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arthenaa · 4 months

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ikaw at ikaw (only you) — mizu x f!reader

synopsis: 4 times your team lead chose you and 1 time you chose her.

content: modern!au, office romance, you and mizu are creatives, specifically in the character and concept design department in a very very famous gaming company (take a guess), she is your creative director and lead designer and you are the concept artist, 4+1 format, FLUFF, work relations, dynamic, and position might not be accurate, forgive me, this is basically just me projecting yet again.

a/n: this is requested by @andieperrie18 ! the answer shit isn't letting me edit my answer so ill be @-ing you here. TYSM FOR ENJOYING MY WORKS !! means a lot ... u also chose pasilyo 🥹🥹🥹🥹 sunkissed lola is the best

Being part of the creatives team was a nightmare.

To tell you the truth, the position for a Concept Artist with a specialty in 2D design wasn't actually all that bad. The monthly benefits and wage were something you're quite lucky to receive considering the constant side eye other departments have with the admin's treatment of the artist employees. This was also your dream job—having had to play their games, specifically, VALORANT, left you in awe and gearing to apply once you were ready for an Internship. After your OJT course, you were accepted for a position in Character and Concept Design and are considered one of the team's most beloved artists (Your followers on Twitter reckon so).

In short, the work environment was great. A solid 15/10 experience—I mean how can you beat a company that caters not only to you as an artist but also as a player? Nothing can beat that feeling of satisfaction once you see your work displayed on various monitors all around the world.

It was more of ... the relationships and interactions with that work space environment that left you grasping at a chance to breathe.

People think you're overreacting but you think it's completely reasonable.

"Yes, you are overreacting."

Your face falls at Taigen's words—watching as he plays a round of unrated in the company's leisure space decked with state of the art PC builds that could definitely beat your poor touchscreen fridge with just a move of its mouse. You could hear the familiar voicelines of Jett from VALORANT as he uses the character's abilities to swiftly enter the site and take a hold of the defenders' positions.

Taigen is part of the Gaming Development Department in the VALORANT Team. He often does routine user gameplay checks and one of its perks is that you literally just have to play the game and get paid for it. You think its unfair but then again, its Taigen. He's always unfair.

"I think you're just saying that to be mean," You frowned, eyes trained on his face—the lights reflecting back on his stupid, stupid, clear-skinned face. Taigen rolls his eyes but not an ounce of his focus leaves the game.

"Being honest equals to being mean, got it." Taigen's voice comes out in a sarcastic tone. You kick a speck of dust on the cement floor, twirling in the gaming chair you're seated on.

"I just think its a reasonable thing to complain about!" You throw your hands in the air in an attempt to get him to look at your side of things. "You're completely unfazed because your team lead has the patience of a mother with 7 kids."

You hear the familiar cue of an ACE kill as Taigen hits a headshot on the last player. The game's interface shifts to the winner screen and finally, he turns to you, pulling his headphones off and giving his best deadpan stare.

"You're freaking out over Mizu sighing over your concept design proposal for Neon and overanalyzed even the way she drank her coffee because you're obsessed with her like that." Taigen arches his eyebrow to make the situation all the more ridiculous. Your mouth closes and opens like a fish out of water. "Am I right? Wait no, don't answer that. I know I am."

"What the fuck?" Your voice comes out in a desperate attempt of self-defence but it ultimately just sounds defeated. Taigen chuckles as he turns back to his monitor to take a look at the game stats.

"Look," Taigen tries to be empathetic but you're pretty sure this is just to get you off his back. The queue for competitive is already up and running. "As your friend, I say this with the love that I have for you and your works but please, Mizu is just one woman. If my mind process went like yours, I would've assumed Akemi hated my very existence and this is coming from someone who IS dating Akemi."

You purse your lips in thought as he raises his eyebrows in exaggeration. You're not exactly sure why you approached Taigen with this problem but he was the only familiar face that you saw after walking out of the meeting room in a hurry.

But then the question in this situation is who exactly is Mizu?

Well, there were a lot of things you could associate with the familiar blue-eyed director. Mizu is your boss—the creative director for Concept and Character design for the VALORANT team. She oversees character ideas, map visuals, detailing, and the final approval for character and asset ideation before it's sent for building in the 3D and VFX departments. She is your employer but you can also consider her your friend, albeit a highly respected one (she did the character design for Jett and Yoru).

It's not that you were obsessed—Taigen is wrong, he's always wrong—it was definitely because you respected her very much. Being a Riot Design Lead is basically fucking God. You create and give life to ideas. She's part of the original team that worked on the pre-release of VALORANT during its early stages and got to see the whole thing unfold. Something you wished to see back then but glad that you were able to become part of the journey despite being a few patches late.

You respected her enough to always want to be on her good side. I mean, who wouldn't? She's talented and very... youthful-looking and one of Riot's youngest leads, you honestly think that being worried over her approval like this is just a matter of respect and definitely NOT obsession.

"You're doing that thing where you space out and I have to assume that it's probably because of Mizu, yeah?" Taigen's voice intercepts your reprieve and suddenly, a curl of your eyebrows creates a look of annoyance on your face.

"I am not obssesed with Mizu," You reiterate, but this time with your mouth. "I just... respect her."

Taigen leans back on his gaming chair, nodding as if you just told him that he didn't need to double double-click everything.

"That's the most unbelievable shit I've heard today," Taigen finally replies with a scrunch of his nose. Your jaw falls open.

"I do not!"

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Do too!"

"Do fucking not—Stop it."

Taigen purses his lips, and makes a motion of zipping his mouth and shaking his head. You huff in anger. Taigen was never going to believe you.

Just as you were about to chastise him again for being mistaken, a knock on the glass doors notifies you of a new presence. You turn by instinct and your eyes widen in shock and probably, dread—who knows.

"There you are," Mizu's voice filters through your ears like classical music on a good Friday evening. You stammer slightly as she enters the area, eyes trained on you through those tinted orange specs. Mizu momentarily greets Taigen who only raises his hand in greeting before turning towards the screen (only you can see through your peripheral vision that this motherfucker is laughing). "I've been looking for you."

"You did?" Your voice comes off quiet. Mizu furrows her eyebrows.

"Uh, yeah?" She replies with a confused tone. "I had your concept design for Neon approved, it was more direct compared to Matt's. I wanted to tell you in person since you just bolted from the meeting room."

You fall silent at her words. She looks a bit concerned as you try to make sense of the information.

"You seem in shock—Are you okay?" Mizu asks, eyes glancing towards Taigen who looks at her before shrugging.

You feel your heart speed up. You momentarily calm yourself before finally responding. "Y-Yeah, sorry. Just didn't think that you'd approve it."

Mizu tilts her head like a fucking cat and you're quite sure you would drop dead then and there. "Why not? It's your work."

You're not sure what she means by that but a sudden shiver runs through your veins at her praise and suddenly your cheeks are flushing.

"Ah," You're voice fills in the silence, awkward and quiet. "Thank you?"

There's a pause of silence before Mizu chuckles. She heaves a breath before pulling the glass door open.

"I'll see you at my office, Y/N." She smiles. "Great work."

The silence further pushes you into the void as you and Taigen watch her exit and disappear into another hallway through the glass windows. Just as you were a few minutes ago, you lean forward to slouch over your knees, hands on your face as you meltdown from what just happened. You hear Taigen chuckle beside you.

"Give it a few more months and she'll give you a ring on your finger with a bent knee on the ground."

You sob into your hands as Taigen erupts in heaps of laughter.

Oh my fucking God.

The release for Neon was a hit. An all-time new duelist originating from the Philippines, your concept design took off without a hitch. It's safe to say that your hard work paid off as you stood over the central common room—leisure areas decked with your coworkers trying out and celebrating the release. A sense of satisfaction fills you.

"I hear you spearheaded the design concept for Neon," A voice infiltrates your sense like a lure. You can't help but smile at its familiarity. Akemi wraps her arms around your waist, chin on your shoulder as she continues. "Marketing was thrilled with the positive response. Good job."

You turn around, her arms loosely accommodating you. "Akemi," you coo.

The girl grins wide and pulls you into a hug. You return the affection in a grander gesture of squeezing her tight against you.

Akemi's part of the Marketing Department for Riot. While she often creates publication material for VALORANT, she also has cross work with League of Legends for its various strategic releases (ie. KDA).

"I just want to say that I already predicted Neon would be a sure hit, it's your work after all," Akemi pulls away from the hug with a smug smile. She grabs your hands in hers, swinging them slowly. "Marketing it was like a breeze in the park."

You laugh softly at her enthusiasm. "You give me way too much credit."

Akemi rolls her eyes affectionately. "Humility is a disease—live a little."

You shake your head at her quips, opting to smile in response. A member of your team passes by, eyes widening in recognition of you before giving you a thumbs up. Akemi watches the interaction—eyes trained on that person's figure as they walked towards Mizu who was busy talking to other creative team leads. Your eyebrows furrow in confusion at her prolonged silence.

"Who are you—?" Your words trail off as you turn to look at what she's so focused on before turning back at the sight of Mizu. "Nevermind."

Akemi raises her eyebrow with an amused look on her face. "Taigen always has a penchant for exaggerating but I didn't think it was this bad?"

Your face falls at the information. "Taigen told you?"

Akemi gives you a 'duh' look—eyebrows raised and eyes half-lidded. "Taigen's a loose lock if you pry hard enough. He basically can never keep a secret."

You give her a deadpan stare before shifting in your position. Akemi crosses her arms over her chest as she eyes you up and down—filled to the brim with amusement. "I'm fine, stop making a big deal out of it."

"Uh huh," Akemi squints her eyes playfully. You could only glare back in response.

The loud cheering at the front catches your attention as resident workers, interns, and newbies alike begin to tune in at the commotion. Akemi and you move to the sidelines, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as you tried to find out what's happening.

"What's happening?" You ask the person to your front. He turns, eyes beaming with excitement.

"The creative director for C&C got pulled in a 1v1. They're playing against Beckham."

Your breath hitches at the information. Akemi nudges you with her elbow, overhearing the conversation. The two of you move to the side, finally getting a glimpse of the two team leads focused on a custom game of VALORANT. Your eyes zone in on familiar raven locks seated on the right monitor.

A live stream of their game is projected on the monitor up front and suddenly you feel sick from the amount of butterflies fluttering in your stomach.

She's playing Neon. The character you designed.

Oh God. You watched her take kill after kill, headshot after headshot as she sprinted across the map—zapping characters with Neon's electric abilities. You've never seen someone look so fucking hot playing an FPS game before. It's doing things to your brain.

Just as you expected, the winning banner appears on Mizu's screen and the C&C Team erupts in cheers. You become entranced at the sight—a few of your co-workers patting her on the back before she erupts in smiles and laughs. This is not healthy for your heart.

And just as you think the night couldn't get any better, one of the people from the Marketing departments begins stirring up an interview.

"What made you choose Neon on the character pick? You usually go for Sentinels, no?"

Your eyes meet and suddenly you could feel your heart skip a few beats. Mizu chuckles.

"Wanted to do a duelist around for a spin," Mizu replies. "The design and character visuals for Neon was amazing and I ought to pay the artist who did it a homage."

Suddenly all eyes are on you—some of them even "ooh-ing" for being praised by Mizu. You pale at the attention before doing a hesitant bow in gratitude.

Mizu pulls the headphones off her head and smiles. "Congrats, Y/N. Hope you liked the win."

You feel Akemi stir up beside you, chuckling at the interaction.

You're going to die. You can feel it and its all because of your boss.

Okay, maybe admitting that you were a little bit obsessed and crushing over your employer was a bit overdue. You weren't exactly the type to parade your feelings around the office but if people were to zone in on you acting sheepish and awkward around Mizu, there was a 55% chance that you could tell based on that alone.

It wasn't like your admiration for Mizu started on a whim. As said countless and countless times, it had a foundation of respect until Mizu started trying to get to know and interact with you and those same feelings of admiration started to change. What else were you supposed to do? Mizu is a fucking all-in-one holiday basket—you didn't have it in you to resist the charms.

It also didn't help that over the past few days, Mizu seems to have her undivided attention on you. Showering you with praises, asking if you wanna spearhead a certain project, revel in your work—all that shit. It's messing with your productivity and mindset and that's not a good idea.

The Head Director for the VALORANT Team had decided to call a night out for drinking to reward the team for the positive feedback for the latest patch. You were quite thankful for the opportunity as this was a way for you to get a moment of rest from Mizu's constant attention. Not that you were complaining, it's just a little... too much.

You were seated at the far right booth of the restaurant, keeping to yourself as you watched Ringo and Taigen begin to have a debate about team composition. Akemi grumbles beside you, clearly not enjoying whatever the fuck these two were talking about.

"Look," Taigen holds his hands out in front of him, trying to make a point. "All I'm saying is if you keep putting DPS builds on your team comp, how in the hell will you be able to maximize their kit? Supports are there for a reason."

Ringo rolls his eyes. "It's called enjoying the game, Taigen. So what if I want to put dick 1, dick 2, and dick 3, together?"

Taigen's jaw drops. "Do you know how much skill point dependent they are? I'm even surprised you could bust a skill out." The raven haired man pauses before continuing with a face contorted in disgust. "And stop calling them dick 1,2,3? It's Dan Heng, Blade, and Jing Yuan."

"Of course you'd police that as well. You look like that fucking emoji." Ringo raises his prosthetic hand, imitating pushing up a pair of glasses. "Um, actually—"

"You are as annoying as my grandmother, do you know that?" Taigen snarls, eyes pulled into a glare. Your tall huggable co-worker only grins and bats his eyelashes.

You begin to tune out the two as Akemi excuses herself to take a cigarette break—already having enough of their banter. You eye the glass of beer in front of you, watching as the liquid sloshes around with each twirl of your wrist.

You had hoped to end the night with silence but alas, you can never get everything that you wanted. You feel a pair of eyes on you—direct and unashamed. Already having a feeling on who this was, you looked up and met the reflection of the ocean.

'You okay?' She mouths, concern overflowing her features. It's subtle enough for people to not notice her sudden shift of attention but enough for you to understand her. Your cheeks flush as you nod back with the same softness that she had thrown your way.

She nods in understanding, sending a soft smile your way before turning back towards her conversation with the Head. You hang your head down, wishing that the night would end faster so that you can finally have the moment of peace you have been wanting ever since this morning.

It was as if the world decided to cast hell upon you and revoked you of your rights to peace at the arrival of yet another problem.

"L/N!" The Head Director's voice encompassed the whole area—eyes turning towards him then at you in amusement. "You're one of the star employees and yet you haven't touched a single speck on that glass of yours!"

His hearty laughter follows—giggles and cheering from you co-workers following suite. You sweat drop, eyes darting to Taigen and Ringo who both looked away at your glare before turning towards the window where Akemi sends you a gracious thumbs up, a cigarette hanging from her lips. You groan.

"I-I'm fine," You wave your hand, laughing it off. Your eyes connect with Mizu, an unreadable look on her face as she takes a sip of her chosen beverage.

God decides to punish you more as the team lead beside Mizu chimes in. "Oh c'mon! You're a great asset to the company! I suggest drink up!"

One of your team members passes a full pint of beer as the others begin to urge you to drink up. You hadn't felt the intensity of peer pressure ever since your dance recital on 10th grade and that wasn't even as half bad as this. You weren't feeling on drinking yourself to death as well so trying to down a full pint of beer was a ticket for you to the afterlife (ie. you on your bed with puke all over the floors). The previous pint you had was enough.

You tried to decline as humbly as you could, afraid that this might be the instance that you could finally be fired off from Riot. You knew that if they kept pushing a 3rd more of their attempts that you'd probably give in for the sake of never doing this again but while the need hasn't yet arisen, you'll try fighting off the urge to be a people-pleaser.

Just as you finally begin to decline for the nth time, a hand emerges to your right—pushing the pint of beer in your co-worker's hands. The table falls silent. Your breath falters as the familiar scent of lavender and probably a hint of sunlight begins to seep in from behind you.

"Stop pressuring her like that," Mizu's voice sounds so close —your heart hammering off your chest. Your co-worker gives Mizu a sheepish smile.

"C'mon Mizu, let your team live a little!" The Head laughs once more before leaning forward with a smug smirk. "Unless you'll save this one yet again?"

There's a pause of silence as your co-workers darted between them—back and forth. You feel Mizu sigh behind you before her arms encase you against the table, one arm placed on the beside you each. Your breath hitches.

"Sorry," She mutters as she reaches for the pint. You stammer, turning towards her as you reach out to her wrist by instinct. Mizu blinks with her eyes wide open, suddenly surprised by your actions.

"Y-you don't have to!" You murmured, trying to keep your voice low. Mizu's eyes are unreadable. "You don't drink—!"

The woman chuckles before patting your hand and gently pulling herself off your grasp. "It's okay." She says.

You watch with stammering breath as she gulps the pint in one go, others cheering as she did. The Head claps.

"Didn't expect to see Mizu downing a beer today but here we are," The man bellows in laughter. Mizu chuckles, wiping the residue off her lips. You could only stare at her in shock.

Mizu glances down at you with a smile before patting your head then walking off. Your gaze trails on her and somehow the hammering within you becomes all the more intense.

Oh, Lord.

It was supposed to just be a little game—a past time that the others decided to force you along. You really had no qualms joining games like this but if it concerns the people around you, especially in your work place, somehow you feel the risk of being outed for liking someone in you work space.

"If you guys wanted to date someone in the office, who'd you pick?" Ise leans forward, eyes squinted as she gives you and Akemi a smirk. The three of you were currently lounging in the cafeteria during you lunch break. There weren't many people present due an event going on in one of the building's sectors, so having a conversation like this somehow was less anxiety inducing.

"Taigen, unfortunately," Akemi deadpans. Ise rolls her eyes.

"I mean! Besides him," Ise whispers excitedly. "There's a newbie from marketing that looks cute but kinda quiet, maybe he's nice."

"You mean Takayoshi?" Akemi raises an eyebrow as she takes a sip of her tea. You glance back and forth between them.

"Is that his name?" Ise watches Akemi nod in response. "Well, I'll just have to go get his number then."

Akemi shakes her head at Ise's musings and you had hoped that the conversation would end there, but Ise suddenly turns to you with that mischievous look in her eye.

"What?" You whisper out, eyebrows furrowed in innocence. Akemi side glances you, the corners of her lips upturned in a smile. God, she was enjoying this too.

"What about you, Y/N?" Ise props her arm on the table, placing her cheek on her palm. "Got someone you're interested in?"

You avoid eye contact. "No."

Ise leans forward with a gasp. "You do!"

"I don't!" You reiterate with urgency. You turn to Akemi with a frantic stare. "Tell her I don't."

Ise turns to Akemi who smiles. "She doesn't."

"Bullshit." Ise deadpans. "The moment I'd believe Akemi with a smile on her face is the moment I'd die," Akemi flashes her middle finger at her to which Ise returns generously. Finally, the girl turns to you—chair scooted over to your right as she flashes you her doe eyes. "So? Who is it?"

You Akemi chuckle against her cup as you stammer in front of Ise. "I don't really like someone though?"

"Lies," Ise declares. "We might not be that close but you got that twitch in your eye that already tells me something. Who is it?"

"Ise," You plead, eyes darting around the space. Somehow, saying it out loud meant that you're solidifying the fact that you liked Mizu—an occurrence you'd like to keep to yourself as much as possible. You loved Ise, you really do. You worked with her hand in hand in bringing Neon to life (You worked on her design while she worked on the 3D build) and have become tremendously grateful for her critique and contributions to your work. But this, this was something else. You could feel your heart speed up as she started listing some names.

"Is it Beckham? That piece of shit always too full himself." Ise places a hand on her chin in thought. "Or Ringo? Nah, he's way too focused on content map-building."

There's a pause of silence before an 'aha!' look spreads through her face. You prayed that she would get it wrong but this is Ise we're talking about.

"Is it perhaps," Ise pauses, eyes darting all over your face. "Mizu—"

"What about me?"

The three of you tense, eyes darting behind you as you turn to find the familiar stance of your boss. She leans forward, a hand on the back of your chair as she gives the three of you a curious glance. You hadn't heard her at all, and something about Ise's frantic glance towards you says she didn't expect the same thing as well.

"W-we we're just listing people we found attractive," Ise laughs uncomfortably under Mizu's stare. The creative director glances at Akemi who raises an eyebrow at her. Somehow there was a silent conversation going on between the two that left you confused.

"Really?" Mizu asks, the ends of her words trailing off as she glances back at Ise. "Who said I was attractive?"

"It was Y/—"

"NO ONE!" You exclaimed, cutting Ise off with a jump. You flush under Mizu's wide gazed, surprised at your interference. Somehow, the way you said it implied that no one found her attractive at all, and that was way too wrong so you caught yourself before you delved into a pit of despair. "I mean, w-we haven't started and was just listing people off."

Mizu nods slowly in understanding, eyes examining your face for any slip-ups. You looked away from the intensity.

Ise finally saves your ass. "Yeah. What she said."

"What about you, Director?" Akemi chimes in from your left and both you and Ise turn to her with wide gazes. She simply smiles over her cup, face contorted in a mischievous look. You couldn't read Mizu at all. You had expected Akemi to drop it—after all, she wasn't even joining in on Ise's incessant need to know everything about everyone. "Who do you find the most attractive in this office, hm?"

You can feel Mizu shifting behind you before a chuckle pulls out from her lips. You turn towards her in curiosity as she flashes a smile towards you.

"I'd pick Y/N, of course,"

Huh?

Akemi rolls her eyes, somehow already expecting the answer. Your jaw drops at her response as Mizu turns to Ise who already has a knowing look on her face.

"She's just that reliable," Mizu looks back down towards you, those shades of blue peeking from her tinted glasses. She pinches your cheek in a flash before pulling away. "Cute too."

You turn away, afraid that the flush on your cheeks might've given you away.

"Anyways, I just dropped by to see what's happening outside the event," Mizu sighs, pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "I'll see you girls around."

Your interactions always end up one sided somehow. She gives and then leaves—resulting in you malfunctioning from whatever she's left for you to deal with.

Ise turns to you with a mischievous grin when Mizu finally turns the corner. "You and the Director huh?"

"Shut up, oh my God."

"Why do you always do stuff like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like you're not leaving me any room to process the shit you do?"

Mizu lets out quiet laughs from beside you. 10:47 pm. Normally, work hours in the office end at about 9 but you've learned that staying late is where the good things happen.

"I literally just told you 'good job' the other day and you malfunctioned in front of me," Mizu giggles, leaning forward as she tapped you on the nose with the pen to her digital tablet. "And I heard everything by the way. Quite adorable of you to deny everything."

You flush under her affectionate gaze. "Everyone's so gossipy. You can't blame me."

Mizu turns her chair towards you, arms reach out to take a hold of your own before pulling them close to her side. You lean back at her sudden proximity.

"Well you can't blame me either when you're this adorable," Mizu grins. You furrow your eyebrows, finally leaning close as you cupped her cheeks within your palms.

"You even drank beer," You whisper, tone apologetic. "You don't even like alcohol."

Mizu leans into your touch. "And you don't like being pressured into something you don't want to do. I can sacrifice a little bit of something I don't like just for you."

You melt at her words, eyes darting over her softened features. "Thank you," You whisper, grateful.

"Anything for my girlfriend," Mizu teases. You roll your eyes before pulling her into a soft kiss. She kisses back instantly, hands gripping the arm chair as you take lead of the kiss. After a few pecks and chaste kisses here and there, you finally pull back—reveling in the soft flush across Mizu's cheeks.

"Also," You chime in. Mizu raises an eyebrow. "I was the one who pursued, not you. Correct that when they catch on."

Mizu chuckles at your words. "Right on. Akemi threatened me the other day, saying something like, 'I forbid you from dating Y/N Y/L/N, Mizu Tagawa!' Funniest shit, I've heard. If only she knew."

You pinch her cheeks, giggling at her words. "Of course, she's say that."

There's a pause of silence before Mizu turns to her work, a sketch of VALORANT's newest agent displayed on screen.

"Want to help me with the new guy?" She nudges towards the screen. "Heard he's French."

You turn to her monitor, dozens of details sketched on the edges with a version of her idea of the new agent. You grin, placing a kiss on her cheek.

"You could've just asked me to marry you." You tease. "Also, sure."

You turn towards the table and pulled her tablet towards you. Mizu scoffs as you take over her work.

"And if I actually did?"

"Sure, Mizu, sure."

"I'm serious!"

a/n: hey guys!!! this was so fun to write and honestly i was just inspired to do this request bc ive been drafting an office romance for mizu after the roommate thing. hope yall enjoyed ! if yall arent familiar with valorant, here are the agents mentioned or referenced (neon & chamber (french guy)). also mizu's last name is derived from master eiji's va! cary-hiroyuki tagawa!

#arthenaa #mizu x you #mizu x reader #mizu bes #the blue eyed samurai x reader #the blue eyed samurai

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prosaic-dust-bunny · 1 year

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Envy and Jealousy Part 1

Genshin Vignettes

Genshin!men x Male reader

Characters featured: Albedo, Alhaitham, Ayato, Cyno & Diluc;

Content: Fluff and a little suggestiveness in the Ayato one.

Discussion: Envy and Jealousy are hard to work through. It is possible to end up projecting your insecurities on the people surrounding you if you aren't self aware. However, all these things aren’t inherently linked to possessiveness and toxic relationship patterns. Why am I writing all this? As I’m making silly littles vignettes on envy and jealousy about 2D characters, I want to clarify that those feelings can be traced back to the values centered in our societies - namely individuality and ownership in a patriarchal and capitalist system. Traced back, not excused. All in all, we often confound acts driven by jealousy as proof of love. Jealousy in relationships is common, but I believe the way it is addressed - with open communication, is a testament to one's ability to love. In other words, if someone reflects on their jealousy and recognizes their possessiveness or need for control as issues they need to work on, that’s the real commitment towards the relationship. Jealousy can be endearing, but left unchecked it can lead quickly to a toxic relationship.

Albedo - Seated at a table near Good hunter you had your nose in a book and from time to time you glanced over at Albedo who was sketching something in front of you, probably an unsuspecting subject that had caught his eyes. You were truly grateful for those times spent in his company mostly because you had reached a point you didn’t feel the need to talk and could simply enjoy the time going by slowly in his company.

After some time, Timaeus, who was operating the alchemical crafting bench on the other side of the fountain plaza, approached and interrupted Albedo’s creative process to ask him some questions about the technicalities of the procedures he used to brew a certain potion. You didn’t make out the details, but took the opportunity to leave for the bathroom since you had been sipping on lemonade all afternoon.

When you returned you noticed how Albedo seemed somewhat displeased at answering the growing pile of questions from his colleague. When Albedo noticed your presence, he immediately excused himself away from Timaeus and pulled you by the hand in direction of the Headquarter of the Knights of Favonius. He mentioned not being able to finish your portrait because he was disturbed by the other man and wanting to make a new one somewhere you wouldn’t be bothered by anyone. Nobody encroaches on his time spent with you, those moments are yours and only yours. Leading you to his private quarters, he made sure you were the sole subject of his attention.

Alhaitham - On an early morning in Port Ormos, you and your partner made your way into a dusty library in a secondary alley of the marketplace. You were looking for a particular essay studying the theological implications of the Sefer Yetzirah or Book of Formation and the author was said to have a position that dissent from the many scholarly theories on the matter. Sadly the book itself didn’t have a lot of print and it didn’t seem like a new edition would be coming. You pushed the door of the library which made the little bell attached to it resound into the small room filled with books from floor to ceiling. You and Alhaitham went toward two different sections, browsing for the desired book from shelf to shelf.

You were soon joined by the library clerk who seemed about the same age as you. He came up to you and asked for what you were looking for. Hearing the title of the essay, he smiled and nodded, impressed that you were looking for a book about a quite controversial subject. He smiled and added that he knew as soon as he first laid eyes on you that you looked like trouble. He left momentarily to go fetch the book in question from the backstore and brought with him a piece of paper and a pen. He took a second to scribble on it and mentioned how the topic itself was quite complicated and how the essay involved advanced notions.

As he extended his arm to give you the book and the paper with his name and address on it, he offered to give you some pointers and maybe take you on a date afterwards. He was interrupted by Alhaitham, who came up from behind you. With daggers in his eyes, he said in a monotone voice that since you were a very capable researcher in the field of philosophy, early mysticism and occult traditions, you wouldn’t need him to coach you. He added that as for a date, it was something reserved for him only; his arm reaching for your waist to add weight to his words. You paid for the book with as few words exchanged as you could, not to make the transaction any more strained. Once out of the library you raised a quizzical eyebrow at your partner who still had his hand on the small of your back, seemingly pushing you the furthest away from the library clerk as possible. When it was time for you to open the book later that day, Alhatitham insisted for you to rest on him while you both read your respective publications. He also made it clear that he was available at any time for any question you could have. When you teased him about whether he was confident in your reading comprehension skills or not, you could see him try to hide the plink flush of his face behind the hardcover of Aristotle's Physics.

Ayato - Getting ready for formal events with Ayato couldn’t be considered easy. Knowing that you would be hooked on his arm during the reception or meeting related to his functions kinda instilled in his brain he had to make the most of it. You were currently putting on the exquisite kimono he had custom made for you at Ogura Textiles & Kimonos. The silk felt sumptuous to the touch and the patterns sewn into the fabric were elegant.

You emerged from behind the folding screen and Ayato placed himself a few feet in front of you to admire the view. The commissure of his lips stretched into a smile and his eyes reflected fondness and a hint of pride. He closed the distance to adjust the opening of your kimono, taking the opportunity to feel your pecs under the fabric. His forthright action caused a tremor to spread across your body. You pulled him into a kiss to which he answered with impetuosity. Soon you were left breathless, letting him explore your jaw and neck as he was leaving trails of kisses. In the haze you left your neck fully exposed allowing the Yashiro Commissioner to seal his lips on the sensitive skin at the base of your neck and suction forcefully. So that’s what he was after from the beginning.

You lightly push against him and turn your head to get in his way. He paused to calmly look at you. He then tentatively reached for one of your hands and brought it in front of his lips to kiss it tenderly before closing it in a way that allowed him to suckle on your index finger - maintaining eye contact at all times. You giggled at the sensation and with a whisper you asked him what he needed to say to have your assent. A simple «please» escaped his lips and you used your free hand to part the silky material in a way that made your neck even more accessible. Ayato released your hand, but waited for you to nod and seductively expose your neck for him. This time, Ayato took extra care to make you feel even better trailing his teeth across your neck. He once more sealed his lips near your collarbone and sucked the skin while adding little nimbles and swirling his tongue on the yet to be bruised area. In the end, the hickey was only visible if someone paid you close attention. In a way, if someone had the audacity to look at you for too long, it would be clear you had someone in your life, and that was the man’s goal.

Cyno - Who was that? Why were you walking with them in such a decontracted manner? Cyno knew your friends, but he had never met that man walking next to you. You were strolling down the streets of Port Ormos and often stopped at the various stalls along the way. He wasn’t really spying on you and he told himself repeatedly that you would never do something bad behind his back. Cyno had tailed you since he saw you in the distance with the other and couldn’t decide what was your relationship to him. Was he a former colleague? Someone you studied with? Maybe he was an ex of yours. That would explain your physical proximity and general openness. He saw you burst into laughter, not just laughter, you were cackling and needed to steady yourself by placing a hand on the unknown man's shoulder. He caught himself wishing you laughed like that to HIS jokes.

The General Mahamatra remained hidden for the rest of your stroll and watched you climb the stairs that lead to the higher floors of Port Ormos. Soon your destination was made evident, you were going directly to Shapur Hotel. A hotel of all places, the place of predilection for extra marital relationships. You weren’t married, but that wasn’t the point. You halted in front of the building and hugged the other man. Cyno knew he could trust you, but that was playing with fire at that point. You bid your goodbyes to the other and turned back.Cyno left his hiding spot and made it straight to your shared apartment.

Once he was home, he didn't have to wait long before you arrived. Cyno steeled himself in place; the interrogation was about to begin and he would have answers. As soon as he saw your face and even before you had the time to greet him properly he fell to his knees - panic stricken, and asked if you were seeing someone else. You looked at him in confusion, clueless at what would have prompted this until you put two and two together. You made him stand up and explain that you were previously with your cousin who was visiting Port Ormos and that you were showing him around. Cyno felt as relieved as he was embarrassed. He apologized and said that the outburst wasn’t really rational of him. You reassured him and hugged him tight, even though it was a misunderstanding you could feel that your lover was quite shaken about the idea of you leaving him.

Diluc - As part of the Mondstadt branch of the Adventurer Guild you had your fair share of commission and had gained a little bit of notoriety within the city of freedom. Even Katherine praised you for your versatility and hardwork. About one month ago after clearing some hillichurl camps, you took a commission from the Knights of Favonius for whom you had to make an inventory of the supplies and rations stocked at the Knights of Favonius Headquarters. You ended up being paired with Bernhard and the task took you most of your afternoon. Thankfully the knight was friendly and reliable and you were able to finish the inventory while making some arrangements to the procedures so that the inventory was systematically balanced based on consumption and replenishment of the stock. After that commission and for the following weeks Bernhard made sure that you would be asked personally to execute the Knights of Favonius commissions. Today you received one such commission from Katherine. You had to help Bernhard visit Mondstadters to raise awareness on the new evacuation measures in case of emergency in the city. The goal was to review the evacuation plan leading to the designated safety areas in case of fires or other natural disasters and what could be done for prevention and the different methods of control that minimize the damage and risks.

After all your hard work during the previous month, Bernhard wanted to emphasize that he was grateful for your help and gifted you with a basket of baked goods and sweets. You thanked the knight and left with the delicious reward to go meet your partner at Angel’s share. Diluc was already outside of the tavern and ready to go home to Dawn Winery with you. He gave you a chaste kiss as a greeting and led you towards the main gate. He noticed the basket you were holding and foraged into it trying to snag a snack for himself. You half slapped his hand saying those were gifted to you for your efforts and that if he wanted some he needed to ask for permission first. After he used the magic word you graciously offered him a flavourful moon pie.

Walking next to him you told him about your day and the commission you had taken and finally explained the gift was from Bernhard because you were the finest adventurer in all of Mondstadt. Since Diluc didn’t react at all to your playful boasting you elbowed him to get a reaction out of him. The red head apologized for lacking consideration and you continued the conversation thinking nothing of it. Your partner was probably tired after working all day. The next day you were woken up by Diluc bringing breakfast in bed. You asked what the occasion was and he answered he just felt like it. You were taking the day off so you had nothing planned and were able to enjoy the act of kindness. Your partner was a great chef and the grape juice was also a recognizable personal touch from the man you loved. In the afternoon, you were given a Cecilia bouquet most romantically and even if you tried to know what this was all about, Diluc deflected the question. In the following days you received many more gifts, little notes and it all culminated one evening when you received new gear for your adventuring duties and an invitation to spend the evening with him and a glass of apple cider.

Diluc brought you to the balcony adjacent to his room on the second floor of the manor. Once in the intimacy of his room, you stopped him in his tracks and demanded that he tell you why he was showering you with gifts. You liked everything he picked for you, but you stated you didn’t need all of it. Diluc took you in his arms and answered that he was reminded not so long ago that he had a wonderful boyfriend and it would be a shame if only some work colleagues were the ones to give him gifts. Not missing a beat Diluc suggested you both leave on the following day for a romantic getaway to Dornman Port where you could relax and spend time together without the pressure and responsibilities of Mondstadt.

#genshin impact x male reader #genshin x male reader #genshin impact fanfics #genshin headcanons #genshin fanfics #genshin fanfic #genshin ff #genshin fluff #genshin impact queer #genshin impact imagines #genshin imagines #albedo x male reader #al haitham x male reader #ayato x male reader #cyno x male reader #diluc x male reader #genshin #原神 #genshin impact

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monsterexer · 4 months

Text

Didn't want to piggyback entirely off this post, but I do feel it important to make a lil PSA for the kink community by saying:

Hey. It's okay to be bad at art. When you're just starting, that's what you should expect. It'll take time, don't rush it. Go at your own pace. No one's telling you to be perfect.

That being said, how about a list of resources to help you get started? And on a budget too! This by no means will be the most exhaustive list, so others are free to weigh in. And ultimately I'm giving what is ultimately useful information from my perspective. No one perspective is the most correct in creating art, it's all about what you make of it!

For Traditional Art

You can make traditional art starting with just pencil and paper! Then you can use your phone's camera to take pictures and most phones have photo editing tools to help sharpen the quality of your photos of your artwork. It's really easy, and sometimes filters can make your artwork pop without putting too much work in!

If you want color, then I personally suggest looking into watercolor pencils. You have the flexibility to either use them dry as color pencils OR as watercolors by adding water! There are many different techniques to these, and given they're water soluble, means you can mix the colors and get more colors out of a standard box set. Art supplies can be costly, but you are looking at a product that will last you quite a long while, years even! In college I used Prisma, but Faber-Castells are good. Heck, any budget art products you can find I suggest getting just to try and muck around with first.

Also, personally, I favored working in Canson mixed-media sketchbooks. If you are fine with a ring binding, this paper is great to work with for just about anything. I found them often at Walmart, so they're pretty accessible.

Don't get too caught up in the quality of art products, just find something and practice!

For Digital Art

There exist several free art programs that are easy to install and you can pick up and use anytime. You don't need a fancy art program to make sophisticated art, so don't go blowing your paycheck on Clip Studio Paint just yet. A great program I hear many people use for art and even animation is Krita!

If you have an iPad and an apple pen, something like Procreate is only $10 and you keep it without paying any extra licensing. It's a favorite amongst many industry professionals.

Many of you might feel you need a tablet, which if you are financially able, I suggest looking at Huion's supply! They're great budget tablets with a fantastic help desk reputation.

Though you don't even need a tablet, you can draw first on paper and then scan or take a photo of your drawing, and bring it in to edit and colorize in an art program!

Other Forms of Art to Consider...

Something with a fantastic point of access that many people seem to overlook is 3D art. The program Blender is absolutely free and is comparable to, if not better than some industry licensed programs like Autodesk. There is a learning curve to using it, but there is an active community that you can turn to around every corner for advice, troubleshooting, and who can supply you with accessible assets! Many assets may require money, which may be worth it depending on your projects. Otherwise, there are countless tutorials online you can use and you don't even need to be an artist in the traditional sense!

Another form of art that may not come across as art, but does still count for wanting to create images for your kink interests, might be to use the Sims. Now, I don't advise getting the sims JUST to create kink content, but hear me out... There are mods to allow you to pose sims! And coming from the preg kink community, there are many pregnancy poses that exist. I've seen people pose and make stories around photos they take of their sims, so I say anything's possible to be considered art!

If you struggle with technology or find it hard to capture images in 2D, perhaps consider creating art in a tactile way. You could do: paper cut outs, clay sculpting, or doll customizing! Just to name a few.

And while writing is by no means an easier alternative, it cannot be overstated how important an art form it is and how much you can convey through text and words.

A Final Note...

Art is about creating something and being proud of that creation, feeling truly accomplished by something you made by your own skill. It's also got many benefits to your well being! (Granted that you don't have a self destructive personality or drive yourself into burnout over it)

There exist a plethora of resources now more than ever before to help you create art. So many art hacks, short cuts, tutorials, and even full on art lectures can be found on YouTube alone. Also, I think it can be safely stated that asking other artists' for advice or for a look into their process is allowed and welcome! I will go out on a limb and say maybe every 7 out of 10 artists will be more than happy to explain how it is they draw something. I would be happy to be one of those 7 artists!

You may get responses like "just practice" and there is a bit of that even in this post, but honestly, you just gotta. That's how we got here, and that's how you get anywhere. You will improve steadily, and it's okay if it takes a long time.

I know it's sad that you can't just come right out the gate drawing in your favorite show's style right away, but that's okay. It took them several years just to develop THAT style, you're gonna need time to get there. No one is telling you to get there now, no one is telling you that you're not good enough or that you will never improve.

You might need to dedicate some time aside in your off-time to do it, but you are still well and able to do it.

Anyway, please ditch ai art generators, and sincerely consider picking up a pencil and drawing something!

#i did shamefully pull up maybe the first thing I found via search results #but like also if you find better tutorials or examples out there for stuff then please be my guest

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tuktukpodfics · 7 months

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Hi! I'm thinking about making a podfic of one of my favorite fics and I wanted to ask for a couple of tips because I adore your podfics and I have run into a couple problems very early on.

how do you do deeper voices? my voice is fairly high (I'm a soprano that can occasionally deep down into lower alto) and most of the voices in the fic are male. I also always sound about twelve in recordings lol

how do you make distinct voices? again, I have a lot of different voices (probably 5-7 that talk the most, with many many other reoccurring characters).

pacing of reading. I tend to speak/read very quick and in my practice recordings, it sounds like I'm talking much faster than I felt I was. any tips on that?

what recording programs are best? currently I'm using voice memos on my phone. which. is clearly not going to give me the best sound, regardless of the app I use, but I don't have many options.

I am living in a dorm right now and live in fear of my suite mates hearing me (my roommate not quite as much as she likes to dub and does a lot in our room--though she does it in mandarin so I cant understand it). not to mention background noise of doors opening and whatnot. if you have any tips on that as well, that would be great!

I love your podfic, you put so much soul into them, and I hope that I could do that too!

Hello fellow podfic-er! I’m so excited for you to make a podfic!

The nice thing about podfics is that I usually don’t have to create characters from scratch, they already exist in the TV show. If I’m struggling with a character, I just rewatch some clips of them talking and imitate it!

Deep voices: I, too, have a high, childish voice and struggle with deep, Manly Men. I guess the main tip I have is to...give up. What I mean is focus less on pitch and more on tone. If you speak too low, it’ll be less expressive and will probably hurt your throat. It can work for minor, 2D characters, but don’t do it for main characters that have a wide range of emotions (you may notice that my Mighty Oaks Fire Sage Zuko voice swings higher when he’s emotional oops). Instead, use your normal pitch, and make a character sound adult by using an authoritative tone. Another thing I do is play up the childish and feminine voices. We might not be able to make the adults sound adult, but we can make the kids sound extra kiddish by comparison.

Distinct voices: I’m a tactile learner, so for me, it’s all about the physicality. Every time I do Azula’s voice, I make a pinched face like I’m eating a lemon. When I record Ozai, I sneer. For Sokka, I jut out my chin and flail my arms. It looks silly, but no one is around to see. There’s lots of YouTube tutorials about how to make different voices by varying speed and tone and nasal quality, but I get kinda lost in the sauce with those theory lessons. The only way I can really get myself to do different voices is if I’m working off of a reference. I just watch videos of other cartoons and live actors and then copy them.

Pacing: Pacing is hard. I especially struggle with the editing and often end up cutting things wonkily. Audiobooks tend to be slow because you’re less likely to get tongue tied that way. If I have a big hunk of text that I find myself racing through, I slow myself down with physicality again. I’ll lean in on important words or mime out the actions. For example, on the line, “Zuko turns, grabs the bar at the side of the ship, and throws himself back over,” I'll turn my body on the word “turn,” grab an imaginary bar on the word “grab” and then lurch forward on the word “throw.” Adding in movement can bring variation to those big blocks of text.

What recording programs are best: I don’t know! I use Audacity because it’s free. Adobe Audition is great too, but it’s expensive. I am very lazy with the podfics. I don’t have a professional set-up. Basically, I make a comfortable nest of pillows in bed or my closet, use an iPhone VoiceMemos app to record straight into the phone mic, send the audio file to my computer, convert the audio to a WAV file, put it in Audacity, add a Noise Reduction effect, and then cut it down. Once I’m done editing it, I export the Audacity file as an mp3, upload it to archive.org and Spotify, and then embed those links into Ao3. Feel free to DM me if you have other tech questions. I am not particularly savvy, but we can Google it together? If any voice actors on Tumblr have professional advice, please chime in.

Silence and privacy: Background noise is a big headache for me too. I live in a noisy area with lots of planes and a squeaky elevator. I usually record now in my closet surrounded by pillows and blankets, so it’s fairly soundproof. If there’s a noise, I usually wait for the sound to stop, record the line again, then edit out the mistake in post. At the end of the day, though, sounds will slip in. It’s just a podfic; we’re doing this for fun not professionally, so it doesn’t need to be polished. I think most listeners’ attitudes is that something is better than nothing. If you’re in a school dorm, there might be music practice rooms, a radio recording booth, or empty classrooms you can use instead.

Storage: Something I didn’t realize going in was how much storage the audio clips take up. Make sure you save and delete projects as you go. One time I finished editing an Audacity project, but it wouldn’t let me save it because I ran out of storage and I had to start over.

I’m so glad you like the podfics I’ve done and that it could help inspire you to make one too! I started making podfics because I fell in love with @pixieinthesky’s fantastic Salvage podfic (it's an absolute gem). Keep the chain going!

Have fun!

#podfic #how to podfic

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can-ya-guess-my-curent-obsession · 1 year

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Hiya! If your still doing requests Could you do Murdoc x Fem girly reader headcannons

Reader is the complete opposite of Murdoc she is sweet to everyone, wears dresses likes pastel colours stuff like that. If that’s okay with you <3

Murdoc x Very fem pastel F! S/O

WRITERS NOTE: Hi! I honestly really like this request, I personally find any pastel style to be realy cool! But I do apologize I'm not good at gendered things- but I will try my very best! I hope you like the hc and that you have a wonderful day!

[ANOTHER NOTE: This is late again, life threw a wrench in my posting schedule again. Anyways have a lovely day, sorry for the delay!]

Edited: Nope

All art in this post is mine

TW: Curssing, Murdoc drinking, Murdocs childhood, Murdoc being a grouch, implied abuse?, spoilers for cracker Island, jealousy, insecurity, probably more but can't figure it right now- so just tell me any out standing ones I missed.

(Side thing: Murdocs shity behavior is not ok, it's toxic, I am not trying to indorse the shit he does!)

Characters:

/Gorillaz/

Murdoc(yay better murdoc drawing)

How???

Sorry HuH???

Just how???

You are the embodiment of a kind person... and Murdocs..... a satanic piece of shit gremlin with anger issues

So to say everyone- including Murdoc himself was quite surprised

The band won't let him live down the fact you two are so different

They tease him a lot, but other then that that band absolutely adores S/O

2D has straight up asked you why would you 'date 'an asshole like Murdoc', it was very blut though there was no ill will behind it

Murdoc will Call you the normal nick names such a 'dove, babe, love, ect..' but he will most likly call you a bit more sweet things- in private obviously, but this often happens if he's ih a more sensitive state-

Whether that be when he's drunk, high, hung over, ect... he'll just tend to be a bit loving- his voice is almost tender

And he'll use pet names like 'babydoll, sugar, cutie, my star, sweetie, the occasional babycake's', but Murdoc could use those in a very teasing way too if S/O is the kind of person who tends to get flustered

"*hic* ya'know, I'ma start... *hic* call'en ya cavity..." Murdoc said sluring his words

"What, why?"

"*drunken giggle* Cuz' yer so cute *hic* dat'cha rot my teeth... heh.."

S/O looks so different when standing next to Murdoc that some people find it concerning

When out in public with each other at night(ie. Murdoc draged you to a bar with him), there has been at least one case of someone coming up to you in concern for S/O's wellbeing, thinking Murdoc was some creep following S/O, or the every so often waitress or waitor asking if you are ok, when you and Mudz are out on a date

Murdoc gets really pissed when this happens, so S/O will have to call him down

With pastel and bright clothes you gonna want to not leave them around Murdocs room/Winnebago because that shit will be stained to high hell(even if you need a black light to see the stains), and those stains will never come out, so be reaaally careful

He doesn't really understand why you like pastel & bright clothes or makeup- but he definitely thinks you look good in it so he won't complain- as long as you don't try and put any of that on him(at least in public)-

Listen hun, Murdoc has a reputation to uphold!- Murdoc would often repeat variants of that

"SSSZZ-SSTOOWWWPPHhhu- *hmph* I have a reputation- and YOU-" Murdocs points an accusatory finger at S/O "-Fuck'in... leav'en damn stupid... neon fuk'en PINK lipstick marks.. on MY damn FACE... BEFORE A DAMN SHOW..isn't help'in..."

"Why'dya got'a go'in be so damn cute... yer stupid 'KinDNeSs' making me look... ugh nice..."

S/O when their in the later phases and later in the relationship- S/O definitely made Murdoc more nice but only really around S/O- don't get me wrong when S/O's gone Mudz still a complete ass

But he tends to be more chilled out, Murdy once he got close to S/O, he really wanted her to like him- but this isn't uncommon with Murdoc getting scared his shitty behavior is gonna scare a person he genuinely cares about away

He's in complete denial about going any for of soft, and he just ends up acting like a piss baby-

"Wha'dya mean I'm go'in soft!?!" Murdoc said pulling away from S/O

"Babe. You're wearing the *insert random pastel themed character* shirt I got you..."

"...I-...I had nut'en else to wear.." Murdoc tutned away with a huff

"You walk around shirtless and in your underwear all the time- what changed?"

"...ShutUp-!..."

"..Damn face ache..." Mudz slammed the door with a a groan, clearly agitated

"You ok dear?"

Murdoc turned to you and pouted like a bitter old man "Face Ache said I was going soft!!! Can ya believe that fuck'en nob!"

He's overall very bitter and sour about going soft, so don't tease him to much unless you want his grumpy-ness to turn into full blown anger

Murdoc like to send S/O pictures of things that remind him of her/her style

This is most often pictures of clothes, but it can maybe be a pic of a stuffy or somthing, these items are often pointed out by Noodle or even 2D

But when 2D talks about/points out things that remained him of S/O Mudz will most likely get jealous... and I think we can geuss how it usually goes from there..

Speaking of jealousy

Due to how nice and kind of a person S/O is to everyone, and how insecure Murdoc can be- he can get jealous pretty easy depending on the situation

And no it's not a 'ohh ahh, he's protective and loving' jealousy- no he's an insecure angry goblin man- only getting petty and aggressive, just sit him down and have a talk, he just needs some reassurance

To add to S/O dressing up Murdy. Murdoc refuses to match outfits, he refuses to let you do his makeup... or take pictures of it to show it to people at least..

Like my last statement implies Murdoc has let her do his makeup before, S/O just can't take pictures to show it around to people- tho this doesn't mean you can't take pictures at all

Because you can and you do, S/O has so many pictures of Murdoc in a skirt, or a full face of makeup, etc... and there all adorable even if Murdoc is pissed in all of them

Murdoc refuses to match your style or do any of the dressing up thing in public, or let any of it go out into public. He is stubborn and this is a big boundary for him, so please respect this.

This doesn't just apply to appearances, but just his stuff in general, so no cute neon stickers on things, or cutesy decorations without his permission. Murdoc stands firm on his decision so don't push to much he will get really agitated, and it might lead to a fight- like I said his stubbornness is off the chart.

Murdoc teases S/O quite a bit especially at the beginning of the relationship, and especially if its in earlier phases-

It's how he copes with nice people, Murdy isn't use to people being nice

Murdoc grew up with assholes, he was raised to be an asshole, and he was raised in a way to basically see kindness to be a form of weakness.

So him being shown kindness from this goddess, in response he freaks out a bit and just get really teasy out of defense at first

And knowing him, he might say some upseting things. So S/O has to walk very carefully around early phase Mudz or just a bit early in the relationship

Murdocs sweetheart of a girlfriend is gonna have to break down some walls, and honestly this applys to all and any relationship with Mudz- theres always a few walls to get through

But with any initial kindness there will be some extra defense put up by Murdoc

(I wanna talk about phaze 7 Mudz specifically for a second, so like spoiler warning I guess? )

Murdoc is firm on the fact what he is wearing isn't a dress- we all know what I'm referring to!

That thing he wears in the Cracker Island music video.

He referres to it by whatever it's actually name is(again I don't know, I'll edit it when I figure it out) or he calls them PJ's. He has referred to it dress like but never a girly dress like somthing S/O would wear- and he gets pissy if anyone goes around calling it that. Though in the passed Murdoc has probably worn a dress before.

(Ok weird tangent over, back to just general Murdoc)

Despite hating it when S/O does his makeup or dressing him up- Murdoc does love picking her clothes out and has more then once done S/O's makeup- and he isn't the greatest at first but he does eventually learn how to apply eyeliner without impaling your eyes

Murdoc while is proud of his work- will not stop laughing at how she looks after he's done S/O's makeup

Murdoc 100% underestimates S/O, he thinks S/O is one of the most pure things ever and he wants to mess that up ;)

JK- I'm just joking... particularly...

Anyway!-

He just kinda sees S/O as a bit of a childish innocent person who's oblivious to the world- like how else could you be so happy?

If S/O really is that innocent than good luck, becuase that sure as hell isn't gonna 100% last if she wants to stay with this Satanist

But if you arn't as innocent well then it's quite a pleasant surprise to Murdoc

It's up to you to determine how you want Murdoc to figure out S/O's lack of innocence but here are some examples

1. Murdoc used a horribly raunchy and crapy pickup line on S/O and she retorted back with her own, this left Murdoc flustered and stunned before he played it off pretty well. Mudz jokes about this later on because he finds this situation funny

2. Murdoc whilst pissed said some unsavory things, and S/O responds in a way that shows she understood what he just said, and Murdoc depending on how bad what he said was would either laugh it off or he would immediately choke on his own spit, then awkwardly defend himself

3. Very similar 1 but Murdoc made a dirty or just inappropriate joke and S/O expressed they understood and Murdoc would just burst out laughing

Just a few ideas- but it's up to you

But once Murdy finds out, him being the dirty little man he is- he's gonna tease you about it. Mudz sometimes mockingly treats you like a kid- with all good intentions of course

Either way innocent or not S/O is just as appealing- just in different ways

"Dove... your cuteness juz made me throw up'en my mouth.."

#gorillaz x reader #murdoc x reader #murdoc niccals #murdoc niccals x reader

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chere-indolente · 3 months

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Hi!! How did you learn to make maxis match clothes? I would like to start doing it uwu

Hi ! So to be fair I don't remember exactly how I went about starting making CC at the very beginning except from reading tutorials and downloading Sims4Studio but here are the steps I more or less followed in my CC making journey.

First off I was already quite used to some picture editing softwares (namely Gimp and Photoshop) which definitely helped so I would recommend familiarising yourself with one of these.

Then comes the gateway drug to CC creation that are ✨recolors✨. For those you just need S4S and a picture editing software of your choice. Recolors can be quite simple : maybe you just want to change an item's color or add patterns to it. But with a little more editing/drawing skills you can also remove/add some details to the diffuse texture.

Here is a link to a short tutorial for a simple recolor using gimp by @smubuh

To keep the maxis match aesthetic the easiest way to go is to be a 🙌scavenger🙌 : you want to add buttons / belts / lace / embroidery / whatever to your texture ? Steal it from an other Sims 4 item ! Just look at your CAS and BB in game as a catalogue of all the details and textures you could frankenstein onto your project.

Maybe you'll be content with making recolors forever but if like me you start wanting to make something with a shape that doesn't already exist in game or in the CC world out there, you will have to deal with mesh. (the mesh is the 3D shape of the item as opposed to the 2D texture that is applied onto it) Meshing has a steeper learning curve than recoloring for sure so arm yourself with as much calm and patience as you can muster. First you'll need to download Blender, I recommend downloading the same Blender version as the one used in the tutorial you choose to follow because if you're anything like me you'll get lost otherwise. Also use a mouse, the scroll wheel makes moving around in blender so much easier than using a laptop touch pad like I did at the start 🤡.

And now that you have blender and a mouse time to mess around with meshes and for that like everyone I started (and honestly I mostly still stick to it nowadays) by frankenmeshing. Sticking to the frankenstein/scavenger theme from earlier, this is quite similar to what I described with scavenging textures, except this time we're combining meshes aka shapes : see a collar you like on that blouse, a sleeve you like on that dress ? Bam put them together !

For example here is a handydandy frankenmesh tutorial by @deetron-sims

Outside of frankenmeshing other ways to tranform meshes are to inflate and stretch parts of it (want a bigger skirt ? a shorter jacket ? the O key is your friend). And if you want to go beyond what I have you can also learn how to create meshes from scratch.

That being said dealing with meshes is full of surprises (mostly bad ones unfortunately), since you may have to deal with distorted weights, UV1 and whatever else, so it involved a lot of trouble shooting and trial & error. Being part of the S4S forum or the Creator Musing discord can be very helpful when you're at a loss (but always google and search for yourself before going around asking people).

Finally it's important to keep in mind that it takes time to learn how to make CC so don't be too hard on yourself and take breaks when it gets too frustrating. Personally it took me many months to graduate from recolors to frankesmeshing, I had to give up and try again many times before I finally got what I wanted.

Here are some more tutorials and resources :

@myshunosun made this great post about Maxis matched CC : Tips: components of creating Maxis Match objects for The Sims 4

@powluna has great video tutorials for beginners, especially this well rounded one that goes in details throught all of CAS CC creation (from the use of S4S all the way to blender) with neat little chapters so you can watch only the parts that you're focusing on at a time

S4S forum in addition to the S4S software itself this forum provides plenty of tutorials and a CC creator community

The Creator Musing discord is also full of links to various tutorials and resources (and once again a community of peers)

Specifically for Blender :

@ravasheencc's Resources Archive, I remember especially her Blender Basics Video being quite helpful when I was starting out

@surely-sims's Edutainment Lives which you can find on her twitch, mainly focused on Build&Buy CC

PS : I didn't mention the normal/bump map and the specular map because they are very much optional. I honestly didn't use these until a few months ago and even now I don't bother with them most times

#ask #resources #pfew sorry for the novel #hope it's helpful #interacting

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tawus · 2 months

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what is your advice on writing smut? i rlly struggle with creating the chemistry and the tingly feeling in the pits of my stomach it ends up coming out too formulated

Sorry about the delay in answering this. I’ll give my personal pointers and also a more well-rounded resource at the end for the deeper dive

1. Good smut is driven by dialogue, with stakes

Usually for the purpose of turning us on, you gotta have dialogue. Endless descriptions of sexual acts on their own end up becoming dull and nowadays there is SO much smut content out there that if you get bored with one, you can instantly click on a different fic.

Sexual acts come secondary and they’re tied to the primary thread of the tension-filled dialogue between the characters. All the way to the end there’s gotta be dialogue, and the sexual acts are performed almost in the background.

Plus, this is fanfiction, right? We turn to fics to be able to indulge in the attention of our 2D faves. So any dialogue line you write - we will read in the voice of our favourite character and that is what breathes life into that scene.

One of my best smut works is in chapter 6 of Sophisticated (warning: very filthy), but god knows I spent so much time building up the tension between the characters that some readers actually began complaining under the previous chapters, going "When are they gonna fuck already??". When they finally did fuck, 10 out of 10 readers admitted it was worth the wait. Doesn’t mean you gotta write a slowburn longfic to deliver a great smut, but you gotta establish the stakes for either character: what do they have to lose as a result of this lapse of judgement? What does it mean for each of them to let the other fuck them? Don’t be afraid to give your Reader character a personality and preferences - I know a lot of ‘x reader’ authors are afraid to do this, but I do nothing but this.

2. Good smut has to turn me on as I write it

This is lowkey TMI but it is what it is. I tend to write my smut scenes in one sitting, or two if it’s a really long one. I make sure to sit down to write it at a time I know I won’t be interrupted, so that I can catch the horny flow and ride it to the very end. I don’t think about how my sentences turn out, I just keep writing and writing it as filthy as it gets. Editing the text on a later day will fix it all up.

Onanism beforehand is forbidden btw. If you do, post-nut clarity will set in and you won’t be in the right mind for writing smut.

3. Good smut is built around MY kinks

Say, if you chose to take on a commission or a request, in that case you might be forced to write someone else’s kink – and even in that case, it won’t come out quite as genuine if you don’t at least try to embody their kink. But in general when you’re writing fics, centre your smut scenarios around your OWN kinks. That way they will come out most authentic. Don’t try to cater to everyone; you’ll never be able to. Whatever your favourite way of doing the nasty is, write it that way and I guarantee you there will be readers out there who share your preferences and those will be the ones who appreciate your work.

4. You can be inspired by well written smut, but please, for the love of enjoyment and author integrity, don’t copy – it shows.

Sorry, this isn’t directed towards you, but I’ve had experience related to this where someone copied my smut scene almost word for word and I was just like…bruh. In any case, because there is already so much smut content both here and AO3, people are just looking for something new, something unorthodox, something that doesn’t use the same cookie-cutter smut sentences, scenarios, and terms. So the more original your scene is, the better! Don't be afraid to get extra filthy with your descriptions or dialogue lines, venture out of those bounds you read in other smut fics.

And here is the external all-rounded source for writing steamy stuff: ‘I Give You My Body’ by Diana Gabaldon. Dm me if you can’t get it anywhere

#ask tawus #writing advice #writing #creative writing #writing techniques #writer tips #writers #writers on tumblr #ao3 writer #fanfiction #tawus

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esoxy · 7 months

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So let's get into the nitty-gritty technical details behind my latest project, the National Blue Trail round-trip search application available here:

This project has been fun with me learning a lot about plenty of technologies, including QGis, PostGIS, pgRouting, GTFS files, OpenLayers, OpenTripPlanner and Vita.

So let's start!

In most of my previous GIS projects I have always used custom made tools written in ruby or Javascript and never really tried any of the "proper" GIS tools, so it was a good opportunity for me to learn a bit of QGIS. I hoped I could do most of the work there, but soon realized it's not fully up to the job, so I had to extend the bits to other tools at the end. For most purposes I used QGis to import data from various sources, and export the results to PostGIS, then do the calculations in PostGIS, re-import the results from there and save them into GeoJSON. For this workflow QGIS was pretty okay to use. I also managed to use it for some minor editing as well.

I did really hope I could avoid PostGIS, and do all of the calculation inside QGIS, but its routing engine is both slow, and simply not designed for multiple uses. For example after importing the map of Hungary and trying to find a single route between two points it took around 10-15 minutes just to build the routing map, then a couple seconds to calculate the actual route. There is no way to save the routing map (at least I didn't find any that did not involve coding in Python), so if you want to calculate the routes again you had to wait the 10-15 minute of tree building once more. Since I had to calculate around 20.000 of routes at least, I quickly realized this will simply never work out.

I did find the QNEAT3 plugin which did allow one to do a N-M search of routes between two set of points, but it was both too slow and very disk space intense. It also calculated many more routes than needed, as you couldn't add a filter. In the end it took 23 hours for it to calculate the routes AND it created a temporary file of more than 300Gb in the process. After realizing I made a mistake in the input files I quickly realized I won't wait this time again and started looking at PostGIS + pgRouting instead.

Before we move over to them two very important lessons I learned in QGIS:

There is no auto-save. If you forget to save and then 2 hours later QGIS crashes for no reason then you have to restart your work

Any layer that is in editing mode is not getting saved when you press the save button. So even if you don't forget to save by pressing CTRL/CMD+S every 5 seconds like every sane person who used Adobe products ever in their lifetimes does, you will still lose your work two hours later when QGIS finally crashes if you did not exit the editing mode for all of the layers

----

So let's move on to PostGIS.

It's been a while since I last used PostGIS - it was around 11 years ago for a web based object tracking project - but it was fairly easy to get it going. Importing data from QGIS (more specifically pushing data from QGIS to PostGIS) was pretty convenient, so I could fill up the tables with the relevant points and lines quite easily. The only hard part was getting pgRouting working, mostly because there aren't any good tutorials on how to import OpenStreetMap data into it. I did find a blog post that used a freeware (not open source) tool to do this, and another project that seems dead (last update was 2 years ago) but at least it was open source, and actually worked well. You can find the scripts I used on the GitHub page's README.

Using pgRouting was okay - documentation is a bit hard to read as it's more of a specification, but I did find the relevant examples useful. It also supports both A* search (which is much quicker than plain Dijsktra on a 2D map) and searching between N*M points with a filter applied, so I hoped it will be quicker than QGIS, but I never expected how quick it was - it only took 5 seconds to calculate the same results it took QGIS 23 hours and 300GB of disk space! Next time I have a GIS project I'm fairly certain I will not shy away from using PostGIS for calculations.

There were a couple of hard parts though, most notably:

ST_Collect will nicely merge multiple lines into one single large line, but the direction of that line looked a bit random, so I had to add some extra code to fix it later.

ST_Split was similarly quite okay to use (although it took me a while to realize I needed to use ST_Snap with proper settings for it to work), but yet again the ordering of the segments were off a slight bit, but I was too lazy to fix it with code - I just updated the wrong values by hand.

----

The next project I had never used in the past was OpenTripPlanner. I did have a public transport project a couple years ago but back then tools like this and the required public databases were very hard to come by, so I opted into using Google's APIs (with a hard limit to make sure this will never be more expensive than the free tier Google gives you each month), but I have again been blown away how good tooling has become since then. GTFS files are readily available for a lot of sources (although not all - MAV, the Hungarian Railways has it for example behind a registration paywall, and although English bus companies are required to publish this by law - and do it nicely, Scottish ones don't always do it, and even if they do finding them is not always easy. Looks to be something I should push within my party of choice as my foray into politics)

There are a couple of caveats with OpenTripPlanner, the main one being it does require a lot of RAM. Getting the Hungarian map, and the timetables from both Volánbusz (the state operated coach company) and BKK (the public transport company of Budapest) required around 13GB of RAM - and by default docker was only given 8, so it did crash at first with me not realizing why.

The interface of OpenTripPlanner is also a bit too simple, and it was fairly hard for me to stop it from giving me trips that only involve walking - I deliberately wanted it to only search between bus stops involving actual bus travel as the walking part I had already done using PostGIS. I did however check if I could have used OpenTripPlanner for that part as well, and while it did work somewhat it didn't really give optimal results for my use case, so I was relieved the time I spend in QGIS - PostGIS was not in vain.

The API of OpenTripPlanner was pretty neat though, it did mimic Google's route searching API as much as possible which I used in the past so parsing the results was quite easy.

----

Once we had all of the data ready, the final bit was converting it to something I can use in JavaScript. For this I used my trusted scripting language I use for such occasion for almost 20 years now: ruby. The only interesting part here was the use of Encoded Polylines (which is Google's standard of sending LineString information over inside JSON files), but yet again I did find enough tools to handle this pretty obscure format.

----

Final part was the display. While I usually used Leaflet in the past I really wanted to try OpenLayers, I had another project I had not yet finished where Leaflet was simply too slow for the data, and I had a very quick look at OpenLayers and saw it could display it with an acceptable performance, so I believed it might be a good opportunity for me to learn it. It was pretty okay, although I do believe transparent layers seem to be pretty slow under it without WebGL rendering, and I could not get WebGL working as it is still only available as a preview with no documentation (and the interface has changed completely in the last 2 months since I last looked at it). In any case OpenLayers was still a good choice - it had built in support for Encoded Polylines, GPX Export, Feature selection by hovering, and a nice styling API. It also required me to use Vita for building the application, which was a nice addition to my pretty lacking knowledge of JavaScript frameworks.

----

All in all this was a fun project, I definitely learned a lot I can use in the future. Seeing how well OpenTripPlanner is, and not just for public transport but also walking and cycling, did give me a couple new ideas I could not envision in the past because I could only do it with Google's Routing API which would have been prohibitively expensive. Now I just need to start lobbying for the Bus Services Act 2017 or something similar to be implemented in Scotland as well

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scasuallypursuits · 5 months

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#1: Me Brand New Here.

New artist here in tumbler. Will have NSFW work. Started here in tumblr cuz I needed a place to further discuss on what I did for this specific art works I did and twitter limited characters was quite limiting. Was fun trying to be concise in my post to it. Like this Zelink art I did.

It started because I saw a pose base that I had heart cupping on it on twitter and I did like the energy it gave. The proportions wasn't something I could use so I decided build the pose from scratch again and only used the hands as reference instead.

While working on it. It was quite cute but it felt that it needed a little something more to truly make it pop . Someone on discord did a cool, saturated text over some work they did and I wanted to emulate that. That's why there's a whole "ZELINK" text in the middle.

It was okay like this but it still felt boring for so I added a new layer then just started those action lines you see in anime and manga to show energy and shaking.

It looked good and I thought hey why not add more? So I did. Those contrasting colored lines really makes this impact better for me and the splashed background as well add even more energy to it. At least to me.

It was incredibly fun too. To just throw around shapes and lines and color all over the canvas. The strong digital 2d elements over a soft rendered work looks really great for me. A style I'm recently going for. I only have like one more of this for me to how for in future post.

If your reading until here, you might have noticed they are hearth cupping Zelda's boob. The reason why I wanted this pose in the first place. There is a naked versions of them. Will post the latter as well in the future. Cuz there was some stuff I did under they're clothes ;) . Just something simple.

Also, since me new here, any tips as an NSFW artist here in tumblr? Doing some research. It seems that sexual themes are allowed but not anything to graphic nor genitalia showing. So I'll probably won't post those works I have then.

EDIT 12/12/23: Added some reference video and photos for better readability.

#digital art #artists on tumblr #legend of zelda #zelink #botw #loz fanart #loz botw #sleepy_blogging #sleepy_blogging_known

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38sr · 1 year

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Meet the Artist & FAQs (2023 Edition)

Hey everyone! Just wanted to do an updated FAQ post for those new and long time followers of this blog~

QUICK ARTIST FACTS

• My name is Li Cree

• My birthday is August 3rd (yes I’m a Leo)

• I’m originally from New York but now currently live in California as of 2020

• I am VERY short (barely 5ft/152cm)

• My favorite food is strawberry shortcake

FAQs

What do you do?

I’m a professional 2D animator and storyboard artist for TV animation for both American and international productions. I've recently also started working as a character designer!

What shows have you work on?

There's too many to count now since the last FAQ haha. But you can see a more detailed list over on my website.

What program do you use?

For storyboarding work: Storyboard Pro

For animation: CLIP Studio Paint EX, OpenToonz, After Effects, Audition

For illustration: CLIP Studio Paint EX

What tablet do you use?

Cintiq 22HD (No Touch)

What art college did you attend?

I attended Montserrat College of Art as well as Niigata School of Art & Design.

Can I ask questions about the animation industry?

Absolutely! I want this blog to be a space where I can share knowledge about the industry to those who are interested in working in this field. So please don’t be shy and drop an ask if you are every curious about what’s like being a board artist and animator for TV animation.

Just please behave and do not ask any questions in regards to projects I am legally contracted to not talk about until the official release. As well as bringing up any sort of rumors/gossip about productions. This space is meant to be educational and not a drama stirring blog. If anything, I will delete these kind of questions with no hesitation and zero tolerance.

What does 38sr mean?

38sr is the 38th element of the periodic table, strontium. The element is actually used for pyrotechnics and gives off a red color when ignited. It’s simply my favorite element.

Can I use your art as my dp (profile picture)?

As long as you give credit in your bio or somewhere I can see it, then yes you can.

Can I repost your artwork?

No. Please don’t ever repost my work. I will find you. It’s not that hard.

Do you do AI or NFT work?

ABSOLUTELY NOT. Sorry, I don't wanna get into the crosshairs about this. Just know it's a nah from me.

Do you do requests/commissions (illustration or animations)?

Not really. It’s hard to explain but if you wish to hire me as an animator or artist for a project (animated productions, zines, etc), please send a business inquiry to my business email. But if you’re looking for just regular commissions where it’s more open to the general public, then no. My work schedule is quite packed so I don’t have the capacity to do commissions like I used to years ago.

#meet the artist #faq

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whypolar · 9 months

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Gundam Unicorn OVA 1: Day of the Unicorn

I enjoyed this quite a lot.

Banagher is a responsible father. Stick a "baby on board" decal on the back of his work mech.

I think it's probably pretty rare for fans who don't know Japanese to read the Unicorn novels before watching the anime. They weren't even fully translated until well after the anime finished airing. Even nowadays, when we have the full fan TL available, I doubt many people decide "Yes, I will read an edited machine translation of ten light novels, even though I know the series has been adapted into seven anime episodes of movie length and quality and I have never watched them". It was novel-only character information that first caught my interest, though, so I get to do it the unusual way.

Will this make a difference in my perception of the anime? Who knows. I don't actually know much about what fan reception was like back in 2010-2014, in either the west or Japan.

Thoughts below.

I'll start with complaints first, since I have only one:

👎 Removed all textual and visual indication of Banagher being multiracial / Syam being Middle Eastern.

Why did they do this. I was genuinely surprised and disappointed to see this from Gundam, since the franchise has a history of diverse casts all the way back to 1979. Gundam 00 would have finished airing just a year before this came out, and that had two brown-skinned Middle Eastern protagonists. Did they hit a quota or something?

Things I really liked:

👍 Everything is beautiful.

It's so pretty. The way characters and expressions are drawn is pretty. The mechs are pretty. The death lasers and the resulting explosions are pretty.

The backgrounds! Ship interiors, industrial sites, the signs and posters in the city. It's all gorgeous.

👍 Robot Status: Wow, Cool

I looove the design of the cockpits and UI. I'd already seen the same setup used in Hathaway's Flash, but it’s not any less impressive here. It's so cool. It's SO cool. I love watching the little markers for the funnels pop up.

The mixing of 3D and 2D for complex scenes is pretty seamless, except for the bit at the very end where the Unicorn transforms. My suspension of disbelief can easily survive a few seconds of recognizable CGI.

God, the robots are cool. I love seeing the Kshatriya in motion.

👍Great use of one of my favourite little Gundam things: characters moving around in zero / reduced gravity.

There are some real weird shots in this one.

I love specialized architecture and infrastructure for low gravity environments! I love characters who are accustomed to living in space being strangely indifferent to the concept of up and down! I love deliberately confusing or unsettling camera angles! Raaaaah!!!

👍👍👍👍👍 MUSIC

It's good music.

The part of the score where the violins start going sour while Cardeas threatens Banagher, until it's just an ugly atonal mess? Love that.

I like that spooky echo sound they use sometimes-- I'm genuinely not sure whether it's built into the music tracks or an added sound effect? I interpreted it at first as an indication of Newtype Shenanigans, but it also seemed to show up in other moments that were dramatic or had a lot of deaths. Though I suppose a lot of people dying is something newtypes would pick up, so maybe it still is meant to represent that. I don't know. The sound is cool.

Some miscellaneous commentary, mostly but not exclusively about comparisons the novels:

Things move more quickly in the OVA than the novels, and the audience knows less about the characters. This is an inherent difference of medium and format. We spend less time inside the characters' heads, and this can give a very different first impression-- particularly of Banagher as the protagonist.

My impression of OVA Banagher is that he's a daydreamer, longing for something he can't place. Novel Banagher can also be described this way, but at least to me he felt more worn down and resigned in his detachment. The anime version has more of a wistful, almost romantic vibe. Maybe it's just those big ol' eyes.

Once he's seen the Unicorn, OVA Banagher has some kind of switch flip in his brain. From that point on, as soon as he gets an impulse, he is GOING. We aren't privy to any of his internal deliberation, just the snap decisions as they happen. He seems a lot more confident without his internal thoughts narrating everything, but also less socially aware.

Here's an actual change for you: in the OVA, Banagher actively volunteers to help Audrey get to the colony builder when she starts to leave. In the novel, she directly asks for his help-- and he says no!

He felt a pull to help when he saw she was in danger, but after they crashed he could hear police sirens. He didn't want to get in any more trouble after his little stunt, so she called him spineless and ran off. He has a whole little arc where he tries to just go back to school like nothing happened until Marida shows up and literally twists his arm. The guilt of ratting Audrey out is the push that makes him change his mind and go after her.

Some of the scenes this change skips were cute, but getting more of Banagher hanging out with Mineva when they aren't being actively chased is nice. It's also just a smartly economical use of time. I do think the change makes Banagher feel meaningfully different, though.

I was fond of him being a little more conflicted and moody, but there's also something really funny about a guy who so single-mindedly barrels into situations. He really does seem supernaturally compelled.

Just a laser guided missile of a boy. Hyperfocus: maximum.

Knowing a bit less about characters like Audrey and Marida works very well. We know about as much as Banagher.

Audrey is obviously someone important, but they don't even say the word "princess" until the VERY end-- like four minutes left on the runtime. They never drop her real name. We get all that through narration long before this in the novels (as well as a lot more direct discussion of the Sleeves and Zeon in general).

We get ZERO interiority or backstory for Riddhe in this first one. His first introduction is saving Audrey and Banagher's friends. They pointedly show you his little airplane charm with a special sound effect for like, two seconds maybe, so quickly you can barely process what it is. Very interesting.

We also know less about Banagher's mom… not necessarily a LOT less, but enough to feel like she's being kept a mystery.

Trust the process, Banagher.

This whole scene-- especially the face journey Banagher goes through-- is lovely.

Marida's civilian disguise is better in this version. Like, in-universe, I mean. She's serious and imposing at a glance in this coat look, which is important when we don't get to see her terrorize and physically overpower Banagher. Probably the right choice to redesign the look, but I did like the novel's gag of her being dressed like sharp-dressed secretary except conspicuously wearing sports shoes so she can still run and fight.

Very fun framing here of Cardeas' dramatic lore dump about newtypes, where it's being told over cool mech combat for the audience, but then they cut back to Zinnerman, who is already sick to bastard death of this guy. Stop expositing, old man, I'm here for a business transaction.

I always love when characters see a Gundam and just say "Gundam". It's good every time.

Gundam.

#remibloggue #gundam unicorn #gundam

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