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shera-dnd · 6 months

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I try not to be negative here. Like there's just too much negativity in this webbed site as is and I don't wanna add on to it

BUT god it's so hard not to shit on Mihoyo's character designs

Like I could write a whole fucking essay on why Yae Miko maybe has the ONLY good character design in Inazuma, and how Kokomi's and Raiden's designs are an affront to character design

Not to mention how much I could dunk on how pasty white the entirety of their fantasy India is

...but that would take like an ungodly amount of words and effort and ranting, and like I said I wanna keep negativity to a minimum

so instead I'm gonna do a little "bulk dunk" and go for the entirety of HSR in one go

quick disclaimer that I still play and enjoy these games and Jingliu has me by the balls no matter how painfully boring her character design actually is

ALRIGHT LET'S GO!

I guess it goes without saying that the design of any character in a gacha game is created with only a single thought in mind and that is: MASS MARKET APPEAL!

Which means the characters are meant to be PRETTY and their designs are meant for immediate appeal, not to actually inform the character

This results in some...weirdness

Like the fact that the Natasha (girl on the left) raised Seele (girl on the right) from childhood and used to run an orphanage, meaning she's much MUCH older than Seele, even tho they look about the same age

Okay Nat does look a little older, but no one is allowed to look old in this game

Something that becomes extra clear with

Serval! Who you'd be forgiven for thinking is a young adult playing for a rock band, and not a middle aged disgraced scientist who used to be in a rock band.

And yeah she's supposed to be AT LEAST in her 30s, because girl is the same age as Cocolia and that woman is a mother to an adult woman by the time we meet her

Oh and speaking of Nat and Serval, you've now seen 2/3s of all characters with ANY FORM OF BLEMISHES ON THEIR SKIN!

Nat has a spot on her chin, and Serval has a tattoo on her hip

Last one is Arlan

My man has the only two scars in this whole ass video game. He's also the only dark skinned character. He follows a pattern set by Xinyan and Dehya in Genshin, by being dark skin rep, carrying a big sword, and sucking absolute ass

But okay these characters are pretty, but there's nothing wrong with keeping characters pretty. Well, there is when their prettiness goes against what their character is supposed to be

So Belobog's story is one of class struggle in a military state that is holding back a never ending catastrophe. The entire population of the world is just one big walled city holding back the cold.

In it the rich and powerful live in the Overworld, where they have museums and theaters and grand statues, and a massive building from which their rulers can pass judgement.

The Underworld is mostly just a giant fucking mine where the lower class people are forced to work 24/7 in order to get food and medicine from the Overworld in the hopes that they'll keep surviving.

Underworld characters are survivors who have been struggling every day of their lives and have NEVER SEEN SUNLIGHT BEFORE

Yeah guys I can really get hardworking survivor from these two

But I mean that is just ONE planet, it can't be a thing for EVERY world, right? ...right?

So the Xianzhou Luofu is... a lot. Like it would take a long time to explain everything that is up with those guys, but the big themes here are stuff around chronic illness, memories, PTSD, war time trauma, and a whole bunch of stuff about aging

Like here are two characters who are veterans of war. One is constantly overwhelmed by her own traumatic memories, causing her to go into violent dissociative episodes.

The other one lost her copilot/best friend/rival/love of her life (YOU CANNOT CONVINCE ME SHE ISN'T GAY, MIHOYO) in battle, and the trauma of that loss has left her terrified of flying again, living the rest of her life in the shadow of this one monumental event

...yeah I don't see it either

But hey don't worry, this game believes in gender equality, and that means the men are also just very pretty and very boring

Like the Luofu's messiest polycule, who are all millennia old pretty boys made with the sole purpose of making the straight women in the fanbase call them "daddy"

Well at least Blade has spider lily symbolism, which is like always a plus for me

Okay

That's it

That's all the dunking I have for HSR. I exorcised the angry grumpy critic from my system, and can go back to being positive and loving things again.

And I mean these games make more money than I can ever even conceptualize, so maybe I'm the one who is wrong

Oh also

Clara is perfect and objectively the best character design in this game, don't fucking @ me!

#hsr #honkai star rail #natasha #seele #serval #arlan #luka #jingliu #yukong #dan heng #dan heng il #cooler daniel #blade #jing yuan #clara #fuck that's a lot of characters

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moregraceful · 1 year

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@bunnymcfoo commented for: thomas bordeleau literally seeing ghosts!

i've been trying not to editorialize these but i do want to say the idea from this comes from a fic @beryllinthranox and i ideated one time, where brayden point is haunted by florida wildlife and then he falls in love with matthew tkachuk. for brayden the wildlife was a kind of mood ring - little burrowing owls when he was safe at home, manatees when he was having a feelings revelation etc etc. i didn't flesh this out and i am tempted to later, but at least in...whatever this is...the animals here do not function as an indicator of mood. lil man is just straight up haunted

;;

No one ever believed him, which is why Thom never brought it up, except that he had drunk a White Claw too close to taking his medication. Which wasn’t even his fault, really, because he hadn’t been planning on Ozzy bringing four twelve packs of White Claw to what was supposed to be just video games and chill. He was taking his medication with crackers like a good psychiatric patient and then Ozzy showed up with like six guys and five Switches and a lot of White Claw.

There wasn’t a lot to do in San Jose even on a good day and they didn’t have a game for another four days. Thom let them all in and told them to take their shoes off.

Tristen had cornered him on the sofa when he’d noticed Thom getting too quiet. Tristen was good like that, always willing to get into everybody’s business when he felt that they weren’t adequately engaged with what was going on around them. Thom wondered if he had untreated ADHD, a lot of the time, or if he was just an empath. Tristen wasn’t like most guys their age. He didn’t keep himself; he talked to everyone, regardless of age or language barrier.

“Bord-y,” said Tristen. He crawled over Montana’s lap to shove Thom further into the corner of the couch, pressing close to Thom like he had a secret, except he was being really loud. Well, they were all being loud. Thom was probably going to get complained about by his neighbors again. “Bords, my man, you look haunted.”

“I am,” blurted out Thom. And he tried to shove himself further into the couch, avoiding eye contact because he always hated when he told the truth.

Tristen stared at him. Thom could feel it even though he wasn’t looking at him. “Really,” said Tristen. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Wait, really?”

Thom looked out the window, at the setting sun.

Tristen crawled into Thom’s lap, kneeling between Thom’s legs so he could take Thom’s face in both hands. “Thomas Bordeleau,” he breathed, eyes wide. “Can you really see ghosts?”

There was one behind Tristen at the moment actually, a regal mountain lion pacing in front of the couch, snarling at them. She was nervous and angry because they were too close to her babies, who were playing in Thom’s bedroom last time Thom checked.

Thom nodded.

“Are they scary?” whispered Tristen.

Thom shook his head, because the ghosts never wanted to hurt him. They were just—there. Animals no one else could see. He never saw people, just animals. He only knew they were ghosts and not hallucinations because the medication never did anything. Little creatures of wildlife wherever he lived, wherever he went. He knew he looked kind of haunted on a good day and while that was true in a very literal sense, the bulk of his expression was generalized anxiety disorder and a weird childhood, not that he sometimes woke up seeing coyotes at the end of his bed or that there were often ghost birds in his kitchen.

It was like seeing two realities at once, ghosts layered on top of his physical surroundings. He’d tried to explain it to his therapist once and she asked him if he’d consider art therapy.

“Are they dead people?” asked Tristen. He pressed his forehead against Thom’s and Thom nearly went cross-eyed trying to look at him. “Are they telling you they’re going to hurt you?”

“No,” said Thom. He didn’t want to explain that the ghosts were animals. He mostly wanted Tristen out of his face. “They’re just. There.”

“Wow,” said Tristen. “That’s so cool.”

“Don’t, like,” said Thom. He shifted in his seat. “Can you—I mean, can you not tell anyone. Like. If at all possible.”

Tristen leaned back a little, smiling. Thom’s heart sank. Every fucking time he told someone, it ended up all over the team and then everyone made jokes for the next month and it fucking sucked. Either because they thought he was lying or they thought he was crazy or they thought he was bad at chirping, or some combination of all three.

“Please,” mumbled Thom.

Tristen leaned forward and kissed him on the nose. “You got it, babe,” he said. “I won’t tell.”

He turned around and settled against Thom’s chest, picking up one of Thom’s hands so he could crack Thom’s knuckles.

Thom thunked his head against the back of the couch. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Tristen’s shoulder. “I mean it, Robbie,” he said into Tristen’s t-shirt. “Please, okay.”

“I told you, I wouldn’t tell. I promise,” said Tristen. He pressed down on Thom’s thumb until it cracked. Thom wondered if Jmac would be mad if he broke his fingers because Tristen didn’t know how to be normal. Probably. “If it ever, uh, gets weird and scary though, you can tell me, right? And we’ll figure out how to exorcize them.”

The mountain lion roared and it sounded like a mother screaming, which was par for the course. When the animals made sounds, they sounded like people who didn’t know how to speak. Thom nodded against Tristen’s shoulder. He breathed out against Tristen’s shoulder.

Tristen turned his head and kissed Thom on his temple. He picked up Thom’s other hand.

Thom wrapped his free hand around Tristen’s stomach – light, not clutching. He was trying. Tristen hummed. “I knew you had more going on than just being French,” he said.

Thom jabbed him in the stomach. Tristen laughed. He cracked Thom’s pointer finger, then his middle, and it was a deeply uncomfortable feeling, but not weirder than the sound of babies laughing in his bedroom, the mountain lion kittens still playing on his bed.

Thom sighed against Tristen’s shoulder. Tristen wrapped his fingers through Thom’s and squeezed very tight. He let go and went back to Thom’s knuckles.

In the other room, the kittens laughed.

#if i spent more than 45 minutes on this it would be. way creepier #but the tenderness of cracking your bro's knuckles got to me #i'm also joining the war on bordeleau on the side of the ghosts #and i have a 5217 agenda it's called undiagnosed adhd meets diagnosed haunted brain #also: took iconic robbie in someone's lap imagery from ko's seminal dello/robbie work #alright enough editorializing!!!! maybe i'll expand this later #unfortunate birdcage fanfictions

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britesparc · 8 days

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Weekend Top Ten #633

Top Ten Fictional Cities

If there’s one thing I like in my fiction, it’s a good sense of place. You want to be immersed in an alternative world; so it’s nice to know where you actually are. Of course, tons of fiction is set in real places: whether that’s an historical drama like The Crown necessarily inhabiting the palaces Queen Elizabeth did actually occupy; or a film such as The Full Monty being specifically set in contemporary Sheffield; or even the bulk of the MCU taking place in what’s supposed to be a believable version of New York. Plenty of films and shows and books and everything else revel in their location; how many times have we heard “the city is a character”, usually when describing urban crime dramas (or, frankly, Batman films)? But it’s true; a great location can ground a story, or it can transport you. There can be a realness even to the most fantastical of fictional locales.

And I really do love a fictional locale. Whether it’s the unrecognisable cityscapes of the likes of Blade Runner or The Fifth Element – ostensibly set in real-world cities such as Los Angeles and New York many years hence (“many years” in Blade Runner’s case being, er, 2019) – or places that are made up entirely, it’s great to see the wildness, weirdness, and even the realism that these made-up metropoli deliver. Think about it: how many of your favourite fictions take place in not-real location? Of course you can look at total fantasies like Lord of the Rings, or sci-fi stories that exist on other planets; but whether it’s as crazy a place as Roger Rabbit’s Toontown, the sprawling cities of games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Crackdown, or even the fictionalised township of Derry, Maine in several Stephen King stories, across the gamut of genre, medium, and audience, we have places that aren’t real giving us stories that feel real.

Because, again, the best settings reinforce the fiction they envelop. I don’t want to pre-empt the list itself, but look at how Gotham and Metropolis reflect the heroes that live there. This can be both sublime and ridiculous: the way the fictionalised cities of Grand Theft Auto serve not only to reinforce the themes of the games they inhabit, but also work as subtle (and not so subtle) parodies of American life; but also the way you’d get a place like Duckburg in Duck Tales, or even Far, Far Away in the Shrek movies, that really don’t have much purpose other than giving fantastical cartoon characters a home and allowing for some wince-inducing puns when it comes to the names of shops and stuff.

Blimey, I’ve wanged on a bit this week.

Anyway, I love a made-up city, that’s what I’m saying. And that’s what this list is, if you hadn’t guessed. Now, as usual, I’ve given myself rules; one is that these are supposed to be cities. There’s one that I’m not certain of (I’ll come to it) – it might be a town, technically, but I’ve allowed it on the basis of its iconicness (is that a word?). Also, they have to be fictional; so the likes of Marvel’s New York or Blade Runner’s LA are out. As are, frankly, the in-all-but-name cities of GTA; I don’t really think Liberty City is any more fictional than the New York inhabited by the Avengers, it’s just got a made-up name to go along with its made up buildings and locations. This has also stretched to Neo-Tokyo from Akira, which is really just Tokyo with a hole in the middle. However, I am allowing Mega-City One.

I think that’s it. Let’s go on a city break!

Gotham and Metropolis (Batman and Superman comics, from 1938): yes, once again I cheat at the start. Two cities! But often they’re thought of as twin cities, so, y’know. Whatever. Anyway: they are always a yin and a yang, the light and the dark, reflections of their principal heroes. Metropolis, shining city on the hill, beacon of the future; Gotham, dark and brooding gothic vision, its windswept alleys awash with rain. They’ve been called New York in the day and New York in the night, and as representations of the beauty, optimism, darkness, and danger of cities – of American cities; of America – they’re perfect. So perfect they’re almost certainly the first fictional cities you thought of too. So perfect they can be high-tech futurescapes, twisted neon-drenched, fume-belching furnaces, or just broadly realistic interpretations of real places (in Donner’s Superman, Metropolis is literally New York, Statue of Liberty and all). No fake place is as redolent. They are the ur-cities. And, of course, they have the best superheroes.

Coruscant (Star Wars stories, officially from 1997): the retro-futuristic art deco stylings of its skyline is one thing – the hovering platforms in the clouds, the vast curving domes of the buildings – but the fact that the entire planet is one big city is its big talking point. Taking the concept of sprawling metropolis (small “m”) to its most ridiculous degree, it’s a crazy sci-fi concept in a film series built on crazy sci-fi concepts.

Autobot City (The Transformers: The Movie, 1986): the notion of the Autobots – long trapped in their crashed spaceship – building a permanent city on Earth was cool enough. But the fact that it can transform into a bristling battle-station is even better. And its design is cool; a sci-fi version of a medieval fortress, moat and all. Gets extra points because, depending on who you believe, it may turn into an actual Transformer, or just have one sleeping beneath it. Fun fact: in the original script it was even referred to as “Fortress Maximus”!

Springfield (The Simpsons, from 1987): it’s a hell of a town; the schoolyard’s up and the shopping mall’s down. This is the minor controversy, because I don’t know if Springfield is a city or a town; but to hell with it, chances are if you didn’t think of Gotham or Metropolis, you thought of this place. Over thirty-odd years of the series, Springfield has developed into a believable, if exaggerated, township; we know some of these locations like the back of our hand. Moe’s, the Power Plant, the burning tyre yard, Springfield Elementary, yada yada yada. It’s a perfectly realised unreal place.

Minas Tirith, the White City of Gondor (The Lord of the Rings, 1954): technically, I believe that “Gondor” is the realm and the huge walled city. Its seven walled levels climb upwards, providing multiple rings of defence, and looking somewhat like a giant swirl on top of a colossal cupcake. The promontory rock jutting out the front, and the beautiful citadel on its topmost level, make for an incredibly striking and unique design, as well as offering functionality. It’s an amazing, fantastical, incredible location.

Mega-City One (Judge Dredd, 1977): whilst this city does contain New York, it also stretches across pretty much the entire eastern seaboard of the US, so it’s, y’know, big. Possibly the poster child for sprawling post-apocalyptic metropolis, it’s a vast, corrupt, horrible place overseen by a fascist police force. Pick your depressing sci-fi trope, it’s here. Interesting to ponder what it says about the British view of America, really.

Ankh-Morpork (Discworld stories, from 1983): possibly lower down the list than some would have it, because (whispers) I’ve not read much Discworld. But as a place, it’s incredibly well-realised, a brilliant multifaceted fantasy location that feels incredibly real and dynamic and lived-in, and (typical for Pratchett) reflects our own world so perfectly.

Rapture (BioShock, 2007): it’s part-city, part underwater laboratory, yeah? But the notion of a man-made utopia going to pot is a common sci-fi go-to. Here, the distinct areas of the city, and how they reflect the various obsessions and perversions of the pseudo-fascist nutters who ran the place, are beautiful to behold and terrifying to ponder. Plus, as an emergent and interactive bit of design, the location is tremendous to wander around, the retro art design great to behold, the distressed and decaying façade of gaudy old-timey whimsey disturbing but also quaintly amusing.

Zootopia (Zootopia, 2016): cities in talking-animal movies usually just look like real cities but there’ll be dreadful puns, like a burger place called “McDognald’s” or something. Zootopia tries to imagine how all these different animals would co-exist, with fascinating results, including different temperate zones, vast tubes connecting different areas, and buildings of varying sizes that result in our relatively-diminutive leads towering kaiju-like over the proceedings.

San Angeles (Demolition Man, 1993): I was worried this was a bit of a cheat too, as it’s an amalgam of two real cities, but this new metropolis emerged from the ashes of a devastating earthquake so – like Mega-City One – it counts. And for once we have more of a culture than a design that stands out; true, the three seashells and sexy curvy cars are a highlight, but it’s the way this city imposes its morality, the way the future erased 20th century vices, and the way – frankly – everyone speaks that sets this out as a fascinating little town of tomorrow. Be well, San Angeles. Be well.

#top ten #movies #comics #tv #games #fictional cities #made-up towns #urban centres that are dens of lies #springfield

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rakumel · 9 months

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Raku Plays Her Faves, Ys VIII, Chapter 3 Part 1: The Plot(s) Deepen(s)

Things are looking up in Chapter 3, mainly because we’ll be spending the bulk of it climbing the huge mountain that divides the island. The castaways name the mountain Gendarme. (Or Gen D’Armes in other versions of this game - it looks like both could be correct, so I’ll just be sticking with Gendarme since that’s how the PS4 version spells it.)

Up until this point, we’ve had two main storylines going. The first one we’re introduced to, and the one we’ve mostly been concerned with, is the story of Adol and the survivors of the Lombardia shipwreck on the isolated Isle of Seiren. So far it’s been a pretty active one - the castaways have found each other, built a village, explored the island, defended themselves from monsters great and small, and resolved the mystery of a serial killer.

But just before Chapter 2 starts, the game starts telling a second story about the life of a young lady named Dana. Through Adol’s dreams, we see that she’s gifted with magic powers that allow her to manipulate the elements and briefly see into the future. We also see that she’s not afraid to act quickly when necessary. After having a 'red vision’ - a vision of an immediate disaster that would happen too fast to be completely prevented - Dana woke up her best friends and convinced them to help her break a reservoir just in time to save her city and the temple from a great fire. While it ruined the temple interior, the damage would have been far worse had Dana not acted at all.

While both Adol’s story and Dana’s are well-told and compelling, it’s still not clear how the two stories are related. Nor do we know exactly why Adol’s having dreams about this lady he’s never met - it would make sense for Dana to have visions since we’ve already established she can, but as far as we know Adol doesn’t have powers like that. He’s just a decent adventuring guy who’s good with a sword (and occasionally says dumb things, if it’s me controlling him).

Chapter 3 is where the two stories finally start coming together. (Some references to Chapter 2 spoilers under the cut.)

Before Chapter 3 starts, we get the usual sepia-toned peek into Dana’s life. We learn her last name, and see her officially granted the title of Maiden of the Great Tree. In case you don’t recall, it’s basically like a high priestess - in her society, it’s on par with royalty in rank.

But when the dream ends, we don’t cut back to Adol and Castaway Village right away. Instead...

...we get to see Dana’s world in color, and play as her for a while. Even though she’s now got a title and prestige, Dana still feels like the girl that liked to explore and check things out for herself. Having to behave with decorum and properly address people who were once her peers and friends feels especially weird to her.

Here’s her Skills menu art, which is fantastically awesome like the others, even if like 90 percent of it is her hair.

While exploring the temple where Dana lives and works, we see this little girl, who’s not named yet. We’ll learn her name later, and find out why she’s there much later.

We’re also properly introduced to Dana’s best friends Olga and Sarai, who accompany Dana to the start of some kind of trial she has to go through, as sort of her first official duty as the Maiden of the Great Tree.

This is where you the player assume control, and you’ll quickly find out that the trial is more annoying than dangerous. There’s a strong wind that occasionally keeps you from progressing, and also blows these plant-like enemies into your path. Fortunately, they’re no big deal.

Also, check out Dana’s unique weapon here. It’s some kind of cross between swords and chakram, and just looks gorgeous as hell.

Dana makes it to the end of the trial and plants that curved thing in the top screenshot, which she calls a prayer tree sapling. Those will become important shortly.

But for now, Dana plants the little tree, and is supposed to have some kind of vision for the future of her country, which we now learn is named Eternia. Instead, she experiences brief flashes of drowning in a shipwreck. Specifically, Adol’s experience.

Dana doesn’t know what the fuck that’s about, and chalks it up to nerves. She quickly makes up a story of having a vision of a calm ocean, which the others in attendance take as a sign of a good future. Only her friend Olga there seems to suspect something’s not quite right.

Adol finally wakes up at this point, and we go back to the castaways for a while.

It’s been about a week since the end of Chapter 2, and everyone’s still coping from the events that transpired. It’s got a proper melancholy feel to it at first.

Eventually, the castaways decide to try and fulfill the captain’s last wish, to get everyone safely off the island. But to do so requires solving two seemingly impossible problems. First, they need a ship that can hold everyone. But there’s no shipwright here; the closest thing they had was the captain, who’s dead and buried now. But even if they do build a ship, or somehow find one, there’s still the matter of the hostile giant squid out in the ocean, the same one that sank the Lombardia and marooned them all in the first place, and who more recently cut Sir Carlan’s little boat trip short.

After some more discussion, they decide that maybe, just maybe, the solution to at least one of those problems might be somewhere on a part of the island that they haven’t explored yet. There’s a massive mountain that divides the island, separating the as-yet uncharted northern half of the island from the southern half. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the reason our exploring trio haven’t set foot on the mountain yet is because there’s a massive canyon alongside it they can’t cross.

At least, that was the case the last time they saw it. But remember that sapling Dana planted in Adol’s dream?

It’s a massive tree now, and it’s forming a bridge to the foot of the mountain. Not only that, but we now have some confirmations about the dreams Adol’s been having. First, Dana is a real person who lived during an era long past - something we probably strongly suspected, but now have confirmed. Second, her actions during her time affect Adol’s group in the present. If you were wondering, yes, there will be a few more times where Adol’s group will come across an impassable gap, and we’ll have to jump back to Dana’s time to fix it.

For now though, it’s enough to get them to the foot of Mount Gendarme and set up camp. Next time, they’ll start the climb. The bad news is, they’ll find the mountain’s crawling with Primordal beasts they can’t easily defeat. But the good news is, they’ll also find a little human ray of sunshine there.

#raku plays her faves #raku plays her faves: ys viii #ys viii #lacrimosa of dana #ys VIII spoilers #well I *said* I wasn't going to just retell the story #but it kinda just happened #it's a damn good story I can't help it

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crystalelemental · 10 months

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Continuing from yesterday's regional attempts, we're on to Galar. Fun fact, I wanted to do Kanto, but having looked at Kanto...guys, I don't know if I'm able to do Kanto. I know the rats exist, but outside of those, Kanto might be the worst region right now. I cannot believe what I'm about to say, but...more Kanto stuff may be justifiable. So long as it's not Red. Ideally not Blue either. I know he's popular and should hit 6 alts, but he's one of the Big Two for genwunners and I want them to be unhappy.

Vs. Sidney Sidney is Flying weak, and at first I was like damn, there's no one with good Flying damage. Before remembering Leon. Who, until Summer Liza, was the best Flying-type DPS. So yeah, good game, Sidney. I looked at his tips, because I couldn't figure out why he felt so difficult, and it turns out it's because he has damage reduction if he's not trapped or something? Neat. Anyway, here's Anni Raihan. H!Allister probably seems like an unusual choice, but my reasoning was that Allister immediately caps crit, and can boost special attack each time he attacks, complementing Leon effectively. It worked out overall.

Vs. Glacia Neo Champion Hop is only 1/5 on my account. I know, but listen, I didn't have enough to 3/5 all of them, and Hop/Zapdos was the least favorite. That said, his DPS is still stupid good. Easily pulls off denials, okay-ish sync, but he did need to dodge a side Blizzard to avoid death.

Vs. Phoebe Neo Champion Marnie. I could've brought nothing and won. Instead, I brought Melony, who can sleep chain center and provide an EX buff that just lets Marnie explode the sides. Lodge Gloria is here to support Marnie. Not in battle, just like emotional support.

Vs. Drake I legitimately tried with Winter Nessa, but being only 2/5 and generally poor on sync meant she could not get it done. Instead, we off-type with 4/5 Gloria, who is able to set up early sync on the foe to just explode their souls from their bodies. This was a lot harder than it seemed, mostly because of Earthquake spam post-sync being really threatening to Gloria.

Vs. Steven UUUUGH. Okay, I know she's not EX, but Nessa kinda sucks, huh? I initially tried with Gordie, expecting speed drops to help, but it's really not doing much. So I went with SC Sonia. "But the gauges..." Yeah it was really bad. Thankfully, Twofer exists, and NC Bede is able to generate plenty of free actions, so it wasn't too awful? Really the main problem was getting Nessa to quad queue to finish off Steven, since she would guaranteed die to any sync, which is staggering because isn't Dreadnaw supposed to be decently bulky on the physical end? But I guess not, since it died. Every time.

Overall Impressions Galar isn't too bad, but is very hard carried by its Master Fairs and Sonia. Without these traits, it would be a very rough time. Yes, even in the P!Marnie/Gloria one, where Hop wouldn't generate enough defense to really keep them alive. Galar has exceptionally strong pairs, and then pairs that feel like ass.

The bigger issue with Galar, as far as I can see it, is lack of cohesion. A lot of regions feel like their tools go together well, and are achieving some sort of synergy? Galar doesn't. Like, offensively, a lot of them are powerhouses with poor gauge management. By support, they all do crit, but either Atk/crit, or just crit with some bulk and a gimmick of varying utility. Very little directly supports other tools. NC Marnie doesn't really have anyone but NC Hop to debuff special defense in the region. Leon really doesn't have a good sp atk/crit buffing ally to assist his self-setup. Dojo Gloria is like the only glue holding Nessa together.

I think the major problem here really is that so much of the region is limited. There just aren't a ton of options to work with in Galar, and a lot of it feels disconnected. Even their Lodge units don't really offer a ton of variety. I dunno, man. Galar just feels weird. It's not as painful as Alola was, but it's awkward.

#champion stadium #hoenn cs #regional clear #galar clear

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watching-pictures-move · 11 months

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Movie Review | The Freshman (Newmeyer & Taylor, 1925)

My only prior experience with Harold Lloyd was secondhand, through a stunt of his replicated in Jackie Chan's Project A, so I was curious to see how I'd take to him unfiltered. And pretty much immediately, I realized the movie was going to be an uphill battle. We all have our inexplicable hangups, and mine was that I found Lloyd extremely unpleasant to look at. I am not saying that he's an ugly man. But his appearance in the first third or so in the movie... there's something displeasing on a basic geometric level. Lloyd has something of an oval, perhaps angular shape to his head. And he wears a stupid little cap that accentuates that quality unflatteringly. And he wears a chunky turtleneck sweater that extends that shape so that his entire silhouette seems to converge in linear terms to the tip of of that cap, while also framing his head like... what's the most polite way to say this... one's bell end. Add to that the mugging and flailing of his arms in the first scene, and I did not want to spend time with this man as our supposed hero. At one point a kitten sneaks into his sweater and starts squirreling around in there, and this marked an immediate improvement by virtue of breaking up that unity of line and shape. It was also an improvement because there was a cute little kitty cat. There are many levels to this scene.

Thankfully, Lloyd loses the cap and sweater combo and things substantially improve. The bulk of the movie follows Lloyd as he tries to win the hearts of his classmates in superficial gestures to boost his popularity, oblivious to the fact that they are laughing at him, not with him, and oblivious to the affections of the poor shopgirl who his attracted to him for who he is. The highlight of the movie is a set piece at a party hosted by Lloyd, where he briefly reprises his talent for uniquely unflattering headgear but mostly tries to avoid embarrassment and hide his rapidly disintegrating tuxedo. (Apparently the tuxedo cost him $38.50 in 1925 US Dollars, which would be approximately $667 in 2023 US Dollars, which would be a damn good deal for a bespoke suit, provided your tailor doesn't also suffer a dizzy spell which leaves them unable to complete it to their usual standard.)

The movie follows this with a climactic football game, and I think it suffers as a result. There's a virtuosity in the party sequence in combining intricate choreography and complications with an agonizingly drawn out length, compared to which the game feels imprecise, a rambling mess of bodies piled on each other but not any particular level of excess. (I should also mention that I like clothes and hate sports, so there are other biases at play.) There is also a villainous character who spends the entire game laughing at Lloyd's misfortunes instead of following anything else that's happening, which strikes me as pathological and weird. The movie does not serve him a comeuppance, perhaps because Lloyd as a screen presence is relatively guileless, and luckily he learns to cherish the one relationship he has that lacks such fickle dimensions.

#film #movie review #the freshman #fred c. newmeyer #sam taylor

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cryptidmads · 4 years

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alright, so i went through the ama with wan hazmer and daim dziauddian on twitch and picked out every little tidbit i could about the megastars bc i knew you guys would want to know. this is a long post and i’m on mobile atm so i can’t put it under a read more — sorry about that! bosses are in chronological order, starting with DJSS and ending with Eve!

DJ SUBATOMIC SUPERNOVA

- djss took the least amount of time to develop out of all the bosses (haz says his fight took about half a year.)

- daim purposely tried to make djss' name as long as he could. he was specifically looking at negasonic teenage warhead from deadpool for inspiration.

- haz and daim do have the briefing/kliffnotes for djss. they discussed sharing them at some point, but idk when that would happen.

- related to the above, daim says that dj is in his mid thirties. EDIT: his kliffnotes were shared on twitter and they say he’s 41. daim must have goofed haha

- when asked if djss actually has a face and how he eats, daim compares it to kenny from south park and how you never see his face. he thinks dj does have a face in there, but that we just never see it. as for the “how does he eat” part, daim says that sometimes they don’t have to show everything.

- daim is a djneon/neonnova shipper, and it’s one his favourite pairings alongside zuke/mayday.

- daim said that uncle ali basically instantly landed the role as djss. he was that good.

SAYU

- sayu was obviously inspired by hatsune miku and other vocaloids, but haz brings up one particular commercial involving miku and google chrome, which involves a bunch of people collborating on songs and concept art for miku, similar to how sayu started as a collab between remi and tila in-universe.

- someone asked about the models for sayu's crew's apartments. there wasn't much on that, but haz mentions that one of his favourite nsr fanfics (yes, he reads them) is "Road to Redemption," and there's a scene that takes place in a studio where the crew works on sayu, and he really likes that.

- the devs wanted sayu's name to sound both malay and japanese at the same time (as well as a nod to miku). haz says it means “warm water” in japanese.

- akusuka is a direct copy of akihabara in terms of locale.

- sayu’s shellfish commercial is a homage to a real snack in malaysia named mamee monster, which is hugely popular with kids. the format of the commercial itself was inspired by a pocky commercial that featured hatsune miku.

YINU

- her game design (for her boss fight) was partially done in ms paint by music director falk (who made the base version of her boss theme)

- yinu's mom doesn't have a name. she's just mother/mama.

- haz confirmed that yinu's father is, in fact, dead.

- daim thought yinu’s name was a nod to yuna (a popular malaysian artist). it’s not.

- natura is daim’s favourite district. he likes how calm it is compared to the others.

- daim said that they wanted a hint of hope in all three of yinu’s backstory photographs, to show that no matter how bad your life gets, there’s always that glimmer of hope and that good things can still happen.

1010

- the members of 1010 do not have any official names.

- the assets for the autographs were made by the artists at one of the partner companies working with metronomik on nsr. haz and daim didn't really have anything to do with making them, and while daim did approve them for the final game, he was sorta skimming through a bunch of assets along with the autographs, and he didn't realize what they really were at the time until later. haz is impressed with how the fans managed to decipher them.

- 1010's fight was purposefully put between yinu's and eve's as a break from the emotional stuff.

- michael jackson was used as a reference for 1010's animations/moves.

- the Bio Tactical Shield that you get for zuke after beating 1010 is a reference to BTS.

- tangibly related, but the collectable figurines are supposed to serve more as a backstory to vinyl city as a whole, rather than 1010 or neon j. daim describes the figures as what events were going on and what people were doing before the events of nsr.

- 1010’s appearance from older trailers (where they all looked the same) were actually placeholders. 1010’s actual designs weren’t finished yet when those trailers were released.

- parts of 1010’s designs (for their bodies/outfits) were inspired by tron uprising, a project that daim worked on.

- somebody asked why 1010 and neon j have sculpted butt plates. daim and haz have no idea, but daim suggested that ellie (who designed 1010) and jan (who did their character models) put them there to up the “sexy robot” factor.

- daim’s favourite member of 1010 is purl-hew/blue, and haz’s favourite is eloni/green.

- the members of 1010 were designed based on popular tropes in boy bands. rin/white is “the main guy,” zimelu/red is the “bad boy,” purl-hew/blue is the “cool guy,” haym/yellow is the “young/innocent one,” and eloni/green is the “weird/funny one.”

- eloni/green not getting fan mail was based on how the “funny guy” of kpop bands/idol groups don’t seem to get as much attention as the rest of the group.

NEON J

- haz and daim didn't expect neon j to become so popular. haz joked about blaming it on ddaddystar, who did that doodle of djss and neon j from the credits.

- when asked about neon j’s age, daim said he’s definitely older than djss, and that he could be in his forties.

- related to the age thing, someone in chat said he should be older if he went to war in the sixties. haz replied by saying they never mentioned what year the game takes place in, so it doesn’t necessarily take place in the present/2020.

- a lot of people asked about the border wars, and daim and haz said they like leaving the bulk of it up to fan interpretation.

- daim said that neon j’s organs were preserved in a robotic shell after the war, and that’s why he’s considered a cyborg.

- as stated above, daim is a djneon/neonnova shipper, and it’s one his favourite pairings alongside zuke/mayday.

- neon j’s monologue was slightly longer, but it was cut down because zul (neon j’s va) didn’t do very many takes for the monologue, and the takes he did do didn’t have the comedic punch that daim was looking for, so it got shortened.

- the singing parts of neon j’s lines were ad-libbed by zul in his audition, and daim liked it so much that it stayed for the final game.

- neon j’s monologue had to be altered in the japanese dub so that the jokes/comedy would make more sense.

EVE

- the color changing paintings from her boss fight were created by accident.

- eve was put as the last boss because of how emotional her relationship with zuke was and how complicated and intricate she is as a whole compared to the rest of the bosses.

- daim considers eve to be the "final boss" for zuke, while tatiana is the final boss for mayday.

- eve took the longest to develop out of all the bosses. she was orignally a lot more complicated, and daim said they had to "filter" a lot of things about her in order to tone her down and fit her into the game.

- eve was almost scrapped from the game. daim said her concept as an eccentric artist wasn't as well known as the other four bosses’ concepts, and combine that with how long it took to finalize her... yeah.

- none of the artists have set in stone heights because of how the gameplay works, but eve is the tallest one. the closest scene in the game that has them at their actual heights is the ending.

- her name was originally eva, but it was changed bc there’s already a popular artist with the same name.

- daim explains that a big part of eve’s concept and theme is her embracing herself. he uses the example of eve’s backstory where she starts out hating herself and trying to cover the pink half of her face, but then starts doing less of that overtime. he also mentions that all the body parts (hands, arms, legs, etc.) from her fight also come from her embracing her body and using it in her artwork.

- dream fever is haz’s favourite district.

- daim didn’t originally think of zuke and eve as being an actual couple until later down the line when the story heavily implied it.

- eve’s younger designs were done by lzbros, who did all the 2d animation for the game.

#long post #no straight roads #nsr #dj subatomic supernova #nsr sayu #yinu nsr #1010 #neon j #eve nsr #madison speaks #this was fun! good stream good facts #nsr ama #1k

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maybe-homestuck-now-or-something · 3 years

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I really wanna talk about homestuck in relation to this post but like, idk if I wanna add to it because it might be a total derailment of the topic but homestuck is such a weird apocalypse narrative.

like... the way it handles it is so odd because earth itself is not very well characterized before the characters leave it. the characters themselves are massively well characterized, and that takes up the bulk of the narrative, but like... we never even hear them talk about school? or much of anything more than their shared interests and what's immediately happening to them. and in a way, that is kind of authentic. because when kids get together to hang out, the last thing they ever wanna talk about is dry, boring stuff about their mundane lives. they'll mostly just yell memes at each other, talk about anime, play video games... it's possible to simultaneously know nothing about your friends, but feel closer to them than ever, because you're mostly around for the parts of their life that they want to experience when they're having the most fun. you see them as they are when they have the most agency to choose that. and that might be totally divorced from the reality of how their day-to-day life unfolds.

in this way, homestuck presents these characters as people who have shed that mundane portion of their lives. they are now left with only the part that they typically share with their friends. and in reality, if a SBURB type apocalypse were to literally happen to you, it'd be traumatic as hell. but this is the place where homestuck chooses to ask you to suspend your disbelief. let's just believe that John didn't have any other friends or family to think about when the world ended. let's pretend they left zero people of any interest whatsoever behind. all they are shaking off is the society that they were obligated to participate in so mundanely. they no longer have to make any compromises with anyone... they get to fully center themselves.

okay, so that's obviously not entirely true... playing SBURB is a cooperative experience, and being friends with someone doesn't always mean that your relationship is easy. but homestuck allows the narrative to become self centered. it's about one individual and the tiny sphere of influence they have, among solely the people they've developed meaningful bonds with. it allows them to become a case study.

so when the world ends, the world is not necessarily what matters. what matters is the identities of a few specific individuals who we spend a lot of time cultivating our own connections with as a reader.

and that all becomes incredibly interesting when you consider classes and aspects.

basically, in terms of the post linked above, classes and aspects are the harry potter houses, the factions, the "what bender are you" or MBTI type... they're not the only way you could categorize the characters, but they're the most universally applicable to all of the characters that are important in the narrative. and what's interesting is just like... what classes are for, and how complicated it actually is to know what aspects are, or what they mean.

starting with classes, these are basically a series of archetypes that are specialized so that everyone has a role to play that makes them uniquely valuable to a collective. if we're considering this in terms of DnD, you can think of what classes might make for a balanced party, and how having a balanced party makes it satisfying to play the game. no one player could handle everything on their own, and at the same time, everyone feels needed. nobody is useless.

this already seems fundamentally different from some of the means of categorization that I listed above. a lot of these systems are meant to divvy up the characters into societally recognized in-groups and out-groups... people who can be identified as allies or enemies. even if the groups are ascribed certain archetypal skills, the goal is rarely so explicitly for the archetypes to work together, or cover each other's weaknesses. Avatar is probably what comes the closest to this idea, with its underlying endeavor to find harmony between the elements, but homestuck uses classes both as a way to communicate unique specialization, and as a way to unify the characters by their need for support.

and that's a little weird isn't it? these characters just shed all of their obligations to a broader society, and we're taking that as a freeing event... right? but there is a difference between society and community, and while homestuck might use the destruction of society as a catalyst for adventure, it uses the formation of community as the driving force behind the story's progression. the characters are all motivated to work together and help each other... and that doesn't always mean that it works. even within a community, one person's drive to center themselves and their own personal growth can trample others who were trying to do the same thing. perhaps not everyone in the community consents to being cooperative. perhaps the difference in archetype could drive someone to become competitive instead. and these are all value-neutral observations... no archetype is specifically acknowledged as being evil, even when they have friction with one another.

basically... this is character writing. and I find it funny that these broad categories that kids like to identify themselves with are seen as ways of flattening characterization into broad strokes like "the brave one" or "the sneaky one" or what have you, because in the case of classes, the characterization becomes deeper. and I think that's because the categories are used well... the characters all have specific relationships with the stereotypes they're ascribed by others, and the archetypes they're told they must fulfill. the classes don't define them, but they do give them something to contend with. can they fulfill their role? can they live up to their purpose? is there a place in the story for someone with an archetype like theirs? do they want to be this?

aspects get even trickier, and for this I might just link to a video I really love that covers a lot of the thoughts I've been having. it's kind of front loaded with a lot of technical talk about computer science and philosophy, and tbh I love that homestuck does actually link up those concepts with so much of it's presentation, but the main bit that intrigues me is the way the video talks about aspects as irreducible components of thought. like the periodic table of elements, but for ideas.

this drastically elevates the importance of each character's assigned category, and makes it function so much better as a tool for characterization. because, like, the aspects are actually really abstract. when someone says their aspect is "wind" or "light" you could take that 100% literally if you wanted to... but by the time you've read enough of homestuck to connect those to John and Rose, you probably understand that it's not that simple. and other concepts, such as astrology, have taught you that this is the sort of system that you're supposed to interpret, right? what is a capricorn if not a loose collection of traits that give you a certain vibe? that's what we're working with when it comes to aspects. otherwise, how would you know what void, or doom, or mind are? tbh it's actually pretty genius that astrology was worked into the comic as an aesthetic element, just so we'd all be mentally primed to do this kind of categorical interpretation... hell, even the actual signs themselves constitute a framework with which you could analyze the characters, like, how does Nepeta display typical leo traits, or how is Vriska a stereotypical scorpio... it all still works, even as you understand that each individual is more complex than the traits which support that interpretation.

in this way, the aspects are never really explained exhaustively verbatim, and are almost solely defined by the traits you've observed from individual characters, who act as representatives for what these categories actually are. or at least how they function in this instance, which is what's relevant. it's not just superpowers, and it's not just archetypes... it's both at the same time, and you come at them from a character-first perspective when you're trying to figure out what they mean. the characters inform your knowledge of the categories, and the categories act as a framework for analyzing the characters. and I love how homestuck tricks you into assuming that it has a lot of little rigid categories for the characters to slot into, and how quickly it becomes apparent that everything is way more abstract than it first appears. and yet, it all still means something. and it's really interesting to, say, compare two different time players to try to piece together what is typical for that archetype, while also accounting for their class, and trying to understand how that changes the roles they play and the ways they behave. and then you have the trolls' caste system on top of that, and the astrology angle I mentioned earlier, and there are honestly so many overlapping ways to think about it all, and I think that's the point.

#homestuck #classpect #my rant

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epitheterasedgen · 3 years

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EAM AU HCs with everyone making mundane things an adventure.

Percy starts a “finance competition” with the Museum Trio as a way to teach them about money. Basically, every week each of them gets an allotted amount of money for groceries and the same list of regular stuff to buy, and whoever can come back with the most money left over wins a prize

Gio gets into this RIGHT away and drags Sylvie into it bc they get competitive with each other, which leads to a lot of bulk purchasing and Ramsey getting annoyed because why is the coffee brand different???? this is the cheap stuff I drank in college when I was BROKE

Molly ends up winning anyway bc she handled her family finances for two years

Whenever shopping for boring stuff like soap or candles, Gio makes a game out of reading the weird labels out loud and judging them (“WHAT IS ‘FRESH VANILLA SNOW’ SUPPOSED TO SMELL LIKE??? SNOW DOESN’T HAVE A SCENT? AND IT’S NOT EVEN THE SCENT OF VANILLA. 1/10, CREATIVE BUT FALSE ADVERTISING”)

Molly always puts fallen stuffed animals back on the shelf because she worked in retail and feels bad for the workers. Sylvie sees her doing this and mistakes it as compassion for the stuffed animals (okay, maybe it is a little bit) and in an attempt to be friendly, asks what their names are

Now Molly and Sylvie name every fallen toy they see and come up with a tragic backstory about how it got separated from its family, sometimes through comically dark hijinks

The kids learned very quickly that Indus will help with any chore if asked, but because he can’t help all of them at once, they had to find ways to “steal” him away from the others

Molly hit upon the tactic of phrasing everything like a game (“Let’s find shapes in the tablecloth stains!”), so now they have made-up games for all their chores

Ramsey and Mera both like fancy drinks, and will never settle for making a plain one when it’s SO EASY to add whipped cream, a cherry, and a little paper umbrella. This includes making drinks for the rest of the family

#requested headcanons #answered headcanons #eam au #absolutely wonderful ask ty #ice-the-irken #fluff #domestic fluff

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squat-lobster · 3 years

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ARIADOL Shadow Puppet Pokémon

Ht: 4’ 8” - Wt: 80 lb

In ancient times, Ariadol were thought of as capricious forest spirits to be placated and appeased. If travellers did not provide a small offering to them, Ariadol would delight in stalking them through the woods and causing them great mischief on their journey.

Ariadol’s movements seem to be controlled by strange, intangible strings that manifest and disappear as needed, as if this Pokémon were being controlled by an extradimensional puppeteer.

Sample Moves: Leech Life, Gunk Shot, Trick Room, Rock Blast, Glare, Knock Off, U-Turn, Phantom Force, First Impression, Trick, Copycat, Grassy Glide, Forest’s Curse

CLAYDOS Sand Trap Pokémon

Ht: 5’ 1” - Wt: 250 lb

Claydos’ constantly spinning abdomen holds the quicksand it uses to ensnare its prey. It can psychically control the sand even after it has left its body, hardening it in an instant to immobilize its prey so that it can feed on their thoughts and dreams.

People in ancient times would enlist the help of Claydos to create beautiful sandstone and earthenware sculptures, entering a trance state to mind-meld with Claydos so that the sculptor could make use of its abilities to manipulate the sand and clay.

Sample Moves: Psycho Cut, Drill Run, Stone Edge, Hone Claws, Shadow Sneak, Psychic Fangs, Sucker Punch, Hypnosis, Dream Eater, Teleport, Scorching Sands

Claydol & Ariados evolve into Claydos and Ariadol when traded with one another.

(Design notes under the cut)

When I was a kid playing Ruby/Sapphire, I always thought Claydol was a spider. Like, I read it’s nipples as eyes and just thought its actual eyes were just red things or whatever. I eventually understood it properly, and I still love Claydol as it actually is, but part of me will always prefer that misread psychic spider.

So that’s what inspired this line of thinking for these guys. Since the Ariados line’s gimmick is that they have a face on their butts, this seemed like a pretty appropriate way to go about getting my clay spider.

Ariados’s butt-face thing isn’t super obvious in its design, it kind of looks like a weird rabbit or something from the back.

The face thing is much clearer in its lost beta sprite, so I tried to take some elements of this precursor into Ariadol’s design.

Similarly to how Karrablast and Shelmet trade with one another to evolve into Escavalier and Accelgor, and swap some shit in the process, these guys trade and swap some traits too.

Chiefly, they swap which is end is their top and which their bottom. Claydos also gets spiderness from Ariados, and Ariadol gets “thingness” from Claydol.

I feel like these guys also theme together well when you consider the Johto region ecologically and anthropologically. The idea would be like, the dudes who made the Ruins of Alph way back in the day, who were all associated with Unown worship, would have also been people who would have carved and created Baltoys and Claydols, who are also weird eye-themed psychic fellas, and are based off ancient japanese Dogū figurines. Add to this the fact that Spinarak and Ariados are so everpresent in the region, it makes a kind of sense that there could be some evolutionary interaction between these two.

Typing-wise I really debated for a while having them switch secondary typings, or getting entirely new ones, but I couldn’t do it in a way that felt like a “fair trade” between the two of them, if you know what I mean. Plus, I didn’t want to like entirely revamp their movesets, which are both already suited to their original typings so yeah.

Just made them switch abilities more or less, if claydol was able to have more abilities than just levitate I would have given claydos some more interesting stuff, but theres a bit of a niche as a trick room sniper sweeper with the moves it gets.

Ariadol would be used as a trick room sweeper as well basically, I wanted to differentiate it from scolipede by having it gain bulk rather than getting fast, and merciless seemed like a cool way to do that, say after setting up a toxic spike at the start of the battle. Prankster toxic thread and glare and stuff with u-turn could turn it into a cool utility mon as well.

Ariadol:

If you’re familliar with it, this dude’s look is pretty clearly based off of the Flatwoods Monster, which I thought was fun cuz i wanted it to be like a weird creepy forest cryptid. The string stuff comes from it being a spider and having webs, which through gaining some of Claydol’s psychic traits are now weird psychic puppet strings. I also felt like it lended it some creepy haunted puppet flavour. The design ended up looking a bit like mismagius, so I thought it might be some lore to have it like earn protection from predators from playing up that mimicry.

Also theres some inspiration from real life spiders, like peacock jumping spiders and ornate harvestmen.

Finally I wanted the drooping legs and the design of the face to evoke some similarities with a leyak or penanggalan, which are spirits in indonesia and malaysia that take the form of like severed heads flying around with all the guts hanging out.

Claydos:

Uhh so even though this whole idea was inspired by making a Claydol into a spider, this guy took a really long time to get to something I was happy with, and I still kinda like Ariadol better tbh.

The main thrust of the design besides being a weird hovering spider is for the abdomen to look like a cement mixer, which I thought was a good way also to get that part of its body to spin, which I always thought Claydol’s should have done in the games. The end of it having a little cap was supposed to be a little shout out to trap door spiders.

Tried to make the patterning make it obvious that the top isn’t the head anymore without changing the nipple eyes very much because I like them as they are. Theres a hint of spiderweb in there but making it too overt made it look too busy.

I considered arranging the dots as a spider’s eyes are, but that was hard to make it obviously spinny as well and it was like well that part ISN’T the head anymore so. Then I was like ohh i could make the once-eyes into like little spiderlings that crowd around onto the abdomen like wolf spiders do, or even hover around like little Unown, but I really couldn’t get it to look right at all, even though i really liked that idea.

Anyway that’s about it! sorry for rambling for so long in this section. Really happy with these guys.

#im planning for this fakemon series to be like my take on the johto region #improving some of the designs that were just like kind of bland by dint of being cutting room floor mons that didn't make it into gen 1 #also there are heaps that i genuinely love from this gen but that could just use a bit of a boost to be competitively viable #next time.... ledian :0 #and guest #pokemon #fakemon #ariados #claydol #squat-lobster #art

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askkrenko · 2 years

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Krenko’s Guide to Pokemon: Mew

Want to collect them all? Buy Mew now for only $49.99!

DESIGN:

Mew is about as stripped down a design as you can get while still clearly being an animal. It’s a pink, hairless (?) cat that looks absolutely infantile. In fact, it looks pre-infantile. Many of Mew’s features suggest a creature that has yet to be born.

It’s hard to comment much on Mew’s design because it is so simplistic, but I honestly think it’s perfect. Mew is just Mew, and there’s nothing really to change or improve. It is a creature in a pure, unformed state, but without being gross or weird.

Art by pridark

TYPING:

Mew is a pure Psychic type. As I’ve said plenty before, Psychic is a solid type. There’s nothing special about this anymore, though of course back in Gen 1 it was busted in half.

Art by Jiayi

STATS:

At 100 all around, Mew is good at everything, which actually results in it being treated as a bulky Pokémon. While 100 is a lot of attack and special attack, it’s not a huge amount for the tier it’s in, while having 100 HP, Defense, Special Defense, and Speed makes Mew a solid defender all around. Most bulky Pokémon are susceptible to either physical or special attacks, or their low speed ensures going second, but Mew can frequently go first and reliably take hits.

This does still mean Mew works fine as an attacker, but when using a set-up move like Swords Dance or Nasty Plot, which allows it to take advantage of its bulk to go on the offense.

Art by Kenket

ABILITY:

Mew’s ability, Synchronize, inflicts certain status effects inflicted onto it back onto the afflicter. This is certainly an interesting ability, and it can punish some foes, but it can’t be built around and type-immunities cause it serious problems.

First off, Synchronize only works on Paralysis, Poison, and Purn, ignoring Sleep and Frozen entirely. While Frozen is rare and random, Sleep is pretty common and very powerful.

Second, it has to be inflicted by an opponent. You can’t force the issue with a Toxic or Flame Orb, and Toxic Spikes don’t trigger it.

Third, the most common users of Burn, Poison, and Paralysis are immune to it. While most Pokemon can learn off-type moves, Burn is usually applied by Fire types, Poison by Poison types, and Paralysis by Electric types, which are all respectively unaffected by their type-attached status effect.

While Synchronize isn’t a do-nothing ability, it just fails far, far too often to be considered useful.

Art by Dragolisco

MOVES:

Now this is where Mew shines.

Mew can learn every TM, TR, and Move Tutor move in all of Pokemon, minus a few Signature Moves like the starter-only Pledge moves. This makes Mew the single most versatile Pokemon for building, bar none. Special attacks, physical attacks, status moves, 2v2 Healer, toxic tank, whatever.

It doesn’t matter.

I could be here for days listing off potential Mew builds, because Mew can be built for basically anything. It’s just that good.

And if you really want to get to attacking, Mew has a special Z crystal that allows it to set Psychic Terrain when it uses its Z move. Because the Pokemon that has everything also gets something of its own.

Mew does whatever. I can’t tell you how to use it, that’s something you have to decide for yourself.

Art by KoriArredondo

OVERALL:

Mew is a great example of a Mythical pokemon, unable to get in-game without glitching it out, released by Nintendo only via event, able to do everything and with huge stats. It was magical, it was special, and you had to actually try to get it…. Until Let’s Go.

I might be a little “Old Man Yells At Cloud” here, but I absolutely loathe that Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee included Mew as a bonus for buying the Pokeball Plus. Mew went from being a magical mystical hard-to-obtain rarity that really fed off the social aspect of the game to being paid DLC. Mew was supposed to be something special and cool, and now it’s gimmick is just that you have to pay $50 more for it. And before one of you points out that you can get it without the Pokeball Plus in BDSP… you still have to have Let’s Go Pikachu or Eevee for that, so it still requires paying more to get it.

I don’t inherently mind the cross-game bonuses, but there’s a significant difference between the Gigantimax Pikachu and Eevee that were just cute novelty and Mew being one of the strongest Pokemon around. Further, its rarity and power means that it’s banned from tournaments, which makes it an even weirder form of DLC. You’re not allowed to use it competitively, so it’s just for the sake of having it, but you still need to shell out $50 if you want it.

And with that change, I don’t understand the purpose of Mew anymore. Initially, it was this wondrous, difficult to find Pokemon that you could only get through events or trading, there to complete your Pokedex as a reward for being engaged in the Pokemon community. Now, it’s just something you buy.

…Anyway, designwise it’s good for that magical something special, and the gimmick of “all the moves” is great. It was bonkers powerful to begin with, but now as power creep has happened it’s instead a specialized tool, something with good stats to build as you want, but without the raw power of some of the other Legendaries or Megas.

They just either need to make it obtainable enough to allow it in tournaments or make it rare enough to be actually special again. Because spending $50 for a Pokemon is easily the worst thing ever, and I’d hate to see a system where that started to become normal.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go pull for Darkrai in Pokemon Masters.

Art by aocom

#Just kidding #I already have Darkrai #Krenko's Pokemon Guide #Mew #Pokemon

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hellyeahheroes · 3 years

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Non-Stop Spider-Man: Good Spider-Man story, but wrong Spider-Man?

Okay, this is weird to cover because I am not at all hating this story. In fact, this is not even a review. It’s more of an observation.

So Peter Parker Spider-Man often gets multiple series at a time because Peter is really the most flexible superhero in comics if not second to Batman. Since the bulk of the Marvel universe is based in New York, and Spider-Man’s power set makes him viable for both street level vigilantism and world saving hero, he can be put in almost every plot. In this case, Amazing Spider-Man is following along a more intimate plot line while Non-Stop Spider-Man is a typical but much needed action story with low level street thugs. This is normal. Secondary books cover different aspects of Spider-Man because Spider-Man has the most in-depth supporting cast in Marvel.

But here begins the crux of my criticism of its that, this doesn’t feel like a Spider-Man story that Peter would handle. First and foremost, Peter’s dialogue is off.

“Your threads slap...”

I had to reread this because I wasn’t sure if I misread this. Now Peter has used AAVE before and it’s not uncommon but writers generally make it a point that it’s in a manner of white guy trying to be hip which is in character. But this is weird because Peter not only used it correctly, he is complimenting the fashion of a bunch of bad guys wearing Machine56 styled gear which mallcore, high end urban fashion.

“Don’t worry, fam...”

And it keeps becoming a thing where Peter is using AAVE. He is a 27-29 year old Jewish white guy who was raised in a Queens suburb by his elderly aunt. Peter was a science nerd who was bullied and while he is pop-culture savvy, he only seems to be more aware of mainstream media. Peter sounding like a 15-25 year old black dude who loves hip-hop is weird. This is a dude who thought Guns and Roses was too edgy.

And then there is the motivation of the bad guys...

The bad guys are targeting intelligent people of color with high end designer drugs. Now I can name three Miles Morales stories that match this. The first is the novel by Jason Reynolds where a school teacher at Miles school targeted African Americans and made them fail as an allegory of the student to prison pipeline. Then there is the first three issues of Miles Morales: Spider-Man where a white supremacist called the Snatcher kidnapped children of color and made them brainwashed superpowered child soldiers. And finally, and probably the most well-known, Miles Morales: Marvel’s Spider-Man game where Miles is dealing with corporate environmental racism. Not to say that Peter can’t tackle social justice because he has but Peter would be like Norah was in the panel, oblivious to the racial connection until it is directly pointed out to him.

The thing is that Miles entire theme is to be people of color’s Spider-Man.

And speaking of Norah Winters, she doesn’t do investigative journalism anymore. She has but she was discredited and has been turning to buzzfeed-esque journalism style and she isn’t interested in finding the story as she heads Threats and Menaces. She is interested in the clicks and merely positing the discussion of superhero drama.

Maybe there was a character that probably fits this role more...?

Danika Hart kind of does this guerrilla styled journalism and she fits the bill of being a low level social justice university journalist. Outside of the fact that she goes to ESU and Peter is more likely to interact with her, the story feels too interchangeable with Miles.

Sure, the bad guy behind this scheme turns out to be Baron Zemo, Nazi extraordinaire, but again, Zemo is a weird choice in villain. Zemo has an army. He has resources. Why would he enlist some Hydra-lite Cyberpunk wannabes and the Zapata brothers?

Anyways, I know this story was written by Man of Action founder, Joe Kelly, and I want to reiterate that this is a fun Spider-Man story. I am no way of accusing the man who was part of the studio that created Generator Rex of racism but I have to ask was this supposed to be a Miles’ or Anya Spider-Man story because it fits them more?

@ubernegro

#amazing spider man #spider-man #peter parker #joe Kelly #man of action #miles morales #Danika hart #norah winters #bonehead #machine56 #baron zemo #marvel #non stop spider man #anya corazon

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oumakokichi · 3 years

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hello! could you talk a bit more about the original (as in jp, not localization) ouma's personality and speech patterns? you've mentioned that he tends to trail off or speak more softly when it is implied he is speaking the truth, etc. and how he is not so loud/intentionally obnoxious. //btw when does he call himself a fairy? that's so cute

I got a couple of questions asking about the fairy line Ouma has, so I don’t mind sort of rolling them both into one! And I’m more than happy to talk a little more in-depth about Ouma’s speech patterns and personality in the original game, too!

Since I’ll be covering some late-game spoilers, I’ll put the bulk of this under the cut, so be careful when reading!

First off, I cannot stress how much I recommed playing ndrv3 with the Japanese voices enabled. If you’ve already played through the English dub but never experiened the original voice acting cast, I promise you won’t be disappointed. The Japanese cast are all fantastic, incredibly talented VAs who, unlike the dub, were hired specifically for these roles and not just re-casted from previous DR games.

Hiro Shimono as Ouma gives an absolutely incredible performance. The localization might still have many flaws in its translation and omission of certain lines or punctuation, but you can still very much get a feel for how Ouma’s character was intended by listening to Shimono’s performance. Re-playing the game with the Japanese voices will definitely let you hear how soft and tonally different Shimono’s performance is in places from the English dub, and compare it to the way in which many lines are written and punctuated as if Ouma’s yelling at everyone.

That isn’t to say that Shimono’s Ouma is never loud or excited: Ouma is a character whose moods and façades are all over the place, and therefore his performance requires a voice actor who can similarly change moods and intonation on a dime. Ouma is very much loud and haughty and deliberately annoying when he’s supposed to be, but his voice is also low and ominous at other points when he’s trying to be scary. And again, it’s soft and hesitant in places where he’s considering divulging some of his information, or when he’s insisting that all the things he does are for everyone’s sake, because he cares about them and doesn’t want anyone to die.

These moments feel so much more genuine in the Japanese version of the game--because they’re meant to be. As fantastic of a liar as Ouma is, it’s much easier for us, the player, to tell when he’s lying on a re-play, knowing the information from chapters 5 and 6 that we do, and looking at cues like his sprites (often his blank-faced ones) and, yes, his delivery of certain lines.

This probably sounds like me just gushing about what a fantastic voice actor Hiro Shimono is, and in part that’s exactly what it is, but I want to stress that pretty much every single voice actor in the Japanese cast is just as fantastic and that they all do their jobs incredibly well. With all that gushing out of the way, I’ll move on to talking about some of Ouma’s actual speech tics and the way he refers to other characters.

Like most things about him, Ouma’s speech patterns are sort of an interesting mix and even seem a little contradictory at times. He uses the very masculine pronoun “ore” (オレ), but he also refers to nearly everyone (with only a handful of exceptions) by their surnames and the much more childish honorific “-chan” (i.e. “Saihara-chan,” “Akamatsu-chan,” “Amami-chan,” etc.)

The use of “-chan” is very interesting. Honorifics in Japan are extremely complicated and tend to mean different things depending on who is using them. Typically, “-chan” is seen as a very feminine way to refer to someone else, commonly used in close-knit friend groups among school girls.

There are, of course, a few notable exceptions to this however: often times, middle-aged or elderly people will call a child “-chan” regardless of gender, as a way of showing they find them cute and endearing. And sometimes, people will use “-chan” to refer to other things they find cute, such as pets, or even to refer to themselves in a sort of informal, tongue-in-cheek way.

The fact that Ouma uses “-chan” as an honorific to refer to nearly everyone in the game stands out quite a lot: by and large, boys don’t use this term to refer to other boys. Using “-chan” to refer to anyone you’ve just met or don’t know very well is already somewhat frowned upon, but a boy using it to refer to other boys is especially rare. This helps set Ouma’s character up as someone who is both incredibly casual and informal with others (not to mention, you know, quite coded). Considering childishness and lightheartedness are traits Ouma values, and how much emphasis is put on him having “a very innocent, childish streak that’s hard to hate,” it makes sense then that he would talk like this.

Not counting Monokuma and the Monokubs, the only characters who Ouma doesn’t refer to with “-chan” are Gonta and Kiibo, who he simply calls by name. This also says some interesting things about his character.

Gonta is easily the character who Ouma interacts with the most often, as well as the charater he hurts the most in the end. Ouma’s choice to exclude Gonta from his usual way of calling people is, I think, a testament to how much Gonta really wanted to be friends with him, even if their friendship was never exactly on equal footing.

Meanwhile with Kiibo, I feel the choice to exclude him from his usual way of addressing others is indicative of how much Ouma tried to remind himself that Kiibo “wasn’t human,” and therefore how suspicious he found his presence in the killing game. We know Ouma suspected Kiibo and likely even had an inkling of his role as the audience proxy/camera in the game, due to how Kiibo’s picture is one of the only others set aside on his whiteboard besides Saihara’s, with the word “weird” written next to it (he also clearly guessed about the cameras after Gonta’s line in chapter 2, as we see from how he commissioned Miu for the bug-vac).

Ouma clearly enjoys teasing Kiibo a lot, and their banter reads very much like a manzai comedy duo; I feel like Ouma often tried pushing himself to remember that Kiibo “wasn’t human” on purpose in order to not get too attached to him or too distracted from his goal of ending the killing game. I don’t think Ouma’s decision to exclude Kiibo from the way that he very particularly referred to most of the rest of the group was just an accident or a coincidence.

Honorifics aside, Ouma also refers to several characters in interesting ways. He often uses “daisuki na ___-chan” (大好きな) to refer to some of the other characters, a phrase which more or less equates to “my beloved.” He uses this phrase with Saihara more than any other character of the game, but there are a few other instances where he does use it with Amami, Momota, and (if I’m remembering correctly) Kaede. Pretty much every single instance where the localization put, “because I love you” or “because you’re my favorite” whenever Ouma was talking to Saihara was usually a point where he would specifically call him “my beloved Saihara-chan.”

In chapter 4 during the scene where Ouma is alone in the parlor of the VR world, he also specifically, exclusively refers to Saihara as “suki ni natta hito” (好きになった人), literally: “the person I fell in love with.” This line was changed in the localization to, “when there’s a person I like,” which is more or less literally correct--however, the phrase “suki ni natta” is much heavier and more loaded with explicitly romantic implications than “suki” would be on its own, as it’s often used in Japanese love songs and shoujo manga love confessions.

Worth noting in my opinion is the fact that this is the exact same phrasing Maki uses to describe her romantic feelings for Momota. Since Maki’s feelings for Momota are considered canonically confirmed because of this, Ouma’s feelings should be considered equally canon, but a lot of people don’t know this because, well, it’s sort of been lost in translation.

And now, on to the fairy line! Ouma calls himself a fairy in chapter 3, when he pops up in the middle of Saihara and Korekiyo’s discussion of the katana in Korekiyo’s lab. Full of enthusiasm, he decides to touch the sword and examine it for himself; Korekiyo starts to object, but Ouma interrupts and says:

“Come on, it’s not a big deal! I’m like a fairy, so it’ll be fine!”

I’ve always really loved this line and thought it was super adorable, both as a nod to how fairies aren’t supposed to be able to touch steel in most fae mythos, as well as the fact that fairies tend to also have a love for mischief and pranks and lies. The localization apparently didn’t like it so much though, because this line is simply changed to, “Come on, would I lie to you?” instead.

One final thing I can think of as far as Ouma’s speech tics go is that his laugh in Japanese is romanized as “nishishi” instead of “neeheehee,” as this is closer to the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound horses make--but I actually don’t mind this localization change at all! “Neeheehee” definitely looks a lot closer to the word “neigh” and helps capture that horse joke in a way that I feel like western players can more easily understand.

All in all, while I still definitely feel people can like and enjoy Ouma’s character from playing the localization alone, I still stand by my opinion that listening to the original Japanese voices helps give a much better picture of how the character was intended to come across, and really shows how much depth Hiro Shimono put into his performance. He’s quoted in the official ndrv3 artbook as saying that he believes Ouma is someone who’s actually “really meek if you take away his strong wish to outwit everyone” (credit to @kaibutsushidousha for the art book translation), and I think this interpretation of Ouma really shows through in so many of his lines.

Thank you both for the really fun questions! I hope I could provide some more interesting information about Ouma and the translation!

#danganronpa #kokichi ouma #ouma kokichi #new danganronpa v3 #ndrv3 #ndrv3 spoilers //#ask #my meta

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blueluneacy · 3 years

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Soaps and Special Drinks

I wrote a giant melone x reader off a fantasy i had at work. enjoy

word count: 4k

warnings: delusional yandere, not sfw, breeding kink, stalking, public sex, aphrodisiacs, forced drugging, major dub con, does making someone uncomfy at work count? idk but its there

You didn’t hear her until she called your name for the third time, and when you did, you nearly fell over.

“Oh god, what happened, what did I miss, I wasn’t asleep, my eyes were open!” You yelled, leaving your manager to jump.

“(Y/n), it’s okay, don’t worry!’ She said, laughing a bit to herself. “Don’t worry, I was just going to ask about what was happening and if you needed anything. But it looks like nothing is happening.” She sighed. You nodded, looking around the shop. You worked at a small, handmade soap. The soaps in here were beautiful, but the shop itself was quiet, only getting a few customers. The bulk of sales ended up being online at the owner’s etsy shop, with the actual building simply being in their family for the last 300 years, making it hard to part with. You didn’t mind, the soap was nice, you often got to take some of it home, and the work was easy. But you couldn’t deny that god, it was really god damn boring.

“Yeah, I’m alright. Sorry, I’m just… Really bored.” You laughed, your manager just sighing.

“I can take the front of shop for a bit and you can play on your phone or something. You don’t have to just stand there all day.”

“I don’t mind it. Gives me time to think. Besides, I see you playing on your phone in front of shop all the time, I know that I can do it right here if I wanted to.” You hummed, your manager just rolling her eyes.

“I put it away when a customer shows up, don’t you worry. And what is it that you’re always thinking about, huh? A boyfriend?” She teased. You rolled your eyes.

“You know that I don’t have anyone like that in my life. I end up thinking about stupid stuff. Like what would happen if cows became four feet taller, or something.” You told her. It was a lie, of course, but you could never admit what actually went through your mind.

After all, how could you admit that you were just sitting there thinking about otome games and anime characters? It was nice to sit and think about lots of handsome men loving you. Maybe you played too many video games or watched too much anime.

“Alright, alright. Keep sitting with your weird thoughts.” She teased, the two of you laughing before the bell at the door rang as it swung open.

The two of you stared as you saw the man walk in. He was so strangely dressed, and he was wearing a mask. Is this some sort of bad Dread Pirate Roberts cosplay? Half of his shirt was missing, which you sort of wanted to chalk up to bad sewing, but you also knew that it merely could be bad fashion. People around here are weird looking. He had choppy purple hair that covered one of his eyes, making you think that maybe the whole mask thing was meant to be an eye patch more than anything. You weren’t an expert in eyeball health. Still, you smiled brightly at the customer, not wanting to offend as you walked over to him, ready to assist in any way possible.

“Hello, Welcome! Is there anything in particular that you were looking for today?” You asked, Melone looking over at you before his eyes widened. God, you were just so… So god damn cute! The apron you were wearing hugged your curves so well, your body was so cute in the way you held yourself, smiling as you looked up at the man. He could just notice your tummy under the apron, a shudder going through his body as he saw your bright, smiling demeanor looking up at him.

“Oh, I heard that there were handmade facial products here? I’m looking for something a little more natural in my skin care routine.” He replied, looking down to see your little name tag, smiling as he got the information. “Ah, I suppose then you could help me, (Y/n)?”

You forced your grin a little wider when he said your name, before nodding, waving him over and you brought him over to a little corner of the store. You don’t know why, but it seemed to only make you uncomfortable when people did things like read off your name tag. Which seems silly, after all, it was there for a reason, but still.

“Of course, sir, let me show you. Are you looking for something like a cleanser? We also have exfoliate scrubs, made all in house.” You told him. Melone just hummed, leaning over the products and moving a bit too much into your personal space as he pulled off his gloves.

“You can call me Melone, sweetheart, no need for the formalities. And do any of these have scents in their formulas? I would hate to break out from oils…” He asked, touching his face lightly. You just smiled, shaking your head. You took note of his name, trying to keep yourself smiling

“Any scents that the product has is from the actual parts, not from anything we add. Like, our coffee ground scrub smells like coffee, because you know. We also have some regular facial soap, all in bar form, that we have, if you’d like to see. I can also make some samples for you, and we have a sink where you can try out some of the testers we have out.” You told him. He just smiled, nodding as he looked around a bit.

“That’s all well and good, but what would you recommend before bed? I need to remove my makeup, and so many cleansers are for the morning.” He complained. You just smiled, looking around and grabbing the giant pot of what you were looking for.

“Here we go! This stuff kills at removing any makeup. It’s made with shea butter, honey and rose water, with a little bit of tea tree oil in there for that calming feeling.” You said, reaching in and using a little spoon to put some on one of the little dishes your store carried, and then handed it to him. “Go on, go to the sink and check it out! You should also really check out our poppy soap too, it has poppy seeds in it which honestly? My skin has never been better.” You chuckled. Melone looked at you, before smiling and nodding. If that soap was what gave you such a glow, then he would definitely have to try it. You sighed as you went back to the counter next to your manager, watching the man as he washed his hands, his eyes widening before he grabbed one of the little papers you had next to the table, and a pen. Since everything here was served in whatever amount the customer wanted, the shop kept papers for customers to make a list of what they wanted.

“What is it now, daydreaming about a customer?” Your manager teased, leaving you to roll your eyes.

“Do you want him instead? He was all in my personal space.” You replied.

“Oh, cheer up, he wasn’t that bad. A little weird, but harmless. And you really need to get used to the idea that Italians don’t have a notion of personal space. You practically lost it when that old lady grabbed your hand.”

“Hey, that was a while ago, that’s not fair! I think I’m used to it now, he’s just sort of creepy. Melone…” You mumbled his name to yourself, Melone’s ears perking up as heard you speak about him. Oh, your name sounded so good rolling off your tongue. He wanted to hear it over and over again, make you make the sound, scream it, moan it-

“I think I have my list ready, cara. Care to help me out?” Melone asked, coming over to the counter and leaning over it, handing the list over to you. You just took it from his hands, looking over the list before sighing.

“Can you get the bar soap while I get the cleanser?” You asked, writing down what you needed in the liquid before handing out the rest of the list to her. She nodded, walking off with a small smile on her face before you just sighed, going to get the cleanser. You grabbed one of the small glass jars you had, before putting it on the scale, taring it out after placing down the glass.

“Five hundred grams, right?” You asked, only for Melone to nod.

“Yes. It’s heavier, so it’ll be less than what I assume it’s going to be, so I might as well just go for it. I’ll use it anyway.” He replied, watching the way you reached into the pot and carefully scooped out the cleanser. You were so focused, he couldn’t help but imagine what you would look like in a domestic situation, maybe using a serving spoon to scoop out sauce for dinner, maybe just for the two of them. Maybe you would be in a cute little apron like the one you were in now, your feet bare and your hair loose as you grew heavy with his child-

In that moment, Melone felt a plan start to form in his mind.

The rest of the transaction went fine, in all honesty. Melone seemed as though he was suddenly in a hurry, that he forgot that he had something to do, purchasing his items and leaving with a quick “Ciao!”. You could tell that he was speed walking down the street, but you didn’t really care. Maybe you were over exaggerating, and he was just some normal gy, albeit oddly dressed. Still, it didn’t really matter to you. The fact that the store was empty meant that you could go back to your daydreams.

You were so grateful when the store finally closed. As the two of you locked up, you pulled your coat closer to your body, looking around.

“You should be careful now going home. It’s dark a lot earlier now, I’m afraid that maybe there might be some bad actors in the alleyways…” Your manager sighed. You nodded in agreement, the thoughts of how dangerous this city was becoming as Passione moved themselves in running through the both of your minds. Your manager had talked about moving, not wanting her kids to grow up here, and you couldn’t blame her. But both of you knew deep down that no matter where you went, the mafia probably lurked there somewhere.

“I will, don’t fret. Text you when I get home?” You asked, giving her a smile. She just smiled back and nodded.

“Don’t zone out and forget, alright? I’ll text you when I’m home as well!” She said, before waving, the two of you walking off in separate directions.

You hummed slightly to yourself as you walked down the street. You made sure to stay close to the streetlight, but you could swear that you could see something out of the corner of your eye, the feeling of being watched harsh in your stomach. You turned around often just to check, but no one was there. You must really be losing it today.

Still, it was like you were attracted to what was unknown. You instinctively started to move farther away from the streetlight, to try and see what exactly was going on in the shadows, but nothing was there. You barely even noticed how far you were in the dark until you passed by an alleyway. You didn’t even see the hand that shot out and grabbed onto your collar.

You immediately tried to scream, but you could barely make a sound as lips crashed into yours, your body pressed up against the wall as you squirmed. You winced as your head slammed against the wall, your vision tripling and a groan leaving your mouth and easily swallowed up by Melone. He pulled away, taking deep, harsh breaths, watching as you tried to focus on him.

“Don’t worry cara, it’s only me, didn’t mean to scare you, wanted to surprise you on your way home…” He cooed, pinning your hands above your head and moving to let his lips press against your neck, leaving light kisses and he hummed.

“Wha… Y.. You’re that guy from the soap shop! What are you doing, let me go!” You yelled, starting to squirm. Melone just pouted, as if you had told him a bad insult or you had genuinely hurt his feelings.

“Ah, don’t be like that, bambina. Are you mad because I embarrassed you at work? It’s alright, I’ll make it all better.” He hummed, reaching into his pocket to pull out a small vile. He used his teeth to pull out the cork, before letting a drop hit his tongue.

“Yep, it’s still good. Go on, drink this all down, and you’ll feel much better, carina.” He told you.

“Like hell I’m going to drink anything you give me-” Perhaps you shouldn’t have spoken. When you opened your mouth and started to yell at him again, he just shoved the vial into your mouth, pouring the liquid in before covering your mouth with his hand.

“It’s alright, I know it tastes awful, but you have to drink it all, amore, otherwise it won’t work.” Melone hummed. You just sat there, holding the foul tasting liquid in your mouth before finally caving and swallowing. It wasn’t like you had much of a choice. When Melone felt that you had swallowed, he pulled his hand away, leaning over and pressing a gentle kiss against your forehead.

“Di molto… Good, thank you. It means a lot to me that would trust me like that.” Like you had any other fucking choice. You just let your eyes narrow as you continued to let them dart around for some sort of escape.

“What exactly did you fucking give me?” You hissed, Melone laughing a bit.

“Well, I suppose you’ll feel it momentarily, won’t you? Liquid medication only takes one to four minutes to assimilate…” He hummed. You swallowed, feeling that your mouth was starting to feel really dry. It felt like everything was getting hotter, until your whole body was on fire. You let out a soft whine when you finally opened your mouth to let out a few pants, suddenly out of breath, before squirming again. This time, to try and get rid of the heat that was engulfing you.

“W-What is this?! Please, it’s so hot, what did you do?!” You cried out, internally cringing at how desperate your voice sounded. But Melone just ate it all up, leaning in to press his body against yours, the outline of his cock making you shudder. God, think, what was happening to you?!

“It’s one of the best aphrodisiacs out there. Only the best for you, bella, I want to make sure that you feel amazing throughout all of this…” He told you, before pressing his lips against yours. You tried to struggle, but god, you were feeling so weak as the drug coursed through your veins, and Melone’s lips felt so good against yours. You felt your knees get weak, your body slipping down the wall that you were leaning against as it became harder and harder for you to support your own weight. Melone just pulled away, watching you sink to the ground as if weighed down by your own lust, smirking to himself. You were so beautiful like that. Melone could see the way you were tugging at your clothing, trying to get them off in some relief from the hell that consumed you. He just chuckled, pulling you up and making you lean on him. You just ended up grabbing onto Melone tightly, trying to take deep breaths.

“Don’t worry bambina. I bet it hurts bad right now, doesn’t it? Maybe I should’ve opened you up first…” Melone thought aloud, before shrugging. Too late now. He reached down to start to pull your panties off, the other arm wrapped around you and firmly holding you against him. He shuddered at the way your soft body pressed up against him, holding onto him like it was the end of the world.

“Don’t worry, (Y/n). I’ll make this heat go away, make you feel all better. You’ll feel perfect and well once you’re fucked full of my children.” He hummed. Despite yourself, you just nodded, desperate for a suggestion that would mean that you would feel better.

Melone practically jumped in delight, easily pushing two fingers inside of you, relishing in how wet you had become, to the point where you were starting to slick your legs. You moaned, gripping onto Melone tightly and starting to whine shrilling, babbling back at him.

“O-Oh fuck, that feels so good, fuck, please, Melone, pleeeeease…” You whined, already trying to buck against his fingers. It felt so good, but it wasn’t enough, it just wasn’t enough to satisfy you, to make you feel whole again.

“You’re tempting me so much, bambina. You make me want to fuck you right now, god, you’re going to be so full when I’m done with you, my cute little wife.” He told you as he added another finger, scissoring you open. God, if you could hold yourself up, Melone would have no problem getting on his knees and eating you out until you came all over his face. He wondered what cute, fucked out faces you would make after cumming five, ten, a hundred times for him. He felt his cock twitch in his trousers and did his best not to get ahead of himself. He wanted to make sure that you felt just as good as he did, but god, you were making it so hard with those cute faces of yours! The way you were clinging to him, gasping and moaning like a bitch in heat, begging him for more, it was all so much.

“P-Please, fuck, more… It’s still so hot, please, need you so bad…” You mumbled, moving to rest your head against his shoulder as he thrust his fingers into you. He let out a low moan at your words, his hips slightly bucking against you for it. He was so pent up, not wanting to waste a single drop until he found the perfect person to fill up with it, and here you were, all perfect and begging him to breed you full of his children.

“Aww, poor thing. Perhaps I gave you a bit too much…” Melone sighed, pulling his fingers out of you and leaving you to whine in frustration. He pushed his fingers into his mouth and just moaned, shuddering as he tasted your juices. You grabbed onto him tighter, begging for some sort of relief from this hell. When Melone finally pulled his fingers from his mouth, he let his own lips crash against yours, pushing your back against the wall and pressing your chest against his to hold you up while his hands moved to rip his cock out from his trousers.

It was nice, bigger than you expected, and you could see that Melone was well groomed about himself as well. In any normal circumstance, you would be continuing to scream, but as Melone started to rub his cock against you, slicking himself up with your juices, you just moaned.

“Yes, fuck yes! Please, more, give me more, god, fuck me already!” You cried out, squirming and trying to make Melone’s cock catch to try on your entrance. Melone just groaned, moving a hand to grab your hip, before pushing into you slowly. He threw his head back as he moaned, his nails digging into you as he started to move, only pulling his cock out half way before slamming back, leaving you to whine in return.

“Oh, cara, you’re so tight, fuuuuck… You’re so perfect, fuck, my pretty little wife, gonna be such a great mother, fill you up and keep you full of my babies-” Melone groaned, leaning forward and leaning on your shoulder, babbling his nonsense into your ear. And you just ate it all up, nodding and wrapping your arms around him and digging into his back, whining.

“Fuck, yes, please… Feels so good, please, Melone, pleeease…” You whined, holding onto him tightly as you tried to grind against him. Your words were enough to really spring Melone into action, starting to pound against you wildly, mouthing as your neck and leaving harsh bruises. You just scratched at him in return, leaving red welts that might even turn into bruises tomorrow. Melone groaned at the idea of you marking him so primally, the feeling of you marking him as yours just as he was marking you as his.

“God, you’re all mine, aren’t you? Love you so much, (Y/n), gonna keep you safe, warm, all mine, I’m yours just as much as you’re mine, fuck-” His teeth dug into his lip as he felt the way you were clenching down on him, the signal that your orgasm was fast approaching. Really, it was a miracle that you haven’t cum once or twice already, but perhaps it was something in the back of your mind that was holding you back, keeping you from finishing.

“Mmm, I can feel you’re close… Di molto, that’s perfect, do you want to cum while I breed you? It’ll be a great way to make sure it goes as far as it can.” Melone groaned into your ear, his voice sultry and husky in a way that filled your foggy head with static, only pulling Melone closer as you tried to chase your own orgasm.

“Yes, yes please, fuck, it’s too much, I’m gonna cum, please let me cum, please-” You mewled, on the verge of tears from how pent up you felt, grabbing onto Melone as if he would disappear if you let go.

“Fuck, good, then cum, cum on my cock, make me breed you, gonna fill you up so much, so perfect and soft and round, do it, cum for me, God-!” His voice was practically as a howl as his movements became jerky, before finally thrusting in and bottoming out inside of you, finally cumming. It was the feeling of him pushing inside of you that one last time that set you over the edge, a loud keen coming from you as you squeezed down on Melone, starting to milk him for all you could.

The two of you rode at your orgasms together, quiet panting and whimpers from the both of you as Melone finally pulled out of you. You practically collapsed as he let you go, free from the burning heat but now exhausted beyond all belief. Melone caught you, holding you up with his arms and chuckling a bit. You shuddered as you felt some of Melone’s seed drip down your leg, leaving Melone just to purse his lips.

“We shouldn’t be wasteful like that. I should’ve brought a plug, poor thing…” He sighed, reaching down to scoop up what fell and push it back inside of you. You moaned at the sensation, giving him a look to let him know that you were much too sensitive right now. He just laughed at your expression, before easily scooping you up in his arms.

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. We have all the time in the world once we get home.” Melone hummed. You stared at him incredulously, trying to figure out what the fuck he meant. You started to squirm a bit, but you were much too exhausted to really put in an effort to get away from him.

“Hmm? Well, of course I’m going to bring my wife home.” Melone hummed, petting your hair lightly. Your face went pale at the realization, but there was nothing you could do. Even if you could get out of his arms, you were too weak to run away away from him. You were stuck, hopelessly trapped with a madman, forced to listen to his deranged cooing as he made his declaration.

“We have a lot more work to be done if we’re going to make you a mother.”

#jjba imagines #jjba x reader #jjba/reader #yandere/reader #yandere fic #yandere x reader #writing #My writing #mine #NOT SFW #melone/reader #melone x reader #dub con

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