunter, his eyes fixed on my face like he’s trying not to look anywhere else. He almost looks hurt at my comment.

"That seems reasonable" Tech says very matter of factly.

”Great. So, what's the plan?”

“Get to Serenno and scout the area." Hunter says turning his attention to space zooming by at light speed.

I sigh, "That's not much of a plan but I can improvise."

Wrecker chimes in, ”Ahaha you’ll fit right in!” Awkward silence fills the space before I break it.

“Right. Well I guess we should all rest up so let me know when we land.” Spinning on a heel, I head for the bunks.

Next Chapter here.

Wattpad link here.

Taglist: @cloneloverrrrr @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @idoubleswearimawriter @savebytheodore @savebytheodoresnonjosestuff @jediknightjana @techs-goggles9902 @clonethirstingisreal

Lemme know if you wanna be tagged in the future!

[corruptimles]

Anime North 2023 💀👍

More highlights and photos under read-more

I originally was going to have my Spamton plush with the ‘CRIMINAL’ sign but his head was too big and would make him fall

scene punk Rainbow Dash cosplayer passing by as I was strapping Reigen to my chest and saying I look amazing

people yelling ‘criminal!’ when seeing the Reigen plush

the two tabling that specifically said ‘Reigen in jail!’ (I bought a Mob pin from them)

the person who only took of photo of Reigen plushie, not me

migraine and forgot ibuprofen but Im so so strong and brave (my vision was going in and out all day)

seeing a golden guard Hunter cosplayer and we both pointed as a first reaction

another Hunter cosplayer who was a photographer so they asked for different poses

accidentally approached a table thinking the person was talking to me (they weren’t)

buying mp100 merch from a table and letting them know I was changing to Reigen later so they asked me to come back when I do

coming back and a lot of pointing and thumbs ups

being thankful I decided to bring two cosplays to switch between because wearing the coven scout cosplay meant 2-3 layers on my legs and I was melting

I walked HOW MUCH?

being in a different cosplay so it doesnt feel as weird circling the same tables over as I do

uu-chan!!!

I even thought to myself earlier that day “I wish I had an uu-chan”

people that specifically took selfies with me rather than just me (I find it endearing)

someone complimented my cosplay then asked to punch my Reigen plushie whoever you are, I felt that punch in my hand, I hope you had a good day

my eyesight is bad, and the sun made seeing my phone harder, so I kept accidentally taking videos instead of photos

didn’t want to keep the cosplayer waiting though so I opted to just screencap the videos later

two at a table called my attention for my Reigen cosplay, said I was the only Reigen they saw I said “well there’s TWO here” and pointing/posing with the plush they lamented that their Mob pins sold out just before I arrived it’s the Mob pin I bought earlier too so I let them know I actually bought it before in a different cosplay the recognition at the Reigen plushie and yelling “Reigen in jail!!” “yes, but he’s been freed!” just some silly cheering about it

anyway shout-out to @warddraws​​ because I think I’ll be using this Mob pin often

the guy that accidentally hit my shoulder:

this Miku

debating buying a poster I was staring at for a solid minute, coming back for it later and the artists being like “Reigen’s back :)”

seeing a sans and reigen magnet parody poster, panicking when ppl behind me started talking about it and heard “..he looks like-”, and sped-walked away

forgot to come back to that table.... I didnt get to actually look at their merch im sorry

I really don’t know why I felt so self-conscious there cuz I thought the poster was hilarious??

also lamenting a beautiful MP100 print I saw that was sold out, and pretty Hanzo merch because I have enough Hanzo

watched people playing DDR and being impressed and afraid of ppl that are good at it

someone who was cosplaying Mob but changed before we met (which is still :() but called my cosplay ‘crisp’

scribbled down requests from my friends when waiting (reigen kicked out of walmart) (reigen as a coven scout)

reigen gets burger king

is burger king

now scrolling through the Anime North tags and yelling at merch I didn’t see what I was there that I would’ve bought

alas

my legs are still dead but this was one of the most fun AN trips I’ve had actually

[magicpotatoobsession]

Hi, how are you?

I’ve came across your blog while I started reading Given and having questions about the manga.

I would like to know about your idea of Uenoyama, I have read your thoughts to all the post pinned, but I have still something unfinished with him.

I do really like his character even though is soo different from me and I will go to the extend to say that is probably one of my favourite.

I feel that his pain hasn’t been talked much, there are moments here and there, also when he says that ‘he will never be him’ (which hurts so bad) but all those chapters were focused on the healing journey of Mafuyu. We really never knew if Uenoyama had overcome those insecurities. He is a teenager who lost interest in anything, meets Mafuyu and falls in love with him (so we have this big new feeling), then he starts playing with enthusiasm again, then somehow not only starts dealing with his feelings but also the ones Mafuyu has for Yuki, and he is dealing with them silently (and let's remember at the beginning of the manga he didn't seem to feel much and all of sudden he's bombarded by all these new emotions which are not only his and he's just a teenager 😭 ). He is dealing with the distance between him and Mafuyu silently too. When he finished the song and the manga ended I felt uncompleted. Will he ever feel completely loved by Mafuyu or he just accept what Mafuyu can give to him? Will he always feel the shadow of Yuki between them? Is he happy with it? Will he ever feel that he ‘needs’ to be like Yuki? Is he still insecure? Is even fair to live with the shadow of the first love of YOUR first love?

Something I noticed is that when the second song came out I thought it was for him but then I realised it was more for UgetsuxAkihikoxHaruki with some similarity between him and Uenoyama, but in the song, there still is a second person, it is not fully a romantic song as I originally thought, there is still this shadow. So I went to check if there was actually any song for him and even though there is, in one part it says ‘with you I can go through another winter’ or something similar and I felt again, this shadow still present. It might be something silly and probably the character of Uenoyama would not think about it or would just accept it, but I felt that even though he was loved, the love he receives has a filter to it, he loves Mafuyu fully but will he ever be just loved? Or he’s going to be always someone who surely helps Mafuyu overcome or deal with his trauma and current boyfriend, but will he ever just be his lover? Can he just be him only (I'm not sure if I explained myself well)? I felt that between Akihiko and Haruki there wasn't the presence of Ugetsu when they got together (even if I still think that Haruki is uncompleted as well). I understand of course the trauma of Mafuyu and that he's paying attention to not make the same mistakes but-

I don't know there are a lot of things about Uenoyama's feelings I don't understand. For some reason when I think about him, my heart aches although he's loved.

I wish the sequel would talk about these more but I'm not sure if it's going to focus on that. Sorry I kinda ended up writing too much

Hello! I'm good thank you!

Thanks for stopping by my blog. I'll keep my answer short because I feel like a lot of the questions you posed will be answered in this new sequel manga, Given 10th Mix. I have a huge feeling that we will get a lot more about Ritsuka's struggles. I completely feel you, I thought a lot of his feelings and emotions were left unresolved and then when Kizu announced the sequel, I was so relieved! So yeah, basically I agree with everything and now I think all we can do is keep our eyes peeled. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I'll also do a first impressions of the first chapter soon! And I'll touch on many of the things you mentioned! Please look out for that! I hope that you're having a lovely day!

____

My Given Metas

[titleleaf]

@rocket-eighty-eight mentioned you on a post “The real saw trap is reading an incredibly wrong...”:

@titleleaf WHERE did you see this red dragon take?!?!!

​Why, here on Tumblr Dot Com, of course! I thought I had it screencapped but I managed to restrain myself from engaging with the original post -- the OP was all of 20 and God knows I made absolutely boneheaded Tumblr posts when I was 20, I make some pretty stupid ones now. Regardless, it had pretty hardcore "hasn't actually read Red Dragon" energy. As you might also expect it was a post gassing up the NBC Hannibal s3 finale, framing Will's participation in the killing of Dolarhyde as him embracing queerness and aligning himself with his true love, Hannibal, rather than his fake comphet love, Molly.

Paraphrased, their interpretation was: "the end of Red Dragon, the book, has Will triumphing over Dolarhyde and successfully saving his wife and child, reaffirming the integrity of heterosexual marriage and exorcising the queer threat that Lecter poses to Will's identity of himself as straight, while the show's s3 finale has the better and more affirming depiction: Will leaving behind his wife and child and going to be with Hannibal and embrace his nature as a killer, showing that he's accepted his true self and what he holds in common with Lecter." Which... all of that aside, that's not remotely what happens in the book Red Dragon!

The ending of the novel is so notoriously downbeat and ambivalent that I have read multiple pieces of academic writing commenting on it, and it's something both film adaptations have felt the need to change. It's a fucking downer. You can't even feel good about Molly killing Dolarhyde because you've seen enough of Dolarhyde as a sympathetic wounded beast to wish that outcome, however inevitable genre conventions make it, could be different. Will's relationship to his stepson is already fatally wounded before Dolarhyde shows up, and Will's marriage is fucking toast -- even as Will's lying in his hospital bed he knows this, that Molly will leave him because of what's happened, and by the time SOTL takes place it certainly seems to have come true. Will's physical and mental well-being have been burned through, and by the next time we hear about him he's a deeply traumatized alcoholic whose face looks like damn Picasso drew it, and, we can assume, very single. Heterosexual love is not enough in this book to save anybody! Not Dolarhyde and Reba, not Will and Molly, not the Leedses, not the Jacobis, not Dolarhyde's mother and her new husband, not even Freddy Lounds and Wendy. Will comes to a fuller understanding of the "vicious urges" within him that humanity more broadly struggles with, not just outliers like Dolarhyde and Lecter, but it's not a comfortable exorcism of the destabilizing threat of violence, the emotional tone remains uneasy and weird. It's a bummer. Nobody is living happily ever after and it's Lecter who gets the last word. (And he's such a bitch about it, too, I'm obsessed.)

My own feelings on how the show does the RD plotline with Dolarhyde in s3 aside (short version: badly) I think people have a tendency to back-project the show's framing of Will and Hannibal's relationship onto the first novel when it doesn't apply. Their relationship in the book is interesting and imo very fun but it's very different because the rest of the canon from which the show will draw to pad it out just does not exist yet -- the show sort of Frankensteins together parts of Clarice's plotlines to make up the difference and while I enjoy the results in isolation Will and Hannibal's relationship dynamic in the show isn't remotely a straightforward translation from book to screen or some kind of more correct, uncensored version of what the book was too timid to show. (Clarice's whole perverse union with Lecter in Hannibal the book follows its own different trajectory, and I can see how people read it as liberating and/or affirming, but uhhhh I'll get back to them on that later.) I don't think the show does the fusion of those two relationships particularly elegantly (or the distribution of other aspects of the Hannibal-Clarice relationship onto other characters' relationships to Hannibal, though it did bring me one of my favorite parts of s3 with Bedelia) but I think it's really muddied people's ability to talk about the actual books (and films) on the merits of what they actually contain versus what they assume they must contain or would like them to contain. It's a hot mess express.

[turtlebros4u]

❤️🐢💙🐢💜🐢🧡🐢

A collection of my most recent full drawings of the boys. These have their own accompanying fics here:

Raphael

Michaelangelo

Leonardo

Donatello

Art rant below.

Alright so art rant here. I've been pretty out of practice of digital art for a while and this whole fandom has deeply inspired me. I'm really appreciative.

Raph: This was my first one and I was not used to the brushes and some of the layer capabilities of my program but overall I like it. The pose is nice and I originally had a sketch of a blank OC template in his lap to customize if ever I wanted. The background ain't halfbad but I think Donnie's is my fav.

Mikey: Probably my favorite for color balance and lighting. The angle was very fun also. Also those ripped jeans were fun. Very little to complain about except that I wish I found the speckle brush for this one. Overall my favorite of the four.

Leo: Super lazy on the background, but the angle was fun to try and emphasize his muscles and waist. Absolutely vivid I love the colors. I'm awful at finishing flat colors before shading and keep mxing up the layers for them but you can't tell from the pic. Need to learn how to color reflective material better, the sword is very mediocre I know I can do better if I learn.

Donnie: Absolutely my favorite background even though it's simple. I may have set the foreground a bit too dark to see his features clearly but it's fine for now. I cannot refrain myself from drawing suspicious bulges in Donnie's pants even in otherwise SFW stuff.

All of them: I need to remember to color their nails properly lol otherwise extremely happy about these. Great warm up drawings to put oil in my gears. I have better understanding of colors and brushes.

Having them all done now has unblocked my mental obsession and now I can start drawing unrestrained smut more art for these wonderful men 😈

❤️🐢💙🐢💜🐢🧡🐢

Happy New Year to all!

[vargaslovinghours]

Lucky number seven 🎲✨ (1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6)

Oh yeah btw there is a considerable amount of Edgar/Scriabin this time around so like - look out for that I guess lol

[MAY9] Thinking about healing plane Edgar had me very excited, big anticipation and looking forward to seeing him hehe ♪

[MAY16] I didn’t plan for it, but Incoming was basically the prototype of trying out minicomics with sketchier panels - it was a good start! You can also see more of the panel differences in the stream itself, Nny’s hair probably being the biggest one haha

[MAY16] Speaking of - since Scriabin’s expression was central to this panel, it’s interesting to me to see the original draft vs. the final version

[MAY18] I ended up with this mini in multiple stages of completion because I was struggling with it which made for some interesting progression-style gifs!

[MAY18]  I think this one was definitely the most extreme out of all the panels, just pop! There they are

[JUN8] Shy Lady!Edgar ♥ Too hot out to wear much, but too embarrassed to show off ✨

[JUN8] Lady!Scriabin getting into mischief she shouldn’t and bothering Edgar, the usual. I love writing out keysmashes, there’s something very funny about it to me

[JUN13] Mwah mwah mwah, so many hearts and happies 💕

[JUN14] And Also With You hands ♥ I made myself a little cheat sheet of the order the shackles attached themselves, I wanted to make an injury index as well but couldn’t swing it, maybe next time

[JUN14] A set of Vargas-style eye expressions! Specifically Edgar, or at least his body

[JUN14] A couple of pleading and contrite Edgars; got the image specifically as a spacefiller, it all worked out exactly as planned haha

[JUN29] I wasn’t kidding, I was very 👀✨💕 about his shirt riding up lol

[JUL2] Possibly the best bonewings I’ve drawn so far, I almost wish they were more of the focus haha. Well they are here! Central and important ✨

[JUL17] I still so love how goofy Demon!Scriabin is, casual and light! Doodling him spinning his tail was fun ♪

[JUL2] They still fight like cats and dogs, natural enemies and counterparts. The chains are just an additional directional tool, it’s all in the utilization

[JUL9] The aforementioned sketchy scratchy minicomic project, finally in full swing! The first one had them quietly interested and in agreement ♪

[JUL9] Well, at first anyway haha

[JUL9] They just can’t help themselves ♥

[JUL9] He’s baby your honour

[JUL17] No one likes a peeping tom, Scriabin!

[JUL17] Come run away with me to a convent with only a bunch of other women come onnnnn, we can totally pretend to just be devout about it ♥

[JUL17] What was I watching, I think it was an r/sapphoandherfriend video and there was a statue of two topless ladies kissing in the background of a failed proposal of a gentleman to the lady who owned said statue lol; an extremely cute pose on top of the environmental storytelling haha

[JUL17] More kisses, sleepy, fuzzy, out-of-it kisses

[JUL18] This was meant to be the original shape of Scriabin’s sheer shawl(?) in the digital Drider doodles but I unfortunately combined the layers before I meant to :’) At least I got to draw it here! Spiderweb design 🕸

[JUL18] @lunavos​ made mention of Scriabin holding onto Edgar with all his spare legs and mentally I was like “Funny you should say that-” haha, I’d only drawn as much maybe a day or so beforehand!

[JUL18] Just rests his entire body weight onto his oh so helpless human victim ♪

[JUL19] Continuing the trend of starting and then just not finishing pose ideas lol, I ended up losing steam because I think I had dialogue in mind? But I didn’t write anything down so I don’t actually remember :’D Floating Scriabin is always fun tho ♪

[JUL25] Not art, but I jumped back into Tomodachi Life for like, five seconds to quickly make an Edgar Mii because it is my mission to make the Vargases in as many character-customizable/life sims as possible. Unfortunately I literally only had one apartment left open so no Scriabin this time around :( Let’s just say this is while he’s still hanging out in Edgar’s head; I have given him at least one speech line to indicate that Edgar’s talking to him in there lol

[JUL29] It doesn’t count as long as you declare it first! I’m quite pleased with Scriabin’s expression in the second panel, cute ♥

[JUL28] Felt very inspired by WASU_ART’s extremely cute paper dolls and made a base ♪ Does it defeat the purpose of a live-action animation tool if I make a vector with a static pose? Hmmm

[JUL30] What you mean you don’t just casually draw softcore at the library using their scrap paper and pens? I made sure I was away from any potentially bothered eyes lol dw

[JUL30] A healing plane Scriabin for a warmup, what a floof <3

[AUG1] Another panel from the scratch project, I’m so amused with how his face turned out lol

[AUG1] Kiss-dip Edgar, it’s a good way to trick him into hugging him/holding onto him for dear life

[AUG1] And, done! What do I win? Even for just a sketch, I’m quite pleased with the depth on his shaded arm haha

[AUG1] I unfortunately had to scrap this one because I wrote down a specific injury and then forgot it when I went to draw, so it’s more like an offshoot of Restful Dreams - the expressions still turned out nice tho so here they are ✨

[AUG1] Scriabin yelling at a very aggressive scribble, I mean Shmee. Poor Todd, trying to play peacekeeper between them ♥

[AUG1] He just completely deflates in water, amazing ✨ It’s always fun to draw soaked-over-the-head stuff, it’s so silly haha

[AUG5] A handsome Edgar in a nice jacket and turtleneck combo - even tho he was drawn in Summer, just gotta give that Autumnal vibe

[AUG5] How many doubles would Edgar realistically need or have? Time to go thrifting for the less obvious necessities!

[AUG5] A brushed and put-together Scriabin taunting Edgar into fluster? He’s just too handsome, right?

[AUG5] A digital Scriabin that I had a lot of fun with the composition of - the string comes from offscreen and cuts him off like a panel but it’s not a panel! Magic ✨

[AUG6] Scriabin has Edgar’s attention taken away from him for two seconds and he gets So Mad about it haha

[AUG6] Cornered and kissed, what a terrible fate 💕

[AUG6] Ladies do be shopping tho. They’re so tall! They must get asked to pull stuff off the top shelves all the time

[AUG6] If ever chocolate was an essential item, it would be now

[AUG7] Don’t pick on Edgar, she doesn’t always think through her statements! Just because that makes it easy to twist her words!

[AUG7] Hugs ♥ Hugs for Edgar ♥ Time for Scriabin cuddles ♥ No hope of escape ♥

[AUG7] Exit, pursued by Scriabin. You can’t hide from him, Edgar!

[AUG7] Now poke me back

[AUG7] Maybe if you stopped being mean to each other you wouldn’t keep being mad at each other? No? Okay cool

[AUG9] An Eros and Apollo-style Scriabin, specifically based on the frame around 0:53 - super fluffy! And oddly sludgy (And definitely not at all inspired by the post that introduced me to this song in the first place, Scriabin could never be described as egoistic! Lol)

[AUG12] A mini I don’t plan to finish, but it’s still cute

[AUG12] Come on, Edgar, you know he’s playing you

[AUG12] So excited ♪

[AUG12] Y’know Edgar, I think that might have been a trick actually

[AUG12] Seeing something he shouldn’t be seeing! You know the verse about plucking out one’s eye if it causes you to sin? Does that mean his main, already blank eyes or...?

[AUG13] I cut the punchline ‘cause it gives away the entire joke, but I do love Edgar’s sleepy indignance and Scriabin’s *scandalized gasp* lol

[AUG13] Out using a library computer perhaps, got a lot of studying to do

[AUG13] “I was way faster when I was a computer!”

[AUG13] Scriabin and Jake discussing stuff that Edgar’s too uncomfortable with ♪ There’s so much to learn!

[AUG15] I really like the composition of this one hehe

[AUG15] I ended up scrapping this pose but her face really did turn out very cute ♥

[AUG15] Lady snuggles ♥ Scriabin’s close to listening to her heart 💕

[AUG20] Was struck with the image of them holding each other’s chibi counterparts -  they’re both so round and tiny!

[AUG21] What ended up being a single panel continuation of Outgoing, he’s gotta be in there somewhere!

[AUG22] Ladyverse Biblical Vargases 💕✨ What no I don’t already have a song picked out specifically for them you can’t prove anything

[AUG22] Casually sloppy Lady!Scriabin ✨ An open pose is very cute

[AUG25] Uncomfortable Edgar, inching away so as not to alert the invitation-extender :)

[SEP17] Somebody asking him about his scars just one too many times, can’t believe this was inspired by Spamton of all things lol

[SEP17] If he can smell “sad” you better believe he can smell other things too ♪ I’ve written down Edgar saying “That’s not a smell” more than once, why do I find it so funny lol

[SEP20] Guess what someone was doing right outside our window :)

[SEP20] Confrontation?? No way! But Scriabin knew that haha ♪

So that’s the end of May through September! A few different kinds of styles, digital stuff, longer projects - branching out :0 It’s fun to see :D

[hinamie]

Hi Hina! How are you? I just want to start off by saying I love your art 💞 it reminds me of cookies... or bread (does that make sense??) and i just wanna eat it up (please take it as a compliment 🙈)

I have a question... it might be a bit silly but I hope you don't mind. I've been trying to get back into art myself, used to love it as a kid but somewhere along the way I just stopped... I'm not sure what happened but it's something I still love doing and want to do. One problem I had tho (and still have) is that I don't have my own style? When I was little I would usually browse through art and if I see something I like I tried to recreat it, but in the end it looks exactly like the original art (the amount of times i had to convince ppl that I didn't trace it.... I really didn't)

I think it might be that I don't have an initial start process 🤔 when I start drawing I'd look at my reference and just put those shapes right in as I see it... there is no sketch or lineart just a final product. And now I don't even know where to start? Am i over thinking it and should I just go for it... or do you have any tips for a beginner?

I'm sorry this is kinda long and feels like a ramble. Please feel free to ignore ♥️

no need to apologize!! i’ve talked a lot about my thoughts on the art style fixation that a lot of people get trapped in, but the tl;dr of it is draw first and style will come naturally later so don't paralyze yourself into a slump by believing that you Can't draw without solidifying your art style

also smth i feel like i've mentioned before sdfsgfj but i was very much in the same boat of just copying art i liked 1:1 when I was younger so i definitely empathize with your struggle of not knowing how to start branching out into your own stuff . copying was good practice but i was definitely treating it like a crutch . but u know that’s where doing fanart really helped for me because since the characters Exist already i can treat them like little dolls fr me to dress move around, n it overall feel less like i’m stuck floundering completely trying to conjure up a 100% original piece. 

that being said, if fanart is something you’re into, maybe u can use that as a way 2 push yourself also! u can still look at references (in fact you Should look at references) but rather than copying what you see exactly, maybe u can try drawing character in a different pose, or from a different angle ! it doesn’t have to be anything super complex or elaborate, just get into the habit of not drawing exactly what you see so u slowly build confidence in your ability to compose your own piece. eliminates the “did you trace that” aspect also!

as for u saying u have a lack of start process, i rly do recommend sketching .  not only is it practice and a good warmup, it’s a visual brainstorm !! sketching is how u get ur ideas down on paper its like working with yourself to chip away the scraps n hone in on the idea u want to convey. plus with sketching there’s no pressure to make smth that looks “good”, the whole point is that it’s unpolished ! n i find what happens a lot of the time is i dont realize i even Have an idea until ive been sketching fr a bit and i realize Oh i can make smth out of this :) 

i hope smth here was helpful!! i'm very happy u like my art and i wish u the best of luck creating your own <3

[skydigiblogs]

sky and company continue to be mad about tri

man, i just started tri: loss, and that whole starting montage capped off with that ending inquiry by the narrator--- the "what happens to those who are not chosen?" could have been pretty interesting if tri seemed at all interested in talking about the existence of apocalymon beyond being meicoomon's macguffin dad :/

[this got stupidly long so i'm putting it under a readmore]

like idk? having yggy be the enemy at the root of tri's conflict, retconning the ultimate enemy the original digidestined fought to just be the dark masters (but now they don't talk and piemon just t-poses menacingly at you), and then still having that question be a surface-level part of your movie series is just... frustrating, man.

i know i'm apocalymons georg over here, yeah, yeah, not everything has to be apocalymon, but like. this is supposed to be the adventure canon, and tri did bring his ass into this with meicoomon's entire existence. so???

if you're going to ask "what happens to those who are not chosen..." don't y'all already know?? lmao??? at least with digimon, they get forgotten and coagulate in death to become depressed polyhedrons of flesh and machinery

tri had the opportunity with a lot of its toys to ask some very interesting questions about how the world is structured in the adventure canon, and imo the question of "what happens to those who are not chosen" obviously brings in apocalymon, but also gets at something i think 02TB really nailed.

that's to say, tri wants you to ask this question but really doesn't give you anything interesting to think about with it, despite obviously wanting you to think about himekawa and tapirmon as "those who are not chosen," but from my understanding (i'll correct myself if i'm proven wrong), besides just being pissed at homeostasis and then dying in a field, himekawa doesn't actually... do anything to really ponder that question for the audience??? she just exists to be cartoonishly evil and suffer to suffer, like. come on bandai.

this is contrasted by 02TB, which takes from this idea of destiny and tries to flip it on its head. whether we believe rui and ukkomon's interpretations of events is something i want to read a bunch of essays on (god i enjoyed 02TB but i also feel like i need to really dig into some good posts talking about translation theory before i touch it in an essay of my own). that said, it also asks this same question to a degree: what happens to those who are not chosen (when there becomes no such thing anymore)? we choose our own destiny.

(also yes i know it's funny i say himekawa exists just to suffer when rui's backstory is Like That, but also. i would argue that at least rui is a character. himekawa gets 3 movies of screentime before loss and all i can tell you about her is that she doesn't like being called himi, her partner digimon is dead, and she's okay with lying to people for her goals. we know nothing of her backstory beyond tapirmon being dead so she can suffer. what was her adventure like? what was she thinking while she OKed the shit done to meicoomon in the name of her dead partner? tri does nothing to answer this, while 02TB at least tries to tell a story about rui and his relationship to his Maybe Dead, Maybe Not Dead partner ukkomon.)

in tri, himekawa never gets over the loss of tapirmon, and gets duped by gennai (Sith Ver.) into helping trigger a reboot, but like??? characterization wise, i want her to actually engage with this question, since she's the one who uttered it before the narrator echoes it in the intro to tri 4. is tri's answer to its own question really "those who are not chosen wallow in their own misery and make it the problem of those around them?"

apocalymons george is a statistical outlier and---

i really wish there had been much tighter writing with tri and its attempts to setup and engage with the themes it brings up on a surface level, because i do think, actually, having himekawa's basic sketch of a character could have been very interesting had it been handled better. i actually think the idea of exploring a similar theme to what apocalymon's whole deal was (those unchosen wallowing in their misery), especially thanks to the libra being from his code (if that also wasn't just a mystery box symptom like the digimon kaiser outfit for dark gennai), could have been a very good way to tie together tri's thematic core.

but like also, so far, as i'm starting movie 4, i don't even know what tri's thematic core is!!! and i've watched this whole movie series before!!! what do you want to be? what is your identity?

like okay, maybe the throughline really is "suffer, then," because they execute meicoomon in the final movie so she can die for the memories of others! they martyr meicoomon like they martyred tapirmon, and i still don't think that's a satisfying discussion of that theme if that's the question they want to ask! augh!!!

i know a large part of this has to do with how tri was produced but like. man.

man.

[igglemouse]

Get to Know Me - Sims Edition

I was tagged by @autonomousllama and @cactusblossom, thank you both for tagging me and I guess I am getting at this late but here it is!

What’s your favourite Sims death?

The old age death because it means a sim has lived like and are gently passing on! I also love that they give a little salute like “It was fun while it lasted but PEACE!” if I have a chance to give a salute and famous last words before I die I know I would!

Alpha CC or Maxis Match?

Maxis Match not because it looks better but because it blends in with the game.

Do you cheat your sims weight?

Never! 

Do you use move objects?

I imagine it is hard not to when you are a competitive sims player lol.

Favourite Mod?

Hmmm, this is hard. I will say Wicked Whims though. I know, I know, you all think i’m super horny over here but really sex is a big part of life it is, one can argue, one of the most important aspects of life itself as one must have sex to create life (kind of at least) so WW really expands on that. Just get rid of the sex animations it adds, ignore that completely, it still adds an indepth menstrual system, attraction system, fertility system, etc! 

WW actually determines how many kids my sims will have for example since some are naturally more fertile than others so yeah!

2nd place is MC Command which is great for just having more control. I mostly use that to make over townies when I see them lol.

First Expansion/Game Pack/Stuff Pack?

The first one they released? It was either Luxury party or the camping one right? Whichever was the first one lol.

Do you pronounce live mode like aLIVE or LIVing?

DO IT LIVE! **** IT! WE’LL DO IT LIVE!

Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made?

Oooh, I actually don’t make many sims since I play legacy and just rely on genetics but I will say Araceli! I made her when I relaunched a legacy and I spent so much time on her! I loved her! I thought of bringing her back in some form so we might not have seen the last of her actually!

Have you made a simself?

I have for the fun of it but i’ve never played it. I hardly make myself in games. I just always think of a character I guess.

Which is your favorite EA hair color?

Dark brown.

Favorite EA hair?

If you go back I had a vampire in my story named Edda, she wears it. It’s the real short one but ummm, the short one. Most people know by now I do love short hair lol

(EDIT: Not sure why I referenced Edda...Laverne wears this hairstyle lol. There, that is a more recent sim) 

Favorite life stage?

Young Adult! EA just put all the fun in that phase though. 

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay?

I am not that good at building...

Are you a CC creator?

I’ve made poses years ago!

Do you have any Simblr friends or a Sim Squad?

I have simblr friends but part of no squad. I feel like a mostly outsider or lone wolf in the simblr community but im nice to everyone!

Do you have any sims merch?

I WISH!

How has your “Sims style” changed throughout your years of playing?

I don’t think it has honestly lol.

What’s your origin id?

Igglemouse!

Who’s your favorite CC creator?

Hmmm, I don’t know! 

How long have you had simblr?

Since 2014 since the game launched in 2014 and I literally had a post the first day it launched.

You can even see this post here!

https://igglemouse.tumblr.com/post/96447498872/this-is-lourdes-fuentes-my-very-first-sim-in-sims

I’ve been a Sims 4 OG as the kids would like to say and my simblr has really flunctuated in all that time. I’ve had posts getting 100s of likes to now just around 10 lol, I’ve come full circle!

It’s kind of sad because @floofymilk-blog was a real good online friend I had known for years and she was someone you saw constantly liking my posts and commenting at first and she has completely disappeared from like...everything. So yeah T_T, from discord, from steam, from switch, and I always wonder what happened to her and seeing that post and seeing her in the notes there just makes me sad but...she was the biggest AC fan I’ve ever known T_T and a big Sims fan too!

She was Japanese and disappeared before the release of Snowy Escape and I wonder if she would have loved that pack :/

How do you edit your pictures?

I used to do A LOT more but honestly, I just gave up lol. Now I just use a reshade, add a border, and move on. Lazy, I guess? But I’m posting legacy content. What is called a Plotacy. If I hung up on editing every single picture it would slow me down a ton. You can see the story content I tried it was a lot more edited!

What expansion/ gamepack is your favorite?

Hmmmmmm seasons, yeah, Seasons!

I will tag @joannebernice - @mysimsloveaffair - @wolfavens - @wannabecatwriter - @lollipopsimblr - @thereesespiece

If you have done it already or dont want to no worries!

[joviantwelve]

beat the Live A Live remake...I bought it when it came out but my ADHD ass didn't wanna play it until I braced myself fully for all the secret bosses, because I wanted to be completionist this time around...

...was very worth it though! what a good fucking game! everything they added made it even better; the QoL to the battle system alone is just huge. ("there were weaknesses and resistances in this game??" I say, having literally beaten the original)

almost feel like I should get a music player on my blog again so I can throw the new mix of Megalomania up there, because I had it on my blog like 10 years ago and had asks like "oh my god what is that song from??" LMFAO. full circle

I wish every cult classic could get another shot at life with this much love and care. and hey, now it's on Steam, so this is me telling you you have no excuse!!

full game spoilers below, but I had a few screenshots I wanted to take. also some additional, equally spoilery commentary:

...mostly of boss kills, because I started with Prehistory (I like going chronologically, it pleases my brain), so I figured "well I'm grinding forever to take down the mammoth, as well as other superbosses I heard were Hard, I might as well get screenshot trophies of everything"

poop throw MVP

adding voice acting really makes you confront a few things. why did they make ou di wan lee sound hot.

oh my god FUCK THIS SWORD GUY. I was trying to go for oboromaru no kill route so I had to just...grind on ghosts...then this ghost sword guy keeps killing my ass...sob...sob...I actually almost gave up here

then I didn't

the fish was so much easier in comparison man

oboromaru why is your chapter like this

then I blanked and didn't take a picture of killing gamahebi because I was too overcome by the fact I 1) successfully did the no kill run and 2) never have to do this again

awarded myself with gay cowboys next. I didn't go into this thinking "time to award myself with gay cowboys" but like, I last played this game before I realized I was gay. so like. it kind of just hit me all at once. oh no this Did something to me didn't it

I took this screenshot because I was stoned as hell and mad dog's stupid little smug gayboy pose just really got me

hey can I also say I just really like the HD2D style? I never played Octopath so this was my first....and like...this really fucking blows pretty much any SNES FF remake out of the water. I know they don't do this for every game because of Budget I'm sure, but like, God I Wish Every SNES Square RPG Could Get This Treatment

gay???????????

is it just me or is odie o'bright the hardest final boss of the individual character chapters????? fuck this guy

out of context live a live

I love that they added voice to the combat too. hearing Akira go "YOU SUCK!" in a giant mech as he evades an attack is just

so fucking funny to hear in a final boss fight

ok OD-10 had THE biggest glow-up though

every time my eyes got to grace this battlefield/boss I was like mMMmMMMMMMMM

normal final boss fight :)

:(

i love masaru he's just a completely normal dude

THE FINAL CHAPTER HAS SO MANY EXTRA BOSSES AHHH.

FISH 2

actually can I just say I LOVE how they localized the middle ages to be all shakespearean

which means that not only do oersted/odio get to be the hugest drama queens, every boss in the area in general just has the most delightful dialogue

FFXIV has taught them well. did you know the dialogue in FFXIV is NOT like that in japanese?! I can't even imagine

it was around this point that I realized doing EVERY character dungeon probably overleveled me hardcore

and, in that respect, I can see why you may have accidentally stumbled upon the fact that running from 100 encounters nets you a secret boss. I got sick of that shit around when Lei was one-shotting everything first turn

but.

not in a bad way necessarily. like I knew going in this was definitely going to happen since I'm doing EVERYTHING in a chapter where you can technically bumrush the final boss of the game

so I guess my advice is, if you find the battle system a bit difficult during boss fights, leveling solves most ills

the other ills can be taken care of by Cube

I admit I didn't vibe so much with Pure Odio upon first playthrough, mostly because it's hard to compete with Megalomania being there, but I really vibed with the new mix

but THEN

but THEN!!!!

they EXPANDED ON THE FINAL BOSS FIGHT???! HUH???

(ME LOSING MY MIND)

it's like something out of fanfic??? in the best way??? just this small little thing that really makes an impact on the character arc BUT NOT in a way that destroys anything that was there previously

just a small little detail...this is what I kinda wish for more remakes honestly?? expansion isn't BAD. some of the issues with modern remakes of games from 20 years ago is that they DON'T change anything. being TOO loyal can hurt sometimes

also oersted's VA just fuckin KILLED it good job my dude

gay cowboy dad giving the saddest boy in the universe some sympathy

these credits were really nice. always gotta love Montage Credits

OH....WUH...WAHHH....

AND THEN

THE TITLE SCREEN!!!!!!!!!!!

WHHWAHHWAAHHHHHHHHHHH

live a live is so good.....................

i'm so glad this game can reach more people now. definite 10/10

[maypop-the-dragon]

Self-Portrait, 2024-02-02

↓ Explanation and WIPs under the cut! ↓

The way I see myself has gone through various phases throughout the years, and lately I've been feeling some of those old ways of being resurface. I had the idea to create a "self-portrait" that includes several of my various "iterations" all posing together. I'll describe each thing in (roughly) chronological order.

The yellow blobs in the sky are hallucinations I used to have in the dark as a small child. I think they're related to my visual snow. I can still "summon" them sometimes if I have them on my mind. They're yellow, roughly square blobs with oblong black ovals for "eyes," resembling the flip-blocks from Super Mario World. They would sort of vibrate while seemingly moving toward me.

The background is meant to be a Minecraft snowy tundra. I am a long-time Minecraft player, and I have fond memories of snowy tundra biomes specifically for some reason. I am particularly nostalgic for the sound of breaking ice and the way the roses contrasted with the snow. I used to use the seed blank to build on MCPE, I once saw a "portal to mars" tutorial and tried to replicate it and that was on a snowy world, and I think I tried the 1.5 update on a snowy world. I feel attached to that one world for some reason. I remember there was a ravine with lapis. The silliest thing? I cared about the lapis even though I was playing in Creative Mode.

The cartoonish sleeping child is me as a child. Back in elementary school, I would draw comics a lot, and I was often a character in them. My art style at the time was influenced by Diary of a Wimpy Kid and later Big Nate. I only had access to lined paper, but I made the best of it by using the lines to measure out panels. They were each 4 lines tall, but I later changed it to 5 lines. Speaking of the comics I used to make, the new Mr. What-The is still in development.

The big green guy is an anthropomorphic "mullet dinsoaur." This long-haired long-neck boi was originally not anthro. I drew it and mullet dinosaurs kind of became my "thing" for a while, though I only managed to draw two! (I hadn't yet learned the efficient drawing techniques I know now) That character is still my profile picture on YouTube and some other platforms. At some point I would sometimes semi-involuntarily visualize myself as an anthropomorphic version if it. (This was before I decided to just actually be a furry.) Interestingly, I just remembered that I did the visualizing thing with Ord from Dragon Tales once when I cried as a small child.

The blue-gray Furret is based on a quick edit I once made of the official Furret artwork using the iOS Photos app. I also used a similar blue-gray Furret as an icon for my secret YouTube channel. When Furret Walk was popular, I had an intense Furret obsession phase. I would doodle Furret all the time, which also helped me get better at drawing fast and loose, and I still have my Furret plush. This obsession was so intense that I sometimes wished I could become a Furret and just be a wholesome creature. (Now that I think of it, I suppose I still prefer to be a wholesome creature.) I was even happy because of the specific appearance of the wrinkles on my cheeks when I smiled very wide. This phase was also when I discovered my desire to cuddle when I was doodling Furrets and drew two of them hugging and cried a lot about it.

The red, hovering, serpent-like creature is a self-insert character from an earlier concept of my website. It lives in space and its body is filled with a jelly substance that it can manipulate psychically to move its body. The scruff on its neck is an excess store of said substance, which is pushed out to extend limbs such as arms. It is actually a modified version of a similar creature I made up specifically to be easy and interesting to animate for music videos. That original creature was white and had no eyes or canonical home. Aside from that, it was the same.

The other... creature... is my current fursona. That's me, May. Me now. My character design draws inspiration from many sources that all call back to various aspects of myself and my past. You can see that it's aesthetically more feminine or androgynous than the mullet iteration, which is because I have since explored what gender expression I am most happy with a lot more. That applies to much of the design really. It’s much more intentionally constructed to represent who I want to be. I am a cute silly dragon now, rawr!!

After writing all that, I'm starting to think my personality really is just several mental illnesses in a trenchcoat.

WIPs

I heard of posting WIPs to prove you’re not an AI and I think that’s a neat idea so here you go... (The weenor is specifically planned because I don't usually draw characters with external genitalia. You can't even see the bulge in the final drawing, though. What a waste.)