shelly-vision

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sometimes I forget how tall Sierra is

Hours before a disaster 💔

😭😭😭 It hurt my soul when Duncan kissed Gwen. Like WHY? And me personally I feel like it was so out of Gwen’s character. They start making them be weird in TDA. Also.. I like to think Heather and Courtney became a little closer. I love them as a duo!! 😭😭😭 like when they found out, and aheather was confronting her omg😭💔

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The fact that I’m not seeing anyone talk about this makes me feel like I’m fucking hallucinating.

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Welcome Home Cow Tools Theory: the weirdest Welcome Home theory you’ll ever see.

Hi. Welcome to my dumbass theory. Please hear me out on this.

So, in case you’re somehow unaware, Clown and Huck just held a Q&A about Welcome Home. Among the many silly questions and sillier answers, user can of maple beans asked the following question.

And attached to the answer was this image.

Now, the common response to this would naturally be “wut?” But unfortunately I spend too much time online and as such, it didn’t take me long to remember what the reference was.

Now, this probably makes things more confusing to some people. Luckily I’m here to explain it.

BUT

Before I do, I need to post the other Q&A prompt that will be relevant to this discussion.

Please put a pin in this for later. Now, I will explain Cow Tools.

Cow Tools is a one-panel comic from the series “the Far Side” by Gary Larson released in October of 1982. The Far Side consists of similar one-panel comics all telling some silly punchline. However, Cow Tools goes beyond that. The joke of the panel is very simple. The idea is that if cows made tools, they’d probably be weird and unsophisticated. However, a lot of people didn’t understand it. Upon the debut of Cow Tools, the phones of the newspaper company that published it didn’t stop ringing for nearly two days straight as people were continuously calling to ask what the joke was. This lack of understanding caused severe backlash and hate to form for Cow Tools. To put it in simpler terms, this simple thing was over complicated by people, causing them to not understand it, and in response, they turned their lack of understanding into hate. However, decades later, Cow Tools found its audience among the internet, as the sheer absurdity of the comic makes it a somewhat popular anti-joke.

Now, I bet you’re wondering, “Overwhelmingly niche tumblr user and Total Drama fanfiction writer Shelly_Vision, what does anything about Cow Tools have to do with Welcome Home, let alone the homophobia discussion you told us to put a pin in? Surely the joke Clown and Huck were making with Julie Tools is just that it’s meaningless and meant to be a non-answer, right?” And that is probably true. I probably am overanalyzing and all of this could be meaningless. However I hyperfixate way too much and said hyperfixatuon leads me to come up with theories that might mean utter nonsense. But the small chance remains that I’m onto something. So because of that, I will now present what this theory is truly about with my full chest.

Julie Tools tells us the exact reason why the show Welcome Home was cancelled. Yes I am completely serious and allow me to explain.

Let’s ask ourselves this: why was Julie Tools posted in response to asking if romance would be a part of Welcome Home’s story? What does Cow Tools have to do with romance?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cow Tools, as a comic, has nothing to do with romance. The content of the comic itself is meaningless. What we need to do here is not apply the comic to romance, but to apply the comic’s *reception* to romance.

Now is when we need to return to the homophobia discussion. Welcome Home as a show released in the 70s. Back then, the general audience didn’t understand queer people and turned the lack of understanding into hate. What romance would result in this puppet show getting immense backlash?

A queer romance.

Yes I am fully serious in saying that this random reference to Cow Tools is meant to tell us that Welcome Home was cancelled and all mention of it was scrubbed away due to backlash from its inclusion of queer characters. Backlash and hatred of something simple that the public didn’t understand and decided to hate it because of that.

Dear reader, why would all of this stuff about Welcome Home resurface in the 2020s? Because just like how Cow Tools didn’t find its audience until decades after it was published, Welcome Home didn’t find its audience until now. In a day and age where queer people are accepted. And it seems a lot of queer people are drawn to this project.

Welcome Home is (at least partially) about queer erasure. I’ve had a feeling this would be the case for years now but this just strengthens by certainty in it.

Alright now for the more speculative parts of the theory. My main point was the general queer erasure stuff, now I want to get a little more into character stuff.

So first off, why is it Julie Tools? It feels like Frank and Eddie are more overtly queer characters, and while Julie still is very queer coded, it’s not as overt as characters like Frank, Eddie, Sally, or Poppy. Julie’s queer coding is mostly limited to her interactions with Sally. (See my Julie character analysis for more elaboration.) Well, here’s something purely speculative. As shown in the most recent update, Julie is someone who often feels like her only value is in what she can do for others. So, what if, on the cusp of the general public discovering Frank and/or Eddie and/or Poppy and/or Sally is queer, Julie outs herself as a form of self-sacrifice. That way the general public forgets its speculations about the others and all the backlash ends up being directed to Julie’s character instead? This feels kind of reachy but hey maybe I’m onto something. Uh the mentions of nonstop phone ringing reminded me of Wally’s connection to phones, tho that one’s definitely unrelated. Also seeing the Q&A show Julie in Y2K fashion and Sally in Y3K fashion felt extremely yuri to me and I’m adding that to the pile of sapphic hints. Maybe the always and clumsy nature of the tools represents awkward and clumsy romantic feelings? Yeah at this point I’m reaching.

TLDR: the in-universe show of Welcome Home was cancelled and all mention of it was scrubbed from the world because of its queer characters. I may be drowning in my autism and hyperfixation.

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referencing Cow Tools of all things is the most vague ass response possible so I’m totally gonna have to make a post theorizing about what this means aren’t I

You've probably already answered this but will there be any romance, canon or implied? If there isn't romance, will characters have crushes?

Answer as vaguely as you want, love your series sm :]]

since you said we can be as vague as we like, we made this for you!

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so I was gonna make a meme about how all the neighbors have been dealing with the horrors in their own specialized ways and then meanwhile Howdy is just big chilling completely fine, seemingly having no issues at all, fully content with his life, and then I realized… that is 100% intentional, isn’t it? That Howdy and Howdy alone has been completely chill? Howdy’s *so* content with his life that his update is gonna be about some kind of change terrifying him and wanting everything to stay as is. And like, they have the perfect way to represent that. He’s a caterpillar. Metamorphosis. The literal embodiment of change.

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Con Gra Tul Ati Ons: an Analysis of the Julie Video Links, Flower Language, and Julie’s Mental State.

Alright, the Welcome Home hyperfixation has taken over full force again, so I wanna over analyze. And since I wanna over analyze, I pick the one thing nobody’s talked about yet: the names of the secret video links. …I promise this is an interesting conversation topic. Uh, spoilers for the April 2025 update?

Alright, so if you’re unaware, there are five secret videos in the most recent update that depict Julie finding a weird flower bud, and subsequently having a mental breakdown. The names of these videos are the word “Congratulations” split into five parts, but more importantly, the video links are the meanings of three separate flowers put together. Now, I wanna analyze why these specific flower meanings are chosen. I will go into what happens in the videos kinda, but like not entirely since it’s not just about the videos, but the links, and the content of the video itself has already been talked about several times. Note, the bonus image of Frank entitled “Oh no” isn’t included since it’s just the first word of each link, that likely doesn’t have relevance and was done so that you’d see that last no matter what.

Video one: Revenge, Message, Beware

Ironically for this analysis, the first videos is the one I’m most stumped on. I have no clue why Revenge is the word choice, there’s nothing and no one Julie would want revenge on. Perhaps the flower bud’s existence is some cosmic sort of revenge to Julie accidentally starting Spring early? I really don’t know.

Message is definitely an abstract word choice without a concrete meaning, but I think it could be saying that the flower bud is a message from a higher being of some kind? …I promise I have more detailed analysis on the other videos.

Beware is a far more straightforward choice. It’s specifically saying Julie should be wary of this fuckass flower, either because of what it specifically can do or because of the strife it will inevitably cause her.

Video two: Innocence, Constancy, A Spell

Innocence can representative of either Julie or the flower itself. Julie is an inherently innocent person, she doesn’t ever do anything that hurts people or causes anyone strife, yet she feels far from innocent because she blames herself for this perpetually unblooming flower. It’s also possible that while this flower is ominous, it itself is innocent. The flower never actively harms Julie, yet its presence causes her strife. Perhaps it’s saying that isn’t intentional? Both meaning could be possible.

Constancy is a word with two meanings. One is the quality of being faithful and dependable. Julie is a very faithful person yes, and she is in fact dependable. She never shirks in her duty of making the flowers bloom, yet she *feels* like she isn’t dependable because of this one specific flower. The other meaning is the quality of being unchanging. This fits really well, as Julie puts up a front of never being sad or worried, she tries to come off to everyone as unchangingly happy, despite the fact on the inside she feels a lot of stress and anxiety in her role.

I have no idea why a spell is used. It’s the only one that’s two words. Maybe Julie making the flowers bloom by singing is inherently a spell of some kind?

Video three: Regard, Forgetfulness, Silence

Regard is likely in reference to Julie’s concerns and worries, not just for the flower that won’t bloom, but also her concern and worry for what people will think about her if they find out she failed to make a flower bloom. (They wouldn’t think any less of her mind you, but this kind of fear and worry is something Julie seems to struggle with a lot). In this video, Julie struggles to remember the exact details of her and Frank’s first meaning. It also ends with Wally repeating his line from the storybook with him and Julie, “Did all that really happen, Julie?” This one is obviously about her forgetting. The relevance to her forgetting things, I’m not sure.

The obvious interpretation of silence is the permanently silent flower bud that can’t respond to what Julie says to it. However, I feel like there’s a more relevant interpretation: Julie is always silent about her fears and insecurities. These videos reveal Julie is deeply insecure about what people think of her and greatly fears failure, be that failing to make a flower bloom, or “failing” to be a happy and cheerful person, yet she keeps all of this to herself. It represents her silent fear and insecurity.

Video four: Temptation, Dreams, Hope

Julie is not someone who’s ever tempted to anything bad. So my interpretation of what temptation Julie could possibly have is romantic temptation. While I could be reaching here, I get the feeling that Julie has a crush on and wants to be closer to Sally, that seems to be reciprocated, but neither can overtly express it. They both talk about each other very fondly, Julie compliments her constantly through the flowers in the radio interview, Sally always casts her as the romantic lead in her plays and describes her as beautiful and fair in all of them instead of having the other lead in the play do that, Sally not being upset at Julie for going off script in the Sweet Briar storybook, hell Sally literally calls her “Juliet”, and there’s that one line from all the way back in the Halloween Sally storybook that reveals the two sing each other songs over the phone at night that the transcript overtly lies about by changing Sally’s response to Julie saying that from “Sometimes to “No”. But it’s kept at Julie being tempted to express her feelings yet never actually doing it since, y’know, the extreme themes of queer suppression.

Julie’s dreams aren’t exactly clear, but she does seem to want to prove herself on her own merits instead of as part of her family band, hence her avoiding the question when they ask her to join them. It’s interesting to me that she doesn’t directly say no, she dodges the question. It shows more of her masking since she doesn’t want them to necessarily know *why* she doesn’t want to join, because she doesn’t want anyone to worry about her. Alternatively, Julie’s inner voice has a line here where she mentions she felt like she was really asleep in the stage play so maybe it’s in reference to that.

Julie’s main hope beyond proving herself, seems to be a hope to get closer to everyone else. It’s clear that she only really feels close to Frank. (Note, I’ve seen some people interpret that as her having a crush on Frank, but I don’t really agree on that. I think it’s just because they naturally get along and feel like they really understand each other’s antics and interests. Again I feel like there’s more evidence she has a crush on Sally. Also Julie seems fully aware that he’s gay, tbh I think Eddie and Sally know he is too but that’s neither here nor there.) She likes Wally, Eddie, and Poppy, and they like her, but she isn’t really that close to them. She seems to *really* like Sally, and Sally her, but she feels distant from her. She cares a lot about her family, but feels like she can’t be fully open with them since she feels inadvertently pressured by their success. Most interestingly, in the storybook with her and Wally, she outright lies to Wally about Barnaby and Howdy being entertained by her antics. She really wants them to like her, but every time she tries to get on with them, they kind of make fun of her. Now mind you, I don’t think Barnaby or Howdy do that maliciously, they’re the kind of guys who like playfully rib on everyone, and they likely don’t realize it’s affecting Julie as much as it is, since again, she puts on a mask of always being happy, and seemingly thinks that Barnaby and Howdy actively dislike her, even if that probably isn’t true.

Video five: Tears, Remembrance, Instability

Tears are the most straightforward, as Julie literally breaks into tears because she can’t make the flower bloom in this video.

Remembrance is likely in reference her remembering just what this flower represents to her. To her, it’s representative of her failings, her inadequacy, her anxieties, and everything else she feels about herself.

Finally, instability is likely because of Julie’s extremely unstable mental state in this video. She’s literally having a mental breakdown because of an unchanging flower.

���well I analyzed fifteen words that might’ve been chosen arbitrarily. I really like this update and the Julie insight it brought, girl needs a hug, girl needs therapy, girl needs to kiss another girl, girl needs validation, and Buggle needs to leave her alone I don’t trust that vile fucking CREATUR-

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do I lose all credibility if I admit I find Franny attractive like her voice and design are so pretty

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I’m really glad this fandom hasn’t fallen into the pitfall that I’ve seen several other fandoms fall into by like vilifying Julie’s siblings in any way. Like yeah Julie has severe self worth issues and that’s definitely partially because she feels like she doesn’t add up to her ultra successful siblings, but I’m glad nobody’s like blaming them for that. It doesn’t seem like they even know why Julie doesn’t want to join their band (especially since it seems like she actively dodge the question), they seem to like her a lot and like, I dunno I feel like I’ve seen other fanbases pointlessly vilifying characters like them and I’m glad this fanbase isn’t doing that, y’know? This feels very rambley but I dunno I just wanted to talk about this.

Anyway crackpot theory after all the main neighbors have their realization moment, they’re gonna all keep it to themselves mostly (Eddie, Poppy, and Julie all seem to be hiding their breakdowns probably because they feel like they’re delusional or insane and they don’t have any physical proof) and that’s gonna change because the Joyful siblings will all have their realization moments (Jonesy realizing he doesn’t have a face, Bea realizing she can’t open her eyes, Franny realizing the narrator from that one story uses her voice) and since these are way more visibly provable things (they’d get the more visibly probable things since they’re side characters and thus in-universe less work was put into designing them than the main characters) they’re gonna tell the main characters and like that’ll basically be a dam breaking for all the main characters to be open about their experiences and getting them all on the same page about not being real. Jonesy’s lack of a face is the catalyst, if I’m right you all owe me a cookie or smth I dunno.

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y’know considering that Jonesy is the only character who never shows their face, there’s a chance that in-universe his puppet never had a face made since there’d be no point in making one if they’ll never show it, and they could do something really cool involving him just not having a face.

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welcome home update rambling part 3: what is this a threequel

Okay so new things dropped. First we found a fifth Julie video, but ironically it’s supposed to be the first one and it just shows Julie first finding the ominous ass flower. Tbh it’s fine that we missed this one since it added the least. But! We also found this image.

Clearly this is Frank finding Julie having a breakdown. Once again, Frank’s left to comfort the newest addition to the peeping the horror club.

Anyway here’s a new thought: why is Franny the narrator for the first storybook? It’s not just the same actress, the narrator compliments Franny’s voice during the story since it’s just her voice. What’s up with that? What relevance are the Joyful siblings gonna have, anyway? Like, while yes they’re not main characters, they’ve still been a part of the website since the launch. They’ve still gotta be relevant to the overall plot, right?

Also, ya ever notice that the woods are becoming more open with each update on the Neighborhood map? I wonder if it’ll be open enough to see the Joyful cave eventually.

Here’s a little thought that probably means nothing, when Sally asks Julie what her flowers think about her gardening skills, Julie instead just starts relaying other general compliments that have nothing to do with her gardening skills. Again I wonder how much of that was the flowers talking and how much of that was Julie complimenting her.

Anyway awayfrompryingeyes opened up. Honestly wasn’t expecting it to for this update. Anyway, W gave an update and drank a bottle of Joy from the 70s. A bottle that was in… pristine condition. And the Joy didn’t have any mold in it or anything. Implying it might’ve been produced… recently. …is Welcome Home not actually from the 70s and all this merch is being produced in the world Welcome Home is in right now…? I’ll… put a pin in that for next update.

So final thing.

This is the main thing on awayfrompryingeyes. A box that W speculates is related to Howdy or Frank. But I figured out what it *actually* is related to. See, you notice the letters “gle” at the end? Well I initially thought it meant jungle of maybe beagle even, but then I checked something.

The file name for this image… is Buggle. …I think that confirms that this thing isn’t just some one off thing, no. This thing, this *creature,* is absolutely important. It terrifies me.

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this is gonna sound nonsensical but

This is the vibe I got from this image

this is the most unhinged thing I’ve ever posted but am I on to something?????????

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welcome home rambling part 2: the second part

of course they opened away from prying eyes back up the second I posted my ramblings but hey I’m too stupid to understand anything on it so I’ll wait until other people get it

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okay time for me to ramble about Welcome Home

spoilers below obvi

okay so everything on the main site was so damn charming, the storybooks were fun, hearing Franny, Jonesy, and Bea for the first time was really cool, glad they’re real characters and not just set dressing now, and they’re all very fun and charming characters. The audio and songs were really cute, the radio interview was fun and it ship teasing Frank and Eddie and Sally and Julie more is fun and silly.

But enough about that let’s talk about the lore stuff. The Wally audio is really interesting especially since he seems to have hidden himself down there. The void under Home has been painted over, he vanished from some images, and his main profile image is looking away, plus his easel is gone. I think he’s literally hiding in the void under home for some reason. Then he directed us to all that really hard to find hidden Julie audio.

Which, holy fuck, that audio is so big. I feel like a timeline can be accurately placed for all the major stuff in this update (besides the Nature’s Remedy song, that one was just for fun). The storybook where Julie wakes up early and her siblings bring Spring early happens first. As established in the Rainbow Monster guidebook, each Rainbow Monster works on the springtime (Franny with the morning dew, Jonesy with the plants growing, Bea with the sun itself somehow which tbh is crazy that she can control the goddam sun, and Julie with flowers blooming). But since Spring came early, that weird black tulip doesn’t bloom despite her best efforts. Interestingly in the video Frank says that Julie’s family says their motto a lot so I feel like that implies they actually visit Home a lot more than I really thought they did.

Next is the Wally and Julie book. The painting at the end is of a black splotch in the shape of a flower which seems to allude to this video. Julie goes back to the flower and starts kind of just… talking to it. Not like she does the other flowers really, she just starts talking about her life. She shows the flower the painting, she talks about how she doesn’t really get along with Barnaby and Howdy, and how she gets on with Wally, Poppy, Eddie, and Sally better. She also talks about how Frank is her best friend and talks about how they met, which is really cute honestly. Her voice is quieter when imitating Frank saying that he was also new there, and then she talks about how they met Wally and that that’s how she got her home. We knew Eddie and Sally were already from elsewhere, but now we have that confirmed for Frank and Julie too. I feel like that means Wally was the first one in the neighborhood and *gave* the others their houses. Which is odd. Julie then laments that she doesn’t really think she’s funny. Then we hear Wally asking if all that really happened. Which like… I don’t even know how to go into that but that means that she told Wally about this. For some reason.

Next is the one after the Sleeping Beauty story. I think it’s interesting how despite Julie being the princess and Frank the prince, and the script saying they were supposed to kiss, Julie instead just makes a funny sound and wakes up immediately. Kinda shows to me that even though she and Frank are kind of forced into weird romantic stuff, she still does whatever she can to make sure Frank isn’t uncomfortable since, y’know, he’s gay. Anyway this story starts with the view of the sun in the sky and it looks like an eye. We also hear a low, female voice. Julie returns to the flower bud again. The video is intercut with the lower voice seemingly showing Julie’s more inner thoughts. I really don’t know what to make of most of them. They seem to be kind of… intrusive thoughts about her insecurities. They show through these last two that Julie seems *extremely* insecure compared to her more successful siblings. And she especially is scared about this flower. She worries about this meaning she’ll have to “leave” or “go back”. I think this shows that Julie feels like she’s only worth anything for what she can bring. It’s not something I expected to see from her character in this update but it definitely makes sense, it feels like all of the main 8 (maybe Julie’s siblings too) have some form of mental issues that they try to hide.

And then the fourth video starts with Julie and Frank talking after the radio interview. It seems like Julie’s siblings don’t realize that they’re inadvertently effecting Julie’s self esteem. Anyway, Julie noticed the flower again and tells Frank to wait while she goes to “say hi to her family” as she puts it. Anyway, then Julie… breaks character. The lower voice isn’t just her thoughts anymore, no, she’s not doing her usual high pitched voice, she’s actually speaking in what seems to be *real* voice. I physically cannot have prepared myself for that. I don’t know how to explain it but this somehow feels like the biggest revelation we’ve had so far. Anyway, Julie begins to panic and cry about the flower. The shot switches to the sun looking like an eye as Julie has a complete breakdown. I don’t know how to describe it but she begs for it to bloom before anyone sees. She hears Frank approaching and then… swears. Like genuinely, swears. These characters can swear. These characters know how to swear and *Julie* was the first one to swear. That’s… crazy honestly. Frank gets closer and, in her regular voice, Julie hastily makes an excuse to get him not to approach. She continues panic, and the last thing she says is “I’ll be fine, I’m as good as I ever was, I’m Julie Joyful.” in a panicked voice. I know a lot of people took Julie dropping character to mean that this is her actress speaking, but… I don’t think they have actors. This is Julie saying she’s Julie. What I think this means is that not only are all the characters played by themselves, but they, or at least Julie, feels like there’s a lot of expectations that come from that. I have no clue what to make of that. And then… it shows up.

I’m gonna be real, when I first saw this thing in the Miscellaneous section with nothing listed as to what it was, other than just being a “pal”, I thought to myself “I don’t trust this thing, this reminds me of the arg before that one Walten files episode where it labeled a white humanoid figure as “Bon” and then in the episode itself we saw that white humanoid figure was literally what was possessing Bon.” And then in the radio interview, it ended with Barnaby saying how a bud means a friend, but a flower doesn’t mean a pal. Almost as if the word pal was somehow important. And then the final video ends with this thing, only referred to as a “pal” (or a “bog” by the VA of Howdy and Barnaby in a streamer’s chat) landing on the evil flower and looking at Julie. I don’t know how to explain it, but this “pal” here is fucking evil somehow and I don’t know what that means.

Either way, the video ends there. Obviously Frank showed up after and probably tried to comfort Julie with her panic attack, and I’m saying that since we knew Frank was there and in the last two updates, it was Frank and Sally who briefly broke character to talk to Eddie and Poppy. Sally wasn’t here this time but she was still relevant with the play and Julie complimenting her a bunch with the flowers and I think this is more proof that Sally and Frank know more than the others (besides Wally probably).

So what have we learned from this? Well, Julie needs all the hug she can possibly get, she joins Eddie and Poppy in the experiencing the horror club (I’m guessing it’ll be Howdy next since Frank and Sally are already more on the know, Wally is special for several reasons, and I just feel like Barnaby would be after Howdy especially since Howdy’s had the least focus so far), and that the “bog” is not our “pal”. As for everything else… dude I am so lost this was peak but I am so confused.

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good things will happen 🧿

things that are meant to be will fall into place 🧿

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Really cool day at the rainforest cafe

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deadass love this idea so much I wish I made them more in line with this in my rewrite

Disaster lesbian and her hype woman

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The alternate universe where Katie and Sadie actually got screentime is my favorite one

So I decided to try doing some screenshot edits with my OTP, just to see how I do at them.

Been feeling stressed lately, so doing these actually felt somewhat therapeutic. Moral of the story: never stop creating artwork.