A long time ago, I stumbled upon a Pinterest challenge that pretty much was to search a character name + "core" (Pretty much like the aesthetic names everyone uses nowadays) and assemble a small moodboard with the results. So I've decided to do these with Big Waves.
Keep in mind these images are 2-3 years old, so the Pinterest results have changed greatly since then. Out of pure curiosity I've decided to experiment and re-do these boards with the up to date view I have of these characters, so feel free to compare results. Though I can testify that algorithm had gone downhill, because in more than one occassion I got a duplicate result :/
(Also... These are also based more on my adult/GO setting than OG, jsyk)
Quincycore
It doesn't matter if its 2023 or 2025, all the results I get will always be based on cottagecore or something soft. I don't mind Quincy being soft sometimes, but I do prefer him being more "grunge", if you get what I mean.
Also as I was researching, I stumbled upon this random picture of an anime character (I think it's from Bleach) and... Please don't tell me I'm the only one who thinks they look similar to Quin 😭
Jeancore
For some reason as I was doing the new version, at some point the Pinterest algorythm went "fuck you" and started to put EVERYTHING, from dumb comics to incredibly unrelated stuff. Still managed to find good material with enough luck.
I like the vibe of both moodboards overall, and I'm glad it didn't deviate much.
Brucecore
My only two notes for the 2nd version is that 1- This time around there was so little to actually work with, it's so dissappointing compared to when I was searching years ago 2- Yes, the beer cans are neccesary to this, I can explain (????)
...Gotta be sincere, the first version wins this round.
Shinecore
My biggest pet peeve with the 2025 version is that apparently "shinecore" got coined as an actual aesthetic (Or something), because every single image I found was mostly a cute thing with a vintage-like filter and covered with sparkles. I miss the diversity of the 2023 results :(
Nonetheless, I'm happy I've still managed to get something that fits Shine more. The pastel colors are cute, yes, but it's a color scheme that goes better with Reef. Speaking of him...
Reefcore
Another case where the older version wins. I feel like the 2025 results featured a lot of marine things (Which makes sense), but very little of other things or even anything that reminded on how I picture Reef. Plus I like the colors better on the 1st ver.
I think I have some moodboards left to do, so if anyone's interested I could share more.
I still struggle to articulate my thoughts at the moment, but I want to thank everyone for the support during this 2023. 💞 I'm genuinely grateful that even if this blog remains small, there's people out there that want to listen to the silly stories I give these characters. There's so much to share yet, like the Euro B coaches and the Toro Blanco, but I have confidence I will be able to do it soon. Thank you for waiting, and on the meantime, let's talk about something else today.
Back on my main blog @/brucemarlin I remember reblogging a drawing with THE Bruce Marlin for the first post of the year 2023. Why not doing the same for here, too? Given I don't post much about Quincy Horst despite my URL, I guess this is a good way to fix it.
To clarify, this is a summarized outline. So unlike Gareth -which I divided in detailed parts-, this is a bullet point with smaller pieces, but that do explain my overall ideas with Quincy at least until the FFI. This is also a very rushed post, so forgive me for any mistakes.
Quincy was born in Kalgoorlie, the so-called aussie city of gold. However due to issues his family had to move out to Esperance later on.
Overall, the Horst family had been operating a mining company since their arrival to Australia, but lately the business has been struggling with many things, such as past controversies and their main goldmine starting to dry out.
This is where Quincy's profile comes out, he desires as to find a goldmine mainly as economical support (and a quick way to gain fame for himself). Ironically he does get into the geological aspects later on in life.
He is the 5th child in a family of 7, mostly composed of girls. The other boy in the family went already to study at Canberra, so he's absent most of the time. This led for Quincy to interact with his sisters more, obviously with the consequence of him getting mannerisms, atitude and interests that can be seen as """girly""". Not a bad thing at all, but it did gave him a hard time at school; specially from the other boys.
But unlike similar situations, Quincy did the risky thing of actually fighting his own bullies back. It didn’t end up well, and while it helped his parents realize the gravity of the situation, by that point Quincy had gotten tried.
For the rest of his adolesnce, he developed the radical choice of hating anything girly (Be interests or even just the color pink), at the same time trying to find ways to look "cooler" or "macho". Until he grew up from it, this did strain the relationship with most of his sisters; specially those he once used to play with.
But not everything was bad, at least. Around the end of Primary School, turns out Quincy's aunt started to date a man of surname Marlin, who also had a son. The boy named Bruce was quick to befriend Quincy due to their similar age and interests, so at least Quin finally had another boy to rely on. Hell, he does consider Bruce to be more of an older brother figure than his actual bro.
Thanks to him Quincy also got onto soccer, though by getting accidentally hit by one of his show-off shots. The sudden incident at least made Quincy develop interest into becoming a goalkeeper. While researching aboit the sport he soon stumbled upon Jean Baker, the keeper from Sydney whose fame was slowly growing. Finding him badass, Quin started to use him as a role-model on his training. But soon the sentiment grew from "I want to be like him" to "I will be BETTER than him C:<"
I guess that's the most essential info for now; there's still quite lots of things to talk about Quincy and his family on detail, but this is a good outline of what I have.
But, here's a little add-on, since we are on the Year of the Dragon: Since their origins, the Horst family has kept for generations the very exclusive belief of the Horst Dragon, a mythical draconic creature that has been protecting them for centuries, even when the family moved from Germany to Australia. Even to this day Mr. Horst is a firm believer of this creature, and he was succesful to pass this enthusiasm on his son. Quincy is the most passionate child about the Horst Dragon, even more than his other -skeptical- siblings. He even claims at times that the Horst Dragon helps him to guard the goal. Huh.
Did you know that it has been more than 15 years since Ina11's episode 72 aired?
And with that... We can say that Bruce, Quincy -and Shine too- have been benched for 15 years <3
I'd include Angler and Sully but they at least did stuff
Since i don't tend to do many posts only about Bruce, I've decided to look onto my written notes and share what I have for him. He's my main blog url after all, it was deserved...
Will put it under a read more just in case but, enjoy :D
He's 14 years old, being a 2nd Year.
Born and raised on Esperance (A town that hosts geographical wonders like Lucky Bay Beach and the Pink Lake), though later on he chooses to move to Perth as an adult.
The love of sports runs on his family, specially the Marlin's. Back on his teenage years his father had managed to keep the record of being the fastest runner in Western Australia; though an ankle injury is what led him to pursue another thing as an adult. As for Bruce's mother, she was a talented olympian who won many gold medals for her home country.
She unfortunately isn't with them anymore, but Blake Marlin had managed to record her whole past performances in VHS tapes. There's also small chunks of her life outside sports, showing she had a fascination for Australian culture and wildlife. Every so often, Bruce likes to search for these tapes and watch them in silence.
Don't expect him to admit it out loud, but Bruce deeply loves the color pink. He finds comfort on it.
Bruce's kangaroo footwork is one of his most trained skills, having worked on it since he was a little lad. Having a soft spot for kangaroos, he decided to study their maneuvers and try to replicate their moves while playing soccer. It can look a bit awkward at times, but is helps a lot to move faster through the field.
And since it is slightly related, despite the coincidences he's not the one who invented Kangaroo Kick. The footwork used on the hissatsu is 100% his, though I think the aggresive style of the move wouldn't be something he uses much (Except for a particular occassion). I like the idea of Holly getting inspired by his moves and inventing a dribble hissatsu out of it.
Bruce isn't the biggest fan of someone appropiating his footwork, however. It is something dear to him.
I REALLY want to talk about his dynamics with the Horst now... To summarize previous posts: for a few years Mr. Marlin had been dating Clem Horst, a former babysitter of Bruce. At first it wasn't planned to visit the rest of her family minus for few occassions, but thanks to them moving to Esperance it gave more room for Bruce to interact with his new "cousins".
I've mentioned that he and Quincy get on well on the latter's headcanon post; but its true that for a long while, it took time for Bruce to accept the Horst as "family". He liked them, sure, but he despised the idea of someone "replacing" his mother. So while he enjoyed Quincy's company, he deeply felt uncomfortable whenever the topic of them being cousins was brought up.
I feel like many factors do eventually change his mind about the matter. Be seeing Quincy at his most vulnerable (by encountering his previous bullies during the soccer frontier) or by realizing the rotten side of his maternal family; he soon starts to find a place within the Horst family. Though not everything will be perfect post-FFI :(
...On a brighter note, here's a photo of Bruce from my Tomodachi Collection savefile :') His birthday is actually on July 23; but at least it still serves for this occassion. The brunette boy next to him is Jett Archer, another important person in Bruce's life :D
Happy day to one of my earliest and most beloved pairings of BW, BruShine/MarBeach <3
This is technically meant to be just a headcanon of them, but it ended up quite long. Either way, it is one of my favorites. Though I'll admit that I'm not sure if it's 100% going into my setting or just remained as a concept, I've never settled on that... Still a cute scenario either way. Love childhood encounter ships.
I might not focus with BW nor BruShine as intense as I did back on 2022, but these two still got my heart. I hope you can enjoy this story.
Although both Bruce and Shine both had separate lives, one living on Western Australia and the other in Queensland, truth is that at some point in the past, they had already crossed paths. Way before they got to play on the same time. It happened while they both were around 3 or 4 years old, in an era where the storm hadn't come yet for neither. So for now, things had been quite happy. Shine for example, despite being overlooked by his parents, he always found a spot of comfort on his own grandmother, who'd take him to the coast almost every weekend.
However, the beaches that Shine would attend had its fair share of flaws. Soon trash started to accumulate, people would be impolite, loud sounds would play everywhere, and overall, no matter how beautiful the view was, the sorrounding city gray felt overwhelming for both child and woman. So as a way to give him a change of pace, his grandmother Sun took him one day to an entirely different place: Lucky Bay Beach, located within Western Australia. It wasn't easy to plan out said trip at first; but a business trip of the Beach family became the perfect excuse to take Shine away as his parents meddled in dumb economical stuff.
Grandma Sun had once visited Lucky Bay a long time ago, sometimes to the point she herself questioned if what she had seen was real on the first place. And even after coming back decades later, the views of such white sand with a sky blue sea still felt something out of a dream. Little Shine also felt the same way too, which led him to step on and want to play with his sorroundings, just to prove himself the reality of such scenery.
But after enough toying with sand and splashing the sea waves, soon some external noises interrupted the peace of the two. At the distance, they saw a peculiar scenario: Following along the jumping beach kangaroos, there was another boy around Shine's age. Not paying mind to it at first, soon Sun was surprised with her grandson wanting to imitate said boy; to the point he also went jumping towards him. Although in such a clumsy way, almost the two children crashing with each other.
The fluffy animals were startled off by this encounter, and quite fearful, they fled towards the bushes; as the blonde boy observed in shock. Feeling cornered upon two strangers, he was almost at the verge of tears. When grandma Sun finally catched upon with her grandson and saw the crying stranger, she tried to comfort him, but it seemed futile. Things could have gotten worse, but...
"Do you like kangaroos?"
To Sun's surprise, Shine had decided to break the ice. Still distrustful at first, the other boy still replied by nodding up and down.
"Me too." Beach continued "I'm sorry for scaring them."
Well, at least sincerity had worked, given the blondie had halted his cries and now was standing up. Nonetheless, he was still feeling let down over losing his friends, so Shine took it as a chance to continue talking. At some point he looked over to grandma, usually her main helper in communicating, but she preferred for her grandson to go his own way this time around.
"...I liked how you were jumping! You looked just like one of them."
...Oddly enough, being compared to a kangaroo of all things was something that did lighten up the stranger, taking it as a compliment.
"You think so...?" Were the first words he muttered upon a smiling Shine.
"Yes! I want to see it again. Could you show me...?"
Now feeling better, the blonde boy nodded once again, and soon he became Shine's teacher on kangaroo jumping. Both boys bonded quickly as they jumped together, and soon tried to follow another batch of marsupials nearby. It didn't last for long, as their laughs accidentally scared the kangaroos away; but at least the blondie didn't cry this time around. Soon their playtime stopped being only jumping, and now the two were playing in the ocean waves, splashing each other. And once both were tired enough, they chilled together on the sand.
Right before Shine could ask for his new friend's name however, separation came upon them. By just hearing the far away call of his father and grandparents, "Bruce! Bruuuuce!", the blondie reacted on the spot and was ready to run towards his comfort zone. Rushing each other's goodbyes, Shine tried to share his name at the last second; but even to this day he never knew if the blondie had actually heard him.
Life kept going for both. After the encounter Bruce had gotten more interested on talking to others; leading to him later on finding his actual best friend back in Esperance. Shine had also tried to talk with others too, but unlike Bruce, soon those around him started to treat him different because of his tiny height. As a result, he became more solitary and preferred to reject conversations.
When Big Waves was formed, Bruce was soon to recognize the same boy he had talked back then, barely changed except for few centimeters of height. To be sincere I don't remember developing much the idea in this specific point; but I could see each other at some point addressing the elephant on the room. Well, if Shine's willing to talk, that is. But if things go well enough, maybe this could be a cute explanation how he learnt Kangaroo Kick too. (Idk if Holly used it on the anime, it is Bruce's creation to me)
At least one thing is sure, and it doesn't matter if it's on the FFI or later on; whenever Bruce or Shine see each other, it makes both reminisce of simpler, yet happier times. Though nostalgia can be toxic at times, and it did prove when the two met once again. Now as adults, both unhappy with their lives, having said reminder nearby didn't help at all.
Fortunately this idealization of the past didn't last forever, and after managing to accept both their current situations (with ways to improve within them); the two were ready to start a new step of their lives. They'll keep making new, happier memories as life continues its course. 🥺💙🧡
Shine's best friend is japanese-brazilian, and she has exchanged many parts of her culture with him, including music. In fact, Shine loves Bossa Nova and similar genres. It's just music that gives him comfort even during the worst times.
While re-meeting Bruce again as adults, Shine soon started to get overly attached to the song "The Girl of Ipanema", listening to it over and over again by himself. In way or another, he deeply relates to the song.
Like the man who protagonizes it, Shine knows a tall, blonde and beautiful person who walks through the beach all day, staring at the sea. Shine admires them through a distance, but is afraid of communicating their feelings.
And also like the song, Shine doesn't even know if his object of desire shares those feelings back. All he can do is just ponder in silence, not knowing what to do...
Perhaps one day, he will gain enough courage.
Are you curious on knowing how Shine's friend looks like? Well look no further, because it's this girl from the BW recordings :D
I adored her design so much, that I've decided to give her a name and some development. She's Ursula Chinna. Can you find the animal motif within her? ~
To summarize, she and Shine met during the beach day BW had on the anime, the two bonded with both being underestimated by their short stature, and after the FFI ended and Beach went home, the two still kept in contact as penpals and then in social media.
While later on Shine would finally grow a bit, Ursula unfortunately retained her short stature :( But don't be fooled... You don't want to mess with this punk girl.
