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boymeetsweevil · 3 years

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SS6 - MYG, FLUFF, 2900w

For @bangtancentricsblogsmain because i wanted her to suffer :)

At 3pm, on a Thursday, there’s a knock on Yoongi’s bedroom door. He had come through that very same door not an hour earlier to lock himself away from the world after a particularly draining day. After dropping his bag somewhere on the ground, he showered, removed his contacts, and pushed the laundry waiting to be folded over to the other half of his bed in record time.

Normally he would have joined his roommate and their mutual friend circle who were seated on the couch in the communal living room, eating snacks and watching a game. But this time he begged out with a quiet mumble about needing rest.

When Hoseok knocks, Yoongi makes a feeble sound to signal he’s still, unfortunately, awake.

“What,” Yoongi grumbles.

He attempts to sit up on one pale elbow and then decides against it. Hoseok’s lips twitch up at how cranky Yoongi is pre-nap before sinking back down as his expression darkens into a pitying and somber mix.

“She’s here. And, uh, she’s asking for you.” Hoseok’s eyes dart back to some unseen spot in the living room.

“Tell her I’m asleep.”

“I know you’re not asleep, Yoongi!” Your voice rings from outside the bedroom and Hoseok cringes sympathetically.

“I’ll just leave,” Hoseok says when you shove your torso through the crack in the doorway.

You wait to start speaking until the bedroom door is shut and the noises from the TV outside wash away.

“Why haven’t you been answering my texts?”

“Sorry, I’ve been busy,” is all you get.

The backpack you carry drops unceremoniously to the ground with a thud and any dregs of sleep cloying to Yoongi’s brain vanish with the sound. It’s with a valiant effort that he shoves his face deeper into his pillow. You cock your head to look at your best friend and snort at him.

Yoongi’s glasses are skewed across his face. There are thin pink lines marring the left side of his face from lying pressed to the wrinkled sheets with glasses on. The platinum blond waves of his hair, normally coiffed styled, are squashed flat against his forehead. Rarely ever does he look this rumpled and it’s hilarious.

“That’s okay, I’ll just tell you what I wrote in the texts,” you say as you make your way further into Yoongi’s small room.

A look down at your feet shows him that you’ve shoved your feet into the pair of bunny slippers he got for guests you when he and Hoseok first moved in almost a year ago.

“Basically,” you continue. “There’s good news and there’s bad news. Pick one.” You help yourself to his desk chair and swivel it so it faces him.

“Bad news first,” Yoongi says after some deliberation. He pulls the covers up to his chin more securely.

“Smart choice,” you nod sagely. “The bad news is I’m gonna have to paint your face.”

“What the hell,” Yoongi barks.

“But the good news is that I have a new job as a face painter at the kids’ section of the farmer’s market this season!”

“How is that good news for me?”

“It means I’ll be slightly less broke and I can stop asking you to buy me breakfast before our 9am.”

Yoongi doesn’t really know whether to laugh or to cry. Firstly, there’s no way in hell he’s letting you paint his face. You’ve always been shit at drawing and letting you showcase that on his skin doesn’t do him any favors. Secondly, he’s in his twenties and he doesn’t even go to the farmer’s market. There’s no reason for him to set foot on the town commons during sunny Saturdays for local produce, much less to get his face painted next to a pen full of smelly goats and screaming kids. He’s just not seeing the connection between you getting this job and him getting his face painted. He stares at you with the hope that you’ll back off but he finds that you’re just blinking back at him with a huge, proud pretty grin.

For a moment Yoongi wants to smile back like things are normal. He wants to put on a groan and act like he’s annoyed that he’s been “forced” to order you sugary coffee drinks and muffins using his own money for longer than he can remember. He wants to gently muss your hair to see you make that cute shocked face you always make. But he can’t.

Because if he does all that, he might slip up again like he did last weekend.

At 10:24pm, Friday of last week, Yoongi told you he loved you while one small bottle of liquid courage was sloshing away in his stomach. After seconds of silence ticked by like the bangs of a gong, you replied. A sing-songy ‘Aww. I love you too, Yoongi’ and a light pat on the arm. Your words were basically the mirror image of his, but somehow also starkly different. Disappointment walked him home early that night and embarrassment laid him low the following week.

But it was just a week, he’d reasoned with himself, you’d hardly notice anyway...

“Yoongi? You okay?”

“No,” he hisses and shakes his head gently to dislodge memories of that pathetic weekend.

“Are you sure?”

“Why do you need to paint my face?”

“For practice! The market doesn’t open for another month but I need to get good. Jungkook said that if I do it really well the parents will leave bigger tips.”

“So Jungkook is behind all this.”

“Yeah,” you chirp. “He’s been really helpful in the last week. Usually I’d vent to you about how broke I am but since you were so busy, I ended up hanging out with Kook. He’s honestly really resourceful and he got me the job really fast.”

The hairs on the back of Yoongi’s neck bristle at the mention of the younger “peer”. Jungkook was a constant presence at group hangouts for a long while but Yoongi could only ever think of him as a friend of a friend. There was something smarmy about the guy’s smile that he didn’t like. And the way he was always draping himself over you, teasing you, buying you food that was all his job. He can’t put his finger on what it is exactly, but something about Jungkook always put Yoongi in a shit mood.

Yoongi curses under his breath. “Why couldn’t he get you a job at the cotton candy station or managing the photo booth or something?”

“What’s up with you lately? Do you really hate the idea of helping me that much?”

“It’s just annoying,” Yoongi huffs childishly from under the blanket.

“Fine, I’ll just ask Jungkook, then.”

“No! Wait!” Your eyes flash with hope. “I’ll do it. Just—don’t bother him. Since he already gave you the job, I mean.”

“Oh, thank god. I felt really bad about asking him for even more help.”

You turn around and pull out a face painting kit from thin air and begin scooting the desk chair towards the bed. When you’re close enough, you frown.

“What?” Yoongi sniffs at his sheets for good measure. All clean.

“Nothing. It’s just...” You look down at the ground and then the chair and then at Yoongi before looking at the chair again. “I usually practice on shorter surfaces so I can get used to working with the kids.”

“Oh, just pull the little lever underneath the chair. Raising and lowering the chair is Hoseok’s favorite thing to do when he comes in here, I swear.”

You reach under the seat like Yoongi instructed, find the little lever, and tug. There’s a low hissing sound before the seat suddenly drops 5 inches. You let out a yelp while Yoongi tries to stifle a laugh at your terrified expression.

“I guess—I guess Hoseok pulled the lever too much,” Yoongi’s voice creaks with laughter. Even when you flick him in the forehead he keeps laughing.

“Yoongi, this isn’t funny. I need to practice.”

“Just so you know there’s no way I’m getting on the floor. I’ve changed my clothes and I’m actually in the bed.”

He knows he’s being a bit of a dick at the moment, but he’s only trying to rile you up. He’s not expecting you to start to get up on the bed after flipping him off. The laundry he placed on his bed that morning to force himself to fold now laughs at him from its position shoved against the wall.

“W-what are you doing?”

“I need to be higher than you to paint your face. And you’re not getting up, right?”

“Well, no. But—”

“So this is where I’m gonna work.”

You shrug like it’s not a big deal that you’re straddling him. Like it’s not a big fucking deal that your soft thighs now rest on either side of his torso, that you casually rest a hand on his ribcage while setting up the painting kit along his sternum. He hopes your hand stays further south only to prevent the rapid beating of his heart from being discovered under your palm.

“What design do you want,” your voice is quiet now that you’re closer.

Makes sense. No need to yell. But it still drives Yoongi crazy that you’re basically whispering in his ear as you lean over him to grab at the unused cup of water behind the bed frame. You revive your paints with the water while he tries to keep his breathing in check, lest he cause your paints to tumble off his torso and stain his sheets in a pastel rainbow.

“Uhh, how about an old style tiger?”

“Really,” you deadpan, “I tell you I’m just starting to learn to paint and you ask for a tiger?”

“Fine. Stars, then.” He gulps when you look right at him, face flushing to create the perfect pink canvas.

“Oh, I can do that. No reference needed.”

It seems deadly quiet in Yoongi’s room. The sounds of the living room long since died down when a crowd favorite started playing and captured everyone’s attention. Now there’s only yours and his intermingled breathing and the sound of your brush tinkling against glass.

You lean down from your perch to focus on carving out a swatch of night sky to blanket Yoongi’s stars. Your breath softly puffs low against his left cheek at the same moment the wet tip of the paintbrush hits his skin. His breath hitches a little and he’s not sure which is the culprit.

“Hold still, okay?” Your words come out in a whisper.

“Okay,” he whispers back.

Minutes pass and two shaky stars are born on Yoongi’s cheekbone. You shift around on his chest to stabilize yourself and in your movement you lose your footing a little, your right leg slipping off the edge of the mattress.

“Ah—”

“I got you,” Yoongi grunts a little as his hands fly to your hips.

He easily stops your momentum and your paints, clutched desperately in your hands, remain safe from the ground. The pads of his fingers are still dug lightly into the meat of your hips and waist. In that moment you remember just how big Yoongi’s hands are.

“T-thanks.”

“No problem.”

A slow grin spreads on Yoongi’s face when he notices that suddenly you can’t make eye contact like you were just a few moments prior.

You do your best to continue, but your gaze keeps flitting to his, only to find that he’s already looking at you. It sets something hot aflutter in your chest. The points of the stars that you thought you had a handle on turn soft and wobbly once more.

“Look up,” you ask when you’re out of other options and keep having to paint over your work.

Yoongi has to bite his tongue to keep from chuckling at how jittery you seem. It feels good to know that the effects of this proximity are mutual, that you’re feeling just as lightheaded from sitting in his lap as he is from having you sit in it.

“You almost done?” He drawls. He’s been counting the small irregularities in the paint on his ceiling to keep entertained.

“Uh, yeah, almost.”

He feels the cold kiss of the brush tip once, twice more before it returns to its makeshift home of the water glass with a clink.

“Do you...wanna see what it looks like,” you sit up then.

There’s a small hand mirror across the room that you’re eyeing. But he stops you with a squeeze to your hips, reminding you that his hands have been resting there this whole time.

“Just use my phone,” he nods to the device lying abandoned in the sheets. “Take a picture.”

“Okay.”

For some reason, your hands are shaking even with the paintbrush gone and the need for focus lifted. Mechanically you wake Yoongi’s phone from sleep and access the camera app to take a photo, shifting your weight to your knees to get above him and snap a pic. Curiosity makes you open the photo album app to see the photo you just took instead of showing it to him first. The result takes your breath away.

Yoongi looks blissfully content, almost smugly so, as he gazes up at the camera. The stars under his eyes and on the bridge of his nose look like glowing yellow freckles amidst the banner of deep navy and rich purples you used to craft the sky across his cheekbones. The paint looks good and it’s probably even your best job yet, but you can’t help yourself from looking elsewhere.

Yoongi’s tousled bed head, soft sleep shirt, and dreamy eyes bring a cloud of butterflies to your stomach. The final killer touch of the photo is the fact that your knees just barely enter the bottom of the photo. Yoongi’s hands rest on each one like they belong there.

“Yoongi.” You breathe his name like a sigh and that’s when he surges up, as if to catch his name on your lips.

The kiss takes you by surprise and you tumble down to him in a soft pile of limbs. He hums a long, pleased sound when your weight settles on top of him. The hands he had on your knees suddenly grow restless and they amble up your thighs, up your waist, around your back. His hands are ever busy gliding over as much of you as they can in the moments that you let your lips press firmly against his.

Idly you pick out the details you notice with your eyes drifting closed. Yoongi’s breath leaves his nose in puffs against your face and his sighs echo quiet in your ears. His hair is soft between your fingers and so is the collar of the worn shirt that he’s wearing. The sheets that have raised around you like makeshift linen mountains smell just like Yoongi’s sweet soap, warmed with sleep.

“Shouldn’t we—”, he plants a kiss on your mouth, “shouldn’t we talk about this,” you mumble against his lips.

Yoongi’s hands stop in their tracks along the midpoint of your spine. The sigh he lets out is long suffering.

“Sorry. I just—I got carried away.”

“I mean, you don’t have to apologize for it. I just...thought you saw me as a friend.”

“Do friends confess their love for each other? That’s new.”

“L-love?” Your eyes turn wide and starry. “When have either of us ever confessed our love?”

“Well, I did. At the bar. Or did you have to block that memory out?”

Your brow furrows at the self-deprecating turn his smile takes and you clasp one of his still-wandering hands.

“You mean—Yoongi, I thought you were just being mushy. I thought you meant, like, ‘I love that we’re all here together as friends right now’. If I had known that was a real confession,” you trail off.

“You what?”

Yoongi’s mood elevates once more, enjoying the sudden turn your rambling is taking. Teasingly he bucks his hips under you, startling you out of your bashful silence and forcing you to press two hands to his chest for balance. A cute little sound leaves your lips and he’s tempted to do it again.

“You were saying,” he grins up at you and his hands start to wander once again.

“I would have—”

“Baby, speak up.” He’s all coos but there’s a little venom in his voice. He likes how embarrassed you are.

“I would have left with you that night. If I had known.”

His shirt wrinkles up where your fingers twist anxiously. Normally you trample through Yoongi’s space, no shame or hesitation in the way you leave him on his toes. It had always been a fun game for you to see how close you could get before he’d have to draw a line, before his besotted smile would become too hard to hide. But now you’re not so sure you can handle it directed at you in all its glory.

“That’s a nice idea,” he says.

In one moment he looks like he’s really weighing the idea, serious in his appraisal. The next moment he’s tugging you down when you least expect it, bringing a corner of the blanket to envelope you both. Under the cover of weak darkness, he threads a hand through the hair at the base of your neck.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?”

#btscreatorscorner #hyunglinenetwork #networkbangtan #bangtan scenarios #yoongi scenarios #yoongi fluff #yoongi imagines #yoongi fanfic #bangtan imagines #bangtan fanfic #bangtan fluff #bts scenarios #bts fluff #bts imagines #bts fanfic

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dandivinity · 4 years

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Madokannon: Religious Symbolism in Madoka Magica

If there’s one word I’d use to describe the show, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, it would be deceptive. If you’re wondering how a cute Sailor Moon rip-off with even brighter colors and a moe art-style is deceptive, congrats, you fell for the deception. As the series continues, it becomes clear that the show is not a cut-and-dry monster of the week where good always triumphs. Rather it is a pastel-colored Faustian bargain where even the best intentions can lead to dire consequences. In the end it is only through the titular characters unshakeable hope and faith and no small amount of divine intervention that the series reaches it’s bitter sweet conclusion. This is obvious upon a first viewing. What is less obvious is the nature that this divine intervention takes. While the show occasionally makes direct connections to Christianity, It seems to me that the theology implemented is Buddhist through and through complete with Four noble truths, samsara, vile rebirth, and an allegory of the bodhisattva Kannon.

Let’s start with the basis of the show, the wishes. This is one of Madoka’s most prominent aspects and the largest concern from the beginning of the series before the villain’s true underpinnings are revealed. For those of you not familiar, 1). Why are you reading this? And 2). The set-up of the Madoka, like most magical girl anime, involves a cute animal mascot offering the girls magical powers in order to fight monsters. What makes this set up unique however is that the oh so cute cat-bunny-thing known as Kyubey also offers the girls one wish as an incentive so that they would accept it’s “contract”. Now the use of the word “contract” is an obvious red flag meant to alert us to the Faustian nature of the deal. And yes, the agreement comes with several hidden clauses that Kyubey conveniently leaves out such as the fact that becoming a magical girl involves having your soul removed from your body and placed into a gem because it’s “easier to protect”. But Kyubey’s not exactly stealing it like a Christian devil would. More importantly than the hidden clauses though, is the wishes themselves.

Now stories of the devil tempting people with promises of wealth or power are quite common in Western literature, as are tales of djinn or monkey paws providing wishes that always go wrong in Near Eastern lit. But what’s extraordinary about Madoka is that for the most part the wishes the girls grant are simple in nature and rather generous. Our main focus point, and the only wish we see pursued from beginning to end in chronological order is that of Sayaka Miki. Sayaka is established to be crushing on a boy who was a former violin prodigy before a car accident left him paralyzed with no hope of playing ever again. Sayaka wishes for him to be healed, and just like that, it’s done.

The boy does not relapse, nor does he lead into another accident. He simply starts a miraculous yet slow path to recovery, until the series finale where he is shown without crutches and playing beautifully for a wide audience. The problem? Well as pointed out before Sayaka even makes the wish, she’s wasn’t actually doing it for him: she was on an unconscious level hoping that he’d be forever grateful to her. Does she hold this over him? No. Does he reject her? No. She simply doesn’t ask. Sayaka is too busy with her new responsibilities and ashamed of what she has become to ask.

And frankly the importance of Kyosuke in Sayaka’s fall is largely overstated by the fanbase. Yes, he’s a large factor but even more so than wanting to heal him or his gratitude, Sayaka wants to be a hero. This is heightened when their magical mentor dies within the first three episodes. Sayaka now feels like it’s her responsibility to protect her city as no one else will. Unfortunately, she’s simply not as strong as her former mentor or the new morally unsound magical girls that seeks to dispose of her (both Kyoko and Homura). This is really what leads to Sayaka’s downward spiral as she comments, “The world doesn’t need a magical girl who can’t even kill a witch”. Sayaka wants to be a hero, and she wants to get the guy and she gets neither. Her desires, both fulfilled and unfulfilled, all lead to her suffering. This is the First Noble Truth of Buddhism.

I realize this isn’t the most convincing argument on its own but let’s zoom out a bit here. What is desire if not earthly attachments? Attachment and inability to let go of attachment is a concept found in nearly all the wishes in the show. It doesn’t matter if it’s Sayaka’s wishing for her friend’s health, Mami literally trying to cling to life, or Kyoko (in the most directly religious moment in the show) wishing that people would come to her father’s sermons so that her family could have enough to eat. All of these desires are moral in some way and yet they are still desires. More importantly, they all involve a longing for what once was, and are attempts to return things to how they were rather than moving on. This inability to let go is characterized not just in the wishes but in the reason they’re implemented in the first place.

When Kyubey finally explains why they knowingly cause suffering to countless adolescent girls throughout time, they explain it’s to harvest enough renewable energy from the emotions of magical girls to stave off the entropy of the universe. The whole process is rather convoluted and -let’s face it- an excuse to deconstruct magical girl tropes, but that doesn’t change the fact that preventing the heat death of the universe is still Kyubey’s number one goal. That combined with their inability to truly understand the suffering they’re causing has caused some of the community to question their villain status or at least say they’re a villain with a just cause. And while postponing the heat death of the universe may be noble in the long run, it is a literal fight against the impermanence of the universe. A fight that we know from Buddhism is doomed to only lead to personal trauma in the face of inevitability of a changing world. But it is this fight against impermanence that kyubey embodies so well, and one that is baked into the wish-based magical girl system they run.

Ok, enough beating around the bush. It’s time to talk about Homura. After spending most of the show as a mysterious red-herring villain that knows far too much, Homura finally gets an episode dedicated to her near the end of the show where it’s revealed she’s a time traveller who restarted the timeline over and over again in order to make her wish come true; to be able to save Madoka. Specifically Homura has to replay the same month over and over again until she can succeed in saving Madoka’s life and cannot escape until this goal is reached. This obsession leads to a very literal samsara, by repeating the timeline again and again Homura is actively choosing to trap herself in endless cycles of suffering, death, and rebirth all because of her attachment to the mortal world. Through this process we can see Homura fall apart becoming more and more monstrous in her single-minded focus to save Madoka at the expense of everything else. By the time she arrives at our main timeline that the rest of the show takes place in, Homura is comparable to a hungry ghost. She’s directly accused of walking through the world as if dead, unable to feel anything except for the desire that damned her in the first place, her obsession with Madoka. When even this too seems lost, she nearly becomes a witch.

In Mahayana Buddhism, rebirth on earth is not the worst thing that can happen after one’s death. If one leads a sufficiently desperate life they can be reborn as an animal, hungry ghost, or in hell. This is where Madoka’s witches come from. Perhaps the most tragic twist in Madoka Magica is that if a magical girl falls into despair (usually due to her wish’s inability to make her happy), her soul gem will transform into a grief seed which then becomes one of the monsters they fight. These nightmare collage monsters have new names separate from their old identities and live in pocket dimensions where they lure people in. These pocket dimensions often in someway manifests the desires of their old lives being filled with sweets, TVs, or (in Sayaka’s case) violinists. Interestingly, when Sayaka first dies and is reborn as the witch Octavia in a train station, her labyrinth is also full of railroad tracks. She relocates to a concert hall and the labyrinth follows suit, but train wheels remain despite having no apparent bearing on her previous life. This could be a reference to Buddhist beliefs about your final thoughts and which direction you look when you die having bearing on which realm you’ll be reborn into.

Homura’s obsession in contrasted by Madoka’s ability to let go. Madoka’s final wish and subsequent ascension has often been compared to Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, and rightfully so. Madoka’s wish to become a cosmic force that can take on all the despair of magical girls before they become witches at the cost of her own mortal life has many strong parallels to Jesus suffering on the cross to redeem humanity. However that idea only works if Jesus is suffering. Madoka is stated to be taking the grief of every magical girl who ever became a witch onto herself and we even see a far future version of her becoming a witch large enough to destroy the world. But before it does it is shot down by another version of a truly ascended Madoka in a white dress. This version states paradoxically that since her wish applies to all magical girls that would become witches, that includes herself. The fluidity of time and direct denial of the necessity of suffering or sacrifice are at odds with Orthodox Chriastianity, or at least its perception of Jesus. Rather I argue that the way Madoka saves all the magical girls, her subsequent erasure from existence, and even such mundane symbols such as the white dress all link her closer to the Bodhisattva, Kannon.

Let’s take a closer look at the scene where we see Madoka actually ascends and manifests to relieve the potential witches of their grief. We see Madoka split herself into thousands shafts of light, all of which appear above different suffering magical girls in different places and time periods. And above all of them Madoka appears, she touches their corrupted soul gems which are then purified before shattering, allowing the magical girls to die in peace. A rather sad ending, but one that’s better than rebirth as a witch, which we already identified as equivalent to the hell realm. So while it is unclear where the magical girls are going to go after they die (or even if they go anywhere at all as we just saw the gems holding their souls shatter, possibly destroying them), we can know that Madoka is saving them from a worse rebirth. This directly parallels miracle tales that surround the Bodhisattva Kannon, especially in her Chinese incarnation as the white-robed Guanyin.

Kannon is the primary example of Bodhisattva or one who has put off Budhahood to aid those still on earth. Kannon in particular swears to never ascend until all living things have been freed of samsara. She’s often depicted as having 11 heads and a thousand arms to better reach all those suffering in the world at once, like how Madoka splits herself into a myriad of forms. Many of these tales have devotees of Guanyin spared from tragic fates such as beheadings or shipwrecks. However a few, adapt these stories to instead refer to a more metaphorical salvation, especially in the pure land tradition popular in Japan which then says that anyone who calls out to Kannon on the verge of their death will be still die and be reborn to the pure land rather than wherever else they were supposed to reincarnate. Madoka’s god form even highly resembles the Chinese incarnation, Guanyin. Wikipedia states, “Guanyin is generally portrayed as a young woman wearing a flowing white robe, and usually also necklaces symbolic of Indian or Chinese royalty. In her left hand is a jar containing pure water, and the right holds a willow branch.” While we never see Madoka with any water; the flowing white dress, red gems along her collar bone, and branch-like bow (though on that seems to be more of a sakura branch) all bring to mind Guanyin.

Finally Madoka’s ascension ends with her body dissolving into glimmers of light as she explains how no one will remember her, but she’ll still be there. This dissolution of the her spiritual body is a visual symbol of ego-death. Madoka recreates a word where she does not exist, and had never existed, yet still manifests as a concept and virtuous force that leads others to salvation rather than as a sentient entity. This is the Nirvana. Madoka hadn’t just ascended to godhood, she had surpassed it and achieved nothingness, as her buddha nature radiates throughout the world, ultimately changing it into something better. This is the paradox of Buddhism and the goal of any buddhist practitioner, to achieve an inner peace so strong you become a part of the universe like madoka had. And the new world she created was better for it.

That is at least until the show decided to make a movie sequel and trick madoka into descending. At that point she stops acting as a Buddha and instead as Pistis Sophia in line with the obscure belief system of 2nd century Gnostics. But that will be a conversation for another time.

#madoka magica #buddhism #madoka kamane #kaname madoka #kannon #guanyin #kuan-yin #samsara #homura akemi #pmmm sayaka #pmmm #Essay #Religion #Religious studies #I should've submitted this two months ago when it was still relevant.#oh well

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koiyyo · 4 years

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hnng i want to request a lot of things but i’m scared to but!!! how would the classes play animal crossing and/or their favorite villagers if it wouldn’t be too hard! thank u

hi, mod kiwi here! thanks for the ask, anon- don’t be afraid to ask us whatever!! :)

(also me and irusu r really cool and helped) -mod corn

here we go! animal crossing time!

dr1 cast!

makoto

- plays daily- his favorite villager is probably poppy- his favorite special villager is shrunk- silly axolotl man- got really confused the first time one of his tools broke- almost started crying- invites every animal he meets into his island no matter what- does EVERY favor villagers ask of him - actually likes bunny day and thinks the eggs are adorable

kyoko

- only got it because makoto BEGGED her to get it- her favorite villager is judy she’s hella cute- her favorite special villager is sable - just chilling- tons of purple flowers on her island - doesn’t like peppy villagers, feel like they’re too hyper for her- puts a lot of care into her villagers doe- likes going to a mystery island and just investigating,,, unless it has tarantulas

byakuya

- surprisingly really likes animal crossing- acts like he doesn’t- his favorite villager is raymond… of course- his favorite special villager is tom nook- chased around makoto holding an axe one time- makoto was literally crying- makoto thought that you could actually kill people with axes in animal crossing- byakuya found this amusing

sayaka

- actually enjoys ac a lot- her favorite villager is chrissy, she just has awesome vibes- her favorite special villager is mabel cause she’s,, blue,, - loves taking videos/pictures of villagers singing- tries to hum along,, fails- her islands are always covered in tons of flowers (mostly blue!!)- enjoys inviting people to her island and showing them around

junko

- takes ac too seriously- her favorite villager is definitely audie cause she’s an embodiment of fashion statement- her favorite special villager is sable cause who doesn’t love clothing- harasses mukuro to come to her island anytime she plays- will dig holes everywhere whenever someone visits- her house should be in a magazine it’s so pretty,,- new outfit for everyday of the month- hosts fashion shows religiously with her friends or anyone she can get her hands on

mukuro

- doesn’t really play just sits back and watches junko- plays on her save every now and then doe- favorite villager is vivian since she reminds her of junko- favorite special villager is sable- doesn’t like talking to villagers, feels like they're judging her- if a villager pisses her off she makes plans to kill them- she can’t, so she settles for bonking them until they leave

chihiro

- avid ac fan- favorite villager is sheldon, he can respect the hustle- favorite special villager is isabelle cause she’s precious- cries if he accidentally hurts a villagers feelings- is hella rich- loves decorating around the villagers’ house as best he can- his island is more nature themed,, its just more relaxing- takes tons of scenic pictures, mostly with mondo and taka

mondo

- “i would never play a BABY game”- next thing he knows, he’s up at 3 am whispering how cute the villagers are- favorite villager is tex he’s so chonky (and his taste in fashion is top tier)- favorite special villager is k.k cause Damn He Vibes- will constantly run over his flower and almost throw his console- asks chihiro for advice constantly- “h-how do i get.. good fish..”- quality bonding time- doesn’t tell people he plays but gushes about it in private

taka

- claims he doesn’t have time for it- he actually does,, and plays it any chance he gets- favorite villager is kid cat cause he’s so funky- favorite special villager is blathers since he teaches him a lot- can’t handle lazy villagers, they didn’t do anything wrong he just feels like they will slack off in his uptight town smh- doesn’t really care about designing his town, mostly completing tasks he needs to- likes having red flowers everywhere tho- will cry if he doesn’t get all the fish/insects he needs on time- beats up any visitor that leaves something on the ground

toko

- attempted to buy Doom instead- favorite villager is coco, she’s just so cute/creepy- favorite special villager is jack he vibes- hates interacting with her villagers cause she feels like she’ll mess it up- tried to get byakuya to let her on his island, or for him to visit hers- is very thorough about decorating her island- tries to have a story behind it so it feels more unique- always ugly sobs when her flowers end up gone

jill

- attempted to buy AC instead, she won- favorite villager is lucky, feels like he has serial killer vibes- favorite special villager is jack- runs over any flowers that toko tries to plant- tries to make the island scary themed- if any villager “looks at her wrong” she harasses them daily- leaves them gruesome letters even tho they cant understand

hiro

- doesn’t even know how he got a copy he just does- favorite villager is sherb- favorite special villager is wisp since he likes getting stuff, he likes harvey too- doesn’t bother putting effort into designing his island- only plays while high so he thinks the villagers are kinda scary- “why are they,, staring at me like that,,,”- has never repaid his debt to tom nook

hina

- her brother was the one who introduced her to the series, loves it- favorite villager is ketchup cause shes cute and can swim!!- favorite special villager is gulliver since he’s goofy- loves fishing anytime she can- always plays when she wakes up early in the morning and before bed- anytime she gets something new she acts like a child on christmas- thinks all villagers are cute and got pouty when she couldn’t have them all on her island- can never outrun tarantulas ):

sakura

- loves playing when hina is around- her favorite villager is maddie, reminds her of hina- favorite special villager is daisy mae she’s just really cute- hina helps her decorate her island since she doesn’t care that much- gets sad if she accidentally hits a villager- enjoys playing at night since it’s relaxing- constantly being stung by wasps pls help her

celeste

- favorite villager is portia she’s fancy as hell- favorite special villager is celeste duh- likes taking slow strolls through her museum to see her progress- her house is very victorian-esque- lots of tables with tea around her island- likes designing gothic clothes- anything on her island that can be black is - has a crime scene hidden on her island just for the hell of it

hifumi

- favorite villager is snooty, wants her to step on him- favorite special villager is isabelle- his island is only anime themed- has anime girl “posters” all over his house, and on his clothing- always gets stung by wasps and claims that it’s unfair- no one interacts with him

leon

- didn’t think he’d be into ac- favorite villager is leonardo- favorite special villager is k.k- doesn’t play this game very religiously- his island shows that smh- says he’ll break his console if he gets another sea bass- likes having a relaxing walk while playing to calm him down doe- outfit is just a baseball jersey

komaru

- favorite villager is felicity- favorite special villager is isabelle- likes playing with makoto and toko- her island is very cute, whenever someone tells her this she gets vry flustered- the shine in her eyes gets 10x brighter when she catches a big fish- loves staring at her aquarium- all her clothing is pastel and cute- has every type of tree on her island,, for the vibe

dr2!!

hajime

- enjoys ac- gets confused every 2 seconds doe- one time chiaki make rosie move out of hajime’s island as a prank. he will never forgive her for this- his favorite villager is rosie cuz she’s just adorable,, also vibes with kabuki- his favorite special character is flick. funky chameleon boy- grumbles about how he misses rosie constantly- loves tangy doe,, calls her orange juice

nagito

- loves to play with hajime and chiaki- only villagers that he likes ever move into his island bc of his luck- one time rosie moved into his island. hajime was fucking pissed- his favorite villager is ruby because she was one of his first animals to move into his island- his favorite special character is jack- likes having green flowers everywhere- got every fish he needed too cause of his damn luck

chiaki

- had her hands on it the second the game was released. plays constantly- always has an absurd number of bells and nook miles- her favorite villager is lolly :”)- her favorite special character is blathers bc funny sleepy owl man- has never seen daytime cause she sleeps during the day- even if she’s lazy her island is gucci as hell- invites hajime to her island just to bonk him and leave him to fight wasps

ibuki

- camped outside of gamestop till it opened, screamed when she got her hands on a copy- her favorite animal is definitely bella- favorite special villager is k.k., attends all his concerts, and has all his songs- anytime she makes a mistake she’ll just yell “NO!”- is actually pretty calm playing- will give all the villagers wacky voices, ends up in snort laughter- doesn’t like fishing cause she always pulls the rod in to early- loves having colors EVEYRRYWRHERE

mikan

- favorite villager is fauna- favorite special villager is lable- anytime she gets stung she’s on top of it, has tons of medicine- cries when she does anything wrong- worries if her villagers judge her- sucks at fishing- all of her clothing has at least one (1) bandaid included cause why not- her actual villager has a bandaid on its face for the aesthetic™- loves when she’s sitting on a bench and a villager joins

mahiru

- has so many random photos of nature or villagers- favorite villager is tasha she’s vry cute!!- favorite special villager is pavé since HES flamboyant and good for pictures- her island is very aesthetic- tons of pretty flowers everywhere, and everything place is just aligned perfectly somehow- loves touring others islands, especially hiyoko’s- her outfit has a drawn on camera for the vibe

peko

- avid fan of animal crossing- if you cant interact with real life animals then games >>- favorite villager is all of them (but favors marshal more,, reminds her of fuyuhiko)- favorite special villager is isabelle- has never bullied or hit one (1) of her villagers, cherishes them too much- will send them letters saying how much she loves them from time to time- her island is very pretty and all her villagers are decorated outside- forgets to eat dinner or sleep cause she plays it so much

akane

- “how many things in the game can i eat”- favorite villager is katt cause she’s so INDEPENDENT- favorite special villager is jingle, always makes her excited- has a makeshift restaurant on her island- all her outfits have food somewhere on them- every fruit tree she can get she has, she requires food 24/7- constantly threatens to fight tom nook for putting her in debt

fuyuhiko

- FAV VILLAGER MARSHAL 100%- also pashmina cause she reminds him of natsumi- natsumi was the one who convinced him to get it, showed it to peko- now they play it every night together before bed- yells at villagers anytime they get in his way then apologizes profusely- peko has to help him design his island he just doesn’t get it- takes her on ac dates, they just stargaze or look at their aquariums- likes to talk to the villagers as if they can hear him,, will blush and deny if peko points it out

sonia

- favorite villager is tia because she “looks fancy”- favorite special villager is pavé- has tons of outfits related to disney princesses- her island is very modern looking, prefers stone things than wooden- has tons of fashion shows- everything about her island is clean and aligned- lets gundham visit a lot to check in on her cute villagers- hella rich has that bell cash money

kazuichi

- compliments sonia’s island everyday even if he hasn’t been allowed on it- favorite villager is freya, loves her colors- favorite special villager is harvey cause he vibes- screams anytime he gets a big fish- island lowkey looks like trash but sonia gives him advice amen- is pretty smart about wasps, but lacks iq with anything else like tarantulas- unironically celebrates the villagers’ birthdays- even if he’s feral he likes to take a chill pill and play ac

teruteru

- ew- favorite villager is merengue- favorite special villager is isabelle- tries to flirt with villagers through letters- all the villagers on his island are wamen- tried to buy nude qr codes,, failed- always has an apron on and has a little cafe on his island

imposter

- favorite villager is keaton since he’s funky- favorite special villager is blanca- scoffs anytime they miss an insect or fish- dedicated to ac after they said they wouldn’t be- their island is actually pretty well decorated, they enjoy having flowers everywhere- until they run over them and regret living

hiyoko

- favorite villager is soleil, tiny and cute- favorite special villager is jack- mahiru suggested ac to her and then she got obsessed- always bullies her villagers, its a miracle they haven’t moved out- pitfall seeds buried all over her island for poor, unsuspecting visitors- her island is akin to hell no one wants to visit her- its a shame since its so pretty tho- likes visiting places with mahiru and letting her take photos- enjoys spinning to pretend she’s dancing

gundham

- his favorite villagers are all the hamsters- his favorite special villager is daisy mae- has played since the first game, religious fan of it- never been rude to one of his villagers- takes designing very seriously and it pays off- despite his very colorful island his outfits are pretty dark- walks around sonia’s island a lot and they stargaze sometimes- played it for 24 hours straight once, almost died- goes on to ac forums and starts flame wars with anyone that bullies their villagers (mainly hiyoko)

nekomaru

- plays every now and then, loves it a lot- favorite villager is kevin since he vibes- favorite special villager is jingle, gets him hyped- anytime a villager starts singing he’ll yell “YOU’RE DOING GREAT”- doesn’t know how to decorate,, at all,,- his house is just another storage room to him- is in tons of debt due to tom, would rather buy expensive stuff with his bells- yells when fishing. doesn’t matter if its a big fish or not, he just does- will hype up someone when he goes to their island

dr v3!

shuichi

- kaede convinced him to get it and loves it- favorite villagers are punchy and beau, he just thinks theyre funky- favorite special villager is flick cause he’s laid back- waterfalls all over his island, says its a memorial to the waterfalls of tears he loses every night- visits his friends islands a lot- has tons of blue flowers and hasn’t ruined them once amen- kokichi ruined them once though. he cried- island is very aesthetic since it’s mostly nature themed- cries happy tears when villagers do ANYTHING- cherishes anything his friends gift him- except for kokichi, he sent him a threat and a shirt saying “nerd”

maki

- doesn’t tell a lot of people she plays it, very shy about it- favorite villager is cherry- favorite special villager is celeste- everything on her island is red and pink- even if she’s tough on the inside she loves having a cute island- has a place specifically to sit and watch the stars (mainly for when kaede and/or kaito is with her)- gets overly defensive when people ask why she loves her villagers so much- “I JUST-” sobs “DO”- gets bullied by kokichi for anything she does while playing- resulted in a broken arm and trampled flowers. F

himiko

- only plays at night until tenko convinces her to wake up earlier- favorite villager is bob- favorite special villager is k.k- just likes vibing doesn’t take anything to seriously- tries her best for her outfits to resemble a magician- preforms “magic” shows ( it’s really just her throwing down items and claiming it appeared magically )- tenko and angie drag her all across their islands daily, acts like she doesn’t love it but its the main reason she still plays- anytime she gets something new she just shrugs- doesn’t like zipper and tenko has to assure her it isn’t a murderer tracking her location

kaede

- favorite villager is bianca- favorite special villager is k.k, unironically likes his music- has a piano in every room of her house- pretends to play said pianos for friends that are visiting- rainbow flowers everywhere- except red because she gives those all to maki- convinces people to have fashion shows with her, no actual winners, but they all win in her heart- plays it a lot in her free time, kind of addicted- likes to hum along with singing villagers- everything about her island is just hella cute

rantaro

- “whats an animal crossing”- and ever since that day he’s been a religious fan, amen- favorite villager is chief, likes making “that ain’t it chief” jokes- favorite special villager is k.k, will listen to his music whenever he’s staring off into space- his island is lazily made but still looks so good??- will just stare at butterflies before remembering he should catch them- “what’s the point of an ocean if i can’t sail it bro..”- loves playing at night cause of shooting stars- always wishes for kokichi to stop sending him hate letters

kirumi

- favorite villager is whitney and tia since theyre,, cool n chill- favorite special villager is isabelle- her house and island are 100% CLEAN- has a zen garden behind her house- anytime someone visits her island she offers them tea- treats the villagers like her own family- likes sending them letters with perfect grammar, just pleases her soul- has never gotten stung by a wasp her iq is large- her outfit looks like a maid amen- kokichi always ask her to clean his island, never happened

ryoma

- favorite villager is rasher- favorite special villager is kicks- doesn’t get the appeal of ac- will play it for like 5 minutes tops- enjoys the fishing aspect doe- anytime he visits someones island he will just sit on the shore and stare out into the ocean- thanks god that his villager is the same height as all the animal ones, now he isn’t short (:

korekiyo

- body outlines, blood, and bloody summoning ritual circles everywhere on his island- favorite villager is lucky- favorite special villager is jack and blathers- keeps scary looking fish in his house- said house is dark and probably has an occult book somewhere- curses his villagers in an unknown language whenever they forsake him- every screenshot of a villager he has includes him behind a tree staring menacingly at them- doesn’t invite people to his island, people don’t even wanna come- if he somehow ends up on somebody's island he’ll stalk them- became an urban legend on all the ac forums

angie

- her favorite villager is ankha- favorite special villager is isabelle and jingle- anytime a villager moves in she says “atua has blessed angie with a cute villager!”- likes yellow flowers- her outfit is just a smock with paint on it amen- sends people and villagers letters wishing them good health every. single. day.- likes tagging along with tenko and himiko whenever they do something- loves chasing butterflies

tenko

- was very hyped over the game since everybody else hyped it up- favorite villager is nibbles and cookie they’re just VIBING- favorite special villager is isabelle (screams anytime she is on screen)- will wake up himiko or angie at 3 am to flex the big fish she just got- got rich just to buy them gifts- anytime a guy is in her presence she bonks them with a net- this is the reason she has no male villagers, and no males invited. periadt.- has matching outfits with da girls- grows lots of flowers (mainly to give to her friends amen)- cherishes this game cause it gives her an excuse to spend time with da girls

miu

- favorite villager is olivia - favorite special villager is shrunk- constant sex jokes- her outfit looks like a stripper deadass- harasses people about not knowing how to play when she, herself, does not have a damn clue- almost ruined her console cause she’ll spit out her drink when she gets a big fish- everything she does is feral- never stops running so she doesnt have flowers- kokichi steals any flowers she may have anyway- decorating? whats that? just throw random stuff on ur island

gonta

- his favorite villager is joey cause he’s funny looking and trying his best- his favorite special villager is blathers- island looks pretty natural, just dirt paths every now and then- will hunt down an insect even if he has it already- was sad he had to give up his insects to blathers, then realized... he can catch them again!!- has a garden and always gets excited when butterflies fly around- golden net to show off how much of a pro he is at collecting insects- gets shy anytime someone visits but his islands so cute,,

kaito

- favorite villager is apollo because he’s named after the apollo 11- favorite special villager is harvey, can respect his vibes- likes walking around with maki and shuichi- tries his best to play it but he’s kinda dumb,,- whenever gets something new he loses all his brain cells in excitement- will probably never pay tom nook back. he is clueless about even being in debt.- mostly plays before bed cause he stares at the stars- will send maki pictures of shooting stars even if its 2 am- island is pretty natural since he forgets to decorate it,,

kokichi

- favorite villager is pietro cause he always compares him to people- loves all the mouse villagers- favorite special villager is jack and blanca- all over his island is just. holes and pitfall seeds.- has fallen into the holes plenty of times himself- sends all of his friends letters, which just consist of him making fun of them- tons of carnival things around his island since “ur invited to the circus clown”- his house looks like jail for no reason- clowns others for having poor taste in fashion when he just cosplays a RAT- also has an outfit that looks like a trash can xoxo

kiibo

- favorite villager is ribbot, they’re practically the same- favorite special villager is snowboy and blathers- anytime he reads text its so robotic,, hella funny to whoever's playing with him- everything also confuses him- “what is a .. c+??”- is actually very efficient and paid off his tom nook debts in no time- respects his villagers a lot and will give them gifts- his favorite part is chasing butterflies, usually misses tho- accidentally shot a gift balloon over water, searched for it for over 10 minutes- anytime someone does something he just does a happy emote @ them,,

tsumugi

- favorite villager is tasha she’s a bad bithc- favorite special villager is blanca- has so many different outfits as different anime characters- her island is so well decorated- loves taking aesthetic screenshots with her anime outfits- takes commissions for designing clothing amen- runs an ac instagram just to flex how pretty her things are- actually enjoys the game a lot, especially with other people

i fucking hate tumblr formatting - mod irusu who edited this

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scythe-hagmoved · 4 years

Text

about me

Name/Nickname: I kind of like going by bunny (as in ghostbunny, which is my AO3 username)

Current time: 19.25

Wearing: a skater moon (like sailor moon but she’s a skater) t shirt, black leggings and an oversized blue plaid playsuit.

Zodiac: Aries

Height: 5′6 or 7ish.. that’s probably something I should know right?

Lucky Number: I’m not really a number person.

Aesthetic: just... all over the place. I like pastels and things that are sort of cute and sinister at the same time. Also, cottagecore? I think that’s what it’s called. I like art that’s kind of messy and maybe a bit creepy but also sometimes soft and/or pink. There are definitely more things but I find it hard to fit everything into a solid, easily described aesthetic.

Hogwarts house: Ravenclaw

Amount of sleep: usually between 7 and 10 hours. I have to try and stop myself from going to bed before 10pm but I just get so sleeeepy

Last thing I Googled: post office opening times

Song in my head: listening to Winter Bird by AURORA

Favourite animal: cat

Favourite author: Samantha Hunt and Shirley Jackson are the fist to come to mind

Dream job: I always thought artist was my dream job but it turns out that being an artist involves an awful lot of desperately trying to get people to pay attention to you and as an introvert that gets very tiring so I’m kind of stumped with that question right now

Instrument: I can sort of play ukulele and I started learning guitar a few years ago but it’s been so long since I practiced that I don't know if I can do it anymore

Random fact: I only come up with names for my plants when I feel sure that I’m not going to kill them. There are a few that I should probably name when can I think of good ones but for now just have a jade plant called Joanna and a cactus called Lazy Jane.

Why I made my blog: I had another account with an art blog and a personal/aesthetic blog on it and when I started getting into fandom it just made sense to me to make a new account so that the different kinds of blogs I was following wouldn’t get muddled up and could easily be switched between depending on my mood. But I got logged out of that other account a few months ago and haven’t bothered logging back in since then.

Reason for my URL: It’s just part of a line from vampire knight that made me laugh. I really want to change it to ghostbunny but its taken, as are all of the variations I’d be happy to settle for

Followers and Following: I have 338 followers most of whom must be either bots, inactive accounts or people who followed me for vampire knight content and don’t seem to mind that that’s not what I post anymore (hi there!) and I follow 130 blogs

Thanks for the tag @fandomn00blr! I’m a little bit amazed I actually managed to finish one of these. It’s possibly because every time I think about adding that extra scene to the new chapter of my fic my mind goes blank. I’m strangely worn out from answering questions now so I’m not going to bother adding tags. If you want to do this, feel free to say I tagged you!

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ronancegayass · 4 years

Note

Flower Asks: all of them >:3€ (forgive me)

(this is so many omg but I’ll allow it only bc i love u)

Alisons: Sexuality?

Gay af (ace lesbean)

Amaranth: Pronouns/Gender?

Waman (she/they)

Amaryllis: Birthday?

November 2nd

Anemone: Favorite flower?

Funnily enough anemones are one of my favs but i think my top favs are chrysanthemums and morning glories but I really love many flowers and flowers in general

Angelonia: Favorite t.v. show?

As of right now, stranger things duh

Arum-Lily: What’s the farthest you’d go for a stranger?

Like favors or? I mean I really do try to be a kind and helpful person but if I don’t know somebody or haven’t at least seen them a couple times before I usually don’t do much bc of anxiety

Aster: What’s one of your favorite quotes?

"The extraordinary is in what we do, not who we are.” Lara Croft mostly bc I cant think of anything else right now and that stuck with me

Aubrieta: Favorite drink?

Like a really good cup of black tea with cream and sugar or sweet tea

Baby’s Breath: Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

Never been kissed before but I definitely have someone in mind I would kiss ;3

Balsam Fir: Have you ever been in love?

Hell yeah I am right now and I don’t think I ever have been before now

Baneberries: Favorite song?

Oh hard question... currently really digging We Fell In Love in October by Girl in Red

Basket of Gold: Describe your family.

My family is supportive (for the most part) and very loving, even if they express love in weird ways sometimes. We also like to joke around a lot and make fun of each other but in a good way? Like we all have a good time mostly and I get along better with everyone since I started college

Beebalm: Do you have a best friend? Who is it?

My girlfriend is my best friend uwu I also have a lot of good friends but yeah

Begonia: Favorite color?

Purble but specifically like a pastel purple and purples that lean more towards blue than pink

Bellflower: Favorite animal?

Lynx! I love so many animals tho and I also like many cats and domestic cats in general

Bergenia: Are you a morning or night person?

Night!

Black-Eyed Susan: If you could be any animal for a day, what would it be?

Probably would love to just be a loved house cat who gets to lay in front of the fire all day or a lynx bc i love them

Bloodroots: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A veterinarian (or a special agent lmao)! I also still plan on being a vet tho even tho I get discouraged at least once a month

Bluemink: What are your thoughts on children?

I mean I like kids and I was a camp counselor for a summer, but I dont really want any of my own

Blazing Stars: What are you afraid of? Is there a reason why?

Oh god so many things.. Biggest thing would maybe be death/dying? Like if i think about it too much like the possibility of there just being nothing after death freaks me out. That and throwing up/nausea

Borage: Give a random fact about your childhood.

I played soccer and then I was a competitive swimmer so i was kind of an athlete? even tho i hated sports

Bugleherb: How would you spend your last day on Earth?

I think I would like to go to waffle house, have the perfect cup of tea, spend lots of time with my loved ones and pet my kitties, play video games with my gf, and sit under a tree in the mountains preferably on a warmer day in the fall and watch the sunset

Buttercup: Relationship Status?

Very happily taken

Camelia: If you could visit anywhere, where would you want to go?

Always wanted to visit Norway

Candytufts: When do you feel most loved?

Really big long hugs, good morning or goodnight messages, and I also really love cards

Canna: Do you have any tattoos?

I have 6

Canterbury Bells: Do you have any piercings?

Yup! I have an industrial, orbital, and 3 earlobe piercings

California Poppy: Height?

5′2 or maybe a little less

Cardinal Flower: Do you believe in ghosts?

Yeah I think so, but I do also get freaked out easily lmao

Carnation: What are you currently wearing?

Red flannel, jeans, fuzzy socks, and big dyke boots

Catnip: Have you ever slept with a nightlight?

Yeah I did for a long time and I still sometimes sleep with one or like a bathroom light on if Im sleeping by myself in a new place

Chives: Who was the last person you hugged?

Either my mom or my dad I dont remember technically who was last bc my parents are visiting me at college

Chrysanthemum: Who’s the last person you kissed?

Again, never kissed or been kissed! but maybe soon... :0

Cock’s Comb: Favorite font?

Font? I like the font in Night in the Woods?

Columbine: Are you tired?

Pretty much always either sleepy or tired lol

Common Boneset: What are you looking forward to?

Christmas, getting to see my gf again, and Magfest!

Coneflower: Dream job?

Like a veterinarian but having my own practice and also being able to take in injured wildlife if possible

Crane’s-Bill: Introvert or extrovert?

Introvert for sure

Crocus: Have you ever been in love?

Oh repeat question, hell yes

Crown Imperial: What’s the farthest you would go for someone you care about?

Depends what it is but I would go pretty far for somebody I care about and Im also a crazy person and would drive/travel no matter what distance for someone I love

Cyclamen: Did you have a favorite stuffed animal as a child? What was it?

Yup! I had a ballerina bunny, named Bunny because I was very creative and I still have her

Daffodil: What’s your zodiac sign?

Scorpio

Dahlia: Have you done anything worth remembering?

I think so? I did a lot of cool stuff with my GS troop like our bronze award project and going ziplining and to sliding rock.

Daisy: What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment?

My GS gold award for sure, that shit was hard work and stressful af

Daylily: What would you do if your parents didn’t like your partner(s)?

Umm??? I would tell my dad to eat shit and die and I cant imagine my mom being anything but sweet and supportive so I dont even know

Dendrobium: Who is the last person that you said “I love you” to?

You! This morning uwu

False Goat’s Beard: What is something you are good at?

uhh Im pretty good at making sense of stuff in my science labs and reasoning and im sometimes good at art? I feel like I do traditional better but Im getting better at digital

Foxgloves: What’s something you’re bad at?

bad at not being impulsive sometimes and bad at dead by daylight

Freesia: What are three good things that have happened in the past month?

a little over a month but officially got a girlfriend who i love very much, my gf came down to visit and we got to chill on the mountains together, and I had a pretty nice birthday

Garden Cosmos: How was your day today?

Good! Got breakfast at a diner with my parents and got coffee and a donut at my fav coffee shop so thats all i really need in life tbh

Gardenia: Are you happy with where you’re at in your life?

Yeah Im happy even tho Im stressed with school at times

Gladiolus: What is something you hope to do in the next year or two?

Get a job after graduation and hopefully get into vet school on the first or second try

Glory-of-the-Snow: What are ten things that make you happy/you’re grateful to have in your life?

My kitty, mom, wonderful gf, sister, dead by daylight, heated blanket, apartment, waffle house, my sisters kitty, and my dog

Heliotropium: What helps you calm down when you feel stressed?

Donuts, coffee or tea, blankets, video games, and loud music

Hellebore: How do you show affection?

Hmm... I really like to draw art for those i love, tell them how much i love them even though i can be bad with words, and i just try to spend a lot of time with the people I care about no matter what we are doing

Hoary Stock: What are you proudest of?

uhhh trying to open up more? and Im really proud of my gf

Hollyhock: Describe your ideal day.

Going to waffle house. Go to a mountain and hike a little, sit on the top with girlfriend. Admire beauty of mountain countryside. Admire beauty of girlfriend while they admire the beauty of the mountain. Then warm up together with hot chocolate and play video games

Hyacinth: What do you like to do in your free time?

I like to doodle and do the arts, play video games, and I like to bake sometimes

Hydrangea: How long have you known your best friend? How did you meet them?

uuuuuuh I have a good friend I’ve known since kindergarten or first grade when I first moved to where I currently live

Irises: Who can you talk to about (almost) everything?

My gf uwu and my mem

Laceleaf: How many friends do you have?

probably like less than 10

Lantanas: What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received?

I think its really cute especially when you compliment my laugh

Larkspur: What do you think of yourself?

??? I think I am an okay person? And I try to be a good person and be kind and polite to people

Lavender: What’s your favorite thing about yourself?

Umm... I mean I like that Im kind? and Im not fake and I try to be a good person

Leather Flower: What’s your least favorite thing about yourself?

I hate that I procrastinate and that I can get frustrated easily at myself and at situations like crowds and traffic

Lilac: What’s something you liked to do as a child?

I liked to play ‘restaurant’ with my sister with our littlest pet shops

Lily: Who was your best friend when you were a kid?

I had a really great best friend named Rachel :c

Lily of the Incas: What is something you still feel guilty for?

Losing a lot of friends and for being distant for a long time

Lily of the Nile: What is something you feel guilty for that you shouldn’t feel guilty about?

Cutting off a friend that was bad for my mental health and who didnt treat me well even though we were best friends for a long time

Lupine: What does your name mean? Why is that your name?

My name is literally my parents ship name... like they even told me they chose my name by putting their names together lmao but I mean I like my name so i guess its okay..

Marigold: Where did you grow up? Tell us about it.

Small town in new jersey when I was really, it was nice and family was closer. Then we moved and that was difficult but I ended up adjusting and it was good, had a decent amount of friends and the schools i went to were good

Morning Glory: What was your bedroom like growing up?

For a long time I shared a room with my sister and we had a bunkbed and I had the top bunk of course, when we moved out of the apartment and into a house I got my own room and it was baby blue only because I told my dad that no, I didnt want a fuckin pink room and that was a whole thing lmao

Mugworts: What was it like for you as a teenager? Did you enjoy your teenage years?

It was good? but also sucked a lot. I had a lot of issues with my mental health and struggled for a long while with something. I was bullied and stuff at home wasnt always that great. And i got outed so that was fun. Other than that I enjoyed swimming competitively and I got into art

Norwegian Angelica: Tell us about your mom.

I love my mom!! she is the most Mom mom and is so sweet and always there for me. She helps me out so much with so many things and I just love my mom so much

Onions: Tell about your dad.

I mean I love my dad? And hes better than he used to be, but he still doesnt help with shit and irritates me a lot.

Orchid: Tell about your grandparents.

I never got to know my grandfather on my moms side bc he passed away a few months before i was born and I sort of knew my grandmother but she lived far away and passed away 10 years ago. I usually see my gramma on my dads side the most and I try to visit often and help her out with stuff and I love her even though she can be a bit... racist and shit.. and I sometimes see my grandpa and step grandma but they can be strict about weird shit and always ask a lot of uncomfortable questions

Pansy: What was your most memorable birthday? What made it be so memorable?

I dont really do much on my birthdays? Ive had a lot of nice birthdays and it usually involves going out to dinner or having a nice dinner at home and having birthday cake and playing games like jenga or yahtzee.

Peony: What was your first job?

I did some petsitting for a while but my first real job was being a camp counselor/tower belayer/lifeguard at a girl scout camp

Petunia: If you’re in a relationship, how did you meet your partner(s)?

Met online after following them for a long time and drawing some arts for them, but didnt really start chatting until stranger things 3 came out bc I saw they had just watched it. Didnt meet irl until fursonacon and I just remember seeing them walking up to my car when I got there and just being like .... oh no. I had already had a crush but at that point I was just heart eyes

Pincushion: How do you deal with pain?

Its a little fucked up but depending on the type of physical pain I like it? Like getting tattoos and stuff.. emotional/mental I just curl up in blankets and listen to sad music lol

Pink: Where is home?

I feel like I have many homes? I feel really at home in the mountains, at home with my family, and when Im with my girlfriend

Plantain Lilies: If you could go back in time, what is one thing you would stop/change?

Every event no matter how shitty shaped me into who i am today and Im pretty content and lucky with what I have today so maybe nothing?

Prairie Gentian: Who is someone you look up to? Describe them.

My GS leader Miss Kristin. So incredibly kind and outgoing and just willing to do whatever she can to help others. Shes so adventurous and outgoing and made my gs troop so amazing. She is such a wonderful lady and shes basically like another mom to me.

Primrose: Describe your ideal life.

To be with my SO in a nice cabin in the mountains with a nice fireplace. Its cozy and we have pets (especially kitties but also maybe a dog and chickens and such) and life is okay and we’re happy

Rhodendron: What is something you used to believe in as a child?

God and Santa Claus (i was so heartbroken (over santa not God lmao))

Ricinus: Who’s the most important in your life?

My girlfriend and my mom

Rose: What’s your favorite sound?

My gfs voice and their laugh c: and I also really like the sound of thunderstorms and rain

Rosemallows: What’s your favorite memory?

Sage: What’s your least favorite memory?

Snapdragon: At this moment, what do you want?

To see my gf again and for winter break to just be here already I am so done with school lol

St. John’s Wort: Is it easy or difficult for you to express how you feel about things?

Difficult? I try really hard to express how I feel but I usually mess up and I get anxious but I try my best lol

Sunflower: What is something you don’t want to imagine life without?

Any of my loved ones and my cat

Sweet Pea: How much sleep did you get last night?

I wish I got more sleep but it was an okay amount

Tickseed: What’s your main reason to get up every morning?

Good morning texts from my gf and my gf in general

Touch-Me-Not: How do you feel about your current job?

I dont currently have a job but I occasionally do art commissions which is usually fun and gives me something to do

Transvaal Daisy: What’s your favorite item of clothing?

Any of my flannels and my leather jacket (also not mine but my gfs hoodie they gave to me to borrow)

Tropical White Morning Glory: Describe your aesthetic.

mountains, cabins, flowers, fall, flannel, small coffee shops, pastels

Tulip: What would be the best present to get you?

Im not one to be picky about gifts? I just love anything that someone put some thought into and thought I would like or reminded them of me but i feel bad if it was something expensive or anything lol

Vervain: What’s stressing you out most right now?

Final exams and graduation

Wisteria: How many books have you read in the past few months? What were they called?

0 lmao I used to read a shit ton but Ive been picky about what books I want to read lately

Wolf’s Bane: Where do you want to be in life this time next year?

Working towards applying to vet school and maybe thinking about moving out depending on a lot of things.

Yarrow: Do you know what vore is?

Unfortunately

Zinnia: Give a random fact about yourself.

I like collecting pins, pennies, and postcards which is funny to me

(So in conclusion,,, I love my gf)

(wow that was long as hell and took forever but done!)

#long post #ask #sapphicfinalpam

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redslilstories · 5 years

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The Bunny and the Eggs

Author: lilyme (aka. redslilstories aka. me ;)) Summary: Curiosity about the connection of eggs, bunnies and Easter leads to a little confusion, a fair amount of embarassment and an unexpected talk two parents had secretly hoped for. Characters: Callie/Arizona, Sofia Rating: PG Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this story, nor do I own any rights to the television show "Grey's Anatomy". They were created by Shonda Rhimes and belong to her and the ABC network. No copyright infringement intended! All mistakes are mine.

A/N: Happy late Easter! ;)

She stalked her terrain. On the hunt for some treats she just knew lay hidden, waiting to be discovered by her keen eyes.

Her basket was already full to the brim, a clear sign on how successful her raid was.

And with a squeal of joy she realized that she was still not done. "Found one more!" the little girl exclaimed and held up yet another colorfully painted egg for her parents to see.

Her parents, Callie and Arizona, by name, were sitting on a bench nearer to the house, and enjoyed watching their four year-old rascal run around the garden. On the prowl for Easter eggs and other goodies they had stashed away for her for this special day.

Special for two reasons. One it being Easter Sunday of course. And two, it was the first Easter they got to spend in their new house.

They had bought it three months ago. A beautiful one-story home from the mid-seventies. With big windows, a wooden facade in light fawn, a dark roof on the outside. And a spacious kitchen, a dining room, two living rooms, four bedrooms and three bathrooms on the inside.

It was located in one of Seattle's quieter areas, in a small neighborhood community close to Blyth Park.

Arizona had been so over the moon when Callie had agreed to buy this gem. She had feared it would be way harder to convince her wife to move out of her bat cave. By now partly beige-tinted, but still with an appeal a little too edgy for Arizona's taste.

Yes, admittedly, the apartment had its perks. The most obvious one being that it was literally right across the street from the hospital, and therefore allowed for an insanely short commute.

But Arizona had always wanted to someday live somewhere with a little more room, and a lot more green, Callie knew.

And so when they had visited the house and she had seen the over-excited faces of her wife and daughter at the idea of living here – even though it was a good thirty minutes away from work and preschool – the brunette had not hesitated one second. The happiness of her family by far outweighing the sorrow of losing her first real home in Seattle. Her hideout in the basement at Seattle Grace, the time she had stayed with George at Meredith's and the months she had crashed on Cristina's couch not really counting.

They had adapted to their new surroundings nicely, using this new start to really design the inside of the house together. The little squabbles about the wall-colors by now a tradition with her wife Callie held really dear. At least the walls weren't beige anymore, but rather a mix of other... pastel colors. Not really Callie's style, still, but she was getting used to it. She had been able to carry through some of her wishes in furniture, at least. The living room and hallway with the dark mahogany shelves, sideboards and bureaus almost exclusively her idea and a nice contrast to the light walls.

Plus Arizona had allowed her to color their master bedroom's walls in a ruby tone. The blonde willingly admitted that this gave the room a really intimate atmosphere. And that made the room one easily of their favorites.

Sofia's favorite was naturally her own room. Decorated just as pastel-y and brightly as her Mami Arizona would have fashioned the entire house, if one had let her.

The house was their joined project; they were all very proud of it. And as far as space was concerned, they couldn't have done better. The backyard with adjoining garden alone was almost as big as the living room of the apartment had been.

Thus it was clearly a feature little Sofia enjoyed very much about the new habitat. Understandably. It had a swing, a small slide, a little sandbox and in general plenty of room to explore and do fun activities.

Like Easter egg hunting.

"Here!" they heard Sofia's little voice as another egg went into her little container.

"Good, baby," Arizona shouted over. "Come here a sec and show us, how full your basket is, okay?" she proposed and the little girl obliged, spurting over with her yellow and rose summer dress flowing in April's already warm air.

Callie wore a dress quite similar – albeit in light-blue and yellow. Her two girls had given it to her for her last birthday. And despite usually preferring much darker colors herself, the brunette had chosen this day to wear it – knowing Sofia and Arizona would love it.

She took the basket and counted the contents, adding them to the things already laid out on the wooden crate next to the bench. Making sure their daughter had found all things hidden in the garden.

She wasn't too fond of the idea of stumbling across a rotting and smelling egg in a month or so. Or finding one of the other presents overlooked, withered and worn by often unstable spring weather.

"This looks great, sweetie. You found it all," she smiled in satisfaction and hugged her mini-me to her.

"Oh, wait up," Arizona interrupted. Almost unnoticed by the duo she had disappeared into the house. "Mr. and Mrs. Bunny told us that one of their friends is pretty lonely and wants to live with you," she announced and conjured up a medium-sized bunny plushie from behind her back. All equipped with its own bag full of eggs hanging from its shoulder.

Callie looked at her wife in amused disbelief. Actually they had an agreement to cut back on the stuffed animals a little. Seeing as how Sofia's bed was already so full the girl herself hardly fit in with them anymore.

With the four year-old refusing to give away even just one of the animals and demanding they all sleep in her bed, it was starting to become a problem.

Scratch the starting to. It already was a problem.

But apparently Arizona hadn't been able to resist the cuteness of this one. And against better judgment Callie had to agree that it was adorable.

"Oh, thank you!" Sofia rejoiced and hugged her mom before inspecting the bunny.

"Are you happy, baby?" Callie asked as Sofia marched back to the crate to add her new friend to the wild arrangement of candy eggs and real ones, a few toys – including a little space shuttle and a Barbie – and some crayons and colored pencils, so she could live out her artsy nature. Seeing as there wasn't enough room for her plushie, however, she opted to keep hugging it instead.

"Yes!" the girl answered vigorously to the question, but soon her parents noticed her lip protruding in contemplation.

Having had the honor of raising her for four years now, Callie and Arizona knew that some sort of question was growing in the young mind always thirsty for knowledge.

The age of four was the inquisitive one. And Sofia asked a lot of things. Rarely anything unimportant. So the women were keen to know what was going on inside her head her this time.

"What is it?" Arizona decided to address the matter.

The little one thought for a moment if she could find the answer herself. But soon accepted that it was not possible. "Why do we have eggs and bunnies for Easter?" the girl queried and her face portrayed true puzzlement out of lack of logical connection of the three things.

"That's a good question," Arizona agreed, encouraging the four year-old's curious mind. And also stalling, since she was busy thinking about the perfect and most child-oriented explanation.

Her wife was already one step further and began, "Well, you see, they're symbols of fertility."

"What's 'fertly'?" Sofia immediately chimed in and squinted her eyes at the adult, having never heard that difficult word.

Arizona inwardly chuckled at her wife's approach, which seemed better suited for a kid a few years older. At least vocabulary-wise. "It means, like, new life," she decided to help out a little. "You know how in spring everything starts to grow again? All the trees get new leaves and the flowers grow blossoms?" she tried and Sofia nodded.

Callie smiled at the assistance. Picking up Sofia and seating her on her lap, she continued on this more promising route. "And a lot of animals have babies in spring. Like bunnies, for example".

"Oh, okay," Sofia bobbed her little head at her parents' statements.

However, "And the bunny babies grow in eggs?" the connection between the colorful objects and the hippy-hoppy animal was still up for debate, as the clever follow-up of the preschooler reminded them.

Because why else would bunnies have eggs, if they weren't theirs?

"Um," it was Callie who stalled this time. It was getting a little complicated. And technically bunnies in eggs wasn't even all wrong, since that was where the tiny embryos started to develop. "Well, these eggs the bunny gets from some really nice hens, who want to make kids happy. And the bunny paints them, so they look pretty".

"Uh-huh," Sofia agreed, looking down down at her plushie and the plushie eggs in the basket, processing the information. "And the baby bunnies?"

"Oh, right," her mom remembered the question about them growing in eggs. "Um, they sort of grow in eggs too. But a different kind of egg. A lot of babies come from eggs," she concluded, her face growing desperate at her funky explanation of life. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Arizona by now full on stifling a laugh at the truthful, but for a little child likely misleading exchange.

"And human babies? They come from eggs too?" Sofia ruminated further.

And Callie just moved her head in a half-nod-half-shake, glad that Sofia's eyes were focused elsewhere. "From a very special type of egg, yeah," she confirmed and silently prayed to the Easter Bunny that this would be it about this particular topicfor now.

Because this parent was clearly not prepared for The Talk just yet. Having figured it'd be a couple more years.

Of course Sofia's inquisitiveness and her own floundering over the correct way to explain it had brought them here, so she had to blame herself.

To Callie's dismay, Detective Sofia Robbins Sloan Torres was far from done. "But how does the baby get into the egg? Like... like, chicken... not all chicken eggs have babies".

Sofia knew this first hand. Due to Arizona's wish they were considering getting a coop and some chicken. And had recently visited a little chicken farm to see if it was really a thing for them. The farmer had explained a lot about the animals and eggs to her, so Sofia knew that most eggs didn't hold babies. The process of getting the baby chicken into the egg, however, had not been discussed. And right now Callie wished it was different.

She cleared her throat. "I'm sure Mami can explain," she deflected the responsibility of enlightening their daughter and got up, placing Sofia in her previous spot on befuddled Arizona's side. "She's a baby doctor. She knows all about this. I'll be right out with the cake, okay?"

"Yes!" Sofia squealed in anticipation of the cake Mama had promised they'd have after the hunt. And at the prospect of a really good explanation from her Mami Arizona, who was a veritable baby doctor by now. Having started a successful fellowship in fetal medicine almost a year ago. So as Sofia understood it, she was now an expert on tiny unborn babies as well as big kids like herself.

The expert in question stared at her wife in a flight of despair at the obvious attempt to escape and mouthed a 'smooth move' to the the overwhelmed woman, who hastened to get inside.

Sofia failed to catch the exchange, and looked at her "Mami?" expectantly.

"Uh, well, you see...," she cleared her throat, hugging Sofia to her. She met the intense dark eyes that reminded her of Callie every day. "If, um... if two adults... or two chicken love each other very much, they might... cuddle... a lot," she smirked, agreeing with herself that this wasn't too bad of a start. "And a some point that might lead to a baby, because they love babies. Baby's are always great, you know?" she admitted and kissed the girl's head.

"And the cuddling helps make the baby?" Sofia followed and nestled into her mom's arm.

"Uh-huh," Arizona agreed, satisfied with calling the actual process 'adult cuddling' for now. That's all Sofia needed to know at her age. "The grown-ups cuddle and a part of each get into the egg to make a baby. With chicken, the mama lays the eggs early on and the little chicken grow outside the mama. That's why they have this hard shell to protect them. And when they're ready, they break the egg and slip out. With human babies, they start out as eggs too, but then the egg shell gets thinner and thinner, as the baby grows, until there is just a fragile skin left. That's why human babies stay in their mom's belly until they're ready to be born, alright? She protects them that way".

To that Sofia hummed her enthusiastic consent. That human babies grow in the belly, she already knew. Having been to work with Mami a couple of times. And also from some of her parents' friends, who had grown babies in bellies.

"So, humans only lay the egg once the baby wants to come out," Sofia concluded.

"Sort of, yeah," Arizona pinched the bridge of her nose when Sofia wasn't looking. Why, oh, why had Callie started this whole humans and eggs thing? God knows what Sofia really imagined went on inside a pregnant woman, and during birth.

If the time was ripe for a more detailed version of The Talk, she definitely would not let her coward of a wife flee the scene. They would do that one together.

But at least their daughter seemed content enough. As far as the few moments of silence indicated.

"So, Mama and Daddy cuddled a lot and then I got into the egg?" Sofia asked.

"That's right," Arizona returned. Strange how answering this question suddenly felt so easy in comparison to the conversation of the last minutes.

And truth be told, by now she was far past the circumstances of Sofia's conception. As unorthodox as it was, she would not change one bit about her daughter's story. Sofia was growing up in the best family ever, if she was allowed to judge.

"But now only you cuddle Mama, right? And you love her very much?"

"Absolutely," the blonde found herself readily agreeing to the state of their relationship. Her mind ready to dwell on moments of this bliss.

So ready, in fact, that she nearly missed the next mental leap of Sofia's mind. "Can you try to cuddle Mama really tight so she can lay more baby eggs?"

"Can...," Arizona's thoughts came to a screeching halt.

"Can you... Can I... what?!" Callie equally surprised voice sounded from the back door of the house in confusion.

Sofia climbed off the bench and neared Mama to explain. "Mami said that cuddling makes a baby in the egg. Can you lay a baby egg so I can have a baby brother like Bailey?"

"Oh," Callie realized, now caught up to the train of thought. But this didn't mean she wasn't at a loss of what to say. Perplex she looked between her excited daughter, hugging into her side and waiting for an answer, and her flustered wife, who was trying to blend in with the bench she was still occupying. Even though her white shorts and shirt matched the color of said piece of furniture, her beet-red face still made her stick out. "I... uhh, well... maybe," she returned diplomatically. "But, look, cake is ready," she changed the subject and showed Sofia the tray she was holding. With plates, cups and a thermos full of tea. And not to forget Sofia's favorite strawberry cheese cake".

"Yay!" the girl shouted, with that her focus on the cuddle-produced babies in eggs seemingly deterred for now.

"Alright. Go wash your hands, sweetie," she ordered and Sofia was already on her way to do as asked.

As soon as she was gone, Callie turned her attention towards her wife. "I was gone for a whole three minutes...," she teased, walking down the few steps of the porch and setting out the table in the garden for them.

"In my defense... I didn't make the egg thing any worse. It's not like you gave me a good start...," the blonde protested.

And the inquiry for a sibling had caught her equally off guard as it must have her wife.

"True," Callie blushed at the playful accusation. "But the cuddles?" she cocked an eyebrow in amusement, "Can you imagine her spreading her new knowledge in preschool?"

"I'd rather not," Arizona grinned as she watched her wife finish up and deposit the tray on the ground. "Maybe we should warn her teacher about it". Before incomplete knowledge leads to total confusion of a young generation of Seattleites.

At this, Callie laughed wholeheartedly. "Oh, God, Mark is gonna love this so much," she said and used the opportunity to sit on Arizona's vacant lap, smiling at the sight and feel of her own legs brushing against the blonde's. Arizona's legs always significantly paler than her naturally tan ones. But the April sun gave them a subtle freckling.

The other woman laughed along, leaning her head against her wife's chest, as Callie draped one arm around her shoulder. Her own arms instinctively moving around Callie's waist. "So true. I can already hear his comments on that. Wonder how he would have gone about this".

Mark was absent for Sofia's first big egg hunt at her mothers' house. Which in any other situation would be a big affront to their daughter.

But he had an excuse.

A really good one.

He was on his honeymoon with Lexie in Curacao. The two of them having gotten married two weeks ago.

They hadn't heard a lot from them since the wedding. God knows what they were doing and how busy he was cuddling Lexie.

His baby mamas were really happy for him. And Sofia was excited to have yet another mom.

And who knows, maybe they were planning on a sibling for Sofia already. Mark definitely open to the idea.

"But, Calliope, honey, could you... um," Arizona bit her lip as she looked up at her woman, trying to gain her attention from where Callie was absently stroking her arm.

The brunette turned her head and Arizona was able to lock eyes with her. Her beautiful wife and mother of her child. She really was her dream come true. A dream that had long not included children. But now that she was experiencing the joy of motherhood, it was something she wouldn't want to miss.

"Could you…," she grasped the strong hand on her arm and entwined their fingers. "Could you imagine laying more baby eggs in the future?" she finally dared to formulate her thought and felt her pulse quickening in expectation of the answer.

The realization that Sofia herself was actually mulling the idea and wanted a sibling was working in the blonde's mind. Not for the first time making her think about this matter.

Callie raised her eyebrows. Not at the wording, which would seriously become an inside joke for their family for all eternity. But at the question itself.

They hadn't talked about this. With so much happening in their lives, their careers right now.

But things were going so great in that respect and they had a really stable relationship. And now they had this amazing house, with a couple of spare rooms they had right now planned out as offices or a play room for Sofia plus a guest room.

Yet of course they could be used in other ways as well.

Callie looked at her wife, who five years ago had been so adamant about not ever wanting kids. But now she seemed serious about this.

Could this really in the future for them? More babies?

It certainly had been her dream growing up. Maybe not ten kids, but something like three or four always having played out in her imagination of her future.

Naturally her little self had not lost too many thoughts on the carrying a baby around in you for a whole long while. She thought back on her pregnancy with Sofia. Remembering the nine and a half months full of hormonal mood swings, swollen feet and stretch marks. Stupid fights over tiny, tiny things her pregnant brain thought up.

Not to mention the grand finale with almost thirty hours of labor.

But there were the good parts too. Arizona caring for her throughout it all with devotion. Talking to their baby in the belly for hours, and content to just hold her tight whenever Callie did not at all feel ready to make love to her – which had often been the case. And then holding her hand straight through the thirty aforementioned hours. Never leaving her side.

It had been a wonderful journey.

And the outcome of it all... This tiny adorable hatchling with the alert mind and beautiful imagination. The girl they had already had so many incredible moments with – from first words and first steps. To the girl drawing pictures for them that were completely adorable and completely unrecognizable. To hours filled with laughter and rarely a moment of quietness in their lives.

With a prospect of having more of that, her decision was clear. "I absolutely want to" she said sincerely and whimpered a little as she noticed Arizona's emotional tears at her reply.

"Really? Oh, God, I love you so much," the blonde whispered and leaned up to kiss Callie in promise of some more babies.

"I love you too," Callie returned and held her wife close to her chest as they both tried to get their tears under control.

Arizona saw their house fill with more Callie-shaped wonders. Wanting this to happen as soon as possible. And who knew, maybe she could even imagine adding a mini-Arizona as well. Callie certainly would not object.

"We're ready," Sofia announced her return, unaware as to what her proposal had lead her mothers' hearts to. They watched their first-born sit at the table with her new friend, the Easter Bunny plushie.

"We're ready too," Mama Callie decided, grabbing Mami Arizona's hand to lead her to the table.

And into an exciting future.

*** END

#Team Calzona #calzona forever #calzona fanfiction #Calzona #calzona always #calzona all ways #callie torres #arizona robbins #sofia robbin sloan torres #grey's anatomy #fluff #humor #embarassment #curiosity #parents #the talk #the birds and the bees #adorable family #love them forever

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khadij-al-kubra · 5 years

Text

Thomas In Wonderland (Full Fanfic) Chapter 1

Characters: Thomas (fictional), Roman, Patton, Logan, Virgil, Remy, Emile, Joan, Talyn Deceit, Nate, the Dragon Witch (i mean jabberwalkie), Possibly fan adopted shorts characters

Pairings: None (although knowing me and my love of ships, this may change)

Words: 1368

Summary: Thomas seems to have lost his inspiration, his creative drive, and in short has a seriously BAD case of writers block. Perhaps an accidental trip down the rabbit hole into a land of nonsense and madness will help him find that flighty spark he’s been looking for.

Author’s Note: Greetings guys, gals, & non-binary pals! Looks like this is going to be my first multi-chapter fanfic of the new year. This chapter is more of a prologue than anything so it won’t be as long. If you know my writing though, than future chapters are pretty much guaranteed to be MUCH longer. And as always feel free to leave a comment in the messages or reply if you have any notes or constructive critiques. I’m always open to writing advice. Also, if you would like to be in the tag list for this fanfic, feel free to message or inbox me and I shall happily and gratefully add you to the list. I’m super excited about this, and I hope you all enjoy.

Prologue

Writers block. The bane of his existence and possible the only thing that Thomas hated even more than he hated bigoted jerk faces. ...Okay he hated the latter way more, but writers block was definitely up there on the list, right behind mucky Florida heat and cold pizza. His current bout of creative block however was making its way up that list.

“Come on brain...think of things. Come on brain, be so smart,” Thomas mumbled to himself, disappointed he couldn’t even come up with something more original than a borrowed line from that Lin-Manuel Miranda vine.

He certainly felt like the embodiment of it though.

He had been sitting at the table in his living room for the past two hours. His laptop was opened to a mockingly blank page, a lined yellow notepad next to it covered in scratched out bad ideas, crumpled papers were scattered around him, and his Steven Universe mug half emptied of coffee that was cold by now. To add insult to injury, it was an actually nice crisp yet sunshiny autumn day and Thomas could only sit inside as the beauty of it mocked him from the other side of his living room window. The jerk!

He would’ve loved nothing more than to go for a walk outside or visit his friends, but sadly Thomas had a new script to write. Normally he and Joan were pretty good about keeping on top of schedules and they’d even gotten the last two scripted videos out in pretty good amounts of time. Which hopefully made up for that six month dry spell they both swore never to speak of again. However, Joan reminded him that a new scripted video was due soon and Thomas for the life of him just COULD NOT seem to come up with any new or exciting story ideas! It was like his creativity was wandering around a blank page desert and the oasis of is imagination had dried up.

“Say, that could make for a neat Sanders Sides video,” Thomas mused to himself perking up...only to deflate back down after realizing they didn’t have the budget for that kind of a green screen effect. “Besides, the sides never debate outside of my living room and moving them to a location outside of my house wouldn’t make any sense.”

Thomas groaned and plonked his forehead onto the wooden coffee table. Making videos and writing scripts used to be so much fun. Until it started being his job more than a passion. It’s not like he didn’t know what he was signing up for. He wanted this, and he knew he was luckier than most that he got to get paid for creating art and doing what he loved. Not that he and his team did it for the money. Except lately creating felt more like a chore. Not something eh wanted to do but like something he had to do. Like dusting, which was his least favorite chore. Creating felt like a chore! But he couldn’t let Joan or Camden or his wonderful famders down. So he needed to come up with something good...Thomas just wish he could feel that rush of wondrous joy and colorful excitement about his work again. He missed coming up with ideas that were so out there yet he felt a surge of pride every time they worked. Lately all his ideas felt, well, like looking at a faded rainbow. Which was sad as both and artist and a gay man...But deadlines were deadlines and he had to create something to post for the next video.

“That is if i could come up with something period!” Thomas sighed. “Maybe i need a break. Just five to ten minutes of something fun to get the ol’ juices flowing again. Something exciting...”

He looked at the very cold coffee with a pouted lip. Or maybe I just need a boost from my favorite caffeinated drug, he thought. With that decided Thomas picked up the mug and got up to go to the kitchen. Before he even reached the entryway however, a flash of purple in the corner of his eye stopped him. It was from outside. Curious, Thomas went over to the window to peer outside, hoping to see what that thing was. Maybe it was a pretty hummingbird or something, he mused, on its way flying south for the winter. He squinted as he saw the bushes across his yard tremble and this time he caught the flash of purple as it popped our from the foliage.

Only it wasn’t a hummingbird. It was a rabbit: A black rabbit wearing a velvet purple waistcoat. Thomas did a double take. he rubbed at his tired eyes to be sure he wasn’t just seeing things after staring at a blank screen for so long. Nope. It was really there. And if that weren’t jaw drop worth enough, now the black rabbit was taking out a silver pocket watch from his waistcoat pocket.

“Well that’s not something you see every day.”

Too curious to pass seeing this delightful oddity up close, Thomas quickly set down his mug, pulled his jacket over his favorite faded circle shirt and slipped his sneakers on. He was out the door and across faster than you could say Jeemanetty. When he was a few feet away from the rabbit, who was paying more attention to his pocket watch, Thomas slowed down to a tip toe so as not to scare the rabbit off. As he got closer Thomas saw that there was an elegant storm cloud design engraved on the back of the watch. What a cute little fella, Thomas thought to himself. But where did he come from? How did he get a fancy watch and threads like that? Should I call animal control though? As he was debating this, something even weirder happened.

“Ah geeze,” said the Black Rabbit. “I am so late! He’s gonna have my ears and whiskers for this, along with the rest of my head.”

Thomas literally felt his jaw drop and his eyes bug out near cartoon level.

“You can TALK!?” Thomas shouted.

The Black Rabbit jumped at this voice. The silver watch shook in his trembling hands, the poor thing. He hadn’t meant to frighten the little guy. It’s just a talking black rabbit wasn’t something you saw every day, not even in the Bermuda Triangle of America that is Florida.

“It’s okay little guy,” Thomas said, hands held out carefully. “I’m not gonna hurt you, I just wanna talk.”

The Black Rabbit anxiously looked from Thomas to his watch and then back again.

“No time to talk,” he said. “I’mlateI’mLATEI’MLATE!!!”

And then quick as a lightning strike the Black Rabbit dashed into the thicket of shrubbery and trees. Without thinking about it Thomas ran after him.

“Wait, I’m sorry! Come back! Maybe I can help you,” Thomas called out to the purple clad creature ahead of him.

He chased the Rabbit through brambles and bushes, across lawns and through low hanging leaves. If Thomas had taken a moment to think he would’ve realized that there was no way he could possibly catch up to a wild animal, least of all one with a waistcoat and pocket watch, which was surely proof that he was smarter than the average bunny even without the talking. He also would’ve noticed that the hole that the Black Rabbit had ducked into was much larger than a normal rabbit hole and was probably dangerous if someone were to get too close. Most of all, had Thomas slowed down for a moment to think, he would’ve realized that when he left the house in a hurry, he had forgotten to tie the laces of his sneakers that he’d slipped on.

But Thomas did none of those things. As a result, what he did do was trip on his laces just after seeing the Black Rabbit go down the whole. And because he was so close when he tripped on his laces, even if he wanted to, Thomas could not stop to think now.

All he could do was scream loudly as he fell headlong down the rabbit hole into the unknown.

Next =>

Tag List: @altruistic-skittles @thekeytohappiness-is-you @canadian-crofters @icecoldparadise @the-pastel-peach @justisaisfine @bluebloodstains @purpleshipper @patchworkofstars @axyzel @hissesssss @beautifully-terribly @pink-and-purple-flowers @jynxlovesluck @thatsanswitch @6tick6tock6@hanramz-the-fander @azlinne @helplesscreator @thestoryofme13 @bibbidi-bobbity-booyah @accidental-sanders @moonstone-fox @smokeyrutilequartz @phlying-squirrel @madly-handsome @puns-and-patton @notveryglittery @eequalsmcscared @safesandersides @lizziepopanime @anxiously-unsatisfied-world @ab-artist @unikornavenger @queer-human-being @grey-lysander @asofterfan @fangirltothefullest @tinkslittlebelle @allsortsofgeekery @fuck-my-life-i-want-food @ironwoman359 @a-valorous-choice @broadwaytheanimatedseries @sugarglider9603 @xx-fandom-potato-xx @mycatshuman @punsterterry @journalanxiety @stuck-in-a-surrealist-painting @elementalshadowwitch @fuck-my-life-i-want-food @the-psycho-pie @satanblessi @thesassiersilv101 @bat-fangirl77-fan @icantbeme71097 @chituri @dangerfishie @grade-a-trash-blog @justsomerandomhooman @romano-cheesy @llamaavocado @pinkbea09 @aliceofscarletflames @backatthebein @em-be-lievable @mephonic @impatentpending @paperghastly @ravenclawangst @iamtrashcans @loganberrysanders @icequeenoriginal @book-of-charlie @ierindoodles @thatsthat24

#KDsWriting #Thomas in Wonderland AU #thomas sanders #virgil sanders #Logan sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders #deceit sanders #remy sanders #joan and talyn #emile picani #nate sanders #dragon witch #i'm super excited for this fic guys #ya girl is back at it #first fanfic of 2019

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cutiecrates · 5 years

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Cutie Reviews: Kawaii Box May 19

Before I begin I have an announcement: later/tomorrow I plan to post a sort of... glossaryish post that will be about ALL the boxes I subscribe to :D Because earlier today it occurred to me, I never really talk about the brands themselves anymore unless they have some update or if I complain in my reviews. I thought this type of post would be nice for anyone who just wanted to learn more about a specific box to see if they would be interested in it. I will also be including my own opinions on the box as a whole, pros and cons, how the box has changed, etc.

So if you like things like that, then make sure you come back soon!

Until then, we’re gonna focus on this:

Word of the month: Tanjyoubi - Birthday

Disney Princess Dress-Up Puffy Stickers

Our first item is a set of Disney Princess Ariel/Little Mermaid stickers. Covered to the brim with stickers, this sheet has multiple outfits, accessories/props, and deco bits to have fun with the sticker doll and then-some!

Besides Ariel, there are other Disney Princess and I’ve even seen they added a really cute Minnie mouse one on Blippo.com. Those in this set each cost $3.90.

I was really torn between all 3 dresses, the turquoise one was a classic for Ariel, and I love how the pink one reminded me of Aurora, but I actually settled for the purple one because I though it looked really pretty on her. Then I chose the shell purse and matching decoration/accessory and a light pink sash to add more to her dress, what do you think?

While on the subject, which dress would you have chose for her? Or would you have given her a different colored dress entirely?

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

It’s really simple, but it’s also pretty fun and cute, I love dress-up stickers because of how creative you can be. I mentioned this before but I really want to start a scrapbook or photobook and fill it entirely with dress-ups~

The stickers puffiness is nice and soft, and I like how these don’t feel finished. So I could go back to it a few days later and swap out her purse and hair piece to make her classier with a sun hat. Or I could give her the turquoise dress if I wanted.

Sanrio Ziptop Bag Set

Next up is this pack of adorable Pompompurin zipper bags. You get 6 in total, including 3 Small 70mm x100mm, and 3 Medium 160mm x 190mm. Each set offers different designs, and besides Pompompurin (who I couldn’t find on blippo btw) there was also the other basic characters like my Melody, Gudetama, Little Twin Star. Each set costs $5.90.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I think these are really cute, and practical :D according to the back of the package you could put all sorts of things in these, and I like that both sets are zip-locks. These would be a perfect gift for any Pompompurin fan.

Kawaii Dreams File

This is the monthly Exclusive item, a file folder featuring a variety of kawaii designs and items you can find on the Kawaii Box box and booklet, with the inside panel being white and pink to match the box’s color scheme. It’s kinda small-medium, about the size of the booklet that comes in each box, and it’s a little flimsy, but for most part it feels durable and sturdy.

You can buy this off of Blippo for $2.90.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I usually don’t look forward to getting these files in the boxes because as cute as they are, they’re always big and bent. This one fits in the box with no problem, so I feel like even though you would need to fold certain things into it, it’s more practical. I also like how despite how colorful and busy it looks, it doesn’t feel too-busy.

Soft Jell Rainbow Gel Pen Set

I loved gel pens growing up x3 my friends and I loved to draw on our things and each other during class (but only when we weren’t actually doing anything important <3< I wasn’t a model student but I didn’t get into trouble either), and I remember just admiring the massive rainbow collection my friend had; she must have had at least 100!

My collection was much smaller and modest though, I only had a few glittery metallic ones and a couple multicolored pastels. So for someone who used to love these, getting a whole pretty set like this just made my day~

It’s also pretty rare for us to get a whole set of anything in the boxes. If you’ve seen my prior reviews (or check out the items on blippo) its usually just one separate of your choosing. This set costs $6.90.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

The colors are vibrant and really pretty, as you can see I did decorate the box with them which in hindsight might not have been the best thing to do, but they still worked once the ink got flowing. They’re juicy and are capable of long lines, writing, dots, coloring.

My only complaint is that both blues (or I suppose you could say one is indigo? Turquoise?) look almost exactly alike. It’s the same in the actual pens, but there’s still a noticeable difference until you go to use them both, so I wish they would have darkened or lightened one of them to make the difference more noticeable.

Cute Animal Friend Masking Tape & Nekoni Cherry Blossoms Badge

For our next items, I got bunnies for both ♥

First is an adorable pastel bunny washi tape that consists of a kawaii bunny doing some silly actions. I would have taken out a piece to show the design, but when I unraveled a long, long amount of it I saw no end to the pattern >3< like it kept going, there was no repeat bunnies. Each bunny was cuter, or sillier than the last.

There are several varieties you could get, and you can guy them in sets of 4 for $5.90 on Blippo.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Well besides being very cute and silly to look at, I like how this doesn’t seem to be repetitive like most tapes. I’m sure it starts repeating somewhere but for now, I just think it would be cute to use them individually as little emoji icons, like for notes or letters or something.

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From the brand Nekoni are these adorable pastel badges with cherry blossom designs, ranging from animals, a human girl, scenery, and adorable foods. Each badge costs $1.90.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

It’s very cute, but there isn’t really much I can say about a badge other than the fact it seems to be fine quality. There was no problems with it or anything to complain about.

Cute Stationery Buddy

This probably would have been better suited for a school theme- but you also use stuff like this to decorate :P so, our next item is an adorable, soft but firm plush themed after various stationery items. There are 7 in total, each with a ball chain and costing $4.90.

I really hope I’m not the only person, but when I saw this (and even now) I think of a snail; it’s a roll of tape! I was so surprised initially but now that I’ve had it for a while I’ve been seeing it more.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Again, I find myself with little to say. It’s really cute though, and the quality is nice, there’s no obvious flaws or issues.

Yogurt Jelly Hair Clip Set

In comparison to stationery, we always get sets of hair clips so I’m happy about that :3 I love their kawaii hair clips and accessories, they’re usually always one of my most favorite items~

Anyway, this set is themed after yogurt jelly and features a small translucent clip attached to a clear, colorful, glittery yogurt jelly attached to it, each with labels, a colorful lid, and a tiny lotte written in the corner. These come in several cute color schemes, each set costs $2.90.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

As I’ve been saying this entire review, these are very cute. They’re also well made, in that the pieces don’t feel loose or flimsy, which has been in a problem with one or two past-sets I’ve gotten, but you can easily fix that with some good glue. I was also very happy to get a very pink set, but you couldn’t go wrong with any of them in my opinion!

DIY Fruity Doodle Pen & Flower Candy

Our last item is this cute little fruity doodle set. Technically I don’t consider this to be a DIY considering you’re just spreading gel on the gummies, but it’s very cute and I really wanted to try it. I started seeing it like a year or two ago?

It’s available on Blippo for $3.50.

As you can see, I got tons of yellow gummies, along with a single pink, and two blues. The gel is supposed to be sour, but it’s actually very light- it reminds me a lot of strawberry jello/gelatin. The gummies are individually flavored, and this is what I thought:

Yellow - might be apricot? It tastes a lot like the apricot jelly filling in the mochi I buy from the mall.

Blue - my favorite, tastes like blue raspberry.

Pink - no flavor I could pick up, just sweetness.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

As I said, I’m not sure this is entirely a DIY so I didn’t make a separate post on it. All you do is apply the jelly, which I thought actually tasted the best out of everything in the set, but it was very tasty and cute overall, I just wish the colors/flavors of the flowers were more varied.

♥ Cutie Ranking ♥

Content - 5 out of 5: I’m not sure they were all my absolute favorite or anything, but I did genuinely like everything we got this month. I found no quality issues or problems, plenty of variety in both the types of items, and for each item. A very practical and fun box. Some items were fairly pricey though, and I’m not sure if I agreed with some of those. Also, we got one item less than usual, which I assume has something to do with the price?

Theme - ????? out of 5: I found this Happy Birthday theme to be extremely open and up for interpretation, so I had I’m not sure how I feel about how they did on it. On one hand I could say “yes, these are items you could use for gifts or decoration for a birthday“, but on another I’d say “sakura badges and yogurt hair clips don’t make me think of a birthday.”

Total Rank: 8.5 out of 10 Cuties. I liked the items, and I can see why they chose the theme they did, but because of how open it is, I’m not sure how my feelings are towards it. The items worked great and I would recommend mostly all of them. I’m not sure this is my favorite box though...

(I’m sorry but I ended up skipping the last part of this review, I was fine this entire time but towards the end things got really busy in the house and I’m not feeling well at the time. I would have went to lay down but my laptop has been weird lately and I didn’t want to risk losing the work T^T sorry if you were looking forward to that part.)

#kawaiibox #blippo kawaii shop #pompompurin #cute stationery #sanrio #ariel

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upontheshelfreviews · 5 years

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And now we come to the final piece of Walt Disney’s original animation trifecta, Fantasia, and it’s one I’m both anticipating and dreading. Fantasia isn’t just one of the crowning jewels in Disney’s canon, a landmark in motion picture animation, and second only to Snow White in terms of influential music and storytelling in the whole medium, it’s one of my top three favorite movies of all time. Discussing it without sounding like an old history professor, a pretentious internet snob, or a hyper Disney fangirl is one hell of a daunting task.

“Did someone say hyper Disney fangirl?! I LOVE Disney!!”

“I thought you only liked Frozen.”

“Well, DUH, Frozen is my favorite, which makes it, like, the best Disney movie ever! But Disney’s awesome! There’s a bunch of other movies I like that are almost as good!”

“And Fantasia’s one of them?”

“Yeah!!…Which one is that again?”

“The one with Sorcerer Mickey?”

“Ohhhh, you’re talking about the fireworks show where he fights the dragon!”

“No, that’s Fantasmic. I’m referring to Fantasia. Came out the same year as Pinocchio? All done in hand-drawn animation…has the big devil guy at the end?”

“THAT’S where he’s from?! Geez, that’s some old movie. Why haven’t I heard about ’til now?”

“Probably because you spend twelve hours a day searching for more Frozen GIFs to reblog on your Tumblr.”

“Ooh, that reminds me! I need to go post my next batch of theories about the upcoming sequel! Toodles!!”

“Thanks. Another second with her and I would’ve bust a gasket.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Anyway, it’s no surprise Sorcerer Mickey is what people remember the most from Fantasia, and not just because he’s the company mascot. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” was the reason we have the movie in the first place. It began as a pet project between Walt Disney and renowned conductor Leopold Stokowski.

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“Yep. THAT Leopold.”

However, between the upscale in animation and the use of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the cost grew too high to justify the creation of only one short. Over time more sequences featuring animation set to various pieces of classical music were added in what was initially dubbed “The Concert Feature”. Later it was wisely changed to the more memorable “Fantasia”. It works not only because it’s derived from the word “fantasy”, but because “fantasia” is a term for a musical composition that doesn’t follow any strict form and leans towards improvisation. Combine the two meanings and you get the whole movie in a nutshell.

And this leads us to –

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #1: “It’s SOOOOOO boring! Nobody’s talking and nothing ever happens!”

You know, few recall that decades before Warner Brothers was known as that studio that made rushed prequels to beloved fantasy franchises and a hastily cobbled together superhero universe, it had humble origins in the music business; their Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes shorts began as music videos made to sell their records. Disney’s Silly Symphonies followed in the same vein, though they focused more on pushing the envelope in animation technique and character resonance than selling music, as did the lesser known Harman-Ising Happy Harmonies.

And if that’s the case, then Fantasia is the Thriller of animated music videos. It’s the result of years of technological advancement and trial and error, all culminating in the flawless weaving together of visuals and some of the greatest music mankind has created to tell seven stories and elicit an emotional response for each one.

Let me repeat that: FANTASIA. PREDATES. THRILLER.

“And unlike Thriller, Fantasia has the advantage of NOT being directed by a man who literally got away with murder or involving an artist whose pedophilia accusations are still discussed a decade after his passing…at least as far as we know.”

By the way, if you’re watching the current version of Fantasia that’s available, do me a favor and pause the movie to watch the original Deems Taylor intros; while they’re shorter than the ones on the blu-ray, they have Deem’s original voice. All later releases have him dubbed over by Corey Burton because the audio for these parts hasn’t held up as well over time. Now Corey Burton is a phenomenal voice actor who’s done countless work for Disney before, but there’s a problem I have with him taking over these segments: One, he and Deems sound nothing alike, and Two, he makes him sound so dry and dull. Not to mention the longer intros practically spoil everything you’re about to see whereas the cut versions give you just enough to build some intrigue for what’s to follow.

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Regardless of whichever one you’re watching, Deems gives us the rundown on what Fantasia is all about and lists the three categories that the sequences fall under.

A concrete story

Clearly defined images with something of a narrative

Music and visuals that exist for its own sake

And the very first of these parts falls directly into the last one.

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor – Johann Sebastian Bach

Some hear this tune and attribute it as stock horror music, but for me it’s the start of a grand, dark, fantastical journey through realms of the imagination. While it is intended as an organ piece, this full orchestration blows me away. Capturing the orchestra in bold hues and shadows with colors specific to certain highlighted instruments was a brilliant move, setting the stage for what’s to come.

And if the previously referenced Bugs Bunny cartoon was any indication, the real Leopold Stokowski is one of the main draws to this segment. Stokowski’s claim to fame was that he ditched the traditional conductor’s baton and used his hands to guide the orchestra. His passion and restraint is plain for all to see, even in silhouette.

Ultimately Stokowski and the orchestra fade away into the animated ether. The idea behind Toccota and Fugue was to show a gradual transformation from the conscious world to the subconscious, providing a literal and figurative representation of what you see and hear with the music. That’s why the first animated images resemble violin bows sweeping over strings. Over time those distinct objects evolve into abstract geometric shapes.

Honestly, no amount of stills can capture what it’s like to watch this sequence play out. It’s a radically unique experience, almost like a dream.

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #2: “It’s the world’s first screensaver/musicalizer!”

This is something I hear often from people (ie. the people making the complaints I’ve chosen to highlight). First, read the previous Thing. Second, Toccata is not so much about recreating a story as it is capturing a feeling. And yet a story isn’t out of the question. I always saw at as glimpses of a battle of light versus dark, heaven versus hell, albeit not as overt as the opening of Fantasia 2000. That’s the beauty of this segment. It’s all up for interpretation. You can let the images and sounds wash over you as if you were dreaming it, or attach whatever meaning you find.

And on that note (ha) –

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #3: “God, all these animators must have been so fucking high to come up with this shit.”

I tell ya what, if you’re one of those people who think that, take whatever drug is handy, grab some crayons or whatever you feel comfortable doodling with, and when you’re comfortably high, draw one full second of animation. That’s 24 consecutive drawings that need to flow, squash and stretch into each other realistically. It doesn’t have complicated; it can be a ball bouncing, a flower blowing in the wind, an eye blinking, but it has to work.

Not so easy, huh?

Classic Disney animators who lectured at art schools received comments like this all the time. While there were some like Fred Moore who would go for the occasional beer run on breaks, there’s no record of narcotic or alcoholic influence on the animators’ turnout. I’m pretty sure Walt would’ve fired anyone who turned in work produced while high because it’d be awful. Animation was still a fairly new medium at the time, and Disney was constantly experimenting with what it could do, which is why we got things like this, the Pink Elephants, and other delightfully trippy moments throughout the 40’s, not because of drugs. Isn’t that right, classic Disney animator Bill Tytla?

“Of course! I’ve never done drugs, and I never drink…wine.”

The Nutcracker Suite – Pyotr Illich Tchaichovsky

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #4: “Yawn. Nutcracker is SO overplayed. Of course Disney had to jump on the bandwagon with their version!”

Ironically, the extended Deems Taylor intro has him mention how nobody performs Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker; in light of its modern seasonal popularity, the sentiment is rendered archaic. True, the ballet wasn’t an initial critical hit and Tchaikovsky himself virtually disowned it, but much of its ubiquity is largely due in part to Disney adapting it for Fantasia. It eschews the title character in favor of a nature ballet portraying the cycle of seasons. Initial planning included the overture and the famous march featuring woodland critters, though they were eventually cut. Walt considered pumping scents into the theater during this part, but was unable to figure out how to do it naturally. If they had Smell-O-Vision that might work, but what scents would you have to scratch off for the other Fantasia segments? Wood resin? Wine? Wet hippo? Brimstone?

The sequence begins with The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. In the night a group of fairies dance like fireflies, gracing spring flowers and spiderwebs with delicately timed dewdrops.

“Any of you girls seen Tinkerbell?” “She ditched us to hang out with that obnoxious flyboy.” “Again?! That’s the third time this month!”

The scene is atmospheric with beautifully rendered pastel backgrounds. After the fairies comes The Chinese Dance performed by a group of little mushrooms. It’s a cute number, and just another that was parodied more than a few times in other cartoons – wait do those mushrooms have slant eyes? And they’re prancing around nodding like extras in The Mikado…

You fungi are lucky you’re so darn adorable otherwise I’d sic the self-righteous side of Twitter on you.

Dance of the Reed Flutes follows. Lilies gently float on to the surface of a pond before inverting themselves to resemble twirling dancers with long, flowing skirts. And since I’m not always one to take the easy route, enjoy this niche reference instead of “You Spin Me Right Round”.

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A gust of wind blows the spinning lilies over a waterfall into some moody underwater caverns, where a school of unusually sultry goldfish perform the Arabian Dance.

Cleo, does Gepetto know about this?

A novel idea, using the basic swimming motions of a goldfish and their naturally diaphanous tails and fins as veils to resemble exotic dancers, though like other animated characters in a similar vein, this has led to some…”interesting” reactions from certain people.

Right, well, bubbles transition us into the penultimate movement, the Russian Dance. Thistles and orchids resembling dancers clad in traditional Russian peasant clothing spring to life in this brightly colored energetic minute. You’ll be chanting “hey!” along with it.

And finally, the Waltz of the Flowers. As a little girl I would often hold my own “ballets” to this scene, which mainly comprised of me in a ballet costume or fancy nightgown spinning around in circles for family members with this playing in the background. Top that, Baryshnikov.

Fairies similar to the ones from the beginning transform the leaves from fresh summer green to autumn orange, brown and gold. Milkweed seeds blossom forth and float through the air like waltzing ladies. This piece above all else is what really shows the beauty of nature. I feel more emotion watching the leaves pirouette in the wind than any plain live-action drama.

Fall turns into winter, and the fairies, now snow sprites, skate across a pond creating ice swirls while even more spiral down from the sky as snowflakes. The secret of animating these snowflakes was nearly lost to time. Several years ago a notebook by technician Herman Schultheis was rediscovered, revealing how many of the special effects in Disney’s early films – Fantasia in particular – were brought to life. The snowflakes were cels on spools attached to small rails from a train set that were filmed falling in stop motion and black and white, then superimposed on the final picture.

In conclusion, The Nutcracker Suite is a lovely piece of animation and music, and I’ll pop in Fantasia at Christmastime just to watch it. This was my introduction to The Nutcracker, and it’s an excellent and unique one.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – Paul Dukas

The symphonic poem of the same name now gets a proper name with Mickey Mouse stepping in the title role. It’s impossible to imagine any other character in his shoes, but for a time there were other considerations.

“Nope. Too wooden.”

“Too angry.”

“I’m sorry, but you’re just too darn loud.”

As we all know, Mickey was given the part since his popularity needed a boost. He doesn’t talk here, and I know those who find his voice grating wholeheartedly embrace that fact, but what we’re given is proof that Mickey works just as well silently as he does speaking. Very few cartoon characters can pull off that kind of versatility.

And while we’re on the topic of sound, Walt was so determined for the sound quality to match what was happening on screen that he devised a system he dubbed “FantaSound”, where it would seem as though the music would move around the the theater instead of just blare out from one speaker.

You read that right. Fantasia is the movie that invented SURROUND SOUND.

But that’s not the only technological leap Fantasia is responsible for – this is the first time we see Mickey with sclera.

That’s the white of the eyes for those who don’t speak science.

Before Fantasia, Mickey had what we refer to today as “pie eyes”, a relic of the era he was created in. As the art of animation progressed, animators found it increasingly difficult to create believable expressions with two little dots. Fred Moore is responsible for the mouse’s welcome redesign. Mickey as the apprentice serves the sorcerer Yen Sid, named after his real world counterpart.

“Hey! I didn’t teach him that!”

Mickey’s craving a taste of his master’s power, so he borrows his magical cap after he goes to bed and enchants a broom to finish his work of gathering water. It’s fun and bouncy, though the part where Mickey dreams he can control the cosmos, seas and sky is something to behold.

“The power! The absolute POWER!! The universe is mine to command! To CONTROOOOOOL!!!”

But Mickey is jolted from his dream of ultimate conquest when the broom begins flooding the place. Unfortunately the sorcerer’s hat doesn’t come with a manual so Mickey doesn’t know how to turn it off. He resorts to violently chopping the broom to pieces with an axe. The animation originally called for the massacre to happen on screen, but was altered to showing it through shadows instead. I think it’s much more effective this way. The implied violence is more dramatic than what we could have gotten.

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One of my favorite stylistic choices in Fantasia is what follows. The color is sucked out, drained if you will, mirroring Mickey’s exhausted emotional and physical state after committing broomslaughter. But it slowly returns as the broom’s splinters rise up and form an army of bucket-wielding drones. They overpower Mickey and catch him in a whirlpool until Yen Sid returns and parts the waters like a pissed off Moses.

“You! Shall not! SWIM!!!”

Mickey sheepishly returns the hat, and I have to give credit to the animators for the subtle touches on Yen Sid. He appears stern at first glance, but the raised eyebrow borrowed from Walt? The slight smirk at the corner of his mouth? Deep down, he’s amused by his apprentice’s shenanigans. Even the backside slap with the broom, while rendered harshly due to the sudden swell of music, is done less out of malice and more out of playfulness.

The piece ends with Mickey breaking the barriers of reality to congratulate Stokowski on a job well done.

“Hey! I didn’t teach him that!”

If you haven’t already guessed, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is easily one of my preferred sequences. It’s energetic, perfectly matches the music, and features my favorite mouse in one of his most iconic roles. I joke about the scene where Mickey controls the waves and the sky due to Disney’s far-reaching acquisitions in the past decade, but within the context of the film it’s one of the most magical moments. Some theorize that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is an allegory of Walt’s journey to create Fantasia itself, and there’s some merit to it – Mickey’s always been Walt’s avatar after all, and here he dreams big only to wind up way in over his head. But you don’t need to look for coincidental parallels to enjoy this part.

Rite of Spring – Igor Stravinsky

Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is admittedly my least favorite part of Fantasia, though I don’t hate it by all means. Thematically it’s the furthest from the original work’s intent: instead of a pagan ritual involving a virgin sacrifice, we witness the earth’s infancy. I was never really into dinosaurs as a kid (I didn’t even see Jurassic Park until I was in fourth or fifth grade), and the thundering, threatening music put me off. I found it too long (twenty-two minutes is an eternity in child time), uninteresting, and dour compared to the other sequences, with the exception of one moment. I can appreciate it now that I’m older, though.

A solitary oboe echoes through the vast darkness of space. We soar past comets, galaxies, suns, and down into our lonely little planet still in the early stages of formation. Volcanoes cover the earth. They spew toxic gas, but their magma bubbles burst in precision with the music. Once again this is due to Herman Schultheis. He filmed a mixture of oatmeal, coffee grounds, and mud with air pushed up through a vent, and let the animators go to town on it.

The volcanoes erupt simultaneously. Lava flows and the ensuing millennia of cooling form the continents. But deep in the sea, the first protozoan life wriggles, divides, and evolves into multi-cellular organisms. One of them crawls up on to land, and finally we’re back in the time where dinosaurs weren’t just confined to zoos.

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #4: “Dinosaur inaccuracies…brain melting…”

True, most of the dinosaur and plant species here never shared the same period of existence, but try telling that to the animation studio or John Hammond. They mostly went for whatever looked cool and prehistoric regardless of scientific accuracy. Some of the designs themselves are a bit off, but the animators did their best considering how much we knew about the creatures in the 30’s and 40’s. Heck, we’ve only recently discovered that most dinosaurs were covered with feathers or fur, and I don’t see anyone harping on Jurassic Park for omitting that detail. Thank God Steven Spielberg doesn’t harbor George Lucas’ affinity for reworking his past movies with extra CGI.

Believe it or not, this scene was once considered the height of accurate dinosaur depictions on film, because nobody else had done it before with this level of research and care in animation. Without Rite Of Spring, we wouldn’t have The Land Before Time or Jurassic Park in the first place. Look at Land Before Time’s bleak, orangey atmosphere and the Sharptooth fights and tell me this didn’t influence it in any way.

The dinosaurs themselves have little character and, while fascinating to see how they might have lived, are not particularly engaging. Until…

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Yes, when the king of all dinosaurs makes his entrance, bringing a thunderstorm along with him no less, all the others are wise to run and hide from him. I would hide under a quilt but still peek through the holes in awe. He snaps about throwing his weight around, but when it goes toe to toe with a stegosaurus? That’s when things get real.

This battle, by the way, is animated by Woolie Reitherman, who had a knack for bringing gargantuan characters to life. He was responsible for animating Monstro in Pinocchio, and was behind Maleficent’s dragon form in Sleeping Beauty.

Though what follows is far from triumphant. The earth has become a hot, barren wasteland. The dinosaurs trudge through deserts and tar pits, their fruitless search for water turning into a slow death march. Not even the mighty T-Rex can survive this.

California: present day.

Some time later, the dinosaurs are all gone. Only their bones bleaching in the sun remain. Without warning, a massive earthquake hits and the seas flood through, washing away the remains of the old prehistoric world. The sequence comes full circle as the lonely oboe plays over a solar eclipse, which sets on an earth ready to step into the next stage of life.

If Walt had his way, the segment would have continued with the evolution of man and ended on a triumphant note with the discovery of fire, but he was worried about the possible backlash from zealous creationists. And I don’t blame him for wanting to avoid a confrontation with that crowd.

“It’s bad enough he makes a mouse act like a people with his dadgum pencil sorcery, but propagandizin’ evil-loution in mah Saturday mornin’ toon box? That’s just plum un-okkily-dokkily!”

“…You wouldn’t happen to have a dictionary on hand, would you?”

“DICTIONARIES ARE THE DEVIL’S BOOSTER SEAT!!”

Subsequently, those edits made to Stravinsky’s score pissed off the composer so much that he considered suing Disney for tampering with his work. He opted not to, yet the experience turned him off animation for good. A crying shame; Stravinsky, apart from being the only classical composer alive to see his work made part of a Fantasia feature, was excited to work with Walt. The two deeply respected and recognized each other as artists ahead of their time. Who knows what else could have come from their collaboration if things ended better?

With that knowledge, it makes sense that one of Stravinsky’s most famous pieces, the Firebird Suite, was included in Fantasia 2000: perhaps on some level Disney wanted to apologize for how the finale of Rite of Spring was mishandled by making Firebird the grand finale (though knowing Stravinsky he would have hated the little changes made to his music there as well).

Following the intermission, the orchestra reconvenes and has a fun little jam session. Deems Taylor takes a moment to introduce us to the most important – but rarely seen – figure that makes Fantasia and most music in movies possible, The Soundtrack.

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Once again, Disney does what it does best and anthropomorphizes what no one thought was possible. Think about it: giving personalities to animals is one thing, but they’ve successfully done the same for plants, planes, houses, hats, and here, sound itself. It may seem silly and out of place, but I think it’s brilliant and charming. The visuals it creates to represent different instruments are perfectly matched; some of them harken back to Toccata and Fugue. This, combined with the improv from the orchestra, is a good way to ease us back into comfort after the harshness of Rite of Spring.

Pastoral Symphony – Ludwig Van Beethoven

There’s a famous story about Walt Disney while he was pitching this segment. When met with complaints that it wasn’t working, he cried out This’ll MAKE Beethoven!” In a way, he was right. This was the very first piece of Beethoven I ever heard, even before the famous “da da da DUUUUUN” of Symphony #5. And as far as I know, it was for a good many Disney fans too. We still get a romantic depiction of the countryside as was the composer’s intent, but instead of an rural utopia, we see the Fields of Elysium at the foot of Mount Olympus. It’s home to a variety of mythical creatures from the golden age of Greece: fauns, unicorns, cherubs, centaurs and Pegasi.

If there was ever a Disney world I wanted to spend a day in, this would be it. It’s so innocent, laidback and colorful; it takes me right back to my childhood. A great portion of this sequence was used in my favorite music video in the Simply Mad About the Mouse anthology album, “Zip A Dee Doo Dah” sung by Ric Ocasek from The Cars. Whether that was my favorite because it featured Pastoral Symphony or Pastoral Symphony was my favorite because it was featured in the video I don’t know. There’s nothing that could ever destroy it for –

Oh son of a…

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #5: “RACIST. FUCKING. CENTAUR. EQUALS. RACIST. DISNEY… RACIST!!!”

Yes ladies and gents, that image is real. Meet Sunflower (or Otika, I’m not sure which one she is) one of the the censored centaurettes (for very obvious reasons). I’m of two minds when it comes to their inclusion. First off, yes, they’re crude and demeaning blackface caricatures that have no place in a Disney movie, let alone one of the best ones and in one of my favorite sequences. But my inner art/film historian that despises censorship feels that erasing these depictions is the same as pretending they and other prejudices of the time never existed.

Thank you, Warner Bros.

As time and the civil rights movement marched on, all traces of the Sunflower squad were removed from later releases of Fantasia. The downside to that was editing techniques at the time weren’t as high-tech as they are today; I was lucky to see a film print of Fantasia at the Museum of Modern Art in 2015 that must have dated as far back as the ’60s because she wasn’t there, but the cuts were very noticeable. Sad to say the amazing remastered tracks done by Irwin Kostal in the 80’s used a similar print because the shift in the music is very jarring at points in this segment. It wasn’t until Fantasia’s 50th anniversary that they were able to zoom in and crop the scenes that had Sunflower in them while recycling other pieces of animation over parts where they couldn’t get rid of her, eventually managing to digitally erase her from some of the film entirely (look carefully at the part where the red carpet is being rolled out for Bacchus on the blu-ray. Unless he got it from the Cave of Wonders, carpets normally don’t roll themselves…)

I completely understand the reasoning behind Sunflower’s removal, but can also see why animation aficionados would try to pressure Disney into bringing her back with each new re-release for Fantasia, possibly with one of those great Leonard Maltin intros putting everything into context like in the tragically out-of-print Disney Treasures dvds – though the chances of that happening are as likely as Song of the South being made public again (the Disney+ promo should have made that clearer when they claimed Disney’s entire back catalogue would be available for streaming, but I doubt the tag line “We have everything except Song of the South” would hook people). It’s an issue I’m very torn on. So if there was ever a chance that a version of Fantasia with a restored Sunflower was possible, either through Disney themselves or fan edits, my thoughts on it would be a very resounding…

The first movement of the symphony is “Awakening of Pleasant Feelings upon Arriving in the Country”, and this part does just that. As the sun rises and we get our first glimpse of the technicolor fantasyland. Pan flute-playing fauns and unicorns frolic with each other while a herd of Pegasi take to the sky. Again, going back to other notable movies taking cues from Fantasia, Ray Harryhausen carefully studied the movement of the Pegasi here when creating his stop-motion Pegasus for Clash of the Titans. They canter through the air as they would on land, but in the water they move with the grace of a swan.

And look at the little baby ones, they’re just too cute!

The second movement, “Scene by the Brook”, takes place exactly where you think it does. A group of female centaurs, named “centaurettes” by the animators, doll themselves up with the help of some cupids (and the aforementioned Sunflower) in preparation for mating season.

“”I used to like the centaurettes not just because they were pretty but because each of them having different colors could be interpreted as women of all colors hanging out together and finding love. But no, having Sunflower there confirms that they’re all supposed to be lighter-skinned ladies. Racism given context makes it no less of a pain in the ass.”

The male centaurs arrive and hook up with their conveniently color-matching counterparts. The cherubs help set the mood for their flirting interludes until they discover two shy, lonely centaurs (Brudus and Melinda, because I’m that big of a Disney nerd that I know their actual names) who haven’t found each other yet. They lure them to a grove with some flute music a la The Pied Piper and it’s love at first sight.

One of my favorite details throughout the Pastoral Symphony is that we keep coming back to Brudus and Melinda. They’re a cute couple, one of the closest things we have to main characters in this sequence, and it’s nice to follow them.

Our third movement is “Peasants’ Merrymaking”. The centaur brigade prepare an overflowing vat of wine for Bacchus, god of booze and merrymaking. Bacchus, forever tipsy, arrives backed up by some black zebra centaurettes serving him. Maybe they were considered attractive enough to avoid being censored.

The bacchanalia is in full swing with everyone dancing and getting loaded. But Zeus, who appears more sinister than Laurence Olivier or his future Disney counterpart, crashes the party with a big thunderstorm. I used to think he was a jerk for endangering his subjects just for kicks, but in light of recent revelations maybe he had ulterior motives.

“Feel the wrath of the thunder god, you fucking racists!”

“Come on, dad, you used to be fun! Where’s the Zeus turns into a cow to pick up chicks?!”

“He grew up. Maybe you should too, son. Now EAT LIGHNING!”

“The Storm”, our fourth movement, provides some stunning imagery against the torrential backdrop, from the centaurs being called to shelter to the pegasus mother braving the gale to rescue her baby.

Ultimately Zeus grows tired and turns in for the night, ending the storm. Iris, goddess of the rainbow, emerges and leaves her technicolor trail across the sky. The creatures revel in the effects it has on their surroundings, then gather on a hill to watch the sunset, driven by Apollo and his chariot. Everyone settles in to sleep, and Artemis, hunting goddess of the moon, shoots an comet across the sky like an arrow that fills the sky with twinkling stars.

Pastoral Symphony was the one part of Fantasia that always received the most derision from critics, but racist characters aside I simply don’t get the hate for it. It may be longer than Rite of Spring but feels nowhere near as drawn out. I love the colors, characters, and the calm, bucolic fantasy world it creates. This was my first exposure to Beethoven and the world of Greek mythology and I still hold plenty of nostalgia for it. I admit it’s not perfect, and not just for the reason you think. Out of all the Fantasia pieces, this is the one whose quality is closest to an original Disney short than a theatrical feature. It’s a bit more cartoony and there’s some notable errors, particularly when the baby Pegasi dive into the water and emerge different colors. Also, Deems and the animators flip between using the gods’ Greek and Roman names, and the stickler in me wants them to pick a mythos and stick with it. But for all it’s flaws it’s still among my very favorite Fantasia pieces and nothing can change that.

The Dance of the Hours from the Opera “La Giaconda” – Amilcare Ponichelli

Like I said before, Disney was a master of the art of anthropomorphism. And nowhere is this more true than Dance of the Hours. Animals portray dancers symbolizing morning, noon, dusk and evening – only they’re the most unlikely ones for the job. The characters of our penultimate act are as cartoony as any you’d see in a Disney short from the era, but what puts the animation above it is the right balance of elasticity and realism. The exaggeration is on point, but there’s enough heft and weight to the animals that I can buy them being grounded in (some semblance of) reality. The animators studied professional dancers and incorporated their moves and elegance flawlessly. Half of the comedy derives from this.

The other half comes from how seriously the mock ballet is treated. We’re never informed who the dancers will be, leading anyone who hasn’t seen this before to assume they’re people. The ballet itself is a parody of the traditional pageant, but the performers carry on with the utmost sincerity. It doubles the laughs when it comes to moments such as Ben Ali Gator trying to catch Hyacinth Hippo in a dramatic pas de deux or an elephant getting a foot stuck in one of her own bubbles as she prances around. The familiar lighthearted refrain of the dance provides wonderful contrast to the caricatures on screen, particularly if you recall its other most famous iteration beyond Fantasia.

No one ever told me Camp Grenada was this Arcadian or zoological.

Morning begins with a troupe of uppity ostriches in ballet gear waking up, exercising and helping themselves to a cornucopia of fruit for breakfast. They fight over some grapes only to lose them in a pool. Something bubbles up from beneath and the ostriches run away in terror, but it’s only the prima ballerina of the piece, Hyacinth Hippo. She prepares for the day with help from her handmaidens and dances around a bit. Then she lies down for a nap, but no sooner do her ladies in waiting leave than some playful elephants come out of hiding and dance around Hyacinth unawares.

Elephants blowing bubbles in a Disney feature…nah, it’ll never catch on.

The elephants are blown away by a gust of wind (must be a really strong breeze), and with the coming of night a sinister band of crocodiles sneak up on Hyacinth. They scatter at the sudden arrival of their leader, Prince Ben Ali Gator, who immediately falls in love with Hyacinth. Surprisingly, the feeling is mutual.

I’m calling it – first body positivity romance in a Disney flick.

The climax of the piece has the crocodiles returning to wreak havoc on the palace and pulling the ostriches, elephants, and hippos back into a frenzied dance which brings down the house.

No bones about it, Dance of the Hours is a comic masterpiece and one of Fantasia’s crowning jewels. And the moment it ended was always the signal for younger me to stop the tape and rewind it to the beginning, due to what follows making a complete and terrifying 180…

Night on Bald Mountain – Modest Mussorgsky / Ave Maria – Franz Schubert

At last we come to our final part, two radically different classical works that blend perfectly into each other. And brother, what a note to end on.

Composer Modest Mussorgsky passed away before completing his masterwork “Night on the Bare Mountain”, a tonal poem depicting a witches’ sabbath from Slavic mythology. His friend, the great Rimsky-Korsakov, finished it for him while adding his own personal touch. The result is some of the most iconic and terrifying music ever created, and the accompanying animation, with the exception of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, is the most faithful to its source material.

The scene takes place on Walpurgis Night, which is the closest thing Europe has to a real-life Summerween (those lucky so-and-so’s), on the titular mountain. The mountain’s peak opens up revealing Chernabog, the Slavic deity of darkness.

Chernabog is a masterclass in design and form. It’s easy to mistake him for Satan himself – Walt Disney and Deems Taylor both refer to him as such – though considering he’s technically Slavic Satan, there’s not too big a distinction. Chernabog radiates power, terror and pure darkness from his intro alone. You can imagine him influencing all other Disney villains to do his will, essentially filling in the horned one’s hooves. Chernabog was skillfully handled by Bill Tylta, an early Disney animator with enough talent to create characters as diverse as Stromboli and Dumbo. Bela Lugosi, the original Dracula, posed for reference pictures in the early design stages, though Tylta ultimately discarded them in favor of some different inspiration – sequence director Wilfred Jackson as model, and Tytla’s own Czech heritage. He grew up with folktales of Chernabog, which served him well during the production.

“Soon, master. The one known as Jackson shall take up your mantle and we shall feast upon humanity yet again.”

Chernabog unleashes his might on to the sleeping village below and raises the dead from the cemetery. A cabal of witches, wraiths and demons gallop on the wind and take part in his infernal revelry. Yet they are but playthings to the evil being. He transforms the creatures into alluring sirens and wretched beasts, sics harpies on them, condemns them to the flames, and lustfully embraces the hellish blaze. It’s an in your face pageantry of pure malevolence that you can’t look away from

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #6: “This is too scary for kids!! What the hell were they thinking?!”

I think it’s time we made one thing clear: Fantasia was NOT made for children – or to be more accurate, not EXCLUSIVELY for children. While Disney movies are made to be enjoyed by both kids and adults, Fantasia is the only one who dared to appeal to a more mature audience, and Night on Bald Mountain is proof of that. It had the audacity to explore some of the most darkest, ancient depictions of evil in a way that no Disney feature has before or since. Most importantly, it’s not done for shock value like any random horror movie you could name. It’s meant to show the juxtaposition between the darkest depravity and purest good; combined with Ave Maria it makes for the perfect symbolic climax to Fantasia. Light versus darkness, chaos versus order, life versus death, profane versus sacred, and the quest to master them all are the themes that unify the seemingly disparate sequences, and this finale is the apotheosis of that.

I stated in my Mickey’s Christmas Carol review that Bald Mountain was one of my first introductions to the concept of eternal damnation at the tender age of…I wanna say four, five? It was easily one of the most petrifying things from my childhood, but at least I could avoid some exposure to it thanks to its position at the very end. Though now I adore Night on Bald Mountain for how bold and striking it is. Tytla’s animation, Kay Nielsen’s stunning demon designs, and Schultheis’ effects culminate in harmonious diabolical artwork that’s impossible to extricate from the music. It’s a shame Schultheis left the studio after Fantasia. He met a mysterious, tragic end in Guatemala, right around the time Bill Tytla left too as a matter of fact…

“He knew too much…about the secrets of animation, I mean. Nothing at all about das vampyr walking the earth. No sir.”

Yet at the height of his power, one thing stops Chernabog cold – the sound of church bells. Disney historian John Culhane saw Fantasia during its original theatrical run (lucky so and so…) and he recalled how much having FantaSound affected his screening: when the bells rang, he could hear them coming from the back of the theater and slowly course their way up front as their power grew. It was an awe-inspiring moment that took the Bald Mountain experience one step further into reality.

The bells and the rising sun drive Chernabog and his minions back into the mountain and the restless spirits return to their graves. In the misty morning a procession of pilgrims glides through the woods like a parade of tiny lights, and thus the Ave Maria begins. It’s one of the rare times Disney has gone overtly Christian. Maybe Walt wanted to get back into the God-fearing American public’s good graces after the sorcery, paganism, devil worship and evolution theory we’ve witnessed in the past hour and fifty minutes. It does relieve the tension from the previous turn of events.

The first pitch had the march enter a cathedral, but Walt didn’t believe recreating something people can already see in Europe. So instead they move through a forest with trees and natural rock formations resembling the Gothic architecture of a cathedral. It’s the stronger choice in my opinion. The implication speaks greater volumes than a specific location, subtly connecting nature to the divine. It’s difficult to make out most of the hymn’s words, but regardless it sounds beautiful, especially those final triumphant notes as the sky lights up over a view of the verdant hilltops.

“When the sun hits that ridge just right, these hills sing.”

And with that, Fantasia comes to a close.

Really, what else can I say about it at this point. I keep forgetting this movie came out in 1940. It’s virtually timeless, and a must-see for anyone who loves animation and classic film and wants to jump into either one.

Fantasia was a critical and box office success…sort of. Despite the praise and high box office returns for the time, it sadly wasn’t enough to make up for the cost of putting it all together. Like Pinocchio before it, the war cut off any foreign revenue. And not every theater was willing or able to shell out for that nifty surround sound so the effects were lost on most people. Then there’s the audience response, which is the most depressing of all. The casual moviegoers still viewed Walt as the guy behind those wacky mouse cartoons and called him out for being a pretentious snob, while the highbrow intellectuals accused Walt of debasing classical music by shackling it to animation. The poor guy just couldn’t win.

Fantasia marked the end of an era. Never again would Walt attempt a feature so ambitious. His plans of making Fantasia a recurring series, with old segments regularly swapped out for new ones, would not be seen in his lifetime. There’s been the occasional copycat (Allegra non troppo), a handful of spiritual successors (Make Mine Music, Yellow Submarine), and of course the sequel which I’m sure I’ll get to eventually, but through it all, there is only one Fantasia. And no amount of my ramblings can hope to measure up to it. Fantasia is one of those movies you simply have to experience for yourself, preferably on the biggest screen available with a top of the line sound system. I know it’s a cliche for Internet critics to name this as their favorite animated Disney movie, but…yes, it’s mine too. It opened a door to a world of culture and art at a young age. The power of animation is on full display, and it’s affected the way I look at the medium forever. Fantasia was, and still is, a film ahead of its time.

Thank you for reading. I hope you can understand why this review took me nearly three months! If you enjoyed this, please consider supporting me on Patreon. Patreon supporters get perks such as extra votes and adding movies of their choice to the Shelf. If I can get to $100, I can go back to making weekly tv show reviews. Right now I’m halfway there! Special thanks to Amelia Jones and Gordhan Ranaj for their contributions.

You can vote for whatever movie you want me to look at next by leaving it in the comments or emailing me at [email protected]. Remember, unless you’re a Patreon supporter, you can only vote once a month. The list of movies available to vote for are under “What’s On the Shelf”.

Artwork by Charles Moss. Certain screencaps courtesy of animationscreencaps.com.

To learn more about Fantasia, I highly recommend both John Culhane’s perennial book on the film and The Lost Notebook by John Canemaker, which reveals the long-lost special effects secrets which made Fantasia look so magical.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to be spending the rest of the month with my handy dandy garlic, stake and crucifix and pray Bill Tytla doesn’t visit me this Walpurgis Night. I suggest you do the same.

March Review: Fantasia (1940) And now we come to the final piece of Walt Disney's original animation trifecta, Fantasia, and it's one I'm both anticipating and dreading.

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silverfootstepswrites · 6 years

Text

Butterfly [17]

summary Time’s a strange fellow...

“You’re kidding,” Ino said into her ear.

Sakura’s phone sat propped up in a neon blue cradle. The bunny ears stuck up behind it. With the bluetooth earbud stuck in her right ear, she didn’t have to worry about cords getting tangled up with her arms when she moved around. She couldn’t count the number of times she had ripped her earbuds out as she worked out. Wireless earbuds were on at the top of her list of favorite presents she had ever received.

Sakura lifted her head to see Ino frowning at her from the screen. She looked back down at the ground, staring between her fisted hands. All her weight bearing down on her forearms, she swiveled her hips from side to side. Her core tightening and straining with the effort.

“I’m not,” Sakura replied. Letting out a sigh, she collapsed onto her mat to catch her breath.

“Didn’t you say you come from the boonies? What is there even to do out there?” Ino demanded.

Sakura rose to her knees. She adjusted the phone cradle to angle the camera toward her face.

Ino sat at her kitchen table, a bowl of cereal in front of her. The orange tail of her cat waved around behind her as it strutted around the counters.

“Hi, Maron-chan!” Sakura called. The cat meowed at the sound of its name.

Ino crunched through another mouthful of cereal.

“You know, sometimes I think you like my cat better than you like me,” Ino grumbled.

“Oh yeah. Definitely,” Sakura replied without hesitation. Ino gave her a flat look.

“You should come visit me, Ino-chan. Take a break from the city,” Sakura then suggested. She looked away to take a sip of her water. Ino’s spoon clicked against the side of the bowl. More crunching as she chewed.

“Dream on, country bumpkin. Tokyo or bust,” answered Ino. And then she spat as her long hair got caught in her mouth. Sakura snickered at her. She got back in a plank position, ignoring the burning in her core muscles. There was a thump that made her raise her head again. Ino had her foot up on the table now. She had bright purple strips overlapping together. They covered the sole of her foot before the ran up to cover most of her ankles.

“By the way, thanks for introducing me to this stuff. I actually don’t feel like dying now,” Ino said through a mouthful of cereal.

“Right? It really helped with my knee a lot last year,” Sakura agreed. She had been skeptical about the odd-looking tape at first. But she had used it to support her ankles, her calves, even her shoulders. When Ino had mentioned how much her feet ached, Sakura hadn’t hesitated to share her secret. Sakura preferred using beige so that it was invisible under her tights. But she wasn’t surprised that Ino would choose the flashiest color available.

Letting out a deep breath, she dipped her hips from side to side. Back and forth. Feeling her stomach muscles flexing and straining. Ino’s spoon clinked against the bowl a few more times. And then her chair scraped across the floor. The water ran as she washed her bowl and spoon, leaving them to dry in the dishwasher. When Ino returned, Sakura was back on the floor, huffing.

As Sakura lifted herself up, her arms and shoulders flexed. Ino let out a whistle.

“Look who’s still ja-a-aaaacked. Even though you’re retiiiiired,” Ino sang. Sakura laughed.

“Gotta stay in shape,” Sakura said.

“To fight off those haters. Ooh, girl, look at those Ronda Rousey arms,” Ino gushed, fanning herself like a Southern belle. Sakura could only laugh harder.

“Anyway, the Tokyo Ballet School’s been reaching out to us for guest teachers. Maybe I’ll put my name in,” Ino suddenly told her, examining her nails.

“Cool,” Sakura answered.

“But I’m not visiting you in the boonies. You come up to Tokyo,” Ino stipulated.

“Less cool,” amended Sakura.

She glanced down at her watch. Sighing, she slapped her hands against her thighs once.

“Alright, I gotta go, Ino-chan," Sakura announced. She picked her phone up with one hand and the bunny-shaped cradle with the other.

"Yeah," Ino sighed, "Guess I should start getting ready for tomorrow. Let's talk soon."

"Good night, Ino-chan."

"Have a good day, Sakura."

Sakura ended the call. She turned off her earbud and pocketed it. It took her a minute to pack everything into her bag. After a last swig from her water bottle, she hoisted her gear onto her shoulder. She pushed the door open with her hip, out into the morning air. It was already warm, promising another hot day.

Konoha had never had its own gym. Or a ballet studio. Growing up, she had biked to the town over to train. But that was one of the inevitable things about growing up in a small town like Konoha. In nice weather, the bike rides had been a pleasant extra workout. And in the winter, there was always someone willing to give her a lift.

Sakura didn't remember what had happened to her old bike. Maybe they'd sold it or given it to a neighbor's kid. Whatever the case, it was gone. So one of the first things Sakura had done after moving back to Konoha was buy a new bike. It was mint green with a little basket in the front. She tossed her water bottle and keys into it whenever she rode around.

She could have easily driven. There was nothing wrong with the car she had inherited from her parents. But it seemed like a waste to drag it out of the driveway. And with the mostly unpaved roads in town, it was actually easier to navigate with a bike than a car.

By the time she got to the rink, it was only 9 am, and she was already sweating. Minato greeted her from behind the counter, still in his pajamas. The rink wouldn't open for another hour, but he was looking through the receipts from the last week.

Although Sakura hogged the rink most evenings, apparently the place was still attracting customers. Part of it, she knew, had to do with the knowledge that she skated here. That alone attracted some curious folk. It was also because in the mornings and early afternoons, Minato taught a beginner's skate class. Business really picked up in the summer when kids (and their parents) would do anything to stay out of the heat.

She spent an easy hour on the ice, partly to cool off and partly to run through Haku's routine a few more times. The changes they had made would ensure him a higher technical score. But artistry had always been Haku's weak point. She made a few adjustments to some parts of the step sequence. Moved some of the elements around. She kept note of it in her phone, typing between tries.

And at the end of the hour, she sent all her changes to Haku in a big text. Then, she headed home to shower. She biked past Naruto on his jog and rang her bell at him a few times. He waved in return.

Wet hair wrapped in a towel, Sakura stood in her room. Hands on her hips. Staring into the depths of her closet.

Her closet had always been divided into two sections: athletic wear and anything else. As the years went on, and she started to gain popularity, companies had taken notice of her too. It started off with little accessories. Socks. A hat. But then she started receiving bigger boxes. Shirt and pants. Full tracksuits. Backpacks and sneakers.

When he was a teen, Haku had been roughly the same size as her. She had given him a lot of the extras. Ripped jeans and flannel shirts were some of his favorites. Beanies, too. He always dressed in layers, which he claimed made him look bigger. Which, she supposed, made sense given how slight he was. Even as an adult.

During her career, she had either been on the ice or traveling to be on the ice. Unfortunately, this meant that as a grown woman, Sakura owned joggers in every color and print imaginable. She had long and short leggings. The kind with mesh and the kind with patterns. Not to even begin to mention the moisture-wicking shirts. She had them in every brand and every style. Long-sleeved, sleeveless, cropped. She also had enough fancy sports bras to not have to do laundry for months.

Pushed to the left side of her closet were her work clothes. She had a few blouses, skirts, and slacks that she rotated.

There should have been, she thought, something in-between. Because it seemed that women in Japan favored airy blouses and cardigans. Cute skirts in pastels seemed to be an added bonus.

"Well," Sakura said out loud. Like that would do anything.

In the end, she headed out in sneakers and a t-shirt. And since it was hot, she wore shorts, too. Just in case anyone recognized her, she completed the look with a snapback and rose-colored sunglasses. With her bright hair tucked into the hat, she thought, it wouldn't be as easy to recognize her.

The address Itachi had messaged her was in a town further up the coast. It took about half an hour by car. And by the time she parked, it felt like the sun was trying to punish the earth. She fanned herself with one hand as she reread his message. It led her to a narrow building with ivy climbing up the drainpipe. Three stone steps led up to the glass door. A wooden sign hung on the glass that read: Art.

When Sakura pulled the door, a bell tinkled. A blast of cold air baptized her as she stepped inside.

The interior of the gallery was as narrow as she had expected. But in exchange, it was tall. Sunlight streamed in from the skylights. There was a small table by the entrance. A guestbook sat opened along with a stack of business cards and a glass box with a slot cut into the top.

"Welcome. Admission is 300 yen," a woman greeted her.

Sakura dug in her pocket to find change. She dropped it into the glass box and stepped into the gallery. From the signs and pamphlets, Sakura gathered that this was an exhibition for a local artist. Her theme seemed to be paintings of nature. Not a particularly unique concept, but beautiful nonetheless.

Sakura spotted Itachi towards the back of the gallery. He was wearing glasses. His arms folded across his chest. He tilted his head to one side as he observed a large canvas.

"I still don't know what you meant by doing you a favor," Sakura said as she settled in next to him.

Itachi glanced at her, a faint smile on his lips. The frames of his glasses were speckled brown and black in a tortoise shell pattern.

"Sorry to disrupt your Saturday," he apologized. Sakura shrugged.

"I wasn't dragged here against my will. No need to be sorry," she answered. He didn't say anything else.

Sakura leaned in to read the plaque. It read "The Ocean" in kanji. There was no description. No fancy history of when or how it had been created. Just the name under the unframed canvas.

She had never been one for museums. But she had seen on TV how people were supposed to react. So she looked over the painting, nodding a little. Like she was thinking big, important thoughts. When really she wondered how long it would take to paint something like this.

Itachi pushed something into her hands. She started. Looked down at the tablet she was now holding. Sakura opened the case. The screen woke, glowing softly. Itachi pushed an icon, nudging windows around until he had two apps running at once.

"You'll need this to do my favor," he told her.

Sakura looked from him to the huge painting. And then down at the tablet held in her arms. The software he had opened up on the left had some kind of color picker. On the right was a simple document for her to write notes.

"These are called hex codes. When you see the right color in the picker, write down the code," Itachi instructed her. He leaned over to show her how to drag the selector across the screen. The combination of letters and numbers changed as he moved.

"For example, what color would you say my shirt is?" inquired Itachi.

Sakura's gaze flickered to his outfit. A thin t-shirt and jeans.

"It's grey," she replied. And then she looked down at the screen. She pulled the marker to the left. And then up a bit.

"Sort of... there," she muttered to herself. The box on the top left of the screen displayed a string of numbers and letters. The hex code for that shade of grey.

"Great. So now try it with this," Itachi prompted, gesturing to the painting in front of them. "What color is the ocean to you?"

Sakura blinked a few times. Her eyes roving over the canvas. She stared at the rainbow gradient on the tablet screen. And then she sighed.

“…Are you sure?” Sakura hedged. She ran her finger along the color picker. Cycling through pinks that bled into purple, then blue, then green.

“I told you. I’m not much of an artist,” she said.

“I’m sure,” Itachi replied. Smiling, for some reason when their eyes met. He lifted his gaze back to the painting on the wall. Waves crashing against a cliff, water foaming white when it sprayed against the rocks.

“What color is the ocean to you?” Itachi asked her again.

"So... you want the color of ....say... the water?" she asked, glancing at Itachi again. He nodded, thumb still on his chin as he watched her.

Her eyes flickered to the painting. She squinted at the brush strokes that formed the waves. Her pointer finger swiped the colors into the bluish-green range. And then she moved her finger around until the settled on something like a light teal. Her lower lip stuck out. She wrote down the hex code on the right side of the screen, under the word ‘ocean’. But then she adjusted the colors, edging more toward green. She picked about four more shades, jotting those down too.

“Sorry. It’s just… there’s a bunch of colors in the water. Is this too much?” Sakura asked, still writing down the strings of letters and numbers. And when she looked at Itachi again he almost looked like he might cry.

“No. It’s perfect,” he answered.

He didn't speak as she moved on to the grass covering the top of the cliffs. Next was the sky. Almost gold in some parts, white in others. She found the ochre of the stones in the water. The pastel yellow of the sand on the beach.

They spent the better part of an hour that way. They cycled through a few paintings in the exhibition. Sakura finding the right colors and recording the hex codes.

After she recorded the colors of a particularly lush painting, a forest scene with tall trees, Sakura stole a glance at Itachi.

“One more?” she asked, pointing at a scene comprised of lilacs and pinks.

To her surprise, Itachi took the tablet from her. He scrolled through the lists she had made. And then he closed the cover of the case.

“Do you like seafood?” Itachi queried.

“Huh?”

The restaurant Itachi took her to was beyond obscure. If he hadn’t led her straight to the door, she would have missed it a million times over. It was located in a white building, a small purple sign hanging above the door displayed its name. There was little else around besides some apartments and a supermarket down the road.

It was a tiny place with a handful of tables and chairs. It was spartan but clean. The laminated menus only had a few options. But Sakura barely glanced them over because Itachi had convinced her with two words at the art gallery:

Hyuga Don

It was one of the specialties of this area. A bowl of rice piled high with slices of fresh tuna. Such a simple idea. But that taste lived in a special corner of Sakura’s heart. Out of all the delicious foods she had eaten on her travels, none could ever replace the taste of Hyuga Don.

Itachi leaned back in his seat, elbow resting on the back of the chair beside him. He removed his glasses, tucking them in the front of his shirt. He rubbed the marks they’d left on the bridge of his nose.

“I stumbled on this place when I moved to Konoha. It’s amazing,” Itachi informed her.

The owner of the place was an old woman. She took their orders and served them tea poured over ice. As they waited for the food, Sakura snapped a shot of the glasses, condensation slipping down the sides. She fiddled with the saturation and highlights for a while.

“So do you do this a lot? Go to exhibits and ask people to write down the colors in the paintings?” asked Sakura, looking up from her phone. She set it facedown on the table.

“Yes to the first part. Not the second,” he replied. And before she could ask him to elaborate, the food arrived.

Sakura grudgingly admitted that this was a darn good donburi.

“Well, not bad... for an outsider’s pick, anyway,” she then added. “There’s an incredible place in Tsukumi. Remind me to send you the address.”

They split the bill right down the middle. And then, as they got up, Itachi smiled at her.

“Thank you. For your help,” Itachi uttered.

“Yeah. Of course,” she replied. Still unsure as to how, exactly, she had been helpful at all.

June bled into July. And it was clear that this heat wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. Sometimes, when Sakura needed a break, she snuck into the air conditioned science room to gab with Orochimaru. And he always had cookies or rice crackers to split with her as they chatted between his classes. Sometimes she helped him sort beakers and glass slides as they spoke.

“The Asian Open Trophy is in Hong Kong this year. I’m thinking of flying out to go watch,” Orochimaru confessed.

“That’s during summer vacation, Sensei. Why not?” answered Sakura. And then she added, “Why not take your grandson? Does Mitsuki-kun like ice skating?”

Orochimaru shook his head. “He mostly likes video games.”

“Heathen,” she grumbled, making Orochimaru chuckle.

As the hot days trickled on, Sakura pulled the old, inflatable pool out of storage. With Naruto’s help, they managed to blow it up and filled it with water from the garden hose before Kushina texted him to come home for dinner. Sakura dunked her feet into it as the sun went down. Cicadas chirping in an endless chorus around her.

She let out a long sigh. Closed her eyes as she let the muggy air blow over her.

In the distance, she could hear children’s voices. The crack of a baseball hitting a bat as they squeezed in one last game before going home for the night.

And then, a deep woof interrupted the peace.

“Oiiii! You home, Haruno?” a man shouted.

Sakura ignored him.

“HARUNO!” he yelled even louder. The dog howled along with him.

Scowling, Sakura turned onto her side. And just as she considered throwing something over the fence at him, she heard the man let out a muffled “oof”.

“Shut up, Inuzuka. You’re so irritating,” she heard Shikamaru scold.

“You kicked me!” Kiba gasped. And she could hear them tussling.

Sakura watched as a plastic bag came flying over her fence. Followed by Kiba’s body. His huge white dog followed. It bounded across the yard, heading straight for Sakura.

“Akamaru! No!” Shikamaru called.

But it was too late. The dog came crashing into the inflatable pool. Dousing Sakura as a wave engulfed her. It soaked her to the bone before she could move out of the way.

Sakura rose onto her elbows, spitting water. She dragged her hand across her face, pulling her hair aside. And when she wiped her eyes, she found Kiba sitting cross-legged in the grass. A sheepish grin on his face. Akamaru sat panting in the pool, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. Shikamaru leaned over the fence, grimacing.

Sakura opened her mouth to say something. Akamaru chose that precise moment to give himself a vigorous shake. Sending more water flying out at her. The tag on his color jingled merrily with the movement.

“Uh.... hey, Haruno,” Kiba said.

“....Hey, Inuzuka,” she replied in a flat voice.

Like a normal human being, Shikamaru went around to walk through the front door of the house. He smacked Kiba in the back of the head as Sakura wrung her hair and clothes out. And when Kiba glared, Shikamaru hit him several more times with the plastic bag in his hand.

“Nara, could you get me a towel?” Sakura requested, keeping her voice perfectly level.

She waited for Shikamaru to walk back into the house. He returned a few moments later with a pink towel from the bathroom. She wiped her face and arms down before she draped it over her hair.

Sakura got to her feet. And without another word, she went into her house to change.

“Nara, I’m scared,” she heard Kiba whisper.

“She’s going to end your life,” replied Shikamaru in a solemn voice.

When she emerged several minutes later, Sakura returned to the backyard. Akamaru was out of the pool now. And when he spotted her scowl, he let out a whine. He lowered his head onto his paws, staring up at her with big, shining eyes. Kiba put his hand in his pocket, still giving that awkward smile.

“Heyyy, you. Feeling better?” he asked her.

Sakura strode up to him. She shoved him in the chest with her foot and watched him topple backward. Ass-first. Into the pool.

“Okay. We’re even,” declared Sakura, smirking. She turned to Shikamaru.

“Drinks?” she suggested. Shikamaru shrugged one shoulder.

“Inuzuka, you in?” asked Shikamaru. They both looked over at him. Akamaru was licking his face. Kiba pushed Akamaru away, blinking water out of his eyes.

“Yeah. Sure,” he replied, grinning.

#writing #itasaku #butterfly #been having a slow week so here's a surprise chapter #you thought just shika and sakura were childhood friends?#3's the magic number

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wiener-blut · 6 years

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i was tagged by my bb @babypaulchen ages ago and now the time has come to finally do this shit!! i told u i was gonna do it Brig!!

rules: answer these 85 questions and tag 20 people (i wont tag anyone bc im doubting i even know 20 ppl on here lmao)

— what was your last…

1. drink: peach flavoured ice tea 2. phone call: my mom bc i asked her if shes interested in some hyacinth bulbs for her garden since the ones that stood in my room decayed 3. text message: to my cousin, setting a time where we can call and chat 4. song you listened to: actual surprise - its not Rammstein *ooohs and aaahs fly through the crowd* it was “The Schuyler Sisters” from Hamilton 5. time you cried: yesterday bc i had the worst fucking headache ever and i was being a whiny bitch

— have you ever…

6. dated someone twice: nope 7. kissed someone and regretted it: uhh no? 8. been cheated on: no 9. lost someone special: yes 10. been depressed: yes 11. gotten drunk and thrown up: yes, multiple times and ive come to the conclusion that throwing up makes me feel better afterwards like im back to being able to actually perveice my environment again lmao

— fave colours

12. black 13. pastel pink 14. actually i kinda love all colours idk

— in the last year have you…

15. made new friends: yes! 16. fallen out of love: no 17. laughed until you cried: yes, multiple times, good 18. found out someone was talking about you: like uh shittalking? idk so i guess not 19. met someone who changed you: uhhh kinda? 20. found out who your friends are: um well i found out that my friends are good friends and that i love them and that i dont want to miss any of them 21. kissed someone on your facebook friends list: what? u can “kiss” someone on facebook? lmao i didnt take a look on facebook for literally years .......man i had a massive brainlag here. i thought u can now “kiss” ppl on facebook like u can “poke” ppl on facebook and it didnt come to my mind this could mean “irl” lmao bury me IF it means irl tho, then yes

— general

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know irl: pff idk man who the fuck still uses that shithole of a site anyways

23. do you have any pets: no but i had a super cute and fluffy bunny and i still miss him and think about him everyday also i plan on having half a farm and half a zoo in the future

24. do you want to change your name: not anymore; i used to hate my name bc its so outdated and the only answer i ever got on introducing myself was “hey my grandma has the same name isnt that funny” but then more and more people told me my name was pretty and unique and well now that im older (sounds like im 40 lmao) im even kinda fond of it

25. what did you do for your last birthday: umm uhh i guess i was studying for my exams lol but i remember my gf cooking an amazing dinner for me 💖

26. what time did you wake up today: uhhhhhh smth around 9am i think

27. what were you doing at midnight last night: actually sleeping for once bc that headache knocked me out completely

28. what is something you can’t wait for: fucking going to fucking Hamburg in fucking five fucking days

30. what are you listening to right now: the birds chirping outside

31. have you ever talked to a person named tom: yes i had a classmate named Tom........he was a bit strange tho.......

32. something that’s getting on your nerves: i cant think of anything rn

33. most visited website: Tumblr and Youtube

34. hair colour: natural? blonde / current? dyed it pink two weeks ago

35. long or short hair: long ass hair and i mean, literally, they reach all the way down to my hips

36. do you have a crush on someone: ohhhahahaha so, so many, one - and maybe the king of em all - being Christoph Schneider (not obvious at all cough cough)

37. what do you like about yourself: uhhhhhhhhhhh.........;;;;; i guess... uh... *insert more unintelligent noises* maybe my legs?

38. want any piercings: no, except for maybe some on my ear

39. blood type: 0 positive, i think

40. nicknames: Lily

41. relationship status: super duper gay af with @haifisch-ohne-traenen

42. sign: officially capricorn (i like to say “the last capricorn” bc it sounds like “the last unicorn” and well my birthday is on the last day that still counts as capricorn), but honestly im more of an aquarius

43. pronouns: she/her

44. fave tv show: i recently watched Grimm and the story was okay but the cast was like super adorable and i fell in love with every single one of them

45. tattoos: none. YET. i have plans for so much i just am very bad at deciding

46. right or left handed: right handed 47: ever had surgery: okay, small story time. there are these childrens books by german illustrator and author “Janosch” in which a tiger and a bear are best friends and i used to love those books. so once, tiger got ill (his stripes slipped out of place) and he needed to see the doctor. and the exact line was “soothing small shot, blue dream, surgery over, noticed nothing, tiger healthy”. and i once was in the hospital bc there was something wrong my nose (i dont remember what it was tho) and so they anaesthetized me (and my fav stuffie which i brough with me for mental support) and afterwards i told everyone of my “blue dream” and everyone was like ????? wtf kid bc they didnt know what i was talking about and it was just some months ago when i finally found out that a narcosis isnt called a “blue dream” and that i just knew this bc of this books which i adored and tbh i was like MY WHOLE LIFE IS A LIE “BLUE DREAM” IS AN ADORABLE TERM FOR IT 48. piercings: none 49. sport: i did ballet for 15 years and i still love to dance around the house and the mother of my best friend once called me cute bc i cant stand still and always spin around or stretch my toes while lifting my leg or do some pliés and tbh i wasnt even aware of that

50. vacation: uh...i love? lmao

51. trainers: umm like my shoes? mostly wearing my black doc martens

— more general

52. eating: i love me some good salad with tomatoes, mozzarella and tuna but ngl a pizza margherita could beat that salad any time. or a nice ragout fin. or mac’n’cheese. i love food in general, okay

53. drinking: i’d kill for a tequila rn. but like non-alcoholic beverage - plain water, yes thank u

54. i’m about to watch: some movie with my gf which we havent decided on yet

55. waiting for: my gf to return home from work so i can smooch her pretty face

56. want: to cuddle honestly

57. get married: since its legal in germany for some months now... idk tbh, its not smth i debate about on a daily basis

58. career: um i have a vague plan for becoming a speech pathologist but yea... its very vague

— which is better

59. hugs or kisses: hugs

60. lips or eyes: gotta say eyes

61. shorter or taller: i dont care actually

62. older or younger: um sweats loudly...... older (fun fact i recently calculated the average age of my celebrity crushes....yes i was bored.... and it resulted in 50.... well.....)

63. nice arms or stomach: arms, fucc me up

64. hookup or relationships: relationships

65. troublemaker or hesitant: me? kinda both

— have you ever

66. kissed a stranger: no 67. drank hard liquor: yes 68. turned someone down: not really?

69. sex on first date: nope

70: broken someone’s heart: probably

71. had your heart broken: uh yea...kinda

72. been arrested: no

73. cried when someone died: yes, im a whiny bitch so i cry easily

74. fallen for a friend: yeah binch im dating that lovely ho right now... im gonna leave Brig’s answer here bc its perf and same here

— do you believe in

75. yourself: ugh

76. miracles: i want to

77. love at first sight: no

78. santa claus: i want to lol but no

79. angels: fuck yes

— misc

80. eye colour: blue-gray-green-ish mud 81. best friend’s name: Dana

82. favourite movie: so? much? i cant decide, really

83. favourite actor: Tom Hiddleston, i love this british dork, lemme tell u

84. favourite cartoon: phuh, idk i dont really watch cartoons

85. favourite teacher’s name: SWEATS LOUDLY AND AGGRESIVELY i had two massive teacher crushes back in my school days and that makes me a bit biased but im gonna say Herr Wolf was a great teacher bc he always said “hey, astronomy’s a minor subject, the test won’t be hard and i wont give u homework, u guys concentrate on math, german and english” and tbh we need more teachers like that

#tag thing #aaaa god that was so fun but a bit time consuming tbh lol

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aminah-hime · 7 years

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So I’m a bit bored today, so I decided to answer 45 questions for lolitas! I got these from Livejournal, so if anyone knows the original source, feel free to tell me!

1. Please tell us your Hand Name (name that’s used ONLY in internet.) and hometown. PinkyMaggie! I’ve rarely had the experience of someone calling me by Maggie since my real name is in my description ^^” And my hometown is Miami! 2. About how long is your history as a Lolita? Two years and a half! Oh how time has passed! :O 3. What first motivated you to do Lolita fashion? I really liked the overly cute style of it which was something I never saw before! It’s also my first step into fashion! 4. After knowing Lolita fashion, have you had any time-gap or resistance till you actually started to be Lolita? Definitely! I discovered lolita when I was 13, but only started wearing it when I was 15. 5. Please define your Lolita style as much as possible. (eg. gothic Lolita, sweet Lolita, white Lolita…. Etc). I wear sweet lolita, from OTT all the way to casual! I prefer Angelic Pretty and mainly prints from 2010 and earlier. 6. About how many Lolita friends do you have? I have a few lolita acquaintances, but no one who I’d call a friend yet ^^” 7. What is the best thing about doing Lolita? It gives me a way to express myself in ways I could never imagine! While lolita is seen as a fashion with “little variety” because of its rules, there is still a ton of creative ways to wear it! 8. Conversely, what's the worst thing? I think the drama and hate that’s in the community is what brings the fashion down. I’ve seen people who want to start wearing it get turned off due to sites like cgl and Behind the Bows. 9. Which Lolita Brands do you like? Angelic Pretty!!!! That’s an easy answer! ^o^ But I also like Metamorphose and Moi meme Moitie as well. 10. What was the first Lolita item that you’ve owned? While Bodyline’s Bunny Cinderella skirt was the first lolita piece I ordered, the Squirrel Party JSK in pink was my actual first lolita piece I owned in person. 11. What is the “must have!” Lolita item? Petticoats!! A good one at that! It’s really looked over, but it’s vital to lolita! 12. Do you wear drawers? An odd way of saying bloomers, but I don’t. I just wear plain short shorts under my dresses ^^ 13. Do you have any favourite Japanese music? Ohhh gosh is there a lot ^^” Malice Mizer is the band that originally got me into lolita, but I also love Lareine and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu! 14. Where do you particularly visit as Lolita? Now I don’t really go out much both in lolita and in general, so I’d say to meets and conventions. 15. About how many times per week do you dress as Lolita? I rarely do, but I’d say once a week when I’m in the mood. 16. Please tell us about one embarrassing episode from the time when you were just beginning Lolita. Well the first time I wore lolita, I decided to do a bittersweet coord with Squirrel Party for Halloween. It ended up with me wearing a black Walmart blouse underneath with really cheap black accessories. And I didn’t have a petticoat! I went to school wearing it, and the kids there kept asking if I was trying to become Japanese. 17. What's hairstyle and color that you think Lolita would suite the most? I don’t have a preference with color as long as it isn’t neon, but I love pigtails! Specially the ones Maki tends to wear. 18. Have you ever thought of stopping Lolita? The reason? I don’t think I have, but I really hope I don’t! 19. Please tell us your heart's bible as a Lolita. (anything like a book, magazine, CD, idol...) Gothic & Lolita Bible! Mainly those from around 2006-2008. They feel so nostalgic to me despite not being from that time period. 20. Do you own a doll? Tell us your feelings about her intensely! I used to own Blythe and Pullip dolls, but I sold all of them ;-; I hope I can get the AP collabs with Pullip and Blythe dolls again. 21. What kind of make-up do you wear when you wear Lolita clothes? Pink eyeshadow with black eyeliner and false lashes, pink blush, and pink lip gloss. I’ve just started wearing make-up, so it isn’t much ^^” 22. Have you ever secretly changed clothes in a train station bathroom on Lolita day-out? Nope! 23. Are you composed when doing Lolita all by yourself? I’ve gone out in lolita all by myself and I would say so. I just pretend that I’m the only person there. 24. How much do you spend in your Lolita clothes& accessory monthly? I’d say around $200? I like to sell a lot of my stuff as well, so it’s a constant flow of money. 25. What is the most expensive Lolita thing you've bought so far? How much was it? My first release Sugary Carnival JSK and headbow in lavender all together, including shipping and SS fees, came to $250, so pretty much retail price. 26. So far about how much has the expense been for Lolita goods? I’m going to say $2,000...which really sounds like a lot for being in lolita for less than two years and being a student. I certainly know that a big chunk of that money came from my internship last summer. 27. Lolita outfit really costs money. How do you raise money to cover the cost of Lolita? Like I said before, I sell a lot of my stuff in exchange for newer lolita purchases. My old doll collection was worth around $300-$400, and I put all the money towards lolita. I had a summer internship last year where I earn quite a bit of money in a month (around $1,500). Thankfully, I’m doing the internship again this summer, so I’ll have even more money! :D 28. Have you ever bought from an online store? If so, please tell us its good and bad points and some advice for the future. If not, please tell us why not. Yep! All my lolita is from online shops! The good thing is is that you can find pretty great deals for cheap brand. The downside is that I haven’t experienced walking into a lolita shop in person. 29. Even if you sort of want to keep it a secret, please clandestinely tell us about a private manufacturer that is the best. I literally do not understand this question, so....NEXT! 30. Is there a brand and/or an item that you think, "I could never get it! But I unreasonably want it!"? AP’s Carnival in sax! I highly doubt I’d ever be able to get it because it’s so rare and expensive ;-; But then again, I have found some pretty rare lolita pieces for a cheap price. 31. What do you think about people who only do Lolita at music-lives or cosplay? You can really see the date of this question lol. I’ll assume this will be for lolitas that only wear it to conventions, and I don’t have a problem with it. Some people just don’t have the opportunity to wear it out. 32. From what age to what age is it acceptable to do Lolita? Do you think that there's a state in which someone must graduate from Lolita? (you can answer as ‘never graduate’) You can start lolita at any age! I started fairly young, and there are lolitas who are younger than me! There are also lolitas who are pretty old as well. If the person feels like the time is right to quit, it’s ultmately their own choice. 33. Is there a Lolita fashion or behavior that you think "I don't want Lolitas to do this!" about? Never talk behind someone’s back while pretending to be their friend...*cough* most embarrassing behavior *cough* 34. Is there something you think "Lolita has to be this way!" about? Uhh not really. I mean the only thing I can think of is the rules. Every fashion has its own rules, even if they can be bent. You wouldn’t wear jeans and call it lolita, but you get away with not wearing a blouse. 35. While doing Lolita, has something changed from earlier than you did Lolita? I think the amount of Bodyline and offbrand has drastically increased. Now that I know how to find secondhand AP, I’ve been wearing it a lot more lately. 36. Do you go to school/work as Lolita? My school has a uniform policy, but I wear it whenever I can! 37. Do you wear Lolita clothes as casual wear? Sadly, no ;~; 38. Do you have a boyfriend (or husband)? Do you understand each other? Nope! I’m a single potato~ 39. What do the people around you think of your doing Lolita? Do they accept it? Yeah for the most part they accept it. My friends think of it as cosplay, though, no matter what I say ^^” 40. What Lolita has impressed you the most up until now? Ohh boy....Takulu, Maki, Kaya, Lunie-chan, Princess-Peachie, Lovelylor, Shelbycloud, Mintyfrills, and a TON more! 41. Have you ever made your own Lolita clothing or/and accessories? If so, what was the best item that you’ve made? I’ve made my own accessories! The best thing I have made was a cute, pastel bracelet with a mint star charm ^-^ 42. If you have an ideal Lolita outfit or coordination, please tell us. I like have 2-3 color combinations in a coord (like pink, sax, and lavender). I really like cardigans and a poffy petticoat. Really cute, fluffy pigtails with a headbow + hair combs is also nice. Matching accessories, socks, and shoes obviously! 43. Is there a motif that you think “this is a symbol of Lolita”? The classic bell/a-line shaped dress. Petticoats have always been a defining factor to lolita for me. 44. Would you want to dress your children as Lolita? I’m going to be honest and say that I would love to! Only if you choose to, though. 45. What's your image of the ideal Lolita? Someone who truly enjoys their clothing and are happy inside and out!

#personal #lolita questions #feel free to do it as well!

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softjjoon · 7 years

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All My Questions Tag

This is basically all my questions tags combined because I don’t want to spam y’all with multiple posts. If you’re tagged, have fun answering these or not :)

From the lovely @taeiephant Your username is very cute, btw. 💕

Tagging @jeonjungk0ok @bfkook @gguked @k-eopi @pleasejimin

Get To Know Me Better

Gender - Female

Star sign - Capricorn

Height - 5′5/165 cm

Sexual orientation - Straight~kinda.

Hogwarts house - lol don’t kill me i don’t watch HP but Slytherin seems cool.

Favourite colour(s) - black, olive green, pastel pink & yellow.

Favorite animal - Wolves, dogs, bunnies

Average hours of sleep - 4 hours on weekdays. 12 hours on weekends lmao.

Cat or Dog - Both

Favourite fictional character - Stiles Stilinski

Number of blankets - 1

Favourite singer/band - BTS (Korean), Twenty One Pilots (English)

Dream trip - Japan, Korea, France. Just traveling with friends & loved ones is my dream trip.

Dream job - Having my own fashion line or working with well-known Korean clothing & make up companies. Or you know Gucci, YSL, Alexander McQueen, that’s cool too. Hire me.

When was this blog made - May 2013

What made you decide to create this blog - First it was just to have an aesthetic blog and then it turned into BTS in 2015.

General Questions

1. Ultimate bias/biases?

UB group: BTS, UB: Taehyung

2. Who are your TOP 3 groups?

BTS, Blackpink, Big Bang

3. What are your 3 favorite songs?

Eat- Zion T.

Complex- Zion T. ft GD

Palette- IU ft. GD

4. What do you like to do in your free time?

Try not to hate myself

Eat out with my friends.

Tumblr, watch YT or catch up with all my dramas & movies & anime.

5. Are there any places you would like to visit that you haven’t already visited?

I would love to explore Asia more (Japan, Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan).

Anywhere in Europe cause I haven’t been.

6. Do you have a dream job?

Designer of my own line.

7. If you could meet ANY Korean CELEBRITY (Includes Actors, Models, K-Music artists, ect., who would it be?

BTS ofc

8. What do you love the most about your bias group/groups?

I love how humble they are even though they’ve been dominating the charts. They’re a loving, dorky family and they make us fans feel like we’re apart of their family too.

9. Who are your ultimate bias wreckers?

Right now, Yoongi. Yesterday it was Jimin. It changes everyday.

10. What do you wish for the most to happen?

For my dreams to come true because I have no talent or motivation lmao

11. When did you get into kpop and how?

First it was through Taeyang’s Wedding Dress & his solo album but I left that behind in 2013.

Then in 2015, @jeonjungk0ok showed me Run and I was like damn I love these emo ass boys.

12. What made you decide to have a tumblr blog?

Already answered.

13. Favorite color?

Already answered.

14. Favorite animal?

Already answered.

15. What are your interests? (or favourites)

Music, dancing, just art in general. Learning new languages.

16. Would you prefer music or movies? (i love this question idk why its interesting)

Music because it captures more emotions than movies does. And you can jam to it. I wake up & sleep to music.

17. What would you like to achieve (or experience) before the age of 60? (like bungee jumping or visit the north pole)

Travel the world w/ my best-friends, bungee jump, sky dive, see all my favorite artists live.

11 QUESTIONS (answer 11 questions that you’re tagged in and come up with your own for the next person.)

Ocean or sky? Why?

Ocean because I love marine animals & there’s so much more to discover.

If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?

Taehyung’s girlfriend or Jungkook’s or Yoongi’s. Aye.

Do you play any instruments?

The piano really badly & I used to know how to plate the recorder.

Hidden talent?

I can shoot trash into baskets really well. I don’t have a talent tbh.

One place you want to go to?

Japan! (finally going in a month TT)

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Ability to control time cause I’m always wasting time.

Favorite song at the moment?

Already answered.

3 things you love about your bias?

I’m going to do this on Taehyung

his smile, how pure his heart is, his voice

Favorite hair color on your bias?

Light brown or dark brown or black.

Favorite BTS lyrics? This is so hard, I have a favorite in every song but my faves currently:

“Don’t ever be scared, whatever people say, you’re okay.”-21st Century Girl

“You’re so beautiful, that I’m scared. Will you stay by my side? Will you promise me?” - Butterfly

“Live however you want, it’s yours anyway. Stop trying, it’s okay to lose”-Fire

“Kiss me on the lip, our own little secret”- Blood, Sweat, & Tears

Favorite BTS dance move?

Blood, Sweat, & Tears or 21st Century Girls

My 11 questions for you

Favorite lyrics of all time?

Favorite choreo of your bias group?

Favorite song of your bias group?

Favorite song at the moment?

If you can say anything to anyone, what would it be?

What would you say to your past-self?

How do you want your life to be 10 years from now?

One food you really want to try?

Top 3 favorite artists that’s in the kpop industry?

What is your lockscreen + homescreen + desktop screen?

Your ideal date plans?

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m00gle11 · 7 years

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Thoughts on art comps

I’ve been meaning to do some reflection on my comprehensive project and how it came into being, but it’s been hard to sit down and take the time to do it. Well, now I’m opting to do this instead of my homework, so here goes.

From my artist statement, because probably 2% of people actually read them when the show opened:

My project consists of a single silkscreen print of an imaginary town, accompanied by a branching-path narrative "book," which takes the form of 45 individual digital prints. The screen print features a sprawling, densely layered beach suburbia. The illustrations feature details extracted from the larger screen print, which allows the viewer to closely inspect and make sense of the cityscape. I intend for both the large print and the print series to be visually overwhelming: in the screen print's miniscule detail, and in the print series' meandering layout, inviting viewers to get lost in this fictional world. Much of my work stems from a nostalgia for the media from my childhood, particularly books, cartoons and video/computer games geared towards a young audience. This project is largely influenced by print and media from the 90s—in the textual style of gamebooks, which offer branching paths for the reader to decide on multiple possible endings, and in the visual style of 8-bit games, especially "Pokémon" and "The Oregon Trail.” There are many contemporary influences as well, including: children's television shows “Steven Universe,” “Arthur,” “The Aquabats! Super Show!” and more recently released, the role-playing computer game "Undertale," through its nostalgic 8-bit style and complex writing. Children's media in particular has a simplicity, security, and innocence that I try to emulate. There is a sense of magic in the imaginary, in creating a fantastic and dreamlike world cast in pastel colors and where animals humorously act as stand-ins for humans. My illustrations are packed with detail and a sense of playfulness, likely inspired by the Where's Waldo? books. The density sets up an interactive experience for discovery by the viewer. Everything is drawn from imagination, however, there are many obscure cultural references. This town is rooted in my ideas of Americana and kitsch: plastic lawn flamingos, unconventionally decorative buildings, tropes such as a UFO abduction, etc. There is a certain charm to what may be considered tasteless, fanciful and overdone, and I draw attention to their irony: the symbol of the lawn flamingo is exaggerated into an existence far beyond its role of suburban decoration; the impractical, decorative giant donut on the roof falls without warning; and the UFO reveals an unexpected alien form. My goal is to make art that elicits positive feelings by evoking senses of nostalgia and humor. The style and subject may be naive and childlike, but there are complexities that demand closer examination. In the print series, the writing can be absurd and non sequitur, at times shifting into a metanarrative. It asks the reader to consider ethical choices, although this rarely impacts any endings. There is tension between the 8-bit narrative text and the "cute," pleasant aesthetic of the images. None of the endings are overtly violent or gruesome; deaths are lightened, tamed, and made absurd enough to work with the overall whimsical tone. However, the writing challenges the notion that this is an idyllic utopia.

And so, that’s the concise version of what I’m about to say. I guess I’ll start by saying: I never intended to be an art major, or to seriously pursue art. I drew silly comics and made birthday cards for my friends, having always been a doodler, but I didn’t have access to any formal training. I didn’t have AP Art at my high school. I find it weird that other people do.

I started my etsy my senior year in high school and did a variety of crafts for it that were largely unsuccessful. I experimented with a lot of different mediums, but I never really got good at any one thing. I see that now as my blessing—I love learning new skills and trying to grow as much as I can. 80% of what I do is self-taught. I’m actually pretty proud of that. I’m a designer-illustrator-printmaker-zinester-publisher(working on it)-sculptor(ish)-crafter-entrepreneur. Maybe a writer? (I definitely put that on the backburner—I knew I wanted to major in English and I was really interested in creative writing, but I never got the chance to take a class in it....) I feel like to be an artist these days it’s necessary to be multi-talented. Part of it is because I’m just trying to survive as an artist. Another part of it is I genuinely love finding ways to use my creativity and imagination. Another part of it is I care about accessible/affordable art and I don’t believe that selling thousand dollar works in a high-end gallery would ever make me happy.

The past few years have been a hell of a ride. I’ve been focusing on printmaking at school, working on comics, making tiny clay dogs, etc. And it just feels really weird to think of how much I’ve grown. I can’t pretend that it feels utterly bizarre and egoistic to call myself an artist sometimes. I’ve been really lucky though, and I know that I work really hard to do what I do.

I had the ambitious idea to do a branching-path narrative zine a few months prior, but I would get stuck thinking about what sort of subject matter and setting could be compelling enough. And then suddenly it was time to decide on a project for comps as fall semester started up, and I was planning to build a 3D miniature town. I love miniatures, dioramas, cityscapes, etc. I was inspired largely by: Sean Chao, Yoskay Yamamoto’s installations, a diorama of a bunch of birds in the LA Natural History Museum I saw once (which I tried googling desperately but to no avail), fictional worlds like in Animal Crossing, The Simpsons, Arthur, and of course, Steven Universe. And yet I hadn’t built anything to that effect before, and as I was experimenting with paper buildings from templates I found online, I was realizing quickly that none of this came from any of my studio art practice or knowledge from school, and really, comps should be about what I’ve learned over the past few years, so I abandoned that idea. To build a huge diorama would require some technical practice, otherwise I’m convinced that it would have just looked like a child’s project. And as much as I am invested in children’s media, it’s frankly insulting to call my work “childish” or “naive,” two terms that kept cropping up to describe my “aesthetic.” (I mean yeah I can’t draw realistically and yeah my colors are typically pastels, but that doesn’t mean my artwork is like that of a child’s, or somehow inferior and not “real” art?)

I thought about my interests, which revolve around print culture, books, and children’s media. I had just bought a diptych risograph print by my favorite artists in Tiny Splendor, Kenny Srivijittakar, which really inspired my project as it was a weird (slightly apocalyptic?) beach cityscape (Tuff Town). So I started drawing digitally (even though that’s something I haven’t learned in school either, oh well), hoping for a huge scale project, a series of multiple giant prints that together would form a large map of sorts. Well, I spent ages trying to finish drawing just one, which was 20x30 in. so that idea got scrapped.

(finished digital illustration—cropped into equal sections for the book where you start in the far left center and travel to the opposite side, then up or down and back towards the left—and converted into a silkscreen print)

Then, after weeks, it was finally ready to screenprint. I figured that silkscreen printmaking would allow me to do something I learned in school. And yet it was also the biggest challenge I came across. I took silkscreen printmaking my very first semester at Oxy, three years ago, and haven’t touched it since. It was difficult, and I wasn’t happy with the work I produced then, but it was in that class that I knew I had to become an art major. And so I did. Thus, It feels significant for me to return to it, and it also made the most sense as a means to reproduce the image I had drawn digitally. Well, no matter how many hours I spent in the studio, I could not get it to print right. I won’t go into all of the horrible details, but essentially the ink was drying up as soon as I printed just one, and so I only managed to get one half-decent print, and that’s the one on display. The professors kept asking me why I chose to do printmaking when it’s a medium suited for churning out multiples, but I just physically couldn’t. They wanted me to wallpaper the room with these prints. I wasn’t really sure what that would mean, but I couldn’t do it anyway. So here we are, with probably a month or so left until the show opens, and all I have is one single print to show for myself. Even though it took ages to draw, it didn’t feel like enough (everything I do never feels like enough). So then I started working on cropping sections of the image into a book, and the rest sort of fell into place.

(also didn’t anticipate my colors being that far from what I intended)

As mentioned in my statement, I wanted to draw on the visual/textual style of early videogames, because I LOVE pixel art and I love being immersed in other worlds. I like things where everything is nice and happy, and that’s what draws me to children’s media. But I also want it to be weird and campy. When it comes down to it, everything in this project is really just a bunch of things that I like, with a lot of hidden references that probably no one except for me would get (Temmie from Undertale, The Aquabats, some bunny versions of Karamatsu fishing with a love letter as bait, etc). But I wanted this to be interactive, where viewers notice certain details and feel a connection to it. That’s my favorite kind of art, that which is accessible and relatable and makes you go like “oh! this person is a real human being who also likes this—game/TV show—I wasn’t expecting to see that type of cultural reference and humor in a piece of art.” Okay well maybe that isn’t your reaction, but that’s how I feel when I identify with something. Maybe it’s just something to do with fan culture though. Discovering that you have mutual interests. And for a lot of ~fine art~ you likely wouldn’t find that. Probably because it’s copyright infringement on some level. But anyway, it’s nice to know that artists are real people and not some edgy/misunderstood person placed on a pedestal?

(cropping from the top right corner—still laughing at Fresh Flamingo Scent and Flamingo21)

Even if it does rely on pretty obscure cultural references, the image still boils down to a pleasant little town with anthropomorphic animals walking around wearing clothes. I wanted it to be funny and silly. I’m honestly really unsure where all the existentialist writing came from, but I guess it seemed like the easiest and funniest road to go down?

I wanted it to be a book, but I also wanted it to be displayable, for multiple people to view it at once, rather than feel like it’s a precious object that a single person had to handle at a time. This became one of the most difficult issues, the question of how to display this “book.” I thought about it for a really long time and AB came up with some complicated diagrams and mock-ups with me during a late night at the studio. I was leaning towards an accordion fold book that stretched across the wall, but the issue is that options A and B for a gamebook cannot be in a linear book sequence. Gamebooks solve that issue by relying on scrambled page numbers, but that was not suitable for displaying everything at once. Option A would go down and then there would be an entire sequence stemming from that, while option B would continue to the right and then go down, right, down, right, right, etc. It very nearly took that format, where it was either down or to the right with multiple accordion folds. My prof liked the idea of The Book as a Sculptural Object and Installation, but the book would have been impossible to close or to read, really. So I designed it to form a perfect grid, where each option branched in a particular direction indicated by arrows, and when I installed it, I connected each page with color-coordinated washi tape (with flamingos on them) so that the direction might be more obvious. A week before the show, I was still drawing new pages to fill up the missing space to create the grid, then I sent all of the files off to Catprint (my go-to printer). It ended up being 45 pages long, and granted, many of the new illustrations are pretty sloppy, but I am for the most part pretty pleased with the writing.

Then it was installation day, and a whole slew of problems arose. I didn’t know the best way to adhere them to the wall. I opted for blue tape because it was on hand, but they were falling off by next morning. I was advised to do these difficult but professional methods, or buy obscure expensive materials, or to just stick a tack in it, but I didn’t want to puncture them and I didn’t have the means nor the money nor the time to do much else, so I just bought different types of mounting squares and hoped that they wouldn’t be so strong so as to tear the paint off the walls. You’d be surprised how complicated it can be. So I had everything ready to go, and then I was told that the grid layout was a bad idea, not to mention lopsided because I eyeballed it, the washi tape was the wrong shade of color, etc. etc. I did my best to compromise with my prof who was pushing for a more immersive experience, so I installed a second set of prints to make it more installation-like and utilize the full space I had. I wasn’t really happy about it because it felt utterly redundant to have 2 sets of the same prints right next to each other, because you’d start reading when you walked in and then get to the other standalone wall and think that’s a separate piece. I kept nervously asking viewers if it made sense and if they could figure out the direction of the writing, which they could, thankfully. Or so they said.

In the end, though, it worked out. The opening was lovely and many friends and strangers said incredibly nice things about my work, and they laughed and followed along and were impressed that I was able to do all of this in a short amount of time. I can’t say how much it warmed my heart to have that validation from peers and professors, and I am so thankful that my project was, for the most part, entirely my vision and what I truly love and care about, and that I got to do something so silly and personal. I’m also pretty impressed with myself that the writing came fairly naturally to me and I never spent too long getting stuck.

So thanks for reading this, if you actually did, and I’m not really sure anymore why I wanted to say all of this for the world to see, but I think it’ll be good for me to look back on.

Edit: the prints are finally compiled and bound into a 52 page zine with directional page numbers. Snag a copy from me in person, on my etsy, or my new shop for my new PRESS. I can’t stop thinking about the projects I want to do and zines I want to publish but alas I must first finish school. Honestly, it’s my pipe dream to be able to run and live off my own publishing press, making books and prints for myself and other people. In the meantime though if anyone knows who will hire me for design/publishing/illustration/etc... :^)

*EDIT: I’ve had to replace every instance of the words “choose your own adventure” with “gamebook” and “branching path narrative” because of intellectual property infringement, including replacing the covers for the latest edition... you live and ya learn

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outfittrends · 5 years

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Newborn Girl Outfits-27 Cutest Clothes For New Born Baby Girl Outfit Trends - Ideas How to Wear & What to Wear

New Post has been published on https://www.outfittrends.com/newborn-girl-outfits/

Newborn Girl Outfits-27 Cutest Clothes For New Born Baby Girl

Newborn girl outfits. The birth of a female baby is such a momentous and joyous occasion. Expectant mothers often dream about what their offspring will look like and how they want them to dress. It’s often difficult to stop yourself from buying clothing and baby products well before the baby arrives.

A new baby is about new life, fresh starts, dreams, happiness and the future. It puts everyone in a good mood. People especially go crazy buying clothes for newborn princesses. Once you give birth to your daughter, you will rarely be buying anything for yourself anymore. Everything looks so much more irresistible and swoon-worthy in miniature sizes.

What Outfits To Buy For Newborn Baby Girls?

Here are 27 of my absolutely all-time favourite items that I couldn’t live without for my own daughter from birth through her first birthday:

↓ 28 – Newborn Girl Coming Home Outfits

Your new addition will never make a fashion faux pa wearing anything pink from Ralph Lauren home from the hospital as you start your new life as a family of three (or more) Ralph Lauren is classic, timeless and looks good on everyone, infants included. It’s also always a great idea to go for matching outfits, so here are 100 Cutest Matching Mother Daughter Outfits on Internet So Far.

↓ 27 – SwaddleMe

I am a huge fan of Mexican food, but as much as I enjoy burritos, I have never gotten good at wrapping them up. Swaddleme swaddles are seriously the BEST swaddles ever! The secure design creates a cosy, womb-like feeling for baby and prevents startle reflex that can wake your infant. The soft fabric wings fasten and readjust securely with hook and loop attachments to create a perfect fit. Swaddleme makes swaddling foul-proof, even for those with three thumbs. You can literally pass off the baby as being wrapped as snuggly, smoothly and competently as when the expert nurses did it for you in the hospital.

↓ 26 – Miracle Blanket

Beloved by hundreds of thousands of families, Miracle Blanket is “one of the most beloved, time-tested and effective swaddling blankets on the market today.” There is no Velcro, which makes annoying sounds and won’t get disgusting in the laundry. In addition, one size fits all (up to 14 weeks so you can continue to swaddle, along with the Moses basket for 3 months or the “fourth trimester”) so there’s no need to keep having to buy new ones as your baby grows. If baby’s feet do not reach the bottom of the foot pouch, simply fold the bottom up so the feet touch the bottom of the blanket. The other feature which sets Miracle Blanket apart from its competitors is that there are arm flaps. Getting a good night sleep with a baby is truly a miracle. Thanks, Miracle Blanket for “the gift of sleep.” Night, night and sweet dreams. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

↓ 25 – Monthly Stickers

Monthly onesie stickers are such a fun way to record your newborn’s growth throughout the year. The choices, colors and patterns are endless. They are lots of fun and make it easy to identify just how old your child was in years to come when you look at an old photo which is dated.

↓ 24 – Baby’s First Designer Clothes

A total splurge, but every female, regardless of age, knows the importance of a killer pair of of designer jeans! Baby can even match Mommy, Daddy and any big brothers and/or sisters. And no, we promise that your diaper does not make your butt look fat. Pair with a onesie or pretty shirt.

↓ 23 – Ten Fingers….

Baby mitts are for keeping those sweet little hands from scratching their innocent and delicate face and to keep those sweet little hands warm in the cooler weather. In addition, many moms have reported, “It helped protect my babies hands from the well-intentioned women and small children that wanted to “ooh” and “aww” over my newest treasure.” We all know how little babies’ hands are and how tempting they are to touch.

↓ 22 – & Ten Toes: Sweetest Socks

Baby feet are so precious and perfect. When you have to cover them up, put them in Trumpette socks. There is nothing as adorable on the market, plus they provide an extra bonus of staying on better than most other baby socks.

↓ 21 – Ruffles

Little girls are obsessed with pink, glitter and ruffles. The sooner you get used to it the better. (If you look closely, you’ll notice she’s also got her Trumpette ballet flat socks on. No shoes necessary.)

↓ 20 – Anything Personalized

Adding the baby’s name, date of birth, measurements and/or other important stats, makes the ordinary baby item extraordinary. My daughter, Greenlee, has a unique name and therefore will never be able to buy items off-the-rack at the store with her name on it. (I experienced the same thing growing up). Our family was so excited to receive this feminine gingham hooded towel from Pottery Barn Baby with Greenlee’s name embroidered on it in pastel pink. Bath time is such a special bonding time between baby and parents. So many memories are made during this intimate chore and so many bathtub photos are taken to document for prosperity. In addition to the bath towel, you are going to want crib blankets and blankets for the stroller with your child’s name or initials.

↓ 19 – Personalized Leggings

What little girl doesn’t want their name written all over in a fun font (plenty of colours and styles to choose from) in a super comfy pair of leggings! I Know My Alphabet (an Etsy vendor) has become my new favourite go-to gift to get when a baby girl is born. It’s especially wonderful for a child who has older siblings because it becomes extremely obvious then that she is not stuck wearing her big brother or sister’s hand-me-downs. There is no denying these clothes were purchased especially for her and no one else.

↓ 18 – Cute & Funny Outfits

When you have kids close in age, it’s lots labelling the little/baby sister. Other kids in the family can wearing matching “Big Brother” or “Middle Sister” shirts.

↓ 17 – NewBorn Winter Clothing

An adorable snowsuit is a necessity for winter babies. When you bundle your bundle of joy up, make sure she’s comfy, cozy and wearing something warm enough to protect her from the cold, windy or wet climate.

↓ 16 – Ski Bunny Vest

For those less cold days, vests make wonderful layering pieces. They make strong statements and are versatile for all seasons except for the heat of the summer. Neutrals, pops of colour or patterned are all different options. Don’t necessarily buy a pricey vest as its more a novel accessory than a garment that your child will wear on a daily basis.

↓ 15 – Lounge Around in Sweats

Just as you’re most comfortable lounging around in sweats, babies want to look and feel like they’re most comfortable at all times. The littlest thing can set them off. Sweat suits aren’t fussy even when your baby is.

↓ 14 – Hats Off to the Baby

As soon as you announce your pregnancy, identify someone close to your family who knits or crochets and put in your request for baby hats and blankets. There is nothing like a custom made clothing and accessories to make your precious little one stand out in the crowd.

↓ 13 – Bands

And if you’re not too fond of hats, you can always opt for baby headbands because they look too adorable.

↓ 12 – Bathing Beauty

Every girl needs a flattering swimsuit or two for pool and beach days. Seek swimwear with high UV protection to protect delicate skin. Light colours are preferred as they will keep your child cooler in the hot sun while darker shades tend to attract and hold the heat. Lather on infant sunscreen to protect baby’s delicate and fragile skin. A floppy hat should also be worn.

↓ 11 – Where To Shop

What has grown into the “It” shoe for tiny feet was first created out of leather scraps on a kitchen table in 2009, after Freshly Picked founder Susan Petersen gave up on finding a baby shoe that was cute and stayed put. Known for thoughtful attention to detail, the brand’s moccasins and shoes have become big favourites in Hollywood and around the world. They also offer high-quality leather crib moccasins, soft sole shoes and diaper bags.

↓ 10 – Baby Shoes

Completely impractical, but oh so irresistible. While baby Uggs will never hit the floor, all eyes will remain glued on them (especially Mommy who will have to monitor that one hasn’t been lost).

↓ 9 – Halloween Costume for Non-Walkers

My daughter received lots of attention, tons of compliments and the best reactions to being a mermaid for Halloween. Everyone comments on her fin and is curious to know if I had made the costume. I must give credit to Laura Trot of Laura’s Inspiration who has an adorable array of hand-made crocheted baby photo props, along with booties and hats. It’s a great outfit for newborn photos. The mermaid costume was so unique and original that it scored first place in a Halloween costume contest! Here are Top 17 Halloween Costumes for Kids.

↓ 8 – Thanksgiving Outfit

The turkey is going to take second fiddle to your baby’ first Thanksgiving. Dress your ham up in something Thanksgiving worthy. Consider sticky to browns and oranges.

↓ 7 – Some Fancy Outfits

When your baby isn’t wearing a onesie or stretchies, and you’re taking her out and about, you’re going to want her to look like her most beautiful and feminine self. When she’s wearing a dress, no one will confuse her for being a boy. (She can be decked out in pink with a bow headband and still people will comment on what a cute boy he is). Dresses that come with matching bloomers/panties to cover the diaper are an added treat.

↓ 6 – A Classic Wrap Dress

Every lady needs a classic wrap dress. One season, Diane Von Furstenberg teamed up with Gap for a special line. If only the DVF dress could have grown with my daughter.

↓ 5 – Night Suits

Be prepared for your daughter to have more outfit changes than Beyoncé. You can never have enough stretchies on hand. Your baby will spend the majority of her time in stretchies, especially when she’s home. Pick prints and colours that make you happy and designs that are easy (and quick) to get on your ever-moving child.

↓ 4 – Bibs

No matter how many bibs you stock up on, you will always need at least a dozen more. Bibs are necessary for spit-up, protecting clothes when eating solids, wiping drool, the list goes on and on…..Pick some up whenever you see one that catches your eye and is a reflection of your style. Velcro fastening bibs are quick to put on/take off are the best design.

↓ 3 – A First Birthday Outfit

Remember your daughter will definitely need a beautiful little frock to celebrate her first birthday in style, because she can’t go out in her birthday suit! This will be the first of a lifetime of birthday celebrations blowing out candles and eating cake. You can also get some awesome ideas from these 17 Cute 1st Birthday Outfits for Baby Girl All Seasons.

And if you’re looking for something other than clothes to gift to anewbornn princess, then here are two of our highly recommended suggestions:

↓ 2 – Baby Rockers

The Tiny Love 3-in-1 Rocker Napper, an innovative rocker and napper that features a one hand switch from sit to sleep. At approximately two months old, she’ll be at the stage of being bored lying flat on her back day and night. She’ll begin to take notice of objects dangling within her reach. Once the batteries are inserted, it will massage baby, plays 3 different songs, give the baby a light show and offers volume control. The mobile does not move.

The design is extremely pleasing to parents that don’t want baby products that are huge eyesores to their home’s design. Unlike baby swing and many products out on the market, there’s no babyish animal pattern. The middle reclining position post-bottle is an ideal position to help her digest more easily.

↓ 1 – Books

It’s never too early to encourage your baby’s love of books and learning. Your little fashionista-in-training’s new library picks should include: The Birdie Series by Sujean Rim

(The author was the illustrator of the popular Daily Candy website. Jessica Simpson needs to get these books for her baby who will be named Birdie.)

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요즘 또희의 최애책📚 혼자 책장도 넘겨서 볼줄알고🤭 다컸어😭❤️ . . #생후241일 #소희스타그램 #7개월아기 #황금개띠 #딸스타그램 #책육아 #육아 #육아스타그램 #육아소통 #인스타베이비 #baby #babygirl #babybook

A post shared by ye jin (@xoxo_yejin) on Jan 29, 2019 at 8:58pm PST

This Little Piggy Went to Prada: Nursery Rhymes for the Blahnik Brigade by Amy Allen

When Royals Wore Ruffles: A Funny and Fashionable Alphabet! by Chesley McLaren

Beach Babies Wear Shades (An Urban Babies Wear Black Book) by Michelle Sinclair Colma…

June Valentine & the Magic Shoes by Eva Chen (former Editor-in-Chief of Lucky Magazine)

Claris: the Chicest Mouse in Paris by Megan Hess

A huge thanks to my own daughter (now five years old) who modelled for the majority of these photos.

What are your favourite must-haves for your daughter? Please share your finds!

#Baby Dresses #Baby Outfits #Stylish baby Outfits Ideas

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