#weird dual land contest | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

quiet-kunoichi · 3 years

Note

“ please….stay, just for tonight. ”

[ misc quotes meme | @suck-my-tomato | verse; post-modern ]

She had come over.

Well, that's not entirely true. Initially, Sasuke had showed up to her apartment after a missed call from her, followed by a quick [text:] im sorry about that. So; in lieu of their weird and strangled conversation the other night, where he offered his support any time she felt close to relapsing (or otherwise, but he wasn't ready to say that aloud just yet) -- Sasuke's slingshot brain thought of the worst conclusion and immediately called her back. But in fact, the call back wasn't so immediate, after all. It had been forty minutes since she had attempted initial contact. She doesn't pick up, and her awkward and uncertain voice tells him 'sorry you missed me. uh, yeah - leave a message and i'll get back to you .. eventually. probably.' The beep of her voicemail catches him off guard; a weird beat of silence begins the message before he mutters a quick, "Hey.. I hope you're alright-- Call me, okay?" Minutes pass with him staring expectantly at the screen. She doesn't call him back; he curses himself for getting caught up in his most recent painting. Unable to contain the swirl of emotions, Sasuke rises to his restless feet. He paces the room a few times, biting at the skin of his lip and glancing over to his blackened phone screen now and again. He even tried sitting back down at his canvas, picking up the brush and the palette again: just to get his mind off of it. Sasuke knew it would be pushing boundaries if he just showed up because she didn't reply in.. twelve minutes. "She's probably fine," He told the room, the drying paint, himself. But clearly he wasn't certain enough - because when his phone vibrates against the coffee table, Sasuke risks the detailed linework by nearly diving out of his seat to snatch his phone. But his once high-strung heart was now rocking heavy in his gut and making him seasick. Just a text from Naruto. He doesn't even bother to read it - instead pulling up the sporadic text conversation with Kimiko and rereading her short message as if he could read between the lines. Fuck it. In cases of recovering addicts, sometimes boundaries would have to be pushed; he was personally familiar. So, Sasuke snatched his car keys from their place beside the door and heads for her apartment. His hands were clammy and stuck to the steering wheel with an iron grip the whole time. What was he going to walk in on? Would this behavior bring up old, bruised memories - would it roll their hesitant friendship back a few steps? Maybe she truly didn't mean to call; maybe she was not even home. Or she was home, but had someone else over. That thought tightened his throat. But nothing compared to the nagging gnat of trauma whispering something much more foul in his ear: perhaps he didn't come soon enough, and the apartment would already be empty. Worse yet - a repeat of the scene he came across a few months ago. No. Sasuke refused to let his brain run down that beaten path: instead, he barely made it through a yellow light and parked on the street across from her apartment building. The next time he blinked, Sasuke was standing in front of her door, fist hanging in the air. Had he already knocked? He can't remember. Kimiko hadn't even the time to quickly soak up the leftover water from her hair and wrap up decently when the second knock came. It sends a zip of fear up her spine; her mouth is gummy, so she cannot even reply. She just wraps the nearest towel tightly around herself and quickly ( and carefully ) pads over to the front door of her rather.. 'minimalistic' apartment. No, she hadn't unpacked fully, yet. It wasn't that she was expecting to pick up and disappear at the drop of a hat; it was just too hard a task, truthfully. Opening the door a crack (seeing as this apartment didn't have the foresight to install peepholes) Kimiko peers through a sliver, a single dull yellow eye landing upon his face. Oh --

Blinking a few times, Kimiko's death grip on her door is slackened in surprise. The door comes open a few more inches, and reveals that she indeed just got out of the bath. "..Sasuke?" She questions, as though the man before her might chameleon into someone else with her next blink. He stammers a reply; an apology - and she tells herself that the color of his cheeks was likely due to the strangeness of his voice, because she could not picture any other reason why he'd feel embarrassed. "H-hey. Uh, I'm sorry. I was just --" He's struggling to figure out how to express his thoughts coherently while she's standing there with her hair dripping and a towel tucked tightly around her slender frame. "You didn't answer, so.. I'm just checking in on you." Was it more awkward to look at her while she was sorta-kinda indecent, or more glaringly awkward to obviously not look at her at all? Her neighbor's door opens; Sasuke is ogled at from across the hall. Kimiko's stare slides over and the decision is made for her: she opens the door and gingerly takes his wrist, beckoning him inside. Closing the door behind him and locking ( the knob, the dead bolt, the chain, the swing-bar guard ) it, Kimiko turns to him and draws his attention back from where it wandered about her empty apartment. Well - mostly empty. Suppose the issue of not having any clutter or decorations was that a lone bottle of whiskey appeared like a glaring centerpiece on her coffee table. She'll behave as though it didn't exist. "Sorry. It's nothing personal; she stares at me, too." Kimiko murmurs, catching that telltale look of concern hardly concealed in his stare as he turns back to her. "Kimiko.." His voice is careful, as though they stood on thin ice and he was chancing the very real possibility that whatever he would say next could make them fall through and catch hypothermia. "I should get dressed," She'd reply, dipping her head and passing him by on her way back to the bathroom. Despite her hope that he would ignore the obvious, too - Kimiko returns to the front room once dressed, and Sasuke is leaning his weight into the arm of her couch rather than sitting upon it. She catches him in a staring contest with the bottle of liquor. Arms tucked across her midsection, she stands adjacent to him and awaits the backfire from being caught -- even if she hadn't indulged in it (yet). "I'm sorry I didn't pick up." Instead of scolding her, Sasuke apologizes. It's.. strange, but quietly welcomed in the stead of worse repercussions. She doesn't respond, because she doesn't know quite how to. So, with fingers steepled and head dipped to the floor between them, he speaks up again; but it's not without strain. "I know I said I'd be available for support if you needed it-" She's expecting him to follow this sentence with a 'but I said it too soon' or a 'but I changed my mind', and she doesn't want the heartache that would follow hearing that kind of statement, so Kimiko cuts him off. "It's fine, Sasuke. Really.. I'm fine." She shouldn't lie like that, but old habits die painfully slow. At last, his gaze lifts and they share a look; one that's hard to place. She knows that he knows she's lying, and she swallows the guilt and shame that comes with that. "I didn't have any. The cap is sealed, if you want to check." She offers the olive branch, and Sasuke truly considers it: but decides against it, in an attempt to show his trust in her claim. Even still, a short sigh escapes her; fingers come up to rub at her eye. Now having a proper look at her, Sasuke recognizes an old shirt she used to wear in high school. It draws attention to how much she's thinned down since then, the fabric now loose in places that it used to hold onto her curves. Dark crescents are worn like ghosts under her eyes, her cheekbones are taut and pronounced in a way he hasn't noticed before. Kimiko speaks up before he has the chance. "I did think about it," She admits, sounding tired. "And I did call," Another admittance, this one with a twinge more shame behind it. He gives a little wince. "But I walked away from it." A half-hearted shrug follows. Actually, she had tossed her phone on the couch and fled to the bathroom, mid-panic attack and desperate to scald and then simmer in a soup of flashbulb memories: just so she could watch them wash down the drain with the soapy bathwater. But a knock on the door interrupted that sequence, and now here they both were.

"It's okay that you didn't answer. I know that .." She hesitates, the fingers at her side starting to pluck at the edge of her shirt. "I know you're busy, with stuff." Ah, real smooth, Kimiko. That totally wasn't obvious. Her lips press firm, and she can no longer bear to hold his gaze, so she drops her own while slowly curling her grip over opposite arm. "And I'm fine to handle it on my own. I've done it before." Yeah, that probably wasn't the best thing to add in, either. "I was working on a painting." Sasuke replies, then turns over his palms to expose the flecks and streaks of paint that litter his pale skin. He's not sure why he felt like she needed the visual proof; but she had offered some tactile evidence with the sealed cap to her bottle of whiskey, earlier - and he wanted to extend the same offering in exchange. To make it a two-lane street, like his therapist had mentioned last week. Before her.. self-inflicted incident - Kimiko had been the only one expressing her efforts to make amends. He wasn't proud of the result; so now, in light of the aftermath: Sasuke wanted to try, too. "Oh." She replies, dumbly. "Um," Umber hues roam around the room, but he continues to look up at her. "..Sorry you came all the way out here to check on me. I didn't have my phone, I was in the bath, and-" Her fingers are plucked from her side and engulfed by the dual caress of both of his palms. He holds her small hand in his own, and places his other hand on top. It strikes her heart, giving it a kickstart as she looks between their clasped hands and back up to him. "Don't apologize." He begins, "I came to check on you because I wanted to." A thumb runs over the top of her hand, trying to soothe. Instead it just gets her heart in a weird flutter; unused to this intimacy, even after all this time. Or, perhaps especially after all this time. "I see." Is her quiet reply. Parting his lips, Sasuke realizes that she's transfixed on her hand sandwiched between his own. He returns it, but admittedly, it isn't without some reluctance: like pulling apart two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle after finally connecting their uneven ends. "..Have you eaten?" He asks, and she appears dumbfounded by the question. "What?" It comes from her mouth laced in confusion. "Have you had dinner? I parked by a sushi restaurant and I was thinking of ordering takeout." He looks up at her expectantly: Kimiko clearly hasn't been eating well enough, and he wouldn't let that slide by him. So, without an answer - Sasuke is already pulling up the menu on his phone, swiping a finger down the menu. "Do you still like salmon, and eel?" He gives her an upward glance; she's getting obviously flustered. "Sasuke.." Now it was her turn to lace her voice with the careful and wary tone of warning. It dawns on him, then -- He'd just invited himself to stay in her space. Casually, too: as if it were commonality. It hadn't been, not in a long time. The realization ( and deflation ) must have been rather obviously etched upon his features, because Kimi is quick to the draw and apologizing. "I'm sorry, it's just- I don't mean-" His hand comes up, and she quiets down. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have jumped the gun like that." He rises to his feet, stuffing his phone back into his pocket. "It's not like that,.." She trails off, and without transparency, Sasuke decides to play it safe. "It's okay to be uncomfortable, Kimiko. You've done well to respect my boundaries, and I don't want to push you. I'm glad you didn't relapse." They stand there for a few beats more - until he can't take it anymore, all the things left unsaid hanging between them; he heads for the door. "Sasuke, wait." Kimiko's voice is pressed with a twinge of urgency; she's gone as far as to take a few strides and grasp for his wrist. When he stops and looks down at her over his shoulder, Kimiko reflects the little girl at the playground all those years ago: doe-eyed, perpetually a tad afraid, knowing what she wanted but not yet certain on how to ask for it. She lets go of his wrist and returns her hands to herself, one arm still tucked around her center as the now free hand comes up to collect a strand of her hair. Sasuke turns to face her properly.

"It's not that I don't want to spend time with you," She begins to explain, pressing the knuckle of her finger ( wrapped with a coil of dark hair ) into her cheek. "I really appreciate the offer of sushi, and.. your time." A little inaudible gulp, and a stolen glance back up at him. "I just don't want to be here, really." At last, she's admitted the true hang-up to this entire situation. Slowly, his eyebrows raise -- he understands where her reluctance is coming from, almost immediately. "Kimiko, did he send-?" His concerned question is cut off with a quick toss of her head: No. Or, more likely: No, I don't want to talk about this right now. With a nod of acknowledgement, Sasuke folds his lips before proposing a solution. "Do you want to take the sushi to my place, then? We could watch a movie." His offer is received with a hopeful look on her part: like he had offered a child if they'd like to get ice-cream instead of doing their homework. "..Are you sure?" She has to ask, and it brings a little smile from him, exhaling through his nose. "Yeah, I'm sure." ------------- So their night together had officially begun; ( Kimiko did in fact still like salmon and eel ) - sushi was secured, the drive to his place was shared in amicable silence with the background of music, and the movie was picked effortlessly. Of course, she had perked up after that first ( and hesitant ) bite - and also to nobody's surprise, Kimiko had easily agreed to the movie he suggested; for it was a movie that she was planning to watch, anyway. The night played on without a single scratch or trip in the record, and conversations flowed back and forth without a hitch. They were truly getting along without so much as a hiccup or awkward pause along the way. Now satisfied and lulled, Kimiko was starting to drift upon his couch, curled against the pillow between them. The TV screen washed in red, and Sasuke hums in amusement, dipping his ear towards his shoulder and murmuring, "I guess you were right, Brenda didn't last longer than Stacy. Still, I don't think there's going to be a Final Girl." Kimiko hums something nonsensical, half-muffled by the pillow she'd nuzzled down into. Properly looking over now, Sasuke double-takes the scene beside him; and his heart swells. She was ..well, undoubtedly cute, curled up and dozing off in the smack-middle of a slasher movie. In the moment of privacy, Sasuke unfolds into an unseen smile. A few moments pass as he studies her sleep-slackened face, peaceful and unmarred from bruises or tears. Picturesque from their early highschool years. A little sigh escapes his nostrils, the familiar sense of nostalgia clutching him. Reaching forward, Sasuke plucks the remote from the coffee table and turns down the movie a notch or two before rising to his feet and taking care of the takeout boxes. She's done well to eat most of her food; he's proud that she made the effort. Returning to the couch, Sasuke brings with him a clean blanket from his storage closet. Gingerly, it's draped over the slumbering girl. He returns to her side, arms stretching into his wingspan across the back of the couch. His weight pressing into the cushions beside her causes Kimiko to stir; she tucks herself closer to him, nose following his familiar scent and notching against his shoulder. Sasuke stills in his spot as his old flame stitches slowly back into his side, the familiarity in such an action eliciting a similar response from him. His arm lifts from the back of the couch; it hovers just over her shoulders before slowly settling upon her. A hand cups her arm, sinking down into his seat on the couch and feeling his heart hammer in his chest: God, how he felt like a teenager, again. Those first few instances of intimate physical contact with his best friend whom he had an enthralling crush on: it came rushing back in, now. That twist of excitement tightening his chest in all the right ways, a weird warm flutter in his gut.

Thumb slowly begins to slide up and down over her bicep, Sasuke looking right through the TV screen as he dares let his cheek lower, one centimeter at a time, until it brushes just over the top of her head. He could just close his eyes and be content like this, turn into a statue forever in this position that he didn't realize how much he truly missed. But a shrill shriek from the movie is enough to pull Kimiko from her dreams; eyes slowly blink open before she realizes the circumstance and quickly retreats from the intimate embrace. Kimiko's heart is thunderous in her ears as she reels from the comedown of her otherwise peaceful slumber - eyes rounded into full moons that blink at him while she tries to collect her surroundings. "I- God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to- I just; I fell asleep." She's tripping over apologies and excuses for her 'inappropriate' behavior, and Sasuke's face is burning with the childish shame of being caught. Now he's flustered, too. "No- It's fine, really -uh, I didn't mind; you were just sleeping- I know." Their awkward dance stifled down into an even worse silence. His fingers twitched at the back of the couch, wanting to reach out and grip her arm so gently, to just quietly pull her in and tuck her under his chin, like the old times. But he doesn't, and her unforgiving grip on the pillow clutched to her chest slowly comes undone. Sasuke watches her, but again, she's receded back into her shell, unable to look over at him while coming down from the level of embarrassment she'd catapulted herself into. On the table between them, Sasuke's phone lights up with a text. Neither of them can see who its from, but Kimiko catches the time before the screen goes dark. "It's late.." She trails off; and he doesn't pick up on what she was insinuating. It was one in the morning, and he’d received a text. She could’ve read the name if she really tried, but she already had a good guess; and it made her stomach curdle. So, with a small swallow, Kimiko rubs her arm and starts to stand up. "I should get going." Suddenly, Sasuke understands - and he cannot bear the thought at this moment, not after all that's transpired: even if given the option this morning, he would've likely not felt any one particular way. Or maybe he would have - thoughts and feelings are scattered all over the place. But one thing was for certain, it was screaming in his head as she collected her things and tucked hair behind her ear, lingering; as though she were waiting for him to say something, anything, god damnit-- "Um, well. Thank you for dinner, and.. sorry I couldn't stay awake through the movie. Guess I'm aging fast," Her attempt at a little laugh breaks his heart. He feels like such an idiot, his tongue tangled into knots and sitting useless in his mouth, his body sewn into the couch. She must think he was just sitting there, waiting for her to excuse herself from his apartment on her own. Fuck. So much time has dragged by, when in reality it was only a single beat of silence before she cleared her throat softly and dropped her arms down. "Don't worry about driving me back, I know the bus routes." Her voice falters at the end, and suddenly, she's turned on her heel and heading with purpose towards his door - like ripping off a band aid. "Kimiko, wait-" Finally, words choke from his throat with his sheer desperation to keep her from leaving. Not again. Up on his feet now, Sasuke made it a whole three feet before realizing with subdued surprise that she had in fact ..waited. Almost as though she were hesitant to actually leave, in the first place. So, she stalls facing the front door and clutching her phone to her chest, lingering - waiting to hear him out. A single golden beam rolls over her shoulder and drinks him in, eyebrow dipped up in an expression of both uncertainty and hope. “ please... stay, just for tonight. ”

Slowly, quietly, Kimiko turns. They share a encapsulating moment, holding a tender stare from across the room. She recognizes the fear etched into his face - that telltale look of expectant abandonment, the childish shrinking away from his own vulnerability. Kimiko won’t leave him; not like she had, before. Before she weighed the fear of entangling him into her corrupted life against the knowledge that every time she slipped away and into the night, a little piece of his heart broke loose. So, as long as he would ask her to -- Kimiko would stay. He holds his heart in the base of his throat - truly expecting that she would turn back around and leave him here, alone. Maybe laugh at him for the inflated hope that she would stay for the night; be there when he woke up in the morning. Instead, Kimi breaks his expectations and approaches with careful, practiced steps - returning to his side. Without a hint of hesitation this time, Sasuke reaches out and scoops her into his embrace. His body was moving of its own accord, playing out the complicated desires of his heart. Kimiko doesn't fight it, nor does she still into ice. In fact, the girl just melts against him; doing what came naturally. It was second nature to tuck her head into the crook of his collarbone, to delicately slip her arms beneath his and hook her fingers into the fabric just over his shoulder blades. His chin rests atop her head, fingers gingerly running large, comforting circles over her back. Everything fell back into place; as natural and second-nature as breathing. There was no effort involved, in this moment of soft re-collision. Only a wish, on both of their parts - that this connection would have happened sooner. That their selfish games of head vs. heart would have been silenced and put out well before this night. Accompanying that desire was the hope that things would really be okay, this time: he would ask her to stay, and she would - he wouldn't mind, and it wouldn't be just for tonight. So, Kimiko had come over; and in the end, she wouldn’t leave his side unless he had asked her to.

#suckmytomato #CAN YOU BELIEVE IT #im unstoppable #i hope you enjoyed this episode of: im obsessed with our otp #HAPPY ENDINGS BABEY #answered;#verse; post modern

2 notes · View notes

stormtide-leviathan · 3 years

Text

Kaldheim Booster Challenge

I posted this on reddit, if you’d rather check it out there, but I wanted to share it here too b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶'̶m̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶t̶a̶n̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶d̶e̶s̶p̶e̶r̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶f̶f̶i̶r̶m̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶.

In the third great designer search, there was a challenge to pick a set and make a booster pack full of custom cards that fit in that set. I’ve started doing this for sets since Zendikar rising, and wanted to continue that tradition here. Why am I doing this so late after the release of Kaldheim? Cause shuttup, that’s why >:(

Here’s the link to the full imgur album. There are also individual imgur links even though there are images, cause reddit doesn’t allow images directly and I’m copy/pasting from there.

Anyway, let’s get started! (Long post ahead)

Common #1:

Divine Goat 3W

Creature- Goat

W, Sacrifice ~: You gain 3 life.

Whenever you cast your second spell each turn, return ~ from your graveyard to your hand.

Here’s a top down design, based on Thor’s goats that pulled his chariot and were sacrificed for food every night and reborn in the morning. Originally the recursion triggered based on Vehicles, but with two other vehicle cards in the booster including the other white common, one had to go and this was the best option, but I still liked the flavor so I went with another of white’s themes.

Common #2:

Dwarven Elder 2W

Creature- Dwarf Warrior

Whenever ~ crews a Vehicle, draw a card.

2/2

The fabled white card draw. Yes, I am your savior. Your messiah. Bow before my wisdom. I could technically see this design in either white or blue, but I liked white better and white cares more about vehicles anyway. I based the costing off Stealer of Secrets. This doesn’t put itself in danger, but relies much more on deck building to activate.

Common #3:

Ambusher Giant 5U

Creature- Giant Warrior

Flash

Foretell 3U (During your turn, you may pay 2 and exile this card from your hand face down. Cast it on a later turn for its foretell cost.)

4/4

Foretell works really well with instant speed, so I thought a big instant speed creature would be a good fit. Since blue has a giant tribal theme, and is one of the main colors for foretell, it was an obvious fit.

Common #4:

Heated Rebuttal 1U

Instant

Counter target spell unless its controller pays 2. They can’t spend S to pay this cost. (S is mana from a snow source.)

Here’s another snow hate card. What I really wanted to do with this was discourage running snow basics where you don’t have to, and though we have the god in the set that does this I think this is an issue that’s solved with both quality and quantity. I wasn’t sure on the power level of this for standard purposes, but I’d rather this more pushed version than be too weak and have it not do anything against snow.

Common #5:

Shapeshifter’s Trickery 1U

Enchantment- Aura

Enchant Creature

Enchanted creature gets +1/+0, is every creature type, and can’t be blocked.

Not too much to say here really. This is good for the tribal synergies in the set, and is just an innocuous little aura for limited. Not everything is gonna be pushing boundaries.

Common #6:

Draugr Fleshchewer 1B

Snow Creature- Zombie Berserker

Whenever Draugr Fleshchewer attacks, mill two cards. If a snow card was milled this way, Draugr Fleshchewer gains menace until end of turn.

2/2

This originally worked with the “exile a creature card from your graveyard” subtheme, but I had to change this to snow and I couldn’t get a good snowy design that used that mechanic. So instead, it fuels it. I also wanted to have another card that cares about the existence of snow instants/sorceries because they were introduced this set and the number of cards that only work with snow permanent cards when they don’t have to is strange.

Common #7:

Arrogant Stand 3R

Sorcery

Creatures without a boast ability can’t block this turn.

Here’s a simple little card that plays around with the flavorful space of boast. You have to be very full of yourself to stand up to the oncoming attack.

Common #8:

Winterdark Ritual 2R

Snow Instant

Add three mana of any one color.

Foretell R (During your turn, you may pay 2 and exile this card from your hand face down. Cast it on a later turn for its foretell cost.)

Is the name completely on the nose? Absolutely. And I find that hilarious. This is taking advantage of the fact that foretell is payed in multiple payments to turn that into mana storage. And it’s snow, because snow rituals are new to the set, play well, and I don’t think it makes it too powerful, though this has a lot of little factors to it that might push it over the edge. Any number of them could easily be tweaked though.

Common #9:

Blessing of Koma G

Enchantment- Aura

Enchant creature

Enchanted creature has “T: Add one mana of any color.”

2, Sacrifice ~: Draw a card.

This card is secretly also a snow card. The intention is, you can enchant snow creatures with it to get extra snow mana. However, it’s not snow itself because a) I thought that made for a cool moment of discovery and b) If it was snow, a lot of players would mistakenly think the mana is snow whether or not the creature it enchants is.

Common #10:

Boulderskin Troll 3G

Creature- Troll Warrior

When ~ dies, search your library for a Forest or Mountain card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. Shuffle your library.

3/2

I really wanted this card to be red. See, the legend goes that when a troll goes out in the sun it turns into rock and I thought tutoring for a Mountain when it died would be a good way to do that. However, I just couldn’t find a good way to do that which felt red, so I had to make this green. Luckily red/green are the troll colors so it could still find a mountain. I specifically chose nonbasic so that it could synergize with the snow duals at common.

Uncommon #1:

Immerstrum Berserker 3BB

Creature- Demon Berserker

Boast- 2B: ~ gains lifelink until end of turn. (Activate this ability only once each turn and only if this creature attacked this turn.)

Boast- 1B: Each opponent discards a card. (You may activate both boasts in a single turn.)

5/3

It has two boasts. Ya know how most creatures only have one boast, if any? Well not this, it has two. That’s it. That’s the design.

Uncommon #2:

Master Shipcrafter 1R

Creature- Dwarf Artificer

1R: ~ gets +2/+0 until end of turn.

Whenever a creature you control crews a Vehicle for the first time each turn, that Vehicle gains that creature’s activated abilities until end of turn.

0/2

There’s this weird tension in the set where R/W both encourages you to play a lot of vehicles, and has a lot of boast creatures, which do not work well at all together. This card is an attempt to fix that. Originally it just worked with boast, #notallactivatedabilities, but that was an extremely narrow card so I widened the scope. There’s certainly some weird combos you can do with this, but nothing too bad in limited though.

Uncommon #3:

Ring of Kinship 2

Artifact- Equipment

Equipped creature gets +1/+1

Creature spells you cast that share a creature type with equipped creature cost 1 less to cast.

Equip 1

I’m a big fan of equipment and auras that have a universal effect that cares about a quality of the equipped creature. I dunno why, but it tickles me. Creature type is a good thing to care about on designs like this though, and I wanted both an equipment and a tribal reward in the booster, so it was a good fit.

Rare:

Kvasha, God of Magic 3UU

Legendary Creature- God

Flying

When ~ enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying for each enchantment you control and each enchantment card in your graveyard.

Sacrifice a Spirit: You may cast spells as though they have flash this turn.

Kvasha’s Birth 2GW

Enchantment- Saga

I, II: Until your next turn, whenever ~ or another enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, draw a card.

III: Mill six cards. Exile ~ then return it to the battlefield face-up.

I’m genuinely really sad they didn’t do a god with a saga as its backside, it could have been really cool. So I made one myself!! I wanted it to at least be feasible as a commander for a Saga deck, and since Kaldheim has a lot of enchantments running around I figured it could use an enchantress like this. The tricky part was, I had to make a blue card that could also feasibly be a selesnya card, since the saga turns into it. It also works well with the tribal themes and the spirit subtype in the set, though that’s more of a bonus than anything else. If you’re wondering why this card looks different, that’s for two reasons. One, I can’t make Sagas on MSE. And two, this overlapped nicely with the Inventor’s Fair contest of the week on tumblr, which I use mtg.design for since it’s easier to get links that way. (Check them out! @inventors-fair That contest is what finally pushed me to finish this booster).

Basic:

Snow-Covered Swamp

Snow Land- Swamp

T: Add B.

Look, it's a snow-covered swamp. I needed a snasic in here. I dunno what else you want from me.

So there we go!! Finally!! The booster challenge that took weeks longer than it should have. What do you think of the designs? Do you think they would fit well within Kaldheim? If not, how could I fix them? Also I probably made a formatting mistake somewhere in here so if you notice like, a wrong link or something let me know. Also, if you want me to tackle an old set feel free to request it, though since this took me weeks for some reason I can’t make any promises lol.

Here’s boosters I’ve done before:

- Zendikar Rising: Reddit

- Commander Legends: Reddit // Tumblr

#mtg #magic #magic the gathering #custommagic #custommtg #kaldheim #booster challenge #long post #original post

5 notes · View notes

tfw-no-tennis · 3 years

Text

mtmte liveblog issue 19

it’s 2021 now!! time for more transformers

we start off w/a flashback showing tyrest retrieving ultra magnus’s body from the ship - and we get a look at magnus’s spark, which is the green color of a 0.1%er [eyes emoji]

tyrest punching magnus..... grrrrr leave my dad alone bastard man

‘the divided self’ what a good title

rodimus is like listen man this is a lot for my poor thot brain to take in

in flashback land, we see tyrest immediately launch into a crazy person spiel about how he can and will edit the law as he sees fit to conform to the situation, because that doesn't seem like a blatant abuse of power or a huge conflict of interest or anything

oooh the screen in the corner that says ‘thought warfare,’ I see that

oof, poor magnus. its gotta be rough to hear your boss rant about how bad at your job you are....especially bc this is right after overlord called magnus a joke and nearly killed him

its especially brutal bc as magnus says, his job is his life

augh, I love the panel where the armor is falling off around minimus, and then the one where he’s holding the ultra magnus head...poetic

its fascinating that there was an ‘original’ magnus who was an actual guy, and then tyrest chose to make him into this legacy symbol - I'm assuming the OG magnus had no say in this, and probably didn't even know that he was gonna become this lawman legacy figure

I do wanna know though - obviously everyone thought that ultra magnus was one dude, but how did the different guys wearing the armor deal w/that? like, did minimus have people coming up to him like ‘hey ultra magnus old buddy! remember when we fought those guys in that one place? good times!’ like, do they have to study up on the lives of the past armor wearers to prepare for the role of ultra magnus?

augh poor minimus, of course he’s been wondering about what happened with overlord after he was KO’d

oof, drift...I feel like minimus looks surprised and a little skeptical at the idea that drift was the one behind the entire overlord thing - which is interesting bc as we saw at the beginning of the story, he doesn't exactly trust drift, but it’s still pretty far-fetched that one person orchestrated the entire thing

tailgate :(

the concept of a load-bearer is SUPER cool, I love it so much

it also puts a much-needed limit on things - as in, there IS a limit to how much weight/mass a normal cybertronian frame can carry, which is why you don't see everybody upgrading to be Massive - bc they actually CANT

oof, the worst part is that tyrest is RIGHT, minimus essentially DID have a nervous breakdown after the war ended bc of the rigid way he views the world

mental health support is clearly in shambles for cybertronians, yikes. they literally have 1 therapist for their entire race, and he’s not even licensed anymore due to hipaa violations. what a mess

the ‘attention deflectors’ thing is so cool and clever and also a great explanation as to why ratchet or anyone else never said ‘hey wait a minute, you're actually a much smaller dude in a trench coat’

I love tailgate knowing all the stuff about the autobot code bc of magnus...my BOY

and THATS why minimus was asking about skids specifically earlier!

oh minimus, please don't put so much stock in tyrest being stable and resonable...

aaaand there's skids and swerve! brainstorm says it best - ‘because something unexpected hasn't happened for at least nine seconds.’ lmao ily brainstorm

finally checking in w/whirl and cyclonus - god I love that. whirl asking cyclonus how many cons he killed and cyc is like psh I wasn't keeping count....................ok it was six

hhhhh cyclonus IS looking for a cure for tailgate, even though he told tg that there wasn’t anything to hope for....excuse me as I go be emo

and now we flash over to the unethical medical conduct hell zone, where pharma is being weird and horny and ratchet is appropriately horrified

I seriously love how unhinged pharma looks, the art & colors do such a good job conveying his feral energy

ratchet has some massive dick energy for taunting pharma when he’s currently just a head and pharma has dual chainsaws for hands

ugh, I love whirls speech about anger...and I feel like he really does see cyclonus as a peer, despite cyclonus wanting to kill him, which is why he tells cyclonus all of this

I fuckgin love that cyclonus’s reaction to very suddenly getting stabbed thru the abdomen is to just glance down at the sword, looking mildly inconvenienced

back over to ratchet - and at first its like oh wow I can’t believe pharma was stupid enough to let ratchet goad him into this contest....but then you see first aid and ambulon and its like UH OH this is gonna be BAD

the idea that getting sliced in half is no big deal for a cybertronian is wild

‘you're gonna let doctor djd cut us in half?’ yeahhhh that's an appropriate reaction, yikes

FUCKING LENGTHWAYS GOD

pharma you piece of shit

poor ambulon :( :( :( that's fucking brutal. amazing panel but....jesus

and like, to further my point from last issue’s liveblog - the fact that this very gore-y panel is okay, but swearing isn't...that's really funny honestly. I guess robo-gore is acceptable, while I'm guessing regular ole run of the mill human gore wouldn't be

then back to cyclonus, who is still looking only vaguely put out by the sword stuck right thru him

and then cyclonus just pulls it right out, which is a very bad idea for humans but probably not as big of a deal for big near-immortal alien robots

circle of light stuck in capitalistic urban hellscape cubicals

poor skids, being asked to stand trial while having no idea what his crime is due to Big Amnesia

OH SHITTTT I totally forgot that getaway shows up here

that is super clever though, with chromedome confusing the name ‘getaway’ with the concept ‘needing to escape’

cant believe tyrest is really dumb enough to tell minimus all his evil plans

BUT that means its time for some very important forged vs constructed cold lore

jro spelling ‘program’ as ‘programme’ made me remember when he said that he considers everyone on the lost light to be british, which is perhaps the least valid thing he’s ever said vhbghjsdbfjkhasbjk

the idea that they used the matrix - which is portrayed as kind of a holy object - in reproductive experiments is really interesting

AUGHHHHH this is all so good and interesting...im really fascinated w/this particular brand of like, alien robot racism/constructism/whatever you wanna call it - I feel like it does such a good job as a plot device, where many other ‘fantasy racism’ concepts from other franchises fail, bc there's not really a ‘human metaphor’ being used here (as far as I know/can tell) - as in, this isn't a thinly veiled metaphor for something that happened/could happen in human history

in fact, this type of bigotry (or w/e you wanna call it) isn't something that is even really possible in humans - I guess if there was a stigma against being born via ivf or something...? but there isn't, so there's no obvious real-world equivalent, which I take as a sign of good writing and worldbuilding - it makes the cybertronians feel more Real, bc of course they would have their own types of bigotry based off of completely different things than humans

additionally - and this is crucial - tyrest is wrong: there’s no like, inherent moral corruption in cold constructed bots. there's no difference at all, other than method of construction. fantasy racism plotlines often flounder here, with the oppressors having a ‘valid reason’ for oppressing the oppressed, but tyrest is just operated on religious zealot bs and some biased science

like, dude, did you ever think that maybe there are other reasons why your trials only condemned cold constructed bots? like, maybe the trial itself was biased? or societal conditions were to blame? correlation is not causation, my dude, especially when the conclusion is ‘cold constructed bots are inherently SINNERS’ lmao

like, tyrest rlly said ‘FUCK separation of church and state,’ huh

anyways I just think the whole cold construction vs forged thing is really interesting and well-done, and serves as a good precursor to the more fleshed-out functionism stuff we see later

so tyrest is clearly off his rockers w/the whole drilling thing - dude, you accidentally gave yourself a lobotomy, okay - but I find it kinda funny that he’s right about a lot of that stuff he said at the end, about primus and the guiding hand and stuff being real

cyclonus saying ‘tailgate and the others’...I see you, man, I see you

also cyclonus looks fine now??? didn't he just get stabbed???

ah, tyrest sprinkling a little light genocide onto his plan to find salvation. nice, dude!

MINIMUS NOOOOOOOOO

‘fully deserved’ SHUT UP BIIIIITCH

poor minimus is taking a lot of Ls this arc, geez

oof, great issue! again, as usual....I loved the lore we got this issue, its so interesting...and some good character stuff too. I love minimus, I feel like he’s gonna be my fav this readthru; my first read my fav was brainstorm, second readthru was whirl, and I feel like its minimus/magnus this time. I just love his character arc...

hype af for more B)

#lj rereads mtmte

2 notes · View notes

sebbybooks · 4 years

Text

Going Through Lighting

Sebastian Stan x Fanfiction

“If he touched her, he couldn’t talk to her,

If he loved her, he couldn’t leave, if he

spoke he couldn’t listen, if he fought he

couldn’t win.” A.R

Deep breaths Franny.

Deep.

Fucking.

Breaths.

At the risk of sounding completely dramatic I was feeling morbidly sick and had to strongly resist the urge to not shout out my frustrations at the top of my lungs. Maybe I was slightly overreacting, but nonetheless I was still petrified. Considering the fact that I was thousands of feet in the air there was nothing in this world that I hated more than flying. Yet there I was headed all the way to California to hear about a surprise from my Dad that apparently couldn't be said to me over the phone.

I inaudibly let out a string of silent curse words that would make a sailor blush. I returned my focus back to my computer screen to finish one of my favorite films of all time in efforts to relax. I was mindlessly watching An Affair to Remember, a movie that by now I have reduced to memory. It was the scene where Terry was racing to get to the Empire State Building to confess her love to Nickie, before a car came whizzing by and hit her. When I suddenly noticed from out of the corner of my eye that the guy sitting next to me had been watching my laptop screen too.

Seeing that he had been caught spying on me he felt obliged to speak up. "You know I really hate that part. Cary Grant's character waited for hours on end and she never even showed up." The guy to my right said as he slightly leans a little closer causing our shoulders to brush. His cologne fills under my nose and I inhale it slowly. It almost duals as an aromatherapy for my anxiety. Almost.

Pulling my wireless headphones from my ears I shift a little in my seat to face him and smiled a sardonic smile. "Are you kidding me?" I gaped. I pressed the space bar on my laptop to pause the movie fully prepared to defend the actions of a fictitious woman from a 1957 melodramatic film classic. "Terry desperately tried to get to him. It wasn't her fault she became paralyzed after the accident. Nickie was clearly obtuse and too stupid to think that even for a second she didn't wait for him!"

I waited for his rebuttal, but oddly enough he remained tight lipped. We stared awkwardly at each other like it was some weird staring contest neither one of us wanted to lose. Eventually I blinked. As soon as I did I took in his appearance and from what I could see on the outside he was fairly decent. Ok I'll admit decent would not have begun to describe his natural attractiveness. His hair was longer on the top and shorter on the sides. You could see shadows of facial hair and tiny bits of gray stubble around his mouth and jawline.

He wore a pair of fitted tailored ash gray trousers and a crisp white Oxford rolled up to his forearm, he certainly wasn't dressed for a long flight. By the looks of his five thousand dollar Cartier wristwatch I wondered what the hell was he doing back in here economy class. My eyes start to stray further down his body and I quit while I was ahead because I could already see the slight bulge of his crotch. To avoid looking like a complete pervert I nip our meaningless conversation in the bud and I hit play on my movie. Right as I'm placing my earbuds back in I hear the faintest laugh come out of him. I bite back on my instinct to keep quite. "Now what?"

"Nothing. . ." His voice trailed off. "Is this your first time flying?" He asks with a knowing looking. Those bright blue eyes bore into me.

"Flying isn't exactly on my list of things that excite me, but no this isn't my first time." I hesitated. "What was it that gave me away?" I asked purely out of curiosity. I gripped my middle finger and index finger tightly to stimulate feeling back into my hand that's started to tingle.

"For starters you were fidgeting in your seat for the longest time and for about a minute or two you stopped squeezing the life out of your hand while you were talking to me. I figured if I came up with something to say you would get distracted and maybe just for a moment you would think about something else so that your fingers would still have functioning nerves in your hand by the time we landed. " He says, and within an instant I dropped them to my lap. I immediately start to cringe at myself.

One would think it would get easier over time and that I would find better ways to at least deal with my fear of being on airplanes. Being an assistant buyer for Saks comes with the territory, but traveling outside of work I typically liked to avoid it at all cost. A fact that seems to escape my father. When he called me a few days ago with an urgency in his voice that made my stress levels skyrocket. Only to be replaced with confusion because it wasn't like my dad to be so secretive about anything. He asked that I come out to see him right away despite it not being a life or death matter. Considering I was all he had and he was adamant about me seeing him. I figured it was all just a rouse for him to just get me to spend more time with him.

"Thanks." I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, forcing my eyes shut hoping that I would disappear from my inability to act normal on airplanes. For a few seconds I believed he had returned to minding his own business. It was silence, and then, "You don't want to know what my name is?" He asks.

I can feel his eyes on me and I purposely keep my head turned away from him. "If I guess Rumpelstiltskin do I get to keep my first born child? Or can you simply not say your name Betelgeuse?" I couldn't stop myself from teasing him. I tried to hide the grin trying to grow on my face. Was I actually smiling?

"Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice." He paused and looked all around him as if he misplaced something. He brought his hands to his chest in a frantic gesture. "I'm still here so nope that's not my name either."

"How unfortunate then." I feigned a sigh. He looked at me as if he had met his match and for some reason I liked the approving look. I easily wanted more. His presence brought a temporary calmness that I didn't want to lose so quickly despite my initial cold shoulder brought on by trepidations from flying. A part of me was actually settled which was something that almost never happened to me on flights. "Francesca. Though every one calls me Franny." I introduced myself. I was still facing forward looking down at my laptop.

"Well it's a pleasure Franny, everyone calls me Sebastian." He said to me. Even the sound out his name in my head silenced the white noise fueling my growing levels of perturbation. After learning the name of the guy who clearly wasn't shamed to admit to liking circa 1950s romance cinematic features such as An American in Paris, To Catch a Thief, and Houseboat. I figured he had taste or oddly was just into films starring Cary Grant. For the most part our conversation mainly consisted of questions that felt straight out of an article that helped people with conversational ice breakers.

Like for instance I learned that he prefers coffee over tea, no siblings, he is an animal lover but has zero pets, he's single, and reads more than he watches television. Oh and that he is single. I had to reiterate that into my brain just to be sure. I made sure to keep my answers to his questions short and sweet because the chances of us speaking again after this flight were slim to none. Guys that looked like him never stayed single for long, and I wasn't interested in competing for his attention alongside the flight attendant who couldn't stop staring at him every chance she got. Which of course he didn't notice and if he did then he was probably use to the attention.

"So Franny is this trip for work or for pleasure?" Sebastian asked.

I was stiff as log in my seat apart from my leg that wouldn't stop bouncing up and down. The pattern in turbulence fluctuated greatly. Almost every ten minutes the plane would jostle which of course in my mind made me think only the worse. "Is this your way of you trying to be helpful again?" I could already feel my pulse spiking.

"Actually it was my way of trying to pry information out of you." This guy was either arrogant or really confident in himself. He was looking down at something on his phone completely unbothered.

"That didn't sound creepy at all." I told him.

"Well I'm assuming it's something really important if it's got you out of your comfort zone." He pushed. All I could think about was that Sebastian had picked the worse time to try and make small talk. I felt the wave of turbulence again and that time it was back to back. Panic was prickling up my spine when everyone was instructed to return to their seats and fasten their seatbelt. We were now experiencing changes in the altitude due to the incoming thunderstorm. Just wanted I needed to hear.

My throat burned. Like I actually felt a burning sensation in the back of my throat. Somehow I still found the ability to muster up sound. "My dad , " I sat upright trying to sit in a more relaxed position. "I think he's lonely and I miss him so yeah here I am." I huffed.

"You're a good daughter." Sebastian nodded as he listened. He didn't know me well enough to offer praise, but suffering through this flight I wanted a damn trophy.

"Since I'm sure you were going to ask me the same I'll go ahead and answer for you." He added. I rolled my eyes playfully as I sucked in a shaky breath. "What's in California?"

Sebastian crossed one of his legs over the other and rested his elbow onto the armrest. He was leaning on it and his body was angled more so in my direction. We were siting so close now that it almost looked like we were sharing a seat. That made the flight attendant who had been gawking at him do a double take in our direction.

His facial expression turned grim and slightly annoyed. I could sense from the tautness in his body language that this was probably a sensitive subject. "This must be parents' weekend." Sebastian's laughed lacked humor. He hesitated on what he was about to say next and he gnawed on his bottom lip for a good fifteen seconds. An for some reason I silently watched him do it.

"My mother went off and got eloped to one of her flavors of the week. Tonight I was suppose to meet the happy couple for the first time. All of this was sprung on me last minute. Finding a flight that left out tonight was finding a needle in a hay stack.” He had as much enthusiasm in his voice as Eeyore. Which was none existent.

"I'm going to be honest with you that sounds awful." I looked at him apologetically. I shook my head at the thought of my dad pulling a stunt like that and not telling me. We might not see eye to eye over everything but we had always been close. Even thinking about it hypothetically dampened my mood.

"Yeah, tell me about it." He glowered. Sebastian rubbed both of his hands over his face and made a noise into his hands that easily passed as a growl or a moan. It didn't matter because now I had both sounds locked into my memory bank. "However, my only bright spot was being able to sit next this raven haired beauty who could use a drink." I was slow to process who he was referring to.

"Hmmm, well now that made me remember I need to dye my hair bright purple." I lied. For some reason I could never seem to take a compliment, especially if it was a flirtatious one. There was no way I could covertly sneak a cursory glance at my appearance to get a glimpse of what he saw. By now I was certain my makeup was splotchy and my lips were chapped from biting them ferociously.

My clothes were every bit of casual I had on a long sleeve black leotard with camel colored high-rise chino pants, and I sported my favorite pair of worn white high tops. When I glanced up at him the tight feeling in my chest was replaced by something entirely different. Indigestion maybe? Sebastian leaned in a little closer and he angled his face closer to my ear. "It would still look sexy on you." He lowered his voice and I can't deny that it was doing sinful things to me.

Not a moment too soon to make matters even more stressful the pilot made an announcement that there was going to be an emergency landing due to the extreme storm brewing in the sky. Which was deemed unsafe and can not be flown above or even around. Mother Nature was really showing her ass tonight. If something else bad was going to happen I would really appreciate if it waited till I wasn't on this flight anymore.

"What's one of your turn offs about a person?" Sebastian casually asked me. My neck turned so fast I swore I broke it. "What?" I coughed.

He tossed a handful of almonds in his mouth while staring off at something ahead. We were about to land and have a layover completely throwing me off schedule. I looked off into the direction he was looking at and on first glance I had no clue where this was coming from. "Franny?" He called out to regain my attention.

"Guys that aren't funny but think they are comedians." I said automatically. Which was a random one considering I had a whole list. "Why do you ask?"

Sebastian shrugged. "Because mine is meaningless eye fucking." He answered bluntly. A couple in front of us immediately turned around in synchronization and stared back at us with a disapproving eye. Sebastian's devil may care act seemed to only trigger them further. When I saw that between was a little boy, feeling embarrassed I mouthed an apology. The mom ceaselessly just shook her head as if we were degenerates.

"Anyway," Sebastian continued like nothing happened. I give him a look. "That woman over there has been eyeing me since I stepped foot on this plane. We keep making this awkward eye contact and I'm grinning back showing all of my teeth because I don't know how else to respond."

So he did notice her watching him.I snorted. "Don't tell me you're shy."

"No. . ." Sebastian paused. "I have shy like tendencies." He could barely keep a straight face at his confession. I wanted to laugh but it was cut short by me being jostled in my seat yet again. I gripped onto the armrest for dear life. All of my tips and tricks to ease my anxiety were failing me. I was headed for full on panic attack.

"Franny?"

"Hold on." I said faintly. Inhaling through my nose and exhaling from my mouth. The tears were coming I could already start to feel them well up in my eyes.

"Give me your hand." Sebastian said as concern filled up his face. This guy knew knew nothing about me apart from me being a total badass when it came to the art of puzzling and that I liked extremely sour gummy worms. We were not friends and I wasn't even sure if we were acquaintances. Sebastian was simply someone to talk to until the plane landed.

"I am not giving you my hand I hardly know you." I said on a exhalation. "You could be a psycho." My voice was a whisper solely on the off chance that someone was eavesdropping and my words could be taken out of context. I wanted to take that chance and trust him but this whole ordeal just seemed so weird.

Sebastian lowered his head closer to me and mimicked my tone. "Or I could be someone who just wants to show a little kindness to the person I'm currently crushing on."

My eyes opened wide and sat there dumbfounded for at least a millisecond while my brain tried to catch up with this cliché I was living in. "Dare I ask but are these recycled pick up lines from middle school?" I quipped.

"Maybe." He answered with a half smile that was making me anxious for all the wrong reasons.

"Normally crushes take longer than an hour to develop." I replied nonchalantly. Sebastian looked up, his eyes locked onto mine. "And yet falling doesn't happen in slow motion."

A nervous laugh escapes from my mouth. I waited to hear a joke or something incredibly inappropriate to indicate that he was just messing with me. My mind was swimming with things to say but they all ended with the same question. What in the actual hell was going on? Seven painfully long minutes dragged on by with my thoughts going back and forth saying do or don't. It's a just a hand Franny and a kind gesture at that. Apart from the modern day wave of creeps what was there to be afraid of? Did I just answer my own question? My musing was interrupted when I heard Sebastian's voice commingle with the sound of feminine laughter.

I looked up over at his seat and low and behold the flight attendant who could barely do her job for salivating over Sebastian the whole flight made her way over to him . That woman was persistent I give her that. She turned her body unnecessarily close into his seat as she tucked an errant strand of brown hear behind her ear. She was obnoxiously fawning over something stupid he said I'm sure. The woman was practically throwing herself on him. Flashing all her pearly whites and batting her long stark black lashes at him. Jesus, there was nothing imperfect about her. She even made her uniform look hot.

I wasn't a jealous person nor did I posses some claim over Sebastian. I am however still human and sooner or later my emotions eventually will get the better of me. Not being able to stand the sound her of lilting laughter. My arm reacted before the rest of my brain could catch up. My actions weren't subtle in the slightest and before I knew it I had my hand wrapped around Sebastian's hand. Their conversation had come to an abrupt halt and I was too embarrassed to see the look on either of their faces. I should've just let go of his hand and acted like a normal person.

It was awkwardly placed on top of his and I instantly regretted the decision when I remembered how clammy it was in comparison to his. Feeling gutsy I finally lifted my head to see that both of their gazes zeroed in on my hand placement. I hated that there was a sense of enjoyment on Sebastian’s face.

I reminded myself that I wasn't competing for Sebastian's attention, but when the flight attendant whose name I do not care to learn looked at me like I was growing a tail from my forehead frowned as she walked away. I couldn't help but give her my best "fuck you too" smile back at her. I was just about to move it away when I felt Sebastian swiftly flip his hand over to fit mine into the palm of his hands.

"How long will you be in Napa Valley?" Sebastian's voice cut through my thoughts as if nothing happened. I was about to say a snappy remark accusing him being a suspect on John Walsh's unsolved mysteries with all of his questions. When I felt the warmth of his hand the moment his fingers unfurled and laced through mine effortlessly . My breath caught when the pad of Sebastian's thumb lightly stroked the side of my hand in a slow circular motion. It wasn't a sensual act we were taking part in and the gesture seemed completely juvenile. I don't think Sebastian was trying to get a reaction out of it either. Truth of the matter was that I couldn't stop feeling like my entire body would combust just from one simple touch.

"Just for a couple of days." I muttered. I was unable to concentrate for that fact he was holding onto me. Was hand foreplay a thing, because this sure felt like it. I felt a twinge of disappointment in my chest because I knew that eventually I was going to have to let go. Gosh did that make me sound crazy? I've known him for five seconds.

"Any chance you'd stick around long enough to grab a cup of coffee with me?"I turned my head to see if he was watching me, but he was staring at everything but me. I studied the sharp contours of the side of his face to see that he was looking straight ahead at the seat in front of him. Could it be? Did I actually make the cool and funny Sebastian nervous?

I scrunched my nose at the speculation. "I don't think you can handle my chaotic energy when I have caffeine." I answered truthfully, which was met with more silence. Sebastian sucked in his bottom lip and quirked his brows in response to what I had just said. Any minute now we were getting ready to land and we hadn't even exchanged phone numbers. "It's a good thing decaf exist." I added.

Sebastian nodded his head slowly and his postured relaxed which suggested he had hoped I changed my mind. " I concur."

"Can I ask you a question?" It felt random and completely out of nowhere but the thought had been sitting on the tip of my tongue since he mentioned it.

"Well it's about damn time you did." Sebastian squeezed my hand and let me tell you the grip was firm. It was putting the kinkiest thoughts in my head and I needed to kill them immediately.

"Are you happy for your mom?" I asked him, I try to steer the conversation from my indecent imagination. It was a question that made him go stoic. His jaw ticked back and forth as he rotated our clasped hands. Sebastian intently stared at the polish on my nails. It was the shade Yank My Doodle by OPI but that was besides the point. It was obvious that he was trying to deflect.

His nod was terse and our eyes connect when he looks up. "She looks for temporary bliss in things or people. Nothing really satisfies her. My mom sees life through rose colored glasses and sooner or later she always ends up disappointed but quickly onto the next ." Sebastian says miserably. "Right now she's clung to a man who owns a small hardware store and has two first names."

I swallow down the lump in my throat. There was absolutely no way the man I had in mind was the same man Sebastian was referring to. I mean there was a lot of men in the Valley that owned their own hardware shops right? "Does his name happen to be Eric Taylor?" My voice came out strangled, because there was just no fucking way.

"Does everyone know this man?" He asked with an entrancing smile that was unnecessarily sexy and so so so unattainable now.

I pulled my hand away like his was made of fire and it didn't nearly hurt as much as the look on Sebastian's face from my sudden action. "I know him alright. He's my father."

58 notes · View notes

kolbisneat · 4 years

Text

MONTHLY MEDIA: March 2020

So like most of you, this month has seen more time spent at home consuming things. Now, more than ever, I think it’s good to share what we’re doing and seeing and hearing. Here’s how March went.

……….FILM……….

The Invisible Man (2020) Stressfully fantastic. I was relieved when it was more of a thriller/suspense sorta film (as opposed to straight horror) and hoboy does it deliver on making everything tense. Well-acted and relevant. Also very stressful.

The Muppet Movie (1979) First time seeing this and it holds up. I would say I recognized maybe 5 of the celebrities that were featured, but could easily tell when someone was supposed to be a familiar face. Man fame is a weird thing. Anyway, the songs and origin story were lovely and I really think what works about the muppets are their blend of absurdity and sincerity. Sure they snark each other sometimes, but their general motivation is to put some good in the world and I think that’s a great addition to our media diet.

Jenny Slate: Stage Fright (2019) This is the first of Jenny Slate’s specials that I’ve seen and it was a lot of fun! The interweaving of home videos, interviews with family, and her stand-up added an extra layer to everything. Oh also very funny!

Black Christmas (2019) We missed this in theatres and were anxiously waiting for the blu-ray release and...I think that built up too much anticipation. I’m all for what the movie was trying to say, but how it said it was muddled. It also managed to be fairly boring for 2/3 of the runtime. Bummer.

……….TELEVISION……….

Love is Blind (Episode 1.01 to 1.02) We’ve barely started this and I wasn’t sure about it during the first ep, but knowing the series quickly moves past the blind dating is reassuring. Very keen to see how this all plays out.

McMillion$ (Episode 1.01 to 1.03) I know there’s a far more popular (and tiger-centric) docuseries in the zeitgeist right now, but I’m really enjoying this. They limit the insane FBI agent after the first episode, and it’s the right call. It’s true crime that we can all relate to via the McDonald’s element, and for that alone I think it’s worth checking out.

Locke & Key (Episode 1.01 to 1.10) Wonderfully whimsical. The last two episodes have some questionable writing that really only stands out because the previous 8 were so strong, but I suppose part of that is likely due to setting up a second season? I dunno. It did make me interested in returning to the series (as the first volume didn’t click with me) so that’s saying something.

What We Do in the Shadows (Episode 1.08 to 1.10) Consistently strong season of television! It’s refreshing to watch something where each episode works on it’s own, while still offering lots of through-lines across episodes. Also that finale gave us lots to get excited for with the next season! Very very good series.

The Bachelor (Episode 24.10 to 24.12) What a dud. This season ended the way it started and that really makes one question why they watched it at all? It certainly wasn’t for the beautiful friendships formed between contestants. It wasn’t for the deep and meaningful conversations while the lead tried to find true love. It wasn’t even for the genuine drama about silly things. It all just felt overproduced and undercooked. Such a bummer.

……….READING……….

Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett (Complete) I love a good Discworld novel (this being number 12!) It’s like comfort food in these complex times. The Witches are always fun and I really picture the Sanderson Sisters from Hocus Pocus and that adds another layer to things. If you’re looking for light, humours fantasy chock full of tropes, check out this series.

The Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Jean Giraud (Complete) After having read this just once and barely remembering it, I decided to come back to it. I still find it a little wordy, but the overall plot is so operatic and psychedelic that I’m glad I gave it a reread. It feels 70s future in a way that I can’t describe, and I can totally see why Jodorowsky wanted to direct DUNE. This is political and weird and has everything he couldn’t make happen with that movie. Anyway, it’s worth picking up.

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell (Complete) A wonderfully illustrated short story. Enough of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White has been changed and merged to make it a fresh interpretation and Gaiman finds a good balance of creepy and all-ages appropriate.

……….AUDIO……….

Twin Temple (Bring You Their Signature Sound.... Satanic Doo-Wop) by Twin Temple (2018) A lot of folks have been posting their fave listening online while we all quarantine and it’s introduced me to so much (including this)! The title says it all and “Satanic Doo-Wop” perfectly encapsulates their sound.

OOZEFM (Spotify Account) I’ve started a dedicated Spotify account for Booburgh’s radio station, OOZEFM. Curated playlists abound and I hope you enjoy!

……….GAMING……….

Neverland: A Storybook Campaign Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) My RPG setting! The ongoing campaign is continuing along well as the group spends more time in the mountains while waiting to find a fallen star. They’ve also come across a few pirates, so that’s also fun. I also ran a one-shot with the Mof1 Podcast that you can listen to here (well, the first half)!

A Red & Pleasant Land (Lamentations of the Flame Princess) The group continues to explore the dual towers and after killing an egg man, rescuing a spider, and fireballing a bunch of the King’s court, they’ve been presented with a choice: door #1 or door #2.

Celeste (Matt Thorson and Noel Berry) Such a beautiful game. The controls and concept are so perfect and each new stage offers something fresh. I wish those stages were broken up into smaller chapters, as I’d be more likely to revisit if I didn’t have to commit to the whole thing at once, but I’m splitting hairs at this point. Absolutely check this out.

Wilmot’s Warehouse (Finji) Wonderfully relaxing and exactly as the trailer describes: for people who love to organize things. The stress of getting deliveries/getting items to customers is balanced by stretches of free time where you can rearrange and organize your supplies at your leisure. I’m about 60% of the way through and find not much has evolved. I don’t know if I’ll finish it but I’ve really enjoyed the time spent with it so far.

And that’s it! As always, share any recommendos and stay safe out there.

Happy Tuesday!

#Monthly Media #Rambles #Kolbisneat #Andrew Kolb

19 notes · View notes

thatcrazyfanfictionwriter · 6 years

Text

Secret of the Sewers: Welcome to the Battle Nexus

"Cannonball!" Mikey shouted, taking a running jump off a small rock outcropping.

He splashed down in the crisp, clean waters of the lake outside Casey's Grandma's farmhouse, joining the Hamato family as they swam. As the orange turtle surfaced, he spat out a small stream of water, reclining on his shell happily.

"Man, this is the life." Mikey let out.

"I have to agree with him." Raph spoke up, floating on an inner tube Don had found in the garage. "This is nice."

"I'm glad Casey's mom let us borrow the farmhouse for the week." Hisako spoke up, letting her hair out of its usual ponytail before slipping into the water herself. "After the weeks- no, months we've had, we needed this."

"That's for sure." Leo agreed, climbing onto a small rock jutting out of the water. "It's nice to just kick back and not have any villains to fight for once."

"I can't believe that Shredder's really gone for good." Donny commented, sitting on the dock and kicking his feet in the water.

"I agree Donatello." Splinter told him, sitting on the grass in a meditative stance. "Saki's hold over our family is finally gone, and Miwa has found her place amongst the ranks of the true Foot Clan."

"I hope she's doing ok." Leo voiced.

"You kidding, she's a Hamato." Raph reminded him. "And a Hamato can make it through anything."

"Cheers to that, bro." Leo declared.

As the group continued talking, Mikey swam under the water towards the docks. As Donny continued kicking the water, Mikey grabbed his foot and pulled him in. Donny fell in with a yelp, coming up for air while coughing slightly.

"Mikey!" he screamed. "What the shell was that for?!"

"No reason you should be dry as a bone while we're all out here where a turtle should be." Mikey argued.

"Maybe I didn't want to get wet." Donny countered.

"Maybe you did, maybe you didn't," Mikey replied. "But you are, so nah, nah, nah-nah, nah."

"Oh, you are so gonna get it!" Donny declared tackling him.

They two went down into the water, the other three siblings grinning.

"Water fight!" they announced in unison, diving into the fray.

The five siblings all went at it, splashing and ducking one another without mercy. Splinter watched from the grass, shaking his head while smiling contently.

"Kids..." he said to himself.

Just then, the water began to swirl, forming a small whirlpool in the center of the lake. The siblings all surfaced, thankfully just on the outside of the freshly formed vortex.

"Hisako…?" Donny questioned.

"It's not me, I swear." she told him.

That's when the water began to funnel upward, opening and allowing the strangest looking man to emerge. He seemed to be almost translucent, his entire body shimmering as if it was made of water. He was wearing a traditional Japanese outfit reminiscent of the gyoji from Sumo Wrestling, as well as a white mask that covered his entire face.

"What the…" Raph let out.

"Hamato Clan of Dimension 5th Earth." the strange man announced. "On behave of the Daimyo, master of the Battle Nexus, I have come to extend an invitation to participate in the Tournament of Champions."

"Battle Nexus?" Donny questioned.

"Daimyo?" Mikey asked.

"Tournament of Champions?" Leo inquired.

The Translucent Man seemed to chuckle.

"I apologize." he told them. "I am certain this is all quite confusing to you. Perhaps this will help to clarify."

He reached into his sleeve, pulling out a traditional war paddle. He shook it in his hands, and the water of the lake lifted again. This created a floating pool of water that suspended itself like a screen. The man used it to display crude images as he spoke.

"You see, your dimension is one of countless in an infinite multiverse." He explained. "And at the center of all these worlds, is the Battle Nexus."

"So, the Nexus is a point of overlapping subspace commonality?" Mikey questioned.

The other just turned to him, giving him confused looks. Even Master Splinter seemed surprised.

"What?" Mikey questioned. "Donny's not the only one that likes Star Trek you know."

"That's more like it." Hisako let out in relief.

"So, what is this Battle Nexus, really?" Leo asked. "As well as this 'Tournament of Champions?"

"The Battle Nexus was built by the great Daimyo in order to unite the various universes." the man explained. "Every year, he invites the greatest champions of various worlds to attend. Up until now, no heroes have shown up on this world that were worthy of the tournament. Not until the six of you. You fight with great honor, putting the needs of others before your own, and even when face with your worst enemy, you showed mercy."

"Aw go on." Mikey brushed aside. "... no seriously, go on. We could use the praise."

Raph just elbowed him in response.

"Normally, contestants would have to pass through the preliminary tryouts before attending, but in light of your recent heroics, the Daimyo has seen fit to grand you automatic admission, should you choose to accept it." The translucent man concluded.

"Shell yeah we accept it!" Mikey exclaimed.

"Can we Sensei?" Leo asked, turning to Splinter.

"Please?" Hisako begged.

"It would be a nice change of pace, being able to fight against other honorable warriors." Donny told him.

"Indeed." Splinter pondered. "I cannot remember the last time I was able to participate in such a tournament."

"So… is that a yes?" Raph asked hopefully.

"Yes Raphael." Splinter confirmed. "We will participate in this tournament."

"Excellent." The translucent man told them. "When you are ready, enter the portal."

With that, he shook his war paddle again. The shimmering pool fell back into the lake as the vortex returned. The man then descended into it, disappearing without a trace. The siblings all grinned, then got out of the water and ran towards the docks.

"Care to do the honors, Mikey?" Leo asked.

"You betcha!" The orange turtle announced before the five siblings all held hands. "Cowabunga!"

They all jumped into the swirling portal at the same time, disappearing with barely a splash. Splinter watched them go, shaking his head with a smile. He then jumped into the portal after them.

…

The swirling portal tossed the siblings around for a few minutes, all of them still clinging to one another tightly. Eventually, it spat them all out in the middle of an ornate gazebo, all of them landing in one big turtle pile. Splinter emerged after them, flipping over their haphazard pile gracefully before landing triumphantly on the ground in front of them. He straightened up, his eyes widening as he took in his surroundings

"My children," he let out. "You must see this."

The Hamato siblings slowly untangled themselves from one another, getting to their feet with many groans and moans. When they finally got to their feet, their collective jaws dropped.

"Guys… I don't think we're in Northampton anymore." Hisako whispered.

The portal had dumped them out at the beginning of a long cobblestone path that cut through a field of lush grass with small, majestic rock outcroppings. Ahead of them was a large cliff that had dual waterfalls falling on either side of it. The waterfalls parted to reveal a large stone statue carved into the rocks. The statue stood over what could only be described as a large island standing in the middle of the waterfall's pool.

The island was dominated by a large city, one that seemed to have been plucked straight out of Feudal Japan. It was surrounded by a large, stone wall with an ornate gate opening at the end of a large bridge that connected the island to the mainland.

"This… is… AWESOME!" Mikey cheered.

He began running towards it, but Leo stopped him.

"Hold on guys." he insisted. "We've got a slight problem."

"Leo, for once there is no problem!" Raph insisted. "We were invited here, this place looks freakin' awesome, what's the hold-up?"

"Two things." Leo said, holding up his solitary two fingers. "First, none of us have our weapons. Second, we're all still in our swimsuits."

Everyone blanched, looking down at themselves. Sure enough, each of the turtles were wearing nothing but appropriately colored swimming trunks while Hisako was left in a green and black short sleeved wetsuit. Splinter, the only one who had elected not to go swimming, was the only one dressed and armed.

"Sewer cakes." Donny swore. "What do we do?"

"We can't go in there looking like this." Mikey insisted. "We'll look like idiots!"

"Maybe we could go back through the portal." Hisako suggested. "Just pop back to Northampton, grab our stuff, and-"

She cut herself off as she saw the portal had disappeared, leaving the Hamato Clan without a way home.

"There are so many words going through my head, and none of them are very nice." Hisako muttered.

"Hey!" Raph began shouting. "Weird water guy! A little help!"

From a small pool in the center of the gazebo, the Translucent Men emerged, facing the Hamato Clan.

"Is there a problem?" he asked.

"Unfortunately, in their eagerness to join your tournament, my children neglected to bring their clothes and weapons." Splinter explained.

The Translucent Man looked at the five Hamato siblings, examining them.

"Oh my, this simply will not do." he announced.

He lifted his war paddle, giving it a shake. The water from the gazebo rose up, swirling around each of the siblings individually. They vanished into cocoons of water, which began to glow briefly. After a minute the water flowed back into the gazebo, revealing the siblings in their new outfits.

They were all wearing black suits with large collars that could double as lower face masks. Metal arm plates protected their upper and forearms, with smaller plates attached to a pair of gloves. The pants bunched up a bit at the knees before tightening around their ankles, so their new sandals would fit. The turtles had large chest plates that covered their entire torso while Hisako's only covered her chest. A quick pat on her stomach revealed a secondary plate under her clothes. The turtles also had shoulder guards and a codpiece, and all five of them had straps and scarves in their respective colors across their chests. As an added bonus, Hisako's hair had been done up in a bun with decorative chopsticks sticking out.

"Whoa." Raph let out. "Not bad."

"I could get used to these." Hisako commented.

"These are traditional battle garments worn by many of the soldiers that reside here." the man explained. "Consider them a gift. As for your weapons, I shall go and fetch them momentarily. Take the opportunity to explore the Nexus. The tournament does not start until tomorrow, and I am certain you are eager to look around."

"You are awesome, translucent dude." Mikey complimented.

The man merely bowed respectfully, disappearing back into the water. Now properly attired, the Hamato family set their sights on the city.

"Shall we?" Master Splinter asked.

The siblings all nodded eagerly, then they made their way down the path and towards the large town.

...

Upon entering the large town, the Hamato family was floored by just how many different species of aliens there were. No two creatures looked the same, with every single creature there was as strange and unique as the last. There were shops across the square set up like a bazaar, creatures calling out with bets on the fights, souvenirs and food.

"Dudes..." Mikey gasped. "Do you realize what this is?"

"I'll bite." Raph declared. "What?"

"The opportunity we missed out on while on D'hoonib!" Mikey cheered.

"Mikey's right," Donny concurred. "Here we can walk around in broad daylight without anyone screaming their heads off at our passing."

"And these cerebralites come in handy too." Hisako added. "Everyone is speaking English."

"What are you talking about?" Splinter questioned. "Every creature here is speaking English."

The turtles exchanged confused looks.

"But that makes no sense." Leo pointed out. "How can random beings from various planets and dimensions all know how to speak English?"

"Perhaps I can explain." The translucent man offered, rising out from a nearby puddle.

Everyone jumped, turning towards him in surprise.

"You again." Mikey let out. "Seriously dude, someone needs to put a bell on you."

"The Battle Nexus had very unique properties." the man explained, seemingly oblivious to Mikey's bell quip. "The air is breathable by all, and the magic of this world makes it so no matter where you are from, you hear your home world's native tongue. After all, this is a place where fellow heroes can meet, and that is much easier without a language barrier."

"That's handy." Donny conceded.

"I'm liking this place more and more." Raph agreed.

The translucent man smiled, then waved his war paddle. It left a trail of water in its wake, from which their weapons emerged from. The siblings all reached in grabbing their weapons and stowing them on their belts and backs.

"The first round does not take place until tomorrow, so feel free to explore the Nexus" the translucent man informed them. "Here is the key to your room in the Home of Champions, as well as a contestant wallet so you can enjoy the bazaar at your leisure."

He waved his war paddle again, six ornate keys and small pouches emerged from the produced water. They all claimed their stuff, then the translucent man folded in on himself, disappearing once again.

"So, what do we do now?" Mikey asked.

"I don't know about you, but I'm going to take a look around this Nexus." Donny reported. "Just think about all of the various flora and fauna I can find that's unique to this place. All of the unexplained phenomena just waiting for me."

"Knock yourself out, Don." Raph told him.

"Just make sure to report to our room by sundown." Splinter insisted.

"Will do Master Splinter." Donny replied before heading off.

"I'm going to see if there's a training ground." Leo decided. "I'm curious to see what we'll be facing in the upcoming fights."

"Suit yourself." Mikey replied. "I'm going to go find something to eat."

Splinter immediately turned to Raph, who held up a hand.

"You don't even have to ask, Sensei." he told him. "I'll follow Mikey to make sure he behaves."

"I'll go with Leo." Hisako declared. "I could use some practice anyhow."

"I shall conduct my own exploration." Splinter decided. "It has been some time since I could walk the streets freely. Only a fool would pass up a chance like this."

"Then it's settled." Leo announced. "We'll meet back at the room at sundown."

Everyone nodded, then scattered about the Nexus.

...

As Donny walked around the Nexus, he was drawn in by all the amazing sights there were to see. He could see butterflies the size of birds flitting about the bazaar, cat-like creatures with multi-colored fur slinking through alleys. He continued looking around, wishing he'd been able to bring his lab coat, since it held his sketchbook.

"Maybe I can grab one from the bazaar." he mused.

He managed to find a small parchment shop, getting himself a small leather-bound book and a quill. After figuring out the strange pen, and realizing he didn't need ink like he believed, the purple turtle began sketching away at everything he saw.

"I wonder if anyone would mind if I took some flora samples with me." He pondered.

As Donny looked up, he saw a small garden set up in a large courtyard near the center of the town. He made a beeline for it, marveling at the array of plants.

"Holy chalupa..." he gasped.

He plucked a few flowers, pressing them into his book for further study. However, as he reached for a darker flower with bright red pollen, a gloved hand grabbed his wrist, preventing him from getting it.

"I'd advise against that." the owner of the hand advised.

Donny looked up to see a warrior clothed in navy blue and yellow armor with a purple cloak and a red oni mask standing over him. The warrior let go of his hand before gesturing to the flowers.

"These are Nexus poppies." he explained. "While they are beautiful, their pollen is especially dangerous. It reacts violently with retinal fluid, and will rend its victims blind within hours."

"Yikes." Donny let out, pulling his hand away. "Talk about a blinding powder. Thanks for the save."

"Think nothing of it." the warrior replied, lifting his mask to reveal a younger face with long red hair that reached his back. "I am Ue-sama, the Son of the Daimyo."

"I'm Donatello." Donny replied. "I'm one of the contestants in the Tournament.

"Yes, my father told me of you." Ue-sama informed him. "He says you and your family are skilled warriors. I look forward to seeing you in the arena."

"Think maybe we'll match up in the tournament?" Donny asked.

Ue-sama shook his head.

"No, not this time." He answered. "My father forbade me from entering the tournament this year. I am merely a spectator."

"Ah." Donny replied. "Shame. You seem like a mighty warrior."

Ue-sama bowed.

"I have earned the title of Ultimate Ninja throughout my years in the arena." he boasted. "But my father has told me that a title does not make a warrior, but how they use their skills."

"My father's told me the same thing." Donny responded. "Well, if you're not busy, would you mind helping me with my studies?"

"I'm afraid I cannot." Ue-sama answered. "I have many duties to attend to for tomorrow's tournament."

"I understand." Donny relented. "Hope to see you around."

"Likewise." Ue-sama replied before heading off.

…

Leo and Hisako made their way through the town, following signs for a training ground. As they approached, they could hear someone already there, the occasional grunt being carried on the wind.

"Sounds like someone's getting their workout in." Leo remarked.

"Yeah." Hisako agreed. "They sound tough."

As they finally reached the training ground, they found a lone warrior training on a dummy made of bamboo. The warrior was a white rabbit, one that wore traditional Japanese clothing from the edo period, and had its long ears tied up as if in a topknot. He carried two traditional swords, one slightly shorter than the other, and fought with the ferocity of a man who had spent his entire life fighting. Leo let out a whistle of admiration.

"Impressive." he remarked.

The rabbit paused mid-swing, glancing over at Leo. He looked surprised, then sheathed his swords.

"I did not realize I had an audience." he commented, bowing to Leo and Hisako. "My name is Miyamoto Usagi."

"I'm Hamato Leonardo." Leo greeted. "This is my sister, Hamato Hisako."

Usagi perked up at the mention of Leo's name.

"Interesting," He commented. "I knew a warrior named Leonardo once. Though he was very different from you."

"Really?" Leo responded.

"Yes, though I suppose it's just happenstance." He dismissed. "Have you come to train for the tournament?"

"We have, yes." Hisako declared. "Though right now, I think my brother wants to test your skills."

"Very well then." Usagi replied, taking a fighting stance. "Test away."

Leo drew his own swords and started circling around Usagi. Hisako settled onto the wooden fence that surrounded the training ground, leaning forward eagerly as the match began. The two clashed swords, both warriors eying the other as if analyzing their style.

"It's strange." Usagi commented. "You even fight like him."

"I hope that's a compliment." Leo remarked, blocking a sword strike.

"Very much so." Usagi reassured. "Though there is a fire in your eyes that he did not have. The fire of one who is not above taking a life when necessary."

Leo then shoved Usagi off and tried swinging at him. The rabbit Ronin quickly ducked under the blade before bringing up his short sword to block it.

"Taking a life is never easy." Leo replied. "But sometimes, to protect the ones I care about, I've had to cross that line."

"I know, believe me." Usagi replied. "I have been forced to stains my sword many times. The life of a Ronin is a difficult one, but it is the life I have chosen."

"Sounds like you've been through a lot." Leo noted.

"As have you." Usagi added. "But there is a saying: Great men, or animals, are forged in flames."

"I can attest to that." Leo agreed, taking another swing at him.

...

Meanwhile, Raph and Mikey were walking around and enjoying the bazaar. Mikey's arms were laden with several different foreign treats, chowing down on them.

"Raph, you've got to try this thing." Mikey insisted, holding up a weird, purple pastry. "It's like a cupcake and a jelly donut had a baby."

Raph grabbed the pastry and took a bite out of it.

"Not bad." Raph admitted.

"I know, right?" Mikey said happily. "Dude, I wanna live here. Like, forever."

"That would be nice." Raph agreed.

As they walked along, they walked past a humanoid rhino in a white, traditional Japanese gi. Once the rhino laid eyes on them, a smile broke out on his face.

"Well, well, I was wondering when I'd come across you!" he declared.

"Um… ok." Mikey let out. "Who are you?"

"Names Gennosuke." The rhino introduced. "Though my friends call me Gen. and you two must be a pair of those new warriors that were added to the roster."

"Yeah that's us." Raph confirmed. "What about it?"

"My friend and I are contestants in the games ourselves." Gen explained. "And I'm starting a bit of a betting pool on who's to win. Got the odds all written out, and all I need now is info on the new meat."

"You're talking like you're already slated to win." Raph commented with his arms crossed.

"Well the odds of me winning are three to one." Gen conceded. "What do you say?"

"I say you haven't met us yet." Mikey declared. "If you knew half the things we've done, you'd know that if anyone was slated to win, it's one of us."

"Ha! You?" Gen dismissed. "The odds of anyone of you is two hundred to one. You don't have a chance."

"Hey, only one person gets to badmouth my brother, and he's standing right here." Raph declared, jabbing Gen in the chest. "So why don't you take your betting pool and turn your sawed-off horn elsewhere, okay?"

"Suit yourself." Gen replied, walking off. "Your loss."

"Thanks dude." Mikey said. "So, let's see if this place has any pizza. I've got one shell of a craving."

Raph just shook his head, smiling as the two went off.

...

In another part of the Nexus, Splinter was just walking down the streets of the Nexus Plaza. The feeling of the sun on his face, as well as the casual chaos of the streets was music to his ears. It reminded him of his time of just simply being Hamato Yoshi.

"I cannot remember the last time I have felt so at home on the surface." he said to himself.

As he continued walking, he absentmindedly bumped into a large, anthropomorphic tiger. Both stopped, the tiger turning to him with a snarl.

"You should be careful." he growled. "Lots of races will tear you apart for such an offense."

"My apologies." Splinter insisted, giving a small bow. "I was just enjoying the plaza."

The tiger looked at him, then sighed.

"Jeez, I can't be mad at a face like that." he let out. "This the first time ya ever seen daylight?"

"No, but I haven't been able to go out into the light for many years." Splinter admitted. "Beings like me are… uncommon in my world."

"Hate to live there." the tiger commented. "I'm Tigerclaw. You got a name?"

"Splinter." He replied.

"Pleasure to meet you." Tigerclaw told him. "You a contestant, or a spectator?"

"Contestant, as well as my family." Splinter told him.

"Family?" Tigerclaw repeated. "You're married?"

"Was." Splinter corrected. "She died… a long time ago."

"My condolences." he replied.

"She is in a better place." Splinter insisted. "I know she is watching over me and my children."

"How many?" Tigerclaw asked.

"Six." Splinter replied. "Though only five of them were able to attend. My other daughter is taking care of business abroad."

"You must be proud." Tigerclaw commented.

"More than I can ever express in words." Splinter agreed.

Tigerclaw smiled, then seemed to glance at his wrist.

"I wish you luck in the tournament." Tigerclaw told him. "Sorry to cut this conversation short, but I must be going."

"Of course." Splinter allowed. "Perhaps we will face each other in the tournament."

"Perhaps so." Tigerclaw replied before walking off.

Splinter watched him go, then turned and continued his own path. He was unaware of the fact that Tigerclaw turned back as well, scanning Splinter with a cold, calculating glare.

...

After sparring, Usagi and Leo had gone off to one of the Nexus' restaurants. Hisako had elected to remain behind in the training grounds, sharpening her skills and allowing the two swordsmen to talk.

"I must say, the more I talk to you, the more I feel like we have met before." Usagi declared.

"I wish I could say the same." Leo conceded. "You seem like someone I would be lucky to call friend."

Usagi smiled.

"Friends are in short supply for me these days." Usagi admitted, picking up his sake cup and taking a drink. "In my world, death is a constant figure. I have lost many friends along my path."

He rubbed an arch-shaped scar over his eyebrow.

"It is for that reason I became a Ronin."

"Really?" Leo replied. "What happened?"

Usagi set down his cup, letting out a sigh.

"I used to be a samurai, in the service of Lord Mifune." he explained. "I rose in the ranks, and soon became the personal bodyguard of his family, including his wife and young son. Unfortunately, I failed to prevent a ninja from assassinating them both, leaving my lord heartbroken and vengeful."

"That's… That's awful." Leo let out.

"Indeed." Usagi agreed. "We soon found out that a rival lord had ordered the assassinations, a vile man by the name of Lord Hijiki. Lord Mifune waged a war against the lord… and was slain in the final battle. It was the same day I got this."

He tapped his scar.

"I'm sorry." Leo tried to console.

"After burying the head of my lord, I was left masterless, and I became a Ronin." Usagi concluded. "It has been many years since that fateful day. I have seen much in my time and raised my blade many times. It is refreshing to know that this time, it will be in an honorable and bloodless conflict."

"I look forward to it myself." Leo agreed, smiling again. "You got quite the skill set there."

"Honed by years of experience." Usagi replied, his smile returning as well. "Though for your sake, I hope we are not pitted against one another."

"You think you can take me?" Leo remarked.

"It is a possibility." Usagi retorted.

Leo smirked, then got to his feet, tossing a few bills on the table.

"I guess we'll have to wait 'til tomorrow then." he quipped.

"That we will." Usagi replied as the two went off.

...

As the sun set over the horizon, the Hamato Clan reconvened at their designated room. It was a large, Japanese style room with an extremely large bed that had been set up in the center. The smaller futon beside it was clearly for Splinter, and the tasteful decorations and all-around homey feel of the place had all five of the siblings grinning.

"Look at this place." Hisako gasped as she pulled the chopsticks from her hair, allowing it to cascade down her back. "It's like a small slice of Japan meets the lair."

"It is quite reminiscent of the barracks I once called home with the Foot." Splinter recalled. "The attention to detail is remarkable."

"You're telling me." Donny agreed, helping his siblings shed their armor for some provided night clothes. "I've got an entire notebook of plants and observations that are going to be keeping me busy once we get home."

"Personally, I kind of wish we could make this place our home." Mikey admitted, plopping onto the bed.

"What's wrong with New York?" Leo questioned, helping Hisako tie her night kimono. "It's been our home since we hatched and mutated."

"Have you seen this place Leo?" Mikey asked. "The sights, the food, the people."

"Not to mention we can walk around in broad daylight." Raph added. "And no one wants to throw us in a cage or dissect us."

"The Nexus is nice and all, but our home is, and will always be New York." Leo declared, sitting down on the bed. "It's not perfect, but it's where we belong."

"Eh, I guess you're right." Mikey conceded.

"He is correct." Splinter agreed, laying down on the futon. "Now, get some rest, my children. The tournament begins tomorrow."

The five Hamato siblings nodded as they flopped onto the large bed, eager to get some rest.

...

In the dead of night, Ue-Sama stood in a large temple called The Hall of Champions. He stood in front of a statue of himself, which marked him as a previous champion, his foot tapping impatiently as he waited for someone. Eventually, a figure emerged from the shadows, remaining out of sight.

"Took you long enough." Ue-Sama snapped.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Ultimate Ninja." the figure replied, a voice dripping with malice and cold contempt.

"No matter." Ue-Sama dismissed. "You're here and that's what matters. Are you set for what you have to do tomorrow?"

"Yeah, yeah." the figure replied. "I was just scoping out the competition. We've got a few contenders to deal with, and the new editions are definitely powerful warriors."

"That won't be a problem, will it?" Ue-Sama questioned.

The figure chuckled darkly, emerging from the darkness to reveal none other than Tigerclaw.

"No." he answered. "It won't."

#TMNT #Leo #Donny #raph #mikey #Hisako #oc #Secret of the Sewers

9 notes · View notes

acradaunt · 6 years

Text

It's a little while since that Smash Direct, right? So while the fire is tepid, time for me to gush about it and share some creative thoughts. First, wanna say that Belmont in Smash is one of the most 'I didn't know how much I wanted it until I saw it' things I've ever experienced. It's such a perfect and direct fit, yet I never really thought about until then. Everything so far has been a complete home run.

People are always talking about what they want for new characters, but I'm more interested right now in stages. There's six empty spots still, yeah? So here's my thoughts for stages. It's at a mix between what's likely and what I'd like to see.

Although, some of these thoughts are mixed with characters or heavily influenced by them. Thoughts on some of those combined within, but in short, my character guesses are Erdrick, Bandana Dee, Ken, and Black Shadow. Ken is the original slightly deviated clone character, and Bandana Dee, well, really underwhelming compared to all other newcomers, but he could be nifty if he used some of Kirby's traditional copy abilities (Cutter, Parasol, Beam, etc.). At any rate:

Ancestral Steppe - (Monster Hunter)

It's pretty plain that this exists, though I imagine the stage version is based on room 4 (the one with the arching bridge that gets knocked down), and not room 3, where the Rathalos boss was shown. Either way, stage'll have some radical music choices. Personally, I'd rather see a stage based on Misty Peaks, with the rope bridge and the watery area below it, but it seems pretty decisive that it'll be Ancestral Steppe. Anyway, yeah. Room with the arch, some Jaggi nip at you sometimes, and Kecha Wacha and Tigrex show up to make everyone miserable.

Monster Hunter isn't a playable character, but rather the Mii variants all have MH outfits; Rathalos for Swordfighter (just like Smash 4), Gore Magala for Brawler (with Gore's Dual Blade claws), and either Zinogre or Lagiacrus for Gunner. And especially for Rathalos, the colour of the Mii shifts more than usual to better match an existing Rath colour; a Yellow Mii would wear a set that looks like Gold Rathian scales and so on.

Mute City Grand Prix - (F-Zero/Star Fox)

This one is based on a small mountain of assumptions, that the rumoured Star Fox Grand Prix is a thing, and that it merges Star Fox and F-Zero more than they already were. And that it gets shown off at the same time at the Tokyo Game Show. Don't actually have anything to say about design of stage, just that it'll end up being another Mute City, because of course it'll be. Why else would the OTHER Mute City stage feel the need to label itself Mute City (SNES)?

Related, Black Shadow'll be around as echo fighter of Captain Falcon, and essentially Melee Ganondorf. If I'm right on the Star Fox thing, I wouldn't be surprised if he's now literally a bull, instead of a bumble-king in bull-shaped spandex. Either way, it'd be weird as hell if after EVERYONE IS HERE there wasn't a time-frozen version of Melee Ganondorf, like how Dr. Mario and Young Link are for pre-Fludd Mario and pre-lots-of-things Link.

Poke Floats 2 - (Pokemon)

They've made updated versions of other stages before, so why not this? The same concept as before, but with new Pokemon.

Dragon Quest III's Pyramid - (Dragon Quest)

Erdrick is just too overwhelmingly popular in Japan to NOT get in. Dragon Quest III still dominates game popularity contests there, 30 years later. It doubly makes sense to expect it, considering every other character added for Ultimate has been from games more popular in America; time for the pendulum to swing back. Dragon Quest is not a series I care about, but I do know about one dungeon and the item within; the Pyramid and the cursed Golden Claw.

So the stage is fairly large, run-of-the-mill egyptian pyramid, with extremely lazy mummies or whatever other DQ enemies were found there walking around, doing so-so damage when they decide to slowly attack.

But the main gimmick is the Golden Claw lying at the base of the Pyramid. It's basically a stronger version of a Beam Saber or Killing Edge, with a few major drawbacks. One, it continually hurts its wearer, like the flowers from Lip's Stick. Second, it can't be dropped, and if destroyed, it'll respawn at the base in 15-20 seconds. Last and most significant, the roaming monsters become hugely aggressive towards the owner of the Golden Claw.

Most of that in reference to how the Golden Claw worked in-game, being strong at that point in game, but cursed so you can't remove it (because that's how curse worked in most old games, which I assume originates from D&D) and causes EVERY step you take with it to cause a random encounter.

Puyo Puyo Tetris - (Tetris)

Asspull of the highest magnitude, but ever since the falling blocks at the end of stage 2-1 from the original Yoshi's Island, I've wanted to see a more extreme version of that.

Stage starts as a flat, final-destination sized platform, but tetris pieces fall continually, becoming permanent objects. The pieces fall pretty slowly, don't rotate, won't poke outside the standard 10 columns, and give a shadow of where they're going to land. If you're stuck under one, you're crushed as an instant KO.

The stage's AI on playing Tetris is pretty awful at it, leaving regular holes, letting blocks stack high, and has no interest in attempting chains. Standard Tetris rules apply; if a row is filled up, it'll explode in a horizontal line of light, likely KO'ing anyone who might connect with it. If the pieces stack too high, all the pieces dissolve, bringing the stage back to its starting position.

If a player is boxed in (not on the two sides though, as you could jump out and climb back up to the fight), a Puyo slime will jump from the background through the hole the player is stuck in and smash them into the sceen, instantly KO'ing them (counting as a self-destruct).

And I guess Arle Nadja is an assist trophy or something. I mean, she beat Bayonetta in the Japanese poll, so, like, yeah.

Yggdrasil Labyrinth - (Etrian Odyssey)

Really though, if there was Atlus content in Smash Ultimate, it'd almost certainly be Jack Frost and some blasted, post-apocalyptic Tokyo, but hey, let me do me for this one.

Based mostly on EO2's Yggdrasil, with some nods to EO4. It'd be a mix of 'touring stages' like Isle Delfino and vertical stages like the nixed Ice Climbers level. It would scroll vertically, but only at sudden increments, with four 'main' screens representing the first four strata. So most of the time would be spent on one of four static areas, but you have to climb yourself to reach the next area (or die if you can't keep up) instead of being picked up by a platform. It isn't infinite scrolling, and they could hide some platforms upon a stage swap, which presumably is what killed the other vertical levels.

After some time in the 4th stratum, Petal Tree Bridge, Yggdrasil will wither and die, plummeting everyone back down (like the transitions in Castle Siege) to the 1st Stratum, Ancient Forest. Worth noting, most of the platforms in the Ancient Forest region are made of stone and not part of Yggdrasil, and thus remain there when you land. After a little bit, a new Yggdrasil sprouts, and the process repeats.

Protector shows up as an assist trophy. She followers her summoner around like an Ice Climber would, and soaks up damage for them until she times out or takes too much and dies. She'd create a visible sphere of protection, but if a player moves too fast or she decides to shield bash a dude, there's room for openings to whack her summoner. I'd love it if Gunner, Landsknecht (EO4's version), and Monk showed up as Mii costumes, but that's probably pushing what's already a pipe dream to beyond the breaking point.

#Smash Bros.#Monster Hunter #Etrian Odyssey #Dragon Quest #F-Zero

5 notes · View notes

the-depressed-shiny-buneary · 4 years

Text

Pokemon Next Gen (Competition Kids): Zachery “Zach” Hiroshi

Zachery or Zach as he likes to be called is the adopted son of Ritchie and Y. Even when he was a kid in the Galar region, he always liked Flying types or any Pokemon that could fly, he always claimed that they could go where ever they want without having to be anchored to the ground. He always wanted to fly with them or have a Pokemon that could fly but he never had the chance to, at least not until he was adopted by Ritchie and Y. Y had agreed to show him how to be a Sky trainer once he told her that he always wanted to fly with Flying-type Pokemon, she also had him go to Sky trainer school where he could fly all he wanted and participate in Sky Battles, he also competes in PokeRinger competitions, Sky Relay Races any kind of event that involves Pokemon that can fly, Zach will compete in. Zach is a counterpart to Nick, like how Nick is an Aura guardian in training, Zach is a Psychic user and is trying his best to control his psychic abilities. A big difference between the two of them is that Zach was in a good foster care system and thus never got any anger or trust issues, he’s also a lot calmer than Nick and he fit right into the family as oppose to Nick needing to warm up to his family. Despite how different they are, they do get along and they have fun talking to each other about what they do each day.

His main colors are yellow and turquoise. From yellow, he’s uplifting and cheerful. Yellow also represents how he’s optimistic and how he loves to be challenged, it also helps him with making decisions. He’s also very smart, as he goes to school to learn how to be a Sky Trainer, yellow also helps him with analyzing everything around him but he also has a bit of an inferiority complex, he can also be a bit impulsive and sometimes even a little impatient. Before getting adopted, he was a pessimist, thinking that no one would want him until Ritchie and Y adopted him, then he learned to be more optimistic. From turquoise, Zach is open to communication and it helps him clear his head. Turquoise also helps him remain calm, as well as balanced and in harmony with himself and it represents how he’s self-sufficient. However, Zach still has some issues with keeping his feelings to himself. Turquoise will also help him with observing things around him, which will help him in the long run.

His Pokemon

Gothitelle- Zach met Gothitelle when he was wandering outside of the orphanage. Gothitelle looked friendly and didn’t try to attack Zach so he approached her and started talking to her, with Gothitelle talking to him through telepathy. When it was time for him to head back, he said he would come back to visit Gothitelle. He kept coming to visit and talking with her, bringing food with him as well when he could bring some. After a while of visiting each other, Gothitelle had followed Zach back to the orphanage where she explained that she felt his psychic abilities and wanted to show him how to use them properly before something bad would happen to him, Zach didn’t question it and just agreed to what she said. Gothitelle then stayed with Zach to show him how to use his psychic abilities but also to keep them under a safe level so he doesn’t cause any kind of damage. When he was adopted by the Hiroshi family, Gothitelle went with them so she could keep teaching Zach and she’s still a good member of his team, even if he isn’t part of his team. Gothitelle is a kind Pokemon, she deeply cares about Zach as if he was her own child and acted as a sort of mother figure to him when he was in the orphanage. At first, she was just teaching him to give herself some comfort that he won’t become someone everyone will fear in the future but as time went on she actually came to love him like how a mother would love her son which is what led her to stay in the first place. She acts like a caretaker to the other kids as well and is often asked to babysit when Y and Ritchie are busy, which she doesn’t mind as she also has a soft spot for children.

Doesn’t have a Pokeball, wears a necklace with a chip that prevents her from being caught.

Ability is Competitive

Moves are Psychic, Flatter, Future Sight, Helping Hand, Shadow Ball, Calm Mind, Heal Pulse, Thunderbolt, Hypnosis, and Dream Eater.

Haunter- Zach had met Haunter when he still lived in the Galar region at the orphanage. Haunter had wandered into Zach’s room and started making some weird faces, instead of being scared, Zach just smiled and made strange faces with Haunter back. That had surprised Haunter as no one had ever made weird faces back at him, most kids would run away in terror but Zach wasn’t afraid of him. Haunter then decided to test to see how much he could scare Zach, he was never able to scare Zach but he would make him laugh which is what he kept doing until Zach had caught Haunter one night. Haunter is a huge prankster and joker, he loves messing around and having fun with his trainer. Despite being a joker who doesn’t take a lot of things seriously, he’s still caring and he wants to help Zach with wanting to fly so he would take Zach and by either letting him ride on his head or using Psychic on him he would fly around with Zach.

Caught in a Dusk Ball.

Ability is Levitate.

Moves are Shadow Punch, Shadow Ball, Psychic, Destiny Bond, Mean Look, Hypnosis, Dream Eater, Hex, Sludge Bomb, and Venoshock.

Gyarados- Gyarados was a Magikarp when he had met Zach and he was happy to have someone like Zach be nice to him instead of glaring at him or calling him useless because he was a Magikarp. One day while on a trip to the Hulbury, Zach had let Magikarp out so he could swim for a while. After a while of everyone playing in the water, Zach had gotten attacked by some Basculin and Magikarp was trying to fight them off, but he ended up getting beaten, and after a while of getting attacked, Zach started losing consciousness and was about to drown. Magikarp had dived underwater to try and save Zach, he had evolved due to sheer determination to save his friend. When Zach regained consciousness the first thing that happened was that he was getting nuzzled by his newly evolved Gyarados. Gyarados is strangely gentle and friendly, but if someone were to try and harm or actually harm Zach then he will become aggressive and highly protective over Zach. Gyarados is also affectionate, often cuddling and nuzzling Zach when he’s out of his Pokeball.

Caught in a Lure Ball.

Ability is Intimidate.

Moves are Dragon Dance, Aqua Tail, Crunch, Waterfall, Rain Dance, Hurricane, Ice Fang, Brutal Swing, Scale Shot, and Scald.

Unfezant- Zach caught Unfezant when she was still a Pidove as she was friendly to him, after a while of training with her she had evolved into a Tranquill. During a sky battle with another classmate, Tranquill had evolved into Unfezant and managed to win the battle for Zach. Unfezant is an intelligent and proud Pokemon, she also likes to battle against another flying Pokemon with Zach flying next to her. While she may be proud, she does get annoyed if other Flying-type Pokemon flirts with her so she’ll often blow them off and fly away from them. She focuses more on training with Zach as she feels that he’s the only person who understands how she feels about flying and about Sky battles, she’s also thankful for her stamina and is always working to improve her speed.

Caught in a Pokeball.

Ability is Super Luck.

Moves are Aerial Ace, Double Team, Return, Pluck, Dual Wingbeat, Brave Bird, Steel Wing, Air Slash, Agility, and Sky Attack.

Frosmoth- Zach caught Frosmoth when he was a Snom, he found him to be cute and had caught him. He then started to bond with him as time went on and when he was adopted by his current family, Snom had evolved into Frosmoth. As a Snom, Frosmoth was a lazy and a glutton, often eating a lot of food and then sleeping afterward. Zach never minded as he figured that’s how most young Bug-type Pokemon start out so he just let him be and he would play with him when he was ready to play. When he evolved, he gained a more competitive side which is what made him want to assist Zach in being a Sky Trainer and how he’s the one who’s always ready for any kind of competition made for Flying-type Pokemon or Pokemon that could fly. He often makes sure to use his wings to his advantage by blowing his opponents off course (so long as it’s allowed, he isn’t a cheater.)

Caught in a Net Ball.

Ability is Shield Dust.

Moves are Fairy Wind, Mirror Coat, Bug Buzz, Ice Beam, Air Slash, Tailwind, Reflect, Aurora Beam, Icy Wind, and Round.

Shiny Ledian- Zach caught Ledian while he and his family were in Johto, they happened to be near Johto’s National Park where the Bug catching contest was taking place, Zach and Riley competed for the fun of it. While Zach was exploring, he found a shiny Ledian, after having Haunter put her to sleep she got caught by Zach and he won the contest, allowing him to keep Ledian. A word to describe Ledian would be quirky, as she often flies around singing happily or declaring that she’s Zach’s sidekick as when she first saw him in his Sky Trainer suit she mistook it for a superhero costume and started saying that he’s a hero in training, Zach wanted to correct her but he found her to be too cute so he just went with it. Ledian takes her training for any kind of sky competition seriously and she’ll always do her best by providing plenty of punches with all of her arms. She gets along with Riley’s Ariados, enjoying his company, and is happy that he humors her when she wants to pretend to be a hero.

Caught in a Park Ball.

Ability is Iron Fist.

Moves are Silver Wind, Mach Punch, Dig, Air Slash, Agility, Aerial Ace, Bug Buzz, Drain Punch, Thunder Punch, and Mega Punch.

Skiploom- Zach caught Skiploom after she had landed on his head. Skiploom is a cheerful and happy Pokemon, she loves to let the breeze take her where she wants and she was very excited to be caught by a trainer. Skiploom does have some low self-esteem as she feels that her teammates are stronger than her but she takes that as a way to get better so she can help her trainer with his goals. She likes participating in PokeRingers as she feels most comfortable there due to all of the wind blowing and she feels at ease in the sunlight due to how it makes her faster thanks to her ability. She doesn’t like being blown away during strong winds but she’s able to adjust herself and can fly just fine when she gets used to the wind.

Caught in a Friend Ball.

Ability is Chlorophyll.

Moves are Synthesis, Fairy Wind, Sunny Day, Solar Beam, Bullet Seed, Giga Drain, Acrobatics, Cotton Spore, Confusion, and Energy Ball.

#Pokemon #Next Gen #Pokemon Next Gen #Zachery Zach Hiroshi #Competition Kids #My OCs

0 notes

recentanimenews · 4 years

Text

Kaido's Anime Reveal Is Different From The Manga (And That's Great)

In celebration of the Crunchyroll Villain Takeover, we have a slate of features all about our favorite villains! Stay tuned for a whole week about just how fun it is on the dark side of things, and keep an eye out on #VillainTakeover on social for more mayhem!

The sky rumbles and swirls into a storm. Everyone in the land of Wano is caught off guard, enraptured and terrified in equal measure. Huge claws begin to descend out of the clouds, soon followed by an immense, flaming dragon. Luffy is blown away and, in fact, the only person who seems to have maintained his composure is Mr. Maintaining His Composure himself, Trafalgar Law. Law then dispels any confusion by saying the two most feared words in the history of language itself: "That's Kaido."

Wow, right? That comes at the end of Chapter 921 of the One Piece manga and is a heck of a reveal for the powers of one of the Emperors of the Sea. It's simultaneously scary and awe-inspiring and even though fan theories had run wild with the idea that Kaido was hiding some kind of mysterious ability, we never could've fully prepared ourselves for that. So Kaido, who is already invincible, ate a Devil Fruit that allows him to turn into a Godzilla-sized dragon that also happens to be on fire? GG, Straw Hats. Head back to East Blue where it's safe.

And then you have the adaptation of this event in Episode 912 on the One Piece anime. In this, Kaido doesn't just appear. In fact, you get to see his full transformation beforehand, complete with American Werewolf In London-esque extending of Kaido's, umm, snout.

From then on, from the storm to the claws to the dragon, we already know "That's Kaido" when Law informs everyone that that is, indeed, Kaido. So it gives us the exact opposite reaction to the same big moment. And that can be a little weird because a lot of the power from the manga sequence comes from the fact that it displays Kaido in all his dragon glory when, for the most part, we've only seen him in his depressed, drunk glory. It's a shock and it throws the entire Wano arc into immediate chaos. You kind of expect Kaido to hang out in his big skull base camp, not coming out until his Final Boss Battle theme hits. But he's suddenly here, Kramer-ing through the panel.

But even though it's the opposite reaction, it doesn't make it a bad one in the slightest. In fact, to an extent, it reminds me of Alfred Hitchock's idea of "the bomb under the table." In the book, Hitchcock/Truffaut, Hitch participated in an elongated interview in 1962 with film critic/French New Wave director Francois Truffaut. And in it, he explained the idea that if a bomb suddenly goes off during a regular conversation, there is surprise. But if the audience knows that there's a bomb under the table beforehand, "this same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the secret."

Now, I wouldn't exactly describe the manga's reveal of Dragon Kaido as anything suddenly going off. We know that Kaido exists, we know that he is super strong, and we know that he's a threat to anyone that faces him. The only thing that's sudden is the reveal of this particular Devil Fruit power. However, in the anime, the audience is in on it completely. We know about Dragon Kaido before he descends from the heavens, so we're just left in suspense on how it's going to resolve itself. When Luffy becomes a contestant on the game show "WHO'S. THAT. DRAGON?!?", we're all Law now. We can take a certain amount of glee from being in the know while the characters scramble to figure things out.

And while a lot of the joys of anime based on manga comes from seeing the source material pulled off onscreen, throwing a curveball like this every once in a while keeps things refreshing. Because as a manga reader and anime watcher, looking for as many 1:1 comparisons as possible seems like a really perfunctory approach to engaging with something that I love. Of course, this is just how I look at things, and seeing particularly good manga panels pulled off in an anime always gives me a jolt of happiness. But here, it allows for discussion that's more in-depth than just "Did the anime do a good job of adapting the manga?"

Here, we can look at both the set-up and the climaxes of the dual sequences. We can find out the particulars that we enjoy, and compare the merits of the journey and the destination. One Piece is such a rich story that it deserves a more layered evaluation than "One side didn't keep up its end of the deal." And by giving us a different reveal of Kaido's powers, it shows that the anime is willing to take risks, but even more importantly, that the anime can use its unique strengths as a medium to alter the road map of One Piece while still getting us to those classic moments.

What did you think of Kaido's reveal in the anime? Are you enjoying the Wano arc? Let us know in the comments!

-------------------

Daniel Dockery somehow writes about One Piece for a living. You should follow him on Twitter.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

1 note · View note

inventors-fair · 1 year

Photo

It’s Time to D-D-D-Dual Land Entries 1-10

Infest Station by @wolkemesser

Deepwater Grove by @dimestoretajic

Salt Road Bulwark by @railway-covidae

Skophos Arena // Arena Champion by @bergdg

Wizard’s Tower by @misterstingyjack

Meltwater Tributary by @demimonde-semigoddess

Soul’s Monestary by @abzanhero

Alchemist’s Retreat by @hiygamer

Skaaberen’s Laboratory by @grornt

Lithomancer’s Forge by @hypexion

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventors' fair #weird dual land contest #entries

14 notes · View notes

darbiblog-blog · 7 years

Text

Finland Has a Sports Screw Loose

New Post has been published on https://darbi.org/finland-has-a-sports-screw-loose/

Finland Has a Sports Screw Loose

10 interesting facts about Finland

beautiful Finnish women

HYRYNSALMI, Finland — There’s some thing extraordinary happening in Finland. Over the beyond few decades, because it has all but disappeared from the global sports activities level, this humble Nordic nation has the type of lost its sports thoughts.

More than 2,000 humans ventured to the far flung backwaters of central Finland recently for the twentieth annual Swamp Soccer World Championships. If you and your partner want to compete in the Wife Carrying World Championships, you have to come to Finland. The Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships? Finland. The World Berry Picking Championship and the Air Guitar World Championships? Finland and Finland.

“We have some weird interests Finland ,” stated Paivi Kemppainen, 26, a body of workers member on the swamp soccer Sports Loose opposition and grasp of the understatement.

Just have a look at swamp football in Hyrynsalmi, an area wherein Jetta can obtain a small level of celebrity over time. Jetta is a stuffed badger ensconced in a hen cage. She acts as a mascot of kids for a crew of 12 pals who make the seven-hour force each year from Vihti, close to Helsinki, for the competition. They offered the doll seven years ago from a junk shop at a dual carriageway rest prevent, and her reputation around the swamp has grown ever since. A couple of years ago, she changed into interviewed with the aid of a neighborhood newspaper.

Continue reading the principal story On Saturday morning, the guys stood around shivering in threadbare thrift-save fits, which they said have been their group’s legitimate heat-up duds. A bottle of vodka changed into being handed round (their preferred way, reputedly, of warming up). It turned into approximately 10 o’clock. Soon it might be time for their first recreation of the day. They set Jetta apart and stripped of their outerwear, revealing skimpy blue wrestling singlets.

Continue reading the primary story

Left, Petra Koskela drinking wine at the Ukkohalla inn, wherein many gamers within the Swamp Soccer Championships stayed; proper, a player’s shoe is held on with tape to hold it from sticking in the muck. Credit Janne Körkkö for The New York Times Before they trodden into the mud, they have been requested a query: Why?

“You can say you’re world champions of swamp soccer,” said Matti Paulavaara, 34, one of the crew members, after a contemplative pause. “How many can say that?”

The genesis of swamp football changed into in 1998, when creative metropolis officers in Hyrynsalmi cooked up a competition-like occasion that might employ the region’s great swamplands. Thirteen groups confirmed up for the first tournament. Since then, the aggressive discipline has grown to about 2 hundred groups.

The latest fits — six-on-six, with 10-minute halves — were performed on 20 fields of varying squishiness, spread out over 50 acres of swamp. Finnish rock echoed thru the woods.

People striding on the seemingly firm ground would disappear unexpectedly into the smooth earth, as though descending a stairway. Some tottered on their palms and knees, like infants. Others stood nonetheless, till they have been waist-deep in the muck. The rankings were normally low. Many of the players were inebriated.

It’s tough to imagine an uglier model of the Beautiful Game.

Continue studying the principal story Photo

Even the best movements are extra hard in swamp soccer. Credit Janne Körkkö for The New York Times “You play, you lose, you win — no one cares,” said Sami Korhonen, 25, of Kajaani, who became gambling within the match for the 9th time. “The entire sport is so difficult, you’re definitely worn out while you’re completed.”

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();

This streak of strenuous irreverence began sweeping through the quiet Finnish geographical region inside the mid-Nineteen Nineties and has most effective grown considering the fact that.

In 1995, a Finn named Henri Pellonpaa killed a world-record 21 bugs in 5 minutes at the Mosquito Killing World Championships in Pelkosenniemi.

The World Sauna Championships were heavily contested in Heinola from 1999 to 2010 until a competitor died from 1/3-diploma burns.

More currently, hundreds of Finns, maximum of them teenage girls, have taken up competitive hobby horsing, in which competition trot and hurdle barriers while riding the timber toys.

Continue reading the primary tale Photo

Finland was as soon as ambitious in traditional sports activities, however, has currently taken a hard pivot closer to hosting weird competitions. Clockwise from top left: hobby-horsing championships in April; the 2009 Sauna World Championships; Wife Carrying World Championship this month; the 2014 Air Guitar World Championships. Credit Clockwise from pinnacle left: Rex Features, through Associated Press; Heikki Saukkomaa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Timo Hartikainen/Lehtikuva, thru Associated Press; Vesa Ranta/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images How did this appear? How did Finland grow to be such fertile ground for wacky sports?

There’s no easy solution, however, Finns offer diverse deep-seated elements, such as an enthusiastically outdoorsy populace (that goes barely stir-crazy all through the place’s oppressively dark winter months), the sizeable public gets admission to recreational areas, and a persevering with rest of the historically reserved countrywide man or woman. (Also, alcohol.)

Finland is the maximum thinly populated united states within the European Union. It boasts endless forests and almost 200,000 lakes, and its citizens revel in “Everyman rights,” which guarantees public get admission to maximum out of doors lands and our bodies of water for recreational purposes. The European Commission continually ranks Finns as a few of the maximum bodily energetic people at the continent.

“We’re like a forest people,” stated Lassi Hurskainen, 30, a former professional goalkeeper from Joensuu, who visited the swamp soccer tournament whilst website hosting a section for a Finnish sports activities television display. “So we provide you with video games that relate to nature.”

Straddling the Arctic Circle, Finland endures long, punishingly darkish winters. Summer consequently marks a duration of country wide catharsis. It enables that u. S . Has a predicted 500,000 summer time cottages, and due to the fact many Finns receive up to 6 weeks of vacation time per yr, the act of unhurriedly passing time outdoors feels almost like a country wide birthright.

Continue analyzing the main story Photo

A lake on the Ukkohalla motel. Finland boasts endless forests, extra than two hundred,000 lakes and 24 hours of daylight at some stage in some summer time months. Credit Janne Körkkö for The New York Times The mosquito-killing contest, as an example, changed into invented by way of a Finnish businessman named Kai Kullervo Salmijarvi as a summertime diversion for his children.

“I think we pass a bit loopy inside the summer,” said Hanna Vehmas, a sports activities sociologist at the University of Jyvaskyla. “Mix that with alcohol, and perhaps we need to compete a little bit.”

lose vs loose sentences

loose and lose the difference

loose lose loss

0 notes

inventors-fair · 1 year

Text

It’s Time To D-D-D-Dual Land

Dual lands are an important tool for making decks and formats tick. And they always come in cycles of more-or-less identical cards that all work the same apart from color. And they tend to be pretty general, so they can be used in any deck. But on occasion, we’ve seen a few cards that break this format, when we get a dual land or triland on its lonesome. These rare exceptions tend to be made as a boost to a very specific deck. These are the cards I’m interested in, lands that probably aren’t part of any cycle and do one very specific thing.

Make a dual or tri land designed for a very specific deck

Mandatory- The land must create two or three specific colors of mana, and it must be clear what kind of deck it’s made for. Torunament grounds is a great example. Are you playing a mardu knights deck? Great, you’re playing this. Are you not? Then you’re not playing this.

Encouraged- Technically, the Lorwyn dual “cycle” counts, and you wouldn’t get knocked for it necessarily, but that’s a tad on the boring side really. The recent Fortified Beachfront from brothers’ war is a much better example of this idea for the purposes of this contest, since it has the additional utility ability of sometimes acting as an anthem. Making a dual/tri land that’s also a utility land is a very good approach to this contest. Though I’d like Murmuring Bosk, the treefolk-based triland, more than the dual lands for the purposes of this contest, a) cause it’s a bit more unique and b) cause dual lands have a bit more room for additional utility than trilands do and we see them much less so this kind of design doesn’t feel as paint-by the-numbers. Just make sure you keep power level in mind.

Optional- Your card can be concepted as part of a cycle if you wish, but these kinds of cards are the rare exceptions that don’t need to be part of a cycle, so they don’t need to be. Design to best fit the needs of this specific deck, not to be part of a template other lands could use for other decks. If they are intended as part of a cycle though, it probably shouldn’t be a cycle where they’re all the same. Uniqueness is big here. If you could see this card showing up in a set not as part of a cycle though, you’re probably on the right track.

Warning- Don’t make your card feel too general, like a Blood Crypt, and don’t make it too boring either especially on dual lands. Like I said, utility dual lands are a good way to avoid to avoid this problem. And keep powerlevel in mind. Don’t make anything that outclasses already good land cards, especially basics.

Join Our Discord >> HERE << for advice from your fellow contestants.

Submit >> HERE << when you’ve landed a winner

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventors' fair #announcement #weird dual land contest #original post

11 notes · View notes

inventors-fair · 1 year

Text

It’s Time to D-D-D-Dual Land Commentary

Hey everyone! A couple week’s back, I ran the contest for dual lands made for specific decks. I finally got around to the commentary for the non-winners and runners after finishing my finals, so let’s jump into it!

Infest Station by @wolkemesser

First of all, *love* the pun in the name. The card’s definitely really good in -1/-1 counter decks and not all that great outside of them, so good job there. Though the floor is still just Savage Lands. And the potential of this land to come down untapped and add 3 mana is *really* strong. I think if this is getting played, it’s getting abused. As much as I do love jund -1/-1 counters, I think this may do better as a dual land- either BG or BR. (Personally, I’d go BR just cause green has stronger existing -1/-1 counter synergies so this pushes the rakdos and jund angles more). That way the floor of the card is lower, rather than being an already playable land, and it’s only a sol land instead of a Mishra’s Workshop. Even a sol land is abusable, but I think this may have enough restrictions to be okay. You might even be able to afford to lower the counter thresholds like this.

Deepwater Grove by @dimestoretajic

Oooh this is interesting. I do love the idea of a land that can be a shrine for the shrine deck. I think you could even take this a step further and have it always be an enchantment land- shrine. But I don’t think this was quite the contest for it. Shrines are a five color deck, so it probably wants a 5 color land. Now if this was part of a cycle, that would probably be fine, but then that leads to the question of is there really a set that wants a whole cycle of shrine lands? And… maybe? But shrines tend to be pretty self contained- each set that’s had them has basically just been a cycle, they’re hard to do as a bigger theme, so a cycle like this wouldn’t really be doing a ton. But they are still dual lands that anyone could use, but then that means the shrine decks who really need them won’t get them. Basically, this card is mostly fine, but the things it implies about whatever set its in don’t quite work as well. And there are a few tweaks i’d make here too. Make it always an enchantment land- shrine, like i mentioned, and I’d see if there’s any way you could make a Shrine tribal effect to make it feel more like a shrine.

Salt Road Bulwark by @railway-covidae

Normally I’m skeptical of sol lands, but outlast costs are a pretty safe outlet for them. Outlast creatures a bit less so. Not by a ton, I doubt it would be broken, per se, but it really affects how outlast creatures are costed in an environment, and usually that kind of thing isn’t worth it for one card, it’s better to let the outlast cards themselves be costed more aggressively.

Wizard’s Tower by @misterstingyjack

This just seems way too good a scry engine. I know you mentioned Path of Ancestry as a point of comparison, but there’s two things there- one, commander lands are *weird* powerlevel wise so they don’t make great points of comparison. And two, the addition of instants and sorceries really changes things. This would maybe be okay if it just worked with wizards, but this is a *powerful* control card when it works for instants and sorceries. Its so little investment, on a dual land

Meltwater Tributary by @demimonde-semigoddess

So the intention is clearly some kind of draw-go esque land that lets you play it on your opponent’s turn. That’s a cool idea, though I question whether red is the best second color for that. I would put any of the others ahead of it, though UW the most. You missed a very important clause though- this really needs a limitation to only let you activate it on your opponent’s turn. As is, you could activate that ability on your own turn, and then play a land, and double up on the lands. That’s no good. I’m also not sure that activated ability works- it activates from a hidden zone, but doesn’t reveal information to reveal that you have this card in your hand. (Not while this is on the stack anyway). So you’d need additional clauses to account for that. I think this is a cool idea, but takes too much to get it to work that it just comes out extremely clunky.

Soul’s Monastery by @abzanhero

This is just wayy too busto. Sol lands are always dangerous, and this does not have the precautions it needs to prevent that. I see you were trying to stop this a little with the “if ~ is untapped” clause, but you can still just tap this for mana afterwords. So it doesn’t stop you from using this as a sol land, it just makes it more funky and confusing to do so, and I’m not sure that’s an improvement.

Alchemist’s Retreat by @hiygamer

I like this card, I really do, but it probably shouldn’t exist. It’s just asking for abuse, particularly by dredge. If you want to make a land to help out GU self mill, maybe something like “you may play ~ from your graveyard as long as there are seven or more other cards in your graveyard” or something more along those lines would be a safer way to do it.

Lithomancer’s Forge by @hypexion

This looks remarkably safe, as sol lands go. It’s extremely restricted in what you can use it for, and it enters tapped so you can’t just turbo out equipment quite as easily. Two potential additional balancing techniques would be to make the sol mana colorless, CC instead of RW, or to only let it pay equip costs but not equipment. I’m not sure those are necessary; I’d just want to playtest those versions to compare. I think equipment are a good candidate for a sol land though, since they’re quite mana hungry. Nice work.

Multicultural Fair by @reaperfromtheabyss

This is a pretty decent card, all things considered. It just feels a tad boring, I suppose. It gives you a generically useful benefit if you’ve jumped through the hoop, and enters untapped if you jump through that hoop, but it doesn’t really play into that deck’s playstyle at all. This doesn’t feel like the exciting reward for a theft deck it seems like it wants to be. I wonder if you could do some kind of sac outlet to work well with red’s temporary act of treason theft. That’s more of a black/red thing for sure, but I think it could work here, maybe a fling effect of some kind. UR, T, Sacrifice a creature you control but don’t own: ~ deals damage to each opponent equal to that creature’s power. This card certainly isn’t bad, don’t get me wrong, it just feels like it could be more.

Warren Opening by @shakeszx

The biggest issue with this card is that Auntie’s Hovel exists. If you wanted to go for another goblin dual land, by all means go for it, but I would have tried to differentiate this more. Maybe go in a bit of a more utility direction, with an ability either letting you sac goblins or creating goblin tokens. And on top of that, this has an issue that Hovel doesn’t- Goblins are a very cheap, low-to-the-ground tribe, but this doesn’t colorfix you to get your goblins out until you already have a goblin out.

Lorehold Dig Site by @deg99

I see two main issues with this card. The first is that I think its ability to produce colored mana is just too inconsistent. I’d rather this be something like “T, Exile a card from your graveyard: Add R or W” or maybe nonland card specifically if it needs to tone down a little. You’re still encouraged to do instants and sorceries cause of the activated ability, but I think the flexibility to have it exile anything in a pinch is important. And secondly, I’d simplify the activated ability. Instead of having X be equal to the number of exiled cards, just put an X in the cost to activate the ability and readjust the costs as needed

Personal Sudatory by @snugz

Looks great! Very simple and to the point, but it does exactly what it’s supposed to. It helps you colorfix for graveyard spells. It seems a tad on the weak side, it could probably afford some additional utility- probably some weak but serviceable in a pinch way to fill your graveyard. Like 3, T: Mill two cards or something.

Alpine Lake by @i-am-the-one-who-wololoes

Art direction: A calm lake is on a relatively large and flat part of a mountain. Around it are a lot of trees, flowers, bushes. A river feeds the lake, coming down the side of the mountain that continues up. On the other side of the lake, where the mountains starts to go down, another river drains the lake waters. There are no animals nor humans or other species in sight.

That downside just seems way too negligible for an untapped three color dual. There’s so much you can do to avoid it- play mainly creatures, play mainly noncreatures, only play one spell each turn, make sure you use this mana for the last spell each turn. It’s just way too easy to avoid.

Kessig, Wild and Pure // Kessig, Forever Free by @piccadilly-blue

You really didn’t need to make this card legendary. That’s rarely a great balancing choice unless it’s super problematic when there are multiple out, cause you don’t want to leave it stranded in players’ hands, and I don’t think this is strong enough that it needs that extra balancing factor anyway. A land that introduces day/night is pretty risky- there’s a reason we didn’t see any one drops that do so and a land is even a step farther. If you play this turn one, you can skip casting any spell and it will be night, and even if your opponent is able to get a one drop off they still won’t be able to cast two. It gives you a massive advantage of all your werewolves coming down flipped. The difference between games where you draw this land in your opener and games where you don’t are huge. I also wonder if this can afford a little more power in the activated ability, especially on the backside.

Silent Mangrove by @izzet-always-r-versus-u

This card is interesting, cause there’s a lot of color combos it could be, and they’d tell you something different. If this was UW or UB, it would indicate more of a draw-go controlly deck. If it was UR, I’d expect something a bit more spellslingery. UG is gonna be draw-go-ish as well, but with a lot more flash creatures. More of a midrange than a control. And I do think that’s the most interesting place for this particular card, so I’m glad you went with this version. This card doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, it doesn’t have any utility function and I don’t think it really needs it. An activated ability could be useful, since it gives you something to do with mana that you hold up, but this might be strong enough as is; it’s quite good at fixing in the right deck.

Stillriver Cemetery by @squeezyboi

This just seems too strong. Functionally cantripping on entry is *a lot* of value for any land, let alone a dual land. This does have a restriction on what decks can use it, yes, but I still think it’s just too much value for those decks. And undead batching mechanics like this always have weird edge cases. This includes Kami and any other nature-spirit-types, but excludes a lot of other traditional undead. So I’m just not sure there’s an intuitive set of what creature types should be undead, you’d get different answers from different people (though these are a pretty decent group, I will say).

Scorched Front by @bandswithblog

There’s no fair use for this card. If you’re using it fairly, it’s bad, it’s just way too slow. If you’re playing this, it’s cause you’re looking to kill lots and lots of creatures to get a decent chunk of mana all at once. “Useless or broken” is just not all that fun of a place to be.

Thanks, y’all for your entries! Have a happy new year!

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventors' fair #entries #weird dual land contest

8 notes · View notes