Song: This Must Be Love by Phil Collins

• Main Image
• Background
• Roses
• Font: Daniel from dafont.com

None of the rules in this challenge said that I couldn't use a yuri couple for my OTP, so here we are.

So for my first OTP (I have more than one), I decided to go with Shizuma and Nagisa from Strawberry Panic. The reason I like this couple so much is because the story of these two captivates me a bit. I'll go into it briefly for the purpose of this challenge, though it will be kind of a spoiler for those who haven't seen the anime. Therefore it will be in one of those black redaction bars we sometimes see here on TheO.

A major part of this love story is Shizuma getting over the death of her previous girlfriend, Kaori (who died before the events of the series. At first her relationship with Nagisa isn't anything too serious, but her feelings for the redhead start to build. Then Shizuma attempts to use Nagisa as sort of a replacement for Kaori and tries to forget about her dead lover, but that of course proves to be impossible. Towards the end of the series though when Shizuma finally starts to move on for Kaori, she realizes that she truly is in love with Nagisa and (I'm of course skipping over some major parts here) the two end up together.

That's pretty much the gist of it (for those who read that spoiler). But that love story just struck a cord with me for some reason. Maybe it was because it was beautifully told or because it's the kind of love story I don't see very often (and I'm not talking about how it's a yuri story). Anyway, part of the reason I decided to do a wallpaper of this couple is because I just finished watching Strawberry Panic again yesterday. I got the series on DVD last week, and it was my first time watching it in roughly five years.

I really put a lot of effort into trying to make this wallpaper perfect. The background image of the moon is actually one of the photos taken my XxArrancarFanxX. I had actually used it once before for a Sailor Moon wallpaper I did before one of my old laptops died. When I tried it with the scan of Shizuma and Nagisa I chose to use last night, it all seemed to click together. It was still missing something though, and when I gave it some thought I decided it needed some kind of flower framing the bottom corners. I spent a good chunk of this afternoon browsing Minitokyo for the right scan containing roses, which was not an easy task.

As for the Phil Collins song I had decided to use for this wallpaper, it had totally slipped my mind that I had used it for an SAO wallpaper from a while back. Though that wallpaper wasn't one of my better creations. In fact I don't think I even submitted it, since it doesn't look like I transferred it off my flash drive to my laptop. Besides, I think the song it a much better fit for this wallpaper. Enjoy.

Dedicated to XxArrancarFanxX, since she's currently not feeling well and because I'm using one of her photos again for the background.