#i just saw so many cool details in so many different designs i COULD NOT LEAVE SOME OUT!!! 💛✨️

[sharedink]

Concept Art [1]┊deep in my soul I feel that toons have special connections to their gloves (if they're drawn w/ them.) It's a never-changing piece of themselves when everything around them will change. (Immortality core 😏🫶🏼)

Unless you're the Warner siblings -- pop off then‼️

some silly art for my Animaniacs Next Gen AU!! 📢📢

[russellsppttemplates]

Uh oh, I'm falling in love (Lando Norris)

Y/N and Lando both have jobs that require good sight and attention to detail and yet they're oblivious to their feelings for eachother

Note: english is not my first language. I'm in a very fluffy mood, so I got really excited when I got this request! This also makes my expectations even higher and calls me single in about seventeen different languages at once...

Thank you so much to everyone who likes and reblogs, your feedback is appreciated 🤍 and I'm taking requests so if you have any ideas or concepts you want to share, feel free to do so as I'll try to get to them the best I can!

my masterlist

Tw: mentions a needle (for sewing)

Tag list: @myloverjk-blog

"Hey guys! How's everyone?", Max said to the camera as you made sure the set up was right, the screen showing his and Lando's faces on one screen and the table on the other like it was supposed to.

"As per your many, many requests, we have brought our graphic designer at Quadrant, Y/N", Lando announced as you appeared on camera, sending a very awkward first wave to the camera, "today's stream is little different than our usual programming, but it was the only way she agreed to be in one! You guys really wanted to see her, so we had to be creative!", Max said as he moved the friendship bracelets making kit into view on the table.

"Hey, Queen Taylor said we should make the friendship bracelets, so we're just following her!", you chuckled, looking at all the coloured threads and colourful beads, sorting them out and grabbing a pen and paper so you could draw your ideas.

"Since you guys wanted to get to know Y/N, can I tell them to send in questions?", Lando questioned you, "sure, I'll answer them to the best of mu ability", you smiled.

You were picking the letters you needed for the bracelet you were making when Max spoke up, "first one: how did you start working with Quadrant? I'd love to work on the team when I finish my degree!".

"I saw the job offer, and I must admit at first I didn't really know much about the company. I looked it up, looked cool enough and I sent my CV and portfolio in. So keep your eyes peeled for any offers, I guess? We have them now on the website, which was my doing, so you can check them out there if you want to be part of the team", you offered.

"I need help, guys", Lando said as he fiddled with his bracelet, the orange and grey beads with his initials sliding on the elasticated material, I can't do the closing knot on my own", he pouted as you placed your bracelet down.

"You have to flip it like this, here. Just put it on your wrist and I'll do the rest", you ushered him, your fingertips gingerly touching his hand and wrist as you quietly laced it, "this way we don't get frilly bits out and it looks pretty, see? Pretty!", you smiled, modelling his wrist for the camera.

Pretty, that's what he often thought about you. Not only pretty, but it was one of the first physical traits that came to mind.

"We should all have matching ones!", Max said as he completed his bracelet, impressively on his own, revealing the colourful beads with Quadrant spelled in white round beads with black letters, "I'll make one for each of you", he said as he watched you show your own, pink beads and a lyric he assumed was from a Taylor Swift song.

"I'll make Y/N's, she helped me after all", Lando said as one brave fan sent a comment into the chat.

He's so giddy to make Y/N a bracelet, it's a shame it will snap because of his lack of skills

Am I delusional if I say that they'd make a great couple?

If you're delusional, then what do I call myself? I still think they're making heart eyes at eachother whenever they catch the slightest glimpse!

We're joining forces, I think it's a noble pursuit!

He's a dork, Y/N, but you should give him a chance

Have you always known you wanted to be a graphic designer?

"I thought about different careers before I settled on this one, for now at least", you explained, "engineering was in the running up, but then I figured out that I was curious about how things worked, but that didn't mean that I wanted to be the one working on it. And this was a way to express my creativity, my strategy planning as well, and at the moment it's been quite good", you smiled as Lando grabbed your wrist softly, "I need to make sure this fits", he interrupted, "and it won't snap because I've learnt how to do it, thank you very much", he blushed. So he, too, was reading the comments, choosing not to dwell in them.

"Look, this way you always have a lucky charm with you everywhere you go, even if we're not together. We're eachothers lucky charms!", Lando announced as Max mafe a fake gagging noise.

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"Are you all ready?", you said as you and Tara walked inside the room, clasping your watch on your wrist and hoping to find the boys ready.

Quadrant had been invited to a gala dinner that celebrated the companies in the same line of business, inviting five people to take part in the meal. After some team members politely declining the invitation since they had things booked already, the group ended up being Lando, Max, Callum, Tara and yourself.

The dress required everyone to up their usual style, hence the long dress you were wearing. Even though it was far from your usual everyday attire, you felt beautiful in the dress you ended up with after browsing the online shops for a while. The cut was simple, the skirt widening from your waist down and complimenting your curves as the sheen from the midnight blue fabric looked soft and sweet against your skin.

Lando seemed to think the same, trying his best to not let his mouth hang open when you and Tara walked inside their room, heels clicking on the wooden floor as you hurried them, "does it really take that long to put on a suit? I had to help Tara with the laces on her back and we still got ready faster than the three of you?", you asked, shaking your wrist to check if the dainty watch wasn't going to fall and that it wasn't too tight either.

Looking up to meet Lando's eyes, you were sure you physically and audibly gulped. No one should look that good in a plain white shirt. The cuffs were still unbuttoned, but the shirt itself was tucked in his black pants. He didn't have any jewellery, so his tanned skin caught your eye as it contrasted with his clothes.

"Lando has a problem with his shirt and we are trying to solve it", Max said, a little bit too antsy given that, at the naked eye, there didn't seem to be a big issue with the piece of clothing you had been inspecting quite closely.

"There was a loose button, and I tried to fix it, but I made it worse", Lando said as he pointed to the button on his hand, the slight movement showing you the place where it was supposed to he holding the piece together and closed.

"Three people in this room and no one thought about grabbing the sewing kit from the amenities?", Tara suggested, looking for it in the box that was the same as it was in your room, "see? Simple as that! Can you sew it, Y/N? My hand isn't fully healed yet, I can't quite grasp something that small yet".

Tara had injured herself earlier on in the week, prompting her to ask to tag out of the gala until you pleaded her to go so you wouldn't be alone, so she couldn't do it. None of the other guys seemed to even know how to pull the thread through the needle, so you grabbed the kit from Tara's hand, "sure, I'll do it", you said, "if that's okay with you, that is", you looked over at Lando.

"Sure, anything to solve this. Do I keep it on or should I take it off?", he questioned, wanting to slap himself straight after at his offer. Why would he volunteer to be shirtless in front of you? It certainly wasn't the way to go, shoving himself like that.

"On should be fine", you muttered, missing the snickers going on behind you as you wet the thread with your tongue, careful to not transfer any of the lipstick on it and ruining the piece without point of return for good, easily looping it through and adjusting the size of the ends.

"Button", you put your hand out so Lando could place it in your fingers, "I will do my best not to poke you, let me know if I do so accidentally", you mumbled at the closeness to him you found yourself in. It was the third button from the top, and as much as you loved the sight of the shirt slightly undone, the dinner required his shirt to be done up. Looping the thread on the button a few times, you moved to pierce the crisp white fabric so it would be secure, your hands dangerously close to his skin as you could hear his laboured breath. Lando still remembered and thought constantly about your fingers touching his hand and wrist when you did the friendship bracelets video for the YouTube channel, and right now, it only added to his predicament.

"It's done, all good!", you exclaimed, looking up as you cut the thread and seeing Lando's eyes on you. The intensity nearly threw you off of your balance as you stood the tiniest bit crouched down on your high heels.

Scrambling to further the distance between your bodies, you smoothed out the non existent wrinkles on your dress, storing the supplies back in the kit as Lando managed to utter out a thank you, too stunned and intoxicated by your scent to say anything else.

"I sewed a button as neither of you look any more ready that you were when we got here? We're going to be late!", you hurried, sitting next to Tara and ignoring her smirk as you scrolled through your phone.

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"That shoot will have to wait since Lando won't be back here soon, then", you said, moving things around in the online shared calendar, "when did you say you could again? I'm sorry", you asked, rubbing your forehead and squeezing your eyes, adjusting your glasses and looking at him through the screen.

"The first weekend of the next month", Lando assured, "are you okay, Y/N?", he asked. The bags under your eyes didn't fool anyone and you looked tired. And sick, he guessed by the layers of clothing you had on.

"I had a pretty shit day, actually", you admitted, "I had to go with the guys from storage because there was an issue. The supplier sent the samples and we wanted to get things moving so I could have some ideas for the description and the social media team also wanted to prep the draft for the whole story telling, but it all went under. I also think I caught some bug, so it's been a fun day", you exaggeratingly smiled, mocking your own misery.

"You look like you need a hug, Y/N. Do you need a hug?", Lando asked as you nodded, "Actually, that would be pretty good, but I live alone. The neighbours would think I'm pretty weird if I went around like this asking for one, too", you reasoned.

Even though he wasn't next to you, Lando still managed to pull a smile out of you as he got up from the chair he was sitting in, hugging his laptop, "did you feel that hug?", he loudly wondered, "it's full of Get well soon fairy dust!", he smiled charmingly.

"Fairy dust, mate?", Callum wondered, reminding you of his presence in the videocall, "you try and spend more than a few hours with a little girl and you let me know. Mila has taught me all about fairy dust and princess magic", Lando added.

.

"How will we get out of here?", you wondered, starting to regret joining Lando, Max and Pietra when they said they were going to watch a football game. You loved the sport and you figured it would be a nice distraction after a work loaded week, but now, things were looking less than a distraction.

"We will let them space out once the game finishes, free up the roads as well because getting out of here will be a pain, too", Lando suggested.

The game granted your team a win and three points in the championship, the crowd going wild as they clapped, whistled and waved their scarfs, slowly leaving the stadium.

"Should we make a run for it now?", Pietra said, holding her boyfriend's hand as she allowed him to pull her away.

You followed Lando, thanking his choice of a colourful hoodie to wear today as it made it easier for you to spot him, "go in front of me, I'll back you up", he switched positions. You weren't having too much trouble until you were met with a ramp, people carelessly shoving others as they tried to leave as quick as they could, all with the same intent of avoiding traffic and crowded roads.

"Here, Y/N", you heard Lando as he grabbed your hand, lacing your fingers in his and pulling you along, excusing you two as you approached Max and Pietra again, "we're here", you tapped the blonde woman's shoulder with your free hand.

"Goodness, that was and adventure", she said once you reached the stadium car park, the crowd clearing up significantly as there was maybe another ten people headed the same way as you were now, "is everyone alright? I think someone stepped on my foot quite a few times, or many people stepped on it at various different times", you reasoned, walking alongside Lando still.

"Don't we need to hand the bracelets back?", Max said as he looked at the sign, taking his bracelet off and depositing it in the box in the booth, Pietra doing the same as you seemed distracted.

"Are you okay, Y/N?", Max asked, seeing you and Lando were still holding hands and, because of that, not taking off your bracelets.

"Yes, why wouldn't I be?", you scrunched your eyebrows, "we need to hand the bracelets back in, so I kind of need to have yours, too", he teased, looking at your hand still entwined with Lando's.

Removing your hand from Lando's as if it har started burning all of a sudden, you removed the bracelet, apologising quietly to the stadium employee as you thanked him, "shall we go now?".

"Dinner out?", Lando gulped, getting into the driver's seat, "Good idea, yes", Max added, sitting in the passenger's seat as you and Pietra sat in the back, your hand rubbing your other hand that had been laced with Lando's own one for a long time. Uh oh, you were falling in love.

.

The launch was finally over after an amazing response from the fans, leaving your heart happy and warm with a sense of mission accomplished.

"Is everything packed into the van?", you asked Tara, "yes, it's just this box. It has fragile things, so do you think you guys can take it in the car with you? It probably only fits at the front, so you'll have to squeeze in with the boys on the back", she smiled apologetically, "it's fine, we'll keep eachother warm like penguins do", you chuckled, holding the door open as she set the box safely.

Saying goodbye to her and the rest of the team, Max and Lando joined you, "You sit in the middle seat", Max pointed at you, opening the door ao you could scoot closer to Lando and he could get in.

"Could you tell me how long we have until get back?", Lando asked the driver, "with traffic at this hour, I'd say around 90 minutes", he smiled, turning on the blinker so he could leave the car park.

"Plenty of time for me to catch up on sleep, then!", you cheered, making yourself comfortable in the space you had, folding your scarf into an impromptu travel pillow, closing your eyes.

"Are you a snorer?", Max asked, making you blindly swat his thigh, "only when I'm sick, and lucky for you, I'm in presteen health, no blocked nose", you grumbled.

It didn't take you long to fall asleep. In the last week, all of the nights combined, you probably slept less than thirty hours, so your body was indeed in need of rest.

"And there it goes", Max said as your pillow undid itself, Lando lifting his shoulder in reflex so your head wouldn't drop drastically, landing on top of him, "Good thing she isn't our engineer, hm?", he chuckled, looking at how his bestfriend was looking at you like you hung the stars and the moon.

"I think I'm in love with Y/N", Lando whispered after he took your appearance in. You had forgone wearing make-up today, so he could see all your moles and scars, your pouty lips and the darkened skin under your eyes. It took everything in him to not bend down and kiss your forehead.

"Congrats on being the last one to find out, mate", Max added, shaking his head, "I genuinely thought you had some issue processing information, I'm glad to find out you don't.

"Now you just have to act on it, which is going to take you, what? Two, three more months?".

[creativitysparks4everxoxo]

IT'S TIME TO DISCUSS TFE S2A!!!

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SPOILERS...OBVIOUSLY...

First of all, despite what some TFE fans have said, I gotta say, S2A has heavily exceeded my expectations! I was nervous because it did not get marketed enough (wtf Paramount+??!!) and because of the early rumours regarding certain things happening. But I thoroughly enjoyed most of the episodes (even the trailer filler episode). It really felt like I was watching S1A all over again. I found S2A refreshing and wholesome.

Here is a scattered list of some of the many moments/things that stood out to me...

AHHH! MO'S BRAIDS! Gah! I love them so much! I absolutely love her new hairstyle in season 2. Okay spacebuns! 🥰 Our little sweetie has grown up a bit and her new hairstyle looks so nice! I really like the attention to detail on her braids, her edges and baby hairs. You can tell that the character designers actually did their research on black hairstyles, and I really appreciate that because so many shows get it so wrong and they are just downright disrespectful.

SHOCKWAVE'S HESITATION!!!! HE HAD A CLEAR SHOT AND HE WAS GOING TO ATTACK, but then he just...didn't.

I was wondering how the weird tension between Shockwave, the Terrans and Malto Kids would be resolved. In S1C we see Shockwave working with the Terrans and Malto Kids to help take down Croft and her army. But you can tell that this was mainly because they shared a common enemy and because the season was ending.

But now even with Shockwave working under Starscream's command, he still hesitated and just let Twitch and Robby pass. He had the element of surprise, he watched them steal the shards and he could have easily ambushed them. He just...didn't. I am hoping that this gets explored further in the season and we get more of Shockwave.

BREAKDOWN CALLING AFTERMATH 'SON'!!! 🥺🥺🥺 And calling him kid!!! 🥺🥺🥺 I don't know, this is just so adorable to me. Regardless of the faction, clearly all the Cybertronians view the Terrans as children. Even though I found Aftermath to be very irritating, I thought it was really sweet how fast Breakdown tried to protect him and how he had grown to care for him. That fake father/son montage and the 'son' bomb took me out. I was laughing so hard. 🤣

I kid you not, I had to pause the episode because I was laughing so hard! I could not breathe! 🤣 It was so sudden! It was so smooth! Alex was READY! You know he's been waiting for the day that he can finally reveal his Magical Boy uniform! I love it! Everyone's reaction was perfect! Megatron was so done with Alex. 🤣

✨️ALEX MALTO'S MAGICAL BOY TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE!!!✨️

And Nightshade giving their father a boost after Alex struggled to climb up the wall during the race is just so wholesome! 🥺 I'm so glad we got to see more of Alex interacting with his children in this batch of episodes. He gave so much enthusiastic, concerned, loving dad energy in this batch of episodes, it was beautiful.

TWITCH VS SPITFIRE!!!

That was so intense! It was really cool seeing them fight and use their different abilities against each other. Seeing Twitch get competitive with her basically evil twin sister was fun to watch. Twitch's competive nature really came out because THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!!! Loll despite how hard Twitch had to fight, she definitely proved to Spitfire and to herself that she is the 'better drone'. I found it interesting that instead of Robby being the one to point out that Twitch is really Spitfire, it was actually Wheeljack. It was nice that he used his Dad 2 nickname to confirm his suspicions. He's clearly taken a liking to it. ☺️But I'm glad that Robby had his moment to determine which Twitch is the real Twitch.

Swindle interacting with a human and not trying to squish the human??? Yeah, I was shocked when I watched 'Control Alt Delete' and saw Swindle interacting with Fairmaestro. But then seeing Swindle basically try to swindle Fairmaestro was the perfect 'Aha!' moment.

I really like TFE's version of Cosmos, and I wish he had more than one appearance in this batch of episodes! He just disappeared after his debut episode, but I wanted more of him! His design is very nice too. He is a perfect round boi. But how the heck did he get captured by Fairmaestro? How long was he under his control? If he joined the Autobots after the Maltos rescued him, why wasn't he in any other episodes with the other Autobots? 🤔 But also, I love the way he handled Fairmaestro and dumped his ass in the dunk tank. Since Fairmaestro easily escaped Jon's custody, I wonder if we'll see more of him.

Starscream as the main antagonist. Hmmm. I gotta say, while it's refreshing that we finally got a new main villain, it's also disappointing that it ended up being Starscream. Starscream caused so much chaos in S2A and sure, it's Starscream. What do you expect? He's always been untrustworthy, violent and unpredictable. But really? Did he seriously have to go back to being the villain after he had a bonding moment with Hashtag? After he worked with the Malto family because he realized that there are much larger threats out there. I'm assuming that he had to fuck up shit in the beginning of season 2 to make way for a serious redemption arc later on. I assume an even bigger threat will enter the scene soon. I sure hope so, because Screamy hit an all time low when he brutally took out the Chaos Terrans. That was just...wow. 😨

Dot Malto being the 'villain' and spraying her kids with the hose during the competition was hilarious. We love a good badass mom moment. 🤭

Contrary to what some people have said, I actually don't mind the Malto Kids at all, or their new power upgrades. They've dealt with so much shit in S1, so it only makes sense that they will eventually get some upgrades and powers to help protect themselves. They act like how kids their age would act irl, so of course they're going to have their annoying, problematic moments where they get themselves into a lot of trouble. The only difference is, they have a lot more sense and they acknowledge when it's time to stop and get serious. Even though it's really obvious that TFE is marketed towards kids, I like that it puts emphasis on family, teamwork, and it has its fair share of cheesy moments. It's very reminiscent of TFA.

I really enjoyed Hashtag and Mo's bonding episode. Even though Robby and Mo have a strong connection to Twitch and Thrash because they are the first Terrans that were born, it's nice to see the Malto Kids interact with their other Terran siblings as well. We almost always see Mo with Thrash or Robby with Twitch, so to see different dynamics among the Terrans and their human siblings is refreshing. And yessss! Hashtag calling Mo her little big sister and Mo calling Hashtag her big little sister is just too great!

Hashtag's new alt mode is so shiny! I love it! It's a nice upgrade, and I like her new root mode design too. I thought it was interesting that she got a new virtual assistant with her systems upgrade.

Cyber-syncing!!! I feel like it was only a matter of time before it was introduced. Something tells me that we're going to have more moments when cyber-syncing will be needed to take down a foe. It was an interesting addition to the Terrans and Malto Kids' existing abilities. I wonder if we'll see more cyber-syncing combos, like maybe a Hashtag/Nightshade/Robby/Mo combo. Or a Jawbreaker/Twitch/Robby/Mo combo. Or just more cyber-syncing in general. I did find Jawbreaker's sync with Aftermath to be very forced and unnecessary. I get that he felt left out in that episode, but it just feels like it was so unnecessary to the plot and it just felt like bad comedy relief.

Overall, I actually really enjoyed S2A. There were only a few episodes and moments that I found meh, but for the most part it was a good watch and it's about to be on repeat while I patiently wait for Transformers One and S2B to come out.

[blackbackedjackal]

So to put this in perspective. I was about 5-7 when The Burned Furs was happening. I literally went to see Pokemon: The First Movie IN THEATERS, while this was going on.

By the time I was using the olde internet was about 10 or so. My family had a home computer system with Windows 98 and kept things upgraded over the years due to my dad needing access to "the internet" for work. I was left alone a lot as a kid (busy father/neglectful mother) and this was around the time of "CHECK OUT WWW.POKEMON.COM FOR MORE DETAILS" kind of time of the early internet + advertising. Like I was still using AOL dial-up for a lot of my original internet deep dives. Then, when things like Neopets took off, I was using the computer religiously. I stayed (mostly) on kid-safe spaces, but of course, the internet was, and is, the internet and I eventually branched out. I wanna say I was looking up pictures of Inuyasha to print out and use as art reference, as well as Digimon and Wolf's Rain. I know one of the earliest pieces of furry media was Renamon porn around 2002-2004, as well as a lot of art by Dark Natasha through her website.

At some point around 2005-2006 I stumbled onto VLC. I remember because I saw some furry art by an artist and really liked his style and was emulating it for a bit. At this time, furry art was still ruled by many people emulating Animalympics (which I only knew of because my family owned one of the first official releases of the VHS copies), as well as Osamu Tezuka's deep stylistic influence on the furry community in the 80-90s. The Disney influence from TLK hadn't fully seeped into the community at that point, and, being a little anime kid, I was genuinely fascinated with the art style. One of the first pieces of art I posted online was something I drew inspired by some furry fox art I saw on VLC, but then hyperfixated more into the general "I wanna draw a cool edgy anime wolf" kind of thing.

My first OC, Jade Shadowblood (lol) I made when I was about 9-10. I still own the sketchbook where I first drew her. This was sometime around 2001-2002. She was an Inuyasha self-insert character and intended to be "me" if I was in Inuyasha. I always refereed to her as "this is me if I was a wolf demon" to my friends at the time when I showed them my art in elementary school. I got the idea to make more "wolf demons" of my friends when they asked me if I could draw them as wolves at school. I took a lot of design inspo from Neopets/Neopets Adoptables at the time, and a lot of my original OCs were in fact, based off of kids who were my friends at the time (I have all of these original pieces still saved to this day).

Anyway, I joined DeviantArt in 2006 when I was 12-13 under the handle ShroudofShadows. I heard the name on Xiolin Showdown and thought it sounded cool for an internet username. This was my first real venture into social media. I scanned in and posted some of my old art, and continued making art inspired by Inuyasha, Wolf's Rain, Neopets, etc. It wasn't until about 2007 or so when I shared Jade on DA that one of my friends asked me "is this your fursona?" and I was like "what's a fursona?" and well, here we are I guess?

My first webcomic was started at this time, I found out about other people making wolf comics with their characters and I was like "I wanna do that too". The OG Wolf Song was heavily inspired by Inuyasha/Wolf's Rain, but because I also liked Don Bluth, an inspiration Kay Fedewa also used for her art, I got lumped in as "copying" Kay Fedewa because our styles were similar.

Kay got started with The Blackblood Alliance around the same time I did, and did influence about 5 or so of the original pages. Even though I knew my characters and plot were different and eventually would deviate from looking similar to her art, I just leaned into it since people were accusing me of copying her when we just happened to be posting around the same time. I had no idea who she was prior to people comparing me to her.

Wolf Song, ran for several years, but due to being bullies by TheRoguez/RayJ and her band fo merry fuckwads who made it their goal to "remove" wolf comics off of deviantart (the great sparkledog cleanse) and people like MirrorZan and BlueShineWolf having some very public drama in the wolf comic community, I eventually stopped working on my comic to do a big re-write. I wanted to FINALLY get out from under the "oh you're just copying these people" bullshit because I was like "I literally don't know who this is until you name dropped them". I stayed in my lane with Wolf Song and didn't branch out too much to other wolf comic artists since we were all getting harassed at this point. I didn't really know who to trust outside of the friends I had made in my early DA days.

By 17, I was applying for colleges and didn't have time to work on Wolf Song anymore. This was also around the time the other Wolf Song, the one on youtube, began taking off more and my comic was buried under the popularity. I figured "eh ok" and dropped the project while focusing on school.

I never felt like I really fit in with any one place/group. I had my own space and the fans of my comic which made me happy, so I avoided social media/fandom stuff for a few years. I was always on the fringes of the furry fandom, but due to coming across some really racist proboards forums about the furry fandom when I finally looked into it and saw "N*ggers can't be furry/therian/otherkin", I was like "ok fuck you too" and never wanted to participate in the fandom.

[gartenofbanny]

You all know what time it is, time for the review for the most hyped up episode since The Circus!

The Good

Vortex

Vortex, as always is the best character in every episode he's in. As always he's pretty chill and nice around Loona treating her like a person and he's really nice with his girlfriend Beelzebub. There is one scene of Beelzebub talking about fucking Satan despite the fact that she views him as a brother and Vortex just doesn't say anything..and lets Beelzebub say it.

This is honestly reminding me a little bit of Rent a Girlfriend, I really fucking hope they don't make Vortex into a cuck because that'll make me lose respect from the writers and Beelzebub. Not so much Vortex because idk what the hell he's even going to do against Satan when he finds out Beelzebub sleeps with him. The most he could do is leave Beelzebub.

Gluttony Ring

The Gluttony Ring looked pretty creative, it's my 2nd favorite one behind Wrath Ring. Why is it my second favorite? Because the atmosphere and the setting a little bit looks more like Earth than it does Hell. And the location where they're at just looks like a bee-themed tropical beach instead of fucking Hell. This is probably the last thing I would think of when I think of "Gluttony Ring in Hell". It's pretty, but it isn't something I'd imagine that Hell would have. Also, why is it that some places in Hell look fucking disastrous but other places in Hell look like oasis? Is this supposed to be a place where Sinners suffer or just Earth 2.0? We don't know and Viv doesn't either.

Animation

The animation in this episode is pretty solid and looks good which is expected for a Helluva Boss episode, but there are some times when I find the animation to be really weird.

In the beginning of the episode, it shows Demons partying, but doesn't show their full appearances just silhouettes.

And in the same timeframe, Loona and Tex outside has different shading, but once they're inside the shading instantly changes and they have thick black lines around their body. Making their characters not fit with the background. And all this shit happens in the first 47 seconds of the episode, holy shit.

Viv did say that this episode was supposed to be "A grand visual spectacle" but the only grand visual spectacle was the Cotton Candy song which took a significant chunk of time from an insignificant episode.

Yeah, there's not much I actually liked in this episode, so let's move on to the bad.

The Bad

Beelzebub's Design

I don't have any problem with Beelzebub personality-wise. She's cool and surprisingly nice for one of the Seven Princes of Hell. Vortex really does have good taste in women..aside from her wanting to fuck Satan. But I can dismiss that as a joke and pray to God that it doesn't actually happen.

But what I do not like about Beelzebub is her design which I know damn well the animators didn't get paid enough for animating this.

Nothing from this design tells me that this is Beelzebub. I was completely confused on whether or not this woman was Beelzebub until I saw the credits. Beelzebub is depicted in Demonology as an insect, not a hellhound variant. A lot of people and I assumed that Beelzebub was going to be a bee due to the Bee Aesthetic in Gluttony, but we just got Jay Jay recolored and with four arms with miniscule insect aspects.

The second reason why I hate this design is because it's not creative at all. This design without a doubt was heavily inspired by Jay Jay, but it wasn't just heavily inspired it's literally copied and pasted. They copied Jay Jay, gave her Loona's legs, recolored her, added so many unnecessary details, and called her Beelzebub. Looking at Beelzebub and the other furry characters that Viv designed in her past you can see that there's little to no difference between them.

Beezlebub's design reminds me of how video game characters have alternate skins because her design is literally Jay Jay but recolored and with added cosmetics.

Or how in Injustice: Gods Among Us the yellow costume for The Flash is Reverse Flash but he still looks identical to the regular Flash. So different personality, but the same skin just recolored.

My third reason why I don't like the design is that Beelzebub's insect features are so miniscule that you can easily miss them. The only insect like features she has are the bee wings, four arms, and antennae in her eyelids and ears. Aside from those, there's nothing else. Now when she increases her size, Beelzebub does have bug like eyes but again that doesn't really say much.

My fourth and final reason why I don't like the design is that Beelzebub has so many unnecessary additions to her design that it looks pretty overwhelming but at the same time distracting. What was the point of giving her a lava lamp stomach? What was the point of having honey levitate from behind her? Why is her fucking eyeliner dripped as if she cried? I'm most likely going to do a design comparison with another iteration of Beelzebub, but yeah those are just my thoughts on her design overall. It's lazy, but also somehow overcomplicated.

It would fit more if they made her into Cerberus instead of Beelzebub as Cerberus is a three-headed hellhound in the Gluttony Ring of Hell that likes to consume a lot. This design is more fitting for that to me.

Kesha voicing Beelzebub

Kesha voicing Beelzebub was a weird and bad choice not because of Die Young, but because Beelzebub represents what Kesha was running away from in her past. For those who don't know Kesha had a persona called Ke$ha who she describes as a "front for her emotional pain". And there are a few things that conclude to me why Beelzebub and the persona Ke$ha are nearly identical. They both overindulge in partying and drinking since Beelzebub represents overindulgence in those two things and many other things, but that was a really toxic lifestyle for Kesha to go through. There are two differences between the two characters that being Beelzebub also overindulges in eating but Kesha in the past had an eating disorder. She couldn't indulge in eating because as she says "I convinced myself that being sick, being skinny, was part of my job" and having Beelzebub a character who can overindulge in eating but still manages to stay skinny and thin is insensitive and unrealistic. The second difference is Kesha had to go to rehab in order to stay away from all of that and most likely doesn't partake in those anymore while Beelzebub doesn't have to.

Simply put Beelzebub represents the persona Ke$ha and not the person, the same persona that Kesha used to mask her emotional pain and had to go to rehab to fix. I am fully aware that Kesha is an adult and she can make her own decisions, but having someone voice act a character who represents the persona they had in the past is really absurd and stupid, especially on Viv's part.

It's likely that Beelzebub will never appear again or will have a different voice actor. Because Kesha being involved caused legal issues that took almost two years to resolve. If Beelzebub does return then I think she'll be voice acted by her singing voice actor Rochelle Diamante or someone else entirely.

Cotton Candy

After listening to the Cotton Candy song multiple times, I've come to the conclusion that this song is ass. It's not even intentionally trying to be bad either that's the worse and funnier part about it. The words "Cotton Candy" takes up 1/3 of the song, there's an entire video called "Cotton Candy, but only when they say Cotton Candy" and it's 1 minute long.

My problem isn't with the singing the singer behind this is fantastic, but my main problem with this song is the lyrics and beat. This song sounds like a bootleg version of Die Young, I know that was intended by Viv but that doesn't mean the song is good. The lyrics rhyme "Cotton Candy" with "Cotton Candy" Whoever was writing this song just needs to stop.

Also, why is the song about Cotton Candy and not Honey? Beelzebub does have a bee aesthetic around her so wouldn't it make more sense to have her sing about honey. It's sweet and addictive

This video perfectly summarizes my thoughts on this song

Loona barely has a spotlight

Loona was hyped up exponentially a couple of days before this episode came out. From the voice actress stating that she'll return to voice Loona while striking a pose to a Loona plush releasing not too long ago.

While I don't believe Loona was hyped up for this episode in particular she was still hyped up regardless and this episode was assumed to be a Loona-centered episode...that is until Beelzebub. Beelzebub stole the spotlight from Loona due to her character reveal being the sparkly song it was and a lot of people liking her design due to it being flashy.

Even a couple of days after the episode's release I still see more people talking about Beelzebub than Loona, regardless of how I feel about this character Beelzebub stood out more than Loona did to me. It's amazing that Loona was sidelined in her own episode

Slight Tonal Issues

There are some tonal issues with this episode particularly in the middle and near the end. So in the middle of this episode, Loona walks out of the party wanting to leave feeling as if she didn't belong there.

When Blitzo was going to leave, she gets flirted with by some other hellhound and that's more than enough to convince her to stay. So apparently, Loona getting hit on allows her to become less insecure and more sociable. Jesus Christ

Near the end of the episode, Loona places Blitzo on his couch after pouring him some water then all of a sudden Blitzo suddenly has a sad moment saying that he'll die alone old and wrinkled.

I gotta add if you don't want to die alone then stop treating people like shit Blitzo.

But anyway, this scene really just comes out of nowhere because Blitzo didn't express any problem with what happened at Ozzie's before he went to the party. I understand he was drinking all of his pain away but it still felt weird and forced to me.

Then after Loona calls him "Dad" for the second time in this episode, Blitzo suddenly just puked for the sake of comedy...

Jesus Christ, even a filler episode has tone issues. Oh yeah, speaking of filler episode.

This episode is meaningless

This episode isn't a direct continuation of Ozzie's nor does it affect any future episodes. Viv stated that Ozzie's is the true season 1 finale and that this episode is a "grand visual spectacle"

So all of this is just meaningless and what reinforces this is Loona's behavior. Loona went from her taking care of Blitzo to even calling him dad to straight up physically and mentally abusing him just because he wanted her to be nicer to the clients. Seeing Stars takes place at least a few days after Queen Bee so there's literally no reason for Loona to even act like this.

Raises more questions than answers

This episode like all of the other ones in Helluva Boss raises more questions than answers. Hell, I'll even say that it doesn't even answer any of the questions I had. Beelzebub can literally make food from nowhere, so what's even the point of Wrath? Why is Tex and Beelzebub dating good, but Stolas and Blitzo dating isn't? How many abilities does this Beelzebub even have? Does the food she make has any side effects on those who consume it? Like there are so many fucking questions but NONE OF THIS GETS ANSWERED.

At this point, I will be really surprised whenever one of the major questions that the fandom has actually gets answered. Because I'm getting tired of this.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this episode really meant nothing and despite it not meaning anything I didn't like it. Especially Cotton Candy, that song sucks, I don't know why they didn't use Silva Hound's "Monster Ball" it sounds leagues better than "Cotton Candy" plus it's more fitting since Demons are monsters. Anyway, thank you all for reading and I hope you all have a nice day!

[senkusphone]

Dr. Stone chapter 3D trivia post

Hello, um. I hope yall had a pleasant solstice celebration of your choice- I've been pondering whether what we just saw merits a triva post, but let's try to squeeze some for the sake of completion, shall we?

Check out also my trivia posts for chapters 1D and 2D.

They're the same picture.

It took me way too long to notice what was off in this cover, it seems to be nothing but an aesthetic choice. Other than these off colors, this specific suika melon design first appeared during the Treasure island arc, right after Ryusui punted her off the Perseus.

To directly quote what I wrote at one time on the wiki:

Too bad, the ship Chelsea shows up in is not the Perseus D. Monkey from chapter 214 (which itself is a One Piece reference, as Boichi is a big fan).

Interesting that we get a nearly identical shot, instead of Kohaku standing behind her, it's Ruri and Matsukaze.

This posture done my Matsukaze is called Namaste (with other names such as Namaskar), which is used both as a greeting and as an indication of reverence all over the southern parts of Asia, along with other similar gestures. I know this is familiar to many myself included but I had never looked into the deeper details until now.

Figurines showing this pose have been excavated from the Indus valley civilization dating to between 2700 and 2100 BCE, making this piece of cultural heritage at least 7800 years old by the time of this panel.

Xeno has clearly had his hand in the architecture of the Japan side of the KoS, with some new constructions resembling his own Evil Disneyland back home.

Hold back yer tears

Kaseki has lived well. It's hard to tell how old he is now, he lived longer than the timeline's consistency thats for sure, I blame time travel.

At the time Taiju got wed, he was around 70 years old.

Kaseki and Chrome go back way further than the KoS, the fanbook tells us that Kaseki helped Chrome build his shed when he was just a boy.

Feel your heart a bit shakey? hang on there, we now get to talk about whyman's sorrow, and a small observation that I've made

Whyman can have emotions, the circuits that process that can be switched on and off, but the fact that a message can, or needs to be "left" for themselves, as well as his farewell for all eternity, has an interesting implication: once switched off, whyman loses the recollection of any experience they had in the meantime. These circuits allow whyman to feel, and also to then forget. This is useful, as emotions help them survive, but forgetting prevents the emotional baggage from growing infinitely over a virtually immortal life.

"If we remembered every single parting person, it would only be a few generations before the sorrow would pile up to the point it became unbearable. Maybe it is a blessing to forget. Forgetting allows us to get even. Forget sorrows as new ones replace them. Life can go on, if tragically. No accumulating loss that would one day make everyone struggle to survive and eventually pass on; though that last thing does also sound very much like today."

(10B points to the ~2 people who know where this quote is from, I digress)

So that's cool, and heartbreaking, but so what, does it connect to anything we've seen before?

Well...

In ch. 232 we see that Whyman does not know what created them.

How could that be, if they can remember things over deep time?

Maybe it is that Whyman chose to forget their creators, and everything they felt about them. Beings that they may even have loved in the deep deep past, and could not cope with yearning for.

The blonde, bangs & ponytail lineage.

The village graveyard. Last time we saw it, Byakuya's gravestone was opened to reveal the glass record.

A lot of recognizable headstones are still up now, some appear to have moved.

Other headstones might be gone or be different... The one with four dots that was there originally can't be seen in this new shot but it can be seen later in the chapter.

Also, I hate to break this to you, but there's more headstones now than there were before.

I counted 45 in the original shot, 50 in the new one, not including any that Chelsea and Senku may be covering. Granted this is likely just an oversight.

(I should mention that in order for them to match bottom to bottom, the top image is flipped horizontally).

(omg look at the babiesss)

What Xeno is telling Chrome is that if whyman went and altered their own past, then what they are seeing currently is the result of that, since whatever changes they made, are in the past after all.

They already happened and they are part of the timeline that leads them to where they are now.

Assuming they actually found Byakuya (or a petrified time traveler) means that either whyman created some sort of causal loop that is self sustaining (ie, the ramifications of the changes in the past include whyman going back to do them in the first place), or more in line with the many worlds hypothesis, that going back to the past and changing it creates a new parallel timeline where the repercussions of that happen, with no effect in the first one.

In the latter case it means the timeline we see now was altered by the whyman from a parallel universe.

The stone axe is a bit dissonant with where they are, technologically speaking, yes? Thing is, that's the one Senku took to the moon with him.

He's had it since chapter 1.

A few people I've seen mystified about this structure they unearthed at the cementery:

This is a collapsed building just like the structures that the Tsukasa empire occupied.

(shoutout to that guy about to die in the back)

Interestingly, this means that Ishigami Village is established on top of a once urban area.

I am always pumped for any extra bits of village lore I can get.

Did Suika's handwriting trigger your AI generated image senses? it did for me.

We were bamboozled again. If it ends up happening it's gonna be like the tale of the wolf. The moment we stop taking it seriously, Inagaki is gonna smack us across the head with it.

We were actually preparing for the poop on a stick to hit the f.a.a.n on discord. What do I make about the ending? I don't know, I got no big analysis this time around but I believe it's very likely we'll see more at some point.

[maliciousalice]

👕 & 🍽️? For the trek ask game

Heheh thanks for Asking Meg!!! All aboard another long winded ramble about my wife ST: Voyager!!!!!

👕 Character whose fashion you like.

While I answered in the last one, I think I'll add to it by saying I love the Ds9/Voyager Uniforms--Infact I'm a HUGE sucker for them--At least to me, they feel like THE signature trek costume rather than TNG or TOS ones. Plus, they are fun to draw! I love how they look on the actors with the structured upper half, and loose, high-waisted pants that give everyone the illusion of height.

Those that are dressed in the uniform are portrayed with a respectable heft and a pleasant, overall shape. I know it's not the case, but they look like they are really practical. This is fully intentional as the lead costume designer said they wanted the suits to appear modular and have advantages in different environments. That's why sometimes they are unzipped or twisted around, depending on the narrative.

I could go on and on about them. I act feral over how they look when when all the actors stand together, turned in various ways, posing so that that folds pucker on their joints, or when subtle differences in their body sizes take up screen. It just looks so cool! I'm a big fan of squad-based, colour-coded uniforms and clean silhouettes.

Most importantly though, it gives them all BODY-ODY-ODY!!!

AYO WHICH LOCATION THEY AT??? CW: GORILLA DUMPIES!!! 👀👀👀 😳😳😳😳

🍽️What alien food/drink would you want to try?

I wish I could find the video but I've seen bits and pieces about how they designed the food on the sets and I think it's super charming!

Lots of effort went into considering the cuisine. It just about decorates every set and It was important to the show. Voyager engaged in a lot visual gags, or dialog discussing food. It was in a comforting way that would present the characters with their personal ideals of home.I find that subtext of world-building really endearing.

Many scenes involved characters bonding in the mess hall, socializing around food, or isolating with it to gain a sense of self. In contrast, it's used as a device for diplomacy, or to make settings seem more alien, unnavigated and removed from regular comforts. It's even incorporated into main plot points, such as with Tuvok in ''Riddles'', when he gains a newfound skill around cooking after a serious accident, and he solves the plot by decorating a code on a cake. Through food, we saw a lot of what it could be like to be a crew member on the ship, and live inside their Universe. It wasn't always pretty but they made it work.

We have a really rich food bowl and diverse food-culture In Australia, I love noticing exotic food that are used as set decoration of as props--I am used to seeing tropical fruit or Asian ingredients around my community, so it's fun to see it transformed. And much like the characters in Voyager, I relate to the comfort and the charting of new territories when it comes to seeing/ eating food.

I suspect being a chef / working in hospitality would be an interesting occupation in Trek. Everyone complains about the lack of authenticity from replicated food, so I'm sure being a good Chef would be worth your while.

I genuinely want to try Old-mate Neelix's cooking. He seems so creative and passionate about what he plates up, and he CLEARLY (they all put on weight haha) kept the crew well-fed. ''Bitches make do'', but you can tell he cares by the questions he askes everyone, or the detail he places into his recipes. I'd like to see what all the fuss is about with Leeola Root Stew. I bet it's not that bad! (I like bitter food) Or better, serve me up a Jimbalian Fudge cake! It's so quaint how there is an evolution to his work as he gets more integrated with everyone.

(crying over this ^) Neelix Nation Rise Up!!!!

[revlischarm]

Behold, Morro for season 4 in the Lego Monkie Kid au!!

Below the cut I’ve put some details about the season, as well as their design.

• So, Morro gets trapped in the scroll along with everyone else!! Inspired by what one of my friends on discord mentioned, apparently the scrolls work for all memories, not just for recording JTTW stuff.

• Therefore. We’re gonna get some Morro trauma. Since the scroll can put you in the worst memories you had/in some kind of past life, I thought, “what better than to hurl Morro back into his misdeeds as a ghost?”

- That’s why when Morro’s in the scroll, he’s gonna be walking around in his old gi from the show. I didn’t give him a cloak or anything for the sole reason of me having a hard time drawing it

• Boy oh boy Morro absolutely hates having to be dressed in the robes of his past. He’s been trying to move away from what he did, to forge his own identity and life. Yet now he gets put right back where he was, at the peak of his darkest times, and MK and Mei end up bearing witness to it, no less!

• Long story short Morro just. Is going to be miserable this whole season. Their past got dredged up in such a messy way for all to see.

• I don’t wanna give away too much since this post is mainly just for Morro’s season 4 design, hehe.

• You want more info?? Send in asks! I will devour them and answer back dutifully.

• Now onto design talk, tw for some blood stains and detailed description of death for a bit

• The only details I’ll really say for Morro’s scroll design are that his outfit is fairly burnt and torn up in many places, due to how he died. Well, more so the condition his clothes were in when he passed away.

- The front of Morro’s gi is stained with dried blood because of how he died, which I personally believe to be due to the kethanol gas in the Caves of Despair. There’s more info about it on the wiki, but the effects I’ve given to it basically are that prolonged exposure will cause someone to bleed out, with blood coming from the nose and mouth and the eventual exsanguination is the cause of death. So yeah, you just. Drown in your own blood, can’t get enough actual air and asphyxiate, bleed out, etc. The gas can kill you in a number of ways I’d say

• Moving past all that…Morro gets longer ribbons now!! He added on a new ribbon, since he bonded with Red Son at the end of Season 3, and off-screen between the last season and this one, lol. Think of their friendship as…fanning the flames. They kinda just hype each other up and it’s very chaotic.

• Morro actually trains with Macaque to learn some shadow magic!! They’re super interested in learning teleportation via shadows because it’s cool as hell, and they just generally like to spend time with Macaque. After some time, Morro finds that his eye markings are getting kinda…larger and discolored.

- Surprise the universe/gods saw Macaque taking in Morro and went “oh successor??? The Six-Eared Macaque has a successor??” And long story short, after an initial bout of extreme panicking, Morro realizes that he’s now got some cooler new markings!!

- Yes, I’m contractually obligated to change Morro’s eye markings with each new design at this point, lay off me

- I’m very happy with this marking design tho!! It looks very nice and is easy for me to draw. The markings actually manifest themselves in the way of like…scar stuff. And I tried to have them resemble Morro’s actual cursed markings as much as I could, but it was hard to do that when it kept veering into flame territory (which I wasn’t aiming for). So yeah!

- I also added a little chart at the bottom to demonstrate the differences between the markings and also how Macaque’s and Morro’s purples are different. Mac’s is more on the blue hued scale, while Morro’s has more pink tones to it. There!

• And last but not least, the tail(s) of Morro’s sash got longer!! I did this for the purpose of giving their silhouette a more monkey-like appearance, with the longer sash acting as a sort of faux shadow tail. This works great for any silhouette shots!

• So yeah! That’s that! Feel free to ask anymore questions, I’ll be glad to answer!!!

• Oh also I forgot to draw it in but you know how everyone else gets a cool weapon during season 4 from the scroll? Yeah, Morro’s taking the memory of the Sword of Sanctuary with him.

[cassidyawesome]

@ohnoitstbskyen’s “Nine Essays About Characters That Matter” video literally struck me through the heart with a dagger. The way it’s presented as stories told by people of their blorbos with mister the big skyen commenting in between is perfect. So perfect i’ve been inspired to write a small essay about my Characters That Matter, if this is just rambling into the wind or not, i just want to express my thought in this form.

It’s Yang, it’s Yang, of course it’s Yang how could it not be Yang Xiao Long. Yang as a character - and rwby as a whole literally flashbanged my entire humanity in june of 2022.

Lots of people love Yang, how couldn’t you. Maybe you relate with her backstory in relation to Ruby, how she was forced to grow up and play parent for Ruby because both their mom’s fumbled the bag. Maybe you’re someone who’s lost a limb or otherwise disabled and find triumph in how she fights on despite her disability. For me, it’s neither - what gets me going about her is her personality, particularly in early volumes. She’s this larger than life, fun loving person who’s the embodiment of warm fire who brings you in and is your friend. Which is exactly the kind of standard i try to live up to. Another aspect of this side of her i love is the protector aspect she inhabits, she was Ruby’s protector, as a huntress she’s everyone’s protector. I want to be her in every way imaginable.

The “Rule of Cool” in character designs, which is that if something is cool enough it deserves to exist is so very alive to me, and gosh is Yang cool. she’s cocky, her personality and silhouette is so big and massive and imposing. “let’s kiss and make up then you’ll learn” is such a good lyric for her from the song about her “i burn”. These attributes of her and the rule of cool are all things that i identify with myself. I’m also massive and cocky and i think i’m awesome but i am literally Ivern in red flannel. Yang does the whole damn thing, looks the part, saves the day sometimes, has an emotional background and gets bitches all while being so so human.

To continue on with Yang’s cool factor i want to touch on her design as a whole. It’s perfect, that’s just a fact. My favorite part about her is her hair. Big wavy hair that gives her a massive anchor in her design as well as giving her a unique silhouette compared to other characters in the show. Secondly her outfits she wears in different volumes are always the best. Her outfits are practical, and look like they totally belong to a biker girl who beats the shit out of you. Even down to her more finite details, like the purple bandana around her knee which relates to her relationship with Blake.

A tertiary point about yang that’s fundamental in *why* i like her so much is how she is this strong, imposing and daunting character, but she’s still presented as feminine. The way that rwby as a show presents Yang as a whole and tows a line between allowing Yang to be a masculine aligned berserker while not falling on “butch” tropes is so important to me. Yang is almost an entire new breed of femininity, one that i align with a lot.

Yang is so very much a part of me, But so is this fucking asshole.

POWER SWEEEEEEEEP i love Power for so many reasons that are so painfully simple.

Her backstory or storyline isn’t a tragedy like Yang or even Denji. Her backstory is just she was a lonely freak and found a cat. It’s so simple, yet i relate to it in my own way. And it’s so important to me to relate to a character in my own way. Never in my life have i found a character i related to, not once. And power gets me somewhat close to that feeling we all deserve.

Power borrows from the “Rule of Cool” less than yang, but is still great from a design wise on her own. When i first saw her in the intro i figured she was going to be a typical boring shonen-girl-type, but i was immediately proved wrong. Her human form design is so simple but portrays so much about her. The devil horns constantly present in her design are testament to her troublemaker attitude, which are contrasted by the business shirt and tie that she shares with her peers in public safety. **Spoilers for the ending of CSM part 1** When she assumes her devil form upon coming back from getting bang’d she’s a crazy looking monster, similar to kindred (who i also love dearly). This monstrous form she assumes for only a few pages are easily my favorite moment in chainsaw man as a whole. There’s just something right about this asshole getting to be a monster for like 10 min and giving up her life to save her state appointed brother

Power is, for all intensive purpose, a comedic relief character - in a show about horrible miserable topics with a messed up sense of humor, which is another trait i find relatable, i’m also the comedic relief girl.

Thankfully Power isn’t *just* her awful traits that make her hilarious and ridiculous. She’s a dutiful protector, of Meowy and of Denji in later chapters. She’s shown to have deep seeded fears in her character, her submission to makima, her impairing fear of the dark after darkness devil. These additions into her silly persona make her a well rounded, entertaining and fun character.

These two characters aren’t related at all, besides both being from shonens. As personality’s, their both big, loud and powerful which is the key element that makes me so attuned to them. The shows i watched in 2022, and subsequently become obsessed and consumed by shaped me as a person completely. And having characters for the first time in my life i saw myself in has been a liberating experience. I truly understand what TB Skyen meant when he said: “sometimes characters are important”.

[most-normal-eccles-cake-ignorer]

Darkness Lane by Joan Hassall [ x ] - the piece that most inspired my recent woodcut-style piece.

When I found out I was drawing for @gorgeousundertow's regency AU fic, Half Agony, Half Hope, as part of the @ineffableidiotsbigbang, I started looking up Jane Austen novel illustrations for inspiration and ended up finding some really cool art and websites! I'm posting about some of the images and resources I found because I think it may be interesting to others too (and even if it isn't, I'll have gotten the infodump out of my system haha).

Illustrations from Mansfield Park by Joan Hassall [ x ]

The link above points to a gallery on pemberley.com which has deliciously old-school DIY website HTML and a wealth of Jane Austen illustrations, as well as references for regency clothing. This was where I discovered Joan Hassall's work and decided I wanted to do a woodcut style piece (and then subsequently regretted it many times during the process of making it because I had no idea what I was doing). The detail, visual texture and dramatic lighting in her work is so cool and I just got more obsessed the more I saw.

See more Joan Hassall on tumblr via @uwmspeccoll (a very cool account!) here, here, and here.

The gallery on pemberley.com also had a bunch of Charles Edmund Brock illustrations, which I could not get enough of and so returned to the searchpage and found Molland's Circulating-Library. SO COOL! Jane Austen fans have bought illustrated editions of her novels and uploaded scans of them and oh my gosh they are all so beautiful.

Northanger Abbey watercolour illustrations by C.E. Brock [ x ]

Side note about Henry Tilney (Catherines' love interest in NA), I also came across this old fan page for him from a mostly-broken-links-now site called THE CULT OF DA MAN and um it's great haha, check it out. (reviews of artists representations of him, more delicious HTML, and pixel art (!) of da aforementioned man)

There's also an article on Molland's about Charles and Henry Brock and their Jane Austen works that I found interesting. Charles is better known and did far more JA illustrations, but I do really enjoy Henry's tinted line pieces! (the article also dunks on some bad reproductions of them haha)

Pride & Prejudice tinted line illustrations by H.M. Brock [ x ]

C.E. Brock also did really cool title pages and when I found out that fic banners were a thing I knew what I wanted to do! (with the help of the symmetry tool and undo haha, so much respect for traditional art)

Title pages illustrated by C.E. Brock [ x ] and my banner - the banner design uses elements of both of the Brock images.

So, research in hand/bookmarks folder and banner completed, I decided on a scene from Chapter 10 where our beloveds are standing beside the Thames in the moonlight after walking around London for hours together and talking (CUTE). I wasn't sure what buildings to include in the background, so @gorgeousundertow gave me a few suggestions: Old Southwark Bridge, London Bridge, Southwark Cathedral, and Clink Prison. I realized after a bit of sketching that bridges would be hard to show with the straight-on view I wanted to do, so I decided on the Cathedral, partially because I had also considered drawing a scene that takes place in Salisbury Cathedral in Ch. 7.

OK BUT HOW? I struggled finding reference images for a while until I realized this was LONDON and would be very Google Earth-able. Big ups to Frank Cosgrove, whoever they are, for uploading this haha. This was also where I found out that all the suggestions were from a very small area!

View of Borough High Street, London, 1830, by George Scharf [ x ]

The building in front of the cathedral looked too new, so I went searching for an older image and found the second image. It's a completely different angle but it was enough to get me past the 'oh no idk what do'.

the much brighter concept vs the much darker finished product, featuring a barely-visible Southwark Cathedral

While looking for images of the Thames pre-Google Earth, I also found this website called Dictionary Of Victorian London which has a whole bunch of old images and excerpts from newspapers, etc on a variety of topics. One of the categories, Sex > 'unnatural offences', had this excerpt from The Times (1863), which reads:

Thomas Lane, a coffeehouse keeper, No.9, Love-lane, Eastcheap, city, and James Mortimer, a seaman, were charged with unlawfully meeting each other to commit an unnatural offence. ... The Magistrate committed both prisoners for trial.

Ugh. I hate that so much. Some sexy stuff happens right after the moment I'd chosen, and reading that reminded me that such things would be much more comfortable and safe in darkness (or if ppl just stopped being homophobic, but barring that). I wanted them to feel alone, like the whole world was asleep and it was just them, outside of time.

With that in mind, the iconic Thames Walk Lamp had to go bye bye, and when rendering the background I tried to minimize any light - it's just the suggestion of buildings. I also added tree cover! I tried to imitate how Joan Hassall does trees in some of her artwork, but when she rendered trees like this they were usually farther away/smaller, so my version looks more stylized with how prominent they are.

The ribbon border and book quote presentation is of course more Brock, but by making it black and having the interior image use it as a border instead of a fade-out inside it, I made it a bit of a reference to the very cool foliage edges you see in the very first Hassall image at the top.

I used the procreate brushes from this post on the Procreate Folio forums if anyone wants to try them!

Also fun fact! The font for the quote is called Chanson D'Amour <3 (I initially downloaded it when making the banner before changing the banner font to one called Dark & Black)

------

That's all I have to say about the process for the piece, but here's a comic from Dictionary Of Victorian London, Thames > Sanitary condition that I thought was cute (and gross ig? but also cute):

a Punch comic from 1850, I can't link the page due to how the website URL system works but it's from the Thames > Sanitary condition page

[lovelandfrogman]

just saw that you saw the neptune theater production of ragad???? how was it!?!

YESSSSS it was so good!!!! sorry for the late reply, i just wanted to write out something detailed for this but didn't have the time!

id been planning to go for a while and i'm so glad it worked out! it definitely lived up to my hype, it was amazing!! ill give some very un-expert and very rambly impressions i had, but PLS let me know if you have specific questions about any details or scenes or choices :D

also i apologize im not a True fan of these 2 actors and i dont remember their names so ill just call them by their characters DHSJD

first off heres the set and playbill!!

i was kinda surprised because all the promo pictures seemed to show them wearing modern suits so i thought it was gonna be a modern setting, but it was just colorful old timey clothes! (sorry im not very knowledgeable on costumes, my main impression was just "oooo fun clothes")

oh one costume note is that one of them was wearing a green suit with a blue waistcoat, and the other was wearing a blue suit with a green waistcoat!

another unique thing about the production is it was split into 3 acts, like the script does, but most productions just do 2 acts!

i really enjoyed watching this, both ros+guil were super funny and the audience was laughing the whole time, even near the end like when guildenstern's breaking down, which i honestly enjoyed-- even when it's horribly tragic, it's STILL kiiinda funny. also i liked guildenstern's accent

in my opinion the acting was great all around, i kinda enjoyed the hamlet scenes and how they were acted seriously, since i'm always conflicted on if r&gad should make the hamlet parts serious or not! also guildenstern and rosencrantz's serious and emotional bits hit me so harddd (as in both of their monologues about death i guess)

there was a lot more use of obvious lighting and sound design than i feel like is typical for r&gad? but i enjoyed it!! i'll talk a bit more about that laterrrr

they also had some singing from the tragedians, once in their first entrance, and once replacing the ship noises at the beginning of act 3, which was very fun

one big difference was after the final scene w horatio, they blackout and go back to the initial positions and do a single "heads!" which was GREAT, i don't think i've seen anything else make the time loop that explicit??

ok and now just some rambling about interpretations

so part of me before the play started was like "i've watched/read/listened to this play SO many times, i hope it's not just boring and same-y and i don't realize anything new."

AND THEN. near the end of the first scene where ros+guil come across the tragedians. i was like HOLY SHIT and realized an interpretation that i've never thought of before.

(this might be a Super obvious interpretation and i'm just slow but whatever.) it occured to me that the moment that the tragedians are about to put on a play for ros+guil and the scene suddenly shifts to hamlet, it could be interpreted that the rest of the play is just the tragedians putting on one of the classics for ros+guil, and them getting "caught up in the action".

of course this doesn't make sense with Everything in the play, but it's SO fascinating to me and it recontextualizes a lot of stuff, like making it so that ros+guil are just fucking around backstage and onstage trying to figure out their roles the whole time in this play that's suddenly started around them.

also there's a couple choices that i think support this interpretation, like tending to switch to a warm stage-y lighting whenever scenes from hamlet are going on, and switching back to a cool neutral whenever ros+guil are "offstage".

plus, i think this happened a couple times but notably when hamlet is doing his "to be or not to be" speech and rosencrantz is trying to figure out how to interrupt him, there's this super interesting lighting effect where they have a spotlight on the BACK of the stage where hamlet is, and these lights near the bottom of the stage that give the impression of stage lights, making it look like the stage is reversed and hamlet's on the side facing the audience while ros+guil are upstage. IDK if that makes sense but i was like HOLY SHIT when i realized.

PLUS, im fairly sure all the actors playing roles in hamlet are all also tragedians, AND between each act, they had the tragedians doing stuff like moving the set, sweeping, etc, on stage, which was very fun..

ANYYYWAYY those are my thoughts :D not gonna tag this bc im embarrassedddd but feel free to rb and feel free to ask questions

[rainingskeletons]

Hi I hope you're having a good day. (⁠ ⁠╹⁠▽⁠╹⁠ ⁠)

I've been working on an OC for a while now and, I was wondering... How did you decide what design you wanted for slumber-sans? Was there a process?

I've been struggling with mine for a few months, so...

I feel like I'm in a hole, and I was hoping for some advice??

Heya, that's so exciting, it's fun to make OCs but I know it can be frustrating when you hit a wall!

I'll attempt to explain my process! Slumber-Sans changed a lot over the years and I think that's an important part of the development of an oc. Let them evolve over time!

To start, I designed slumber Sans way back in 2017 and it was a combination of things! At the time I had a pintrest board filled with clothes with like celestial/star patterns that I loved.

I also had a different original story I was working on at the time, that followed a hero who fights in the world of dreams. So combined with my love of Undertale I got inspired to draw this AU Sans :p

When approaching design, I want to reflect the character's personality! Emphasise his sleepy personality with a sleeping robe and sweat pants. I left him shirtless so you could see the space patterns in his robe more and tried to use a photoshop brush to make a pattern that would be easy to replicate. I was also playing with the idea that Sans' magic is tied to the "third eye", so I gave him one very literally (which I chose to change later)

Here's how I first drew him! (the Lilakrain watermark is the account I posted it to at the time)

Back then his style was really based on the game sprites. I drew him really square, I remember at the time I was trying to give him some kind of shape language that was cool and angular but still friendly. That changes over time as I saw how other artists drew him and was inspired by other shapes that I liked. For a few years I had to leave the design but when I started thumbnailing the comic and made the blog, I chose to update his design. My style had really simplified and streamlined over time, so I played around with an interpretation of that design with my new style. and thumbnailing the same character over and over shows you how you like to simplify them.

I like to mix soft curves and sharp angles to create contrast and to give energy/personality. And then finally when I wanted to draw the comic for real, I took a little more time to perfect a reference sheet for myself (but even this is just a suggestion! Some small details of the design have naturally evolved even now)

So tldr:

-Don't be too hung up on the final design, It's ok to let your OCs evolve naturally over time! -Ask yourself what kind of personality traits you like about your character and explore them (in my case with doodles)

-Combine the things/artists that inspire you! Mix and match as many things as you like and have fun✨

[lil-tachyon]

Who are some of your biggest influences in your art?

I’ve answered this question or something like it a couple times (1 2 3 4 + archive of interviews I’ve done with people)  so I’ll hit the main points and then talk about some different stuff I’ve been into recently. 

Favorite artists who have influenced me the most in no particular order:

Wayne Barlowe

Moebius

Mark Schultz

Simon Roy

Cosimo Galluzi

CM Kosemen

John Howe

James Gurney

Katsuya Terada

Hayao Miyazaki

I could name more, but those are the main people that I come back to, year after year.

Picture above by John Howe

General art movements/styles that have influenced me

19th century academic art, especially Orientalist painters (to be clear, I don’t endorse any of the harmful racial attitudes behind many of them, it’s just stuff that I saw as a kid that I thought looked cool and different and mysterious)

Ukiyo-e, Shin Hanga, Japanese woodcuts generally

Late 80s to 90s anime

Most comic art

Online spec bio art communities

Video game character/creature designs: Sonic, Pokemon, Legend of Zelda, Shining Force, etc

Art Nouveau

Fuck it, basically all Gilded Age, Fin de siècle, Belle Époque, late 19th/early 20th century European art movements that were more or less representational or illustrative

Picture above by Ludwig Deutsch. I had a bookmark of this painting for many years and I would often get distracted while reading and just stare at it.

I think I’ve talked about all that stuff before but if you want more details or specifics just ask!

For the last couple years, my really big influences have all been other artists I’ve met online. I mean I made a whole book with @ordheist and @bagb0ss. There’s a sort of loose cloud of (mostly) SFF artists that I’ve been really lucky to work and speak with and we all kinda know or know of each other or end up in the same Discord servers, or working on the same RPGs, etc. I’m not gonna link everybody but if you go through the interviews I’ve conducted for my newsletter or check out my side blog you’ll start to figure out who I mean (seriously a lot of these people are coming to tumblr now from twitter and I’ve been reblogging the hell out of them.) Seeing all the stuff my peers are putting out and talking with them is the source of like 90% of the ideas for my personal illustrations these days. It’s cool to be part of a community. I wish there were more opportunities to meet in person, but it’s still cool.

The other stuff that’s really been in my head lately is art that’s less illustrative, more abstract and graphical. Not pure abstraction mind you, but I’ve really been digging stuff that’s more about communicating a concept, feeling, piece of information, or idea than a narrative. More about design and composition than rendering. I recently read Philip Meggs’ History of Graphic Design and that’s turned me on to so new many artists and styles. In particular I’ve fallen in love with all the Vienna Secession guys, the Glasgow Style artists, and all the graphic and bookmaking ideas that came out of the Arts and Crafts movement. I don’t know how I want to work these ideas into my drawings yet and I haven’t had a lot of time to experiment lately but they're definitely bouncing around in my head.

Above from top to bottom: two pieces by Koloman Moser, two posters by Frances Macdonald, and two pages from The Glittering Plain, written and designed by William Morris.

There’s a whole lot of art that I really love but it rarely gets reflected in my drawings- American Regionalist paintings, gig posters, childrens’ storybooks, Eastern European Mosaics, Native American art, outsider art, colonial Americana …. One day I’ll find a way to synthesize it all.

Anyway, hope this is interesting/fun/informative and if you have any follow up questions don’t hesitate to ask!

-Logan

[corvidry]

Hi! I am working on an assignment for school, and I am trying to find information on how animal crossing is styled. Through my scrounging of the internet I saw a link that lead me to your website that was a "Animal Crossing Style Guide" but it no longer exists. I was wondering if you might have some pointers that I could learn from for my project?

Hi there,

You're about 2 weeks shy of that link working. I just changed web hosts and rebuilt my website and ended up taking down the blog section, which is where that content lived. The Animal Crossing Style Guide was an article / blog post I wrote a few years ago around the time New Horizons came out discussing the topic of animal crossing character designs for artists. While the post no longer exists online, I did archive it to hopefully host again in the future, but I havent gotten around to remaking the blog yet. In the meantime here's literally the entire thing in a tumblr post, and if I remember, I'll try to update whatever links I can. Sorry if it reads or is formatted a little weird on tumblr, but rest assured it's identical except for some shopping / sponsor links that dont need to be on this version. No idea if this is the sort of thing you need for your project, but good luck and enjoy!

Animal Crossing Style Guide: Artist Tips for Drawing Your Favorite Characters

Apr 24 | Written By Birdy

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of Fandom Friday. If you’re like every Nintendo Switch owner  right now, you’ve been playing Animal Crossing nonstop for the last month.  And who can blame you? This irresistible chore simulator has no trouble winning the hearts of the masses by helping us fall in love all over again with our favorite animal neighbors. Nintendo found a way to make tedium fun by implementing a fun reward system and fully embracing the rule of cool, or rather, the rule of cute if there is such a thing. Why do I like it? I don’t know, man!! It’s adorable! It turns my brain chemicals into a relaxed, happy soup.

If you’re an artist it’s possible you’ve seen these cute character designs and thought “I want a piece of that for myself.” I know I have. If you love to draw the Animal Crossing cast or have some OCs of your own who you want to mesh with the AC universe, read on for some mini tips for drawing in the Animal Crossing style. I’ve been studying the style for the past few weeks and this guide is a pretty compact version of what I’ve learned, but feel free to let me know if you guys want more.  It was fun to study these characters and I’d love to expand upon this with a more definitive guide or deep dive into more specific aspects of the style!

On to the basics!

Villager Bodies

In the graphic below I describe that most animals are a little over 2 heads tall. That’s because the characters in animal crossing tend to have very large, bulbous heads as part of their appeal. You’ll find that certain species, such as eagles and gorillas, do break this convention slightly, often appearing with their anatomical midpoint lower on the chest than most smaller animals.

That said, this isn’t a hard and fast rule necessarily. While the height and shape of AC bodies is generally in the neighborhood of what’s stated above, there is some variation between installments of AC. Compare the following images and you’ll see what I mean.

As you can see, Bob’s shape and proportions vary between Wild World and New Leaf, as do many of the other characters. While many current players likely think of New Horizons as the definitive style for now, I would encourage my fellow artists to experiment here. Play around with height in the 2 to 3 heads tall range and see what you like. Stylize the torsos to your taste. It’s entirely possible to remain within the AC style of drawing while still making some details your own.

Heads

Heads of AC characters are a bit of a complex subject because there are literally so many different species of animals who all have their own goofy, lovable little faces. I’ve done my best to break them down to the basics without getting too specific about one species or another.

As you can see, even the the more complicated animals can be broken down into these simplistic, bulbous shapes that Animal Crossing loves so well. When designing a new character, it’s wise to plan their head and body using basic shapes before you tack on any other extraneous features. By doing this you can ensure that your character has the round, soft features that are key to Animal Crossing before you ever have to decide what their face looks like or what their personality should be. When in doubt, round it out. You’ll be drowning in the cute in no time.

Speaking of faces, feel free to let me know on social media if you’d like me to expand upon this guide in terms of facial features and placement. I avoided the topic in this case because I wanted to focus more on foundational elements, and animal faces felt it a bit broad for that scope. The sheer expanse of animal individuality in this game allows for quite a lot of different faces with quite varied placement. And that’s not even including the human character options!

Limbs

Arms are perhaps the simplest section of this guide because there are so few styles of arm in Animal Crossing. The vast majority of characters you encounter will have the cylindrical arm style, or something close to it. At that point, all you’ll have to do is vary the length to suit the character.

Birds and octopi are one exception to this rule, with birds in particular being the more complex of the two. In most instances, bird characters will have those flattened out oar shapes for forearms with a simple texture stretched over the shape, but on occasion some birds will have distinct feathering as part of their model, which can at times distort the underlying shape for the artist trying to make sense of it. Our owl friends, Celeste and Blathers, are good examples of this.

With birds and octopi in particular, don’t be afraid to experiment a bit with the design of the limb. Some birds, like Blathers and Celeste, have wider forearms, and many octopi have interesting textures for their suckers. In addition, don’t be afraid of extending or shortening the standard cylindrical arm shape, as this shape can be applied to all different sized animals, from cats to hamsters and beyond. Some animals will have very short stumpy arms while others will have longer ones. Some villagers have slender, delicate arms, while others have bulkier ones. You can adjust the proportions of the shape to suit the character you’re drawing.

Legs on the other hand….those are a different can of worms. I’d like to preface this by saying that legs are another topic I’d love to go into greater detail on if there is interest because this graphic could afford to do the topic a bit more justice.

As with arms, most animals have the same simple cylinder that can be widened and extended as needed to suit the body of the animal. Birds once again have a unique trait in this department, but beyond that, leg styles vary widely. Mostly in the foot department, I should say. When starting off you’ll find that most animals maintain a cylindrical leg even if they have a unique foot, and in most cases the foot can be constructed out of a dome shape attached to the cylinder. Not unlike a plunger, if for some reason the stick was on one side of the plunger rather than in the center. On top of that, human characters can now wear a large variety of shoes, making this a second topic that I felt went beyond the scope of this exercise. If you’re interested in a more thorough explanation of Animal Crossing legs and feet, feel free to let me know. I just might write about it in more detail in a future installment.

But never fear! Feet, like most unique animal traits, do share similar design elements across the entire game even when they don’t look particularly alike.

Designing Unique Features

So you’re an artist who wants to draw a specific character, or maybe you want to design a brand new character. You can construct a simple animal body, but then what? What makes this character Your Character™ rather than Bob or Molly or Flora?

Despite how similar these animals all are in basic constructions, each animal and human has their own unique design elements that set them apart from one another. It is nigh impossible to cover every single interesting design element of every single animal in every single game, so here are some tips that will aid you in drawing any element you decide to apply to a character while still keeping them cute as a button.

Just like up top, I reiterate. Big, round, soft shapes. Even the most hardcore animals in Animal Crossing look soft and huggable to some degree.

Take for example, these animals who all should be at least a little bit scary.  Animal Crossing’s art style keeps them appealing even with their rougher traits on display. Alfonso the alligator should logically be among the most feared of reptiles, yet his sleepy eyes, gently sloping snout, chubby cheeks, and tubby belly give him all the charm of a stuffed animal. His pointy teeth feel more like a clumsy after thought than a mechanism for killing prey.

Coco the bunny is designed to look like a haniwa figure, an item commonly buried with the dead  during the Yayoi period of Japanese history. Coco’s Japanese name is, in fact, Yayoi. In addition, many items in her house are reminiscent of Japanese funeral decor.  She’s supposed to be a little unsettling. Her facial expression does not change like those of other villagers, so she can’t smile at you or put you at ease the way other characters can. Indeed, Coco wears a permanent somber appearance, but even so, she looks sweet and pleasant to touch. Her face is completely curved and she is given the body of a bunny villager.  Her huge, round ears and tiny, dainty paws evoke the charm of a little rabbit even from a villager whose whole design is meant to remind one of death.

Rasher the pig and Spike the rhino have similar charm. Both of them don scars all over their bodies and in some cases wear aggressive looking shirts in their rough or rustic homes. Still, with Rasher’s big sleepy eyes and friendly round belly, he could almost give you a Winnie the Pooh vibe if you squint hard enough. Spike, meanwhile, has had his horns rounded ever so slightly at the tips and his curved hooves and short tail make him seem far from threatening. Even the most edgy creatures in the Animal Crossing universe can appear somehow friendly by making use of these softening design elements.

Go Forth and Draw

And that, in essence, has been my broad overview of Animal Crossing’s art style. I consider that last tidbit to be the most valuable tip of all. By closely studying the way Animal Crossing characters use round bodies, gradual slopes, and pleasant curves, you can make even the most threatening of animal characters look cute and perfectly cuddly for your town, village, or island.

Once again, please let me know if there are particular elements of the Animal Crossing style you’d like me to look into more closely. This has been a very broad and very general overview of the character designs, but I would absolutely love to dive deeper into this art style. If you use this guide to improve your Animal Crossing drawings, feel free to tag me on Instagram, Deviantart, or Tumblr, so I can see what cool art you’ve made!

Have a great weekend, The Internet! Can’t wait to see you again for the next Fandom Friday. If you need me, I’ll be waterscaping a moat around Raymond’s house.

[fumiku]

Chlonath wips

I have so many Chlonath art and fic wips… I am such a slow writer and I’ve had most of these written down for like 2 years, so I wanna share most of their premises now in case I never get around to them! For joy and prosperity and whatnot, if someone wants to write one of these just ask me first! Someone needs to feed the chlonath masses. My next fic is going to be the camping one I think~

My fave picks:

Your majesty: Despite his bright fiery hair, he was all too easy to erase, to fade into the background. Garish, but unmemorable. Talented, but lame. Chloe decides to change that, takes him on as a pet project as fashion coordinator. "Come on, look at yourself! That hair, those eyes. You were *made* to pop! Everyone’s eyes would turn to you when you’re in the room!" He flushes, was that how she saw him? "But I don’t *want* to be the center of attention..." She smirks confidently/slyly. "Well too bad! Chloe Bourgeois will make a peacock out of this ugly little duckling!". Much later there’s a much quieter, sweeter scene of him voicing not wanting to be that different or flashy and she takes out some accessories that suit and enhance his style, comfy and like him. Eventually oop! She rlly needs a date and it’d go with her pet project, "besides you could use this for networking". "Hm? Oh yeah, a half up half down ponytail would look cute on you, in a street kind of way. But bangs in your face can go for cool and mysterious too. It can give you some personality that goes with or contrasts with your outfit, I guess. But this *is* still a fancy event, so a simple well-groomed swept aside style would keep it prim and formal, and it *is* your first entry into high society... But I *suppose* if you do your big debut with the aesthetic you’ll keep with, it’ll probably help your brand long term, attract the right kind of contract for you right away-" "Wow, where was all this perspective when you were doing the analysis on the blue curtains?" She smirks, "I have more experience in keeping up appearances —and everything it entails— than you think, apparently"

Everything else under spoiler bc I have tons of prompts haha

Chloe becomes designer & coordinator, director, for marc & Nath’s comics! She loves outfit coordinating, set designing, composition etc. Marc handles the writing and Nath the drawing, Chloe helps with the visual design. It starts with Chloe suggesting lil things to Nath when she sees his drawings, like add a common accessory to all the team. And since she was queen bee she can fact check some things. He loses his sketchbook while walking and she picks it up, not in her usual mood, n she sees his sketches and starts rattling off about details and fashion. Nath: "oh I- I’m not very knowledgeable in fashion designing..." she looks him up and down, taking his garish outfit in. "That I could have guessed." He huffs, sarcastic "Well, *thank you*, Chloe. That’s not a half bad idea, I could ask Marinette for some designing help, actually!" He lights up at that idea. She grits her teeth, angry and snatches his sketchbook back. She starts drawing on another page and her drawing isn’t really good but the ideas? Wow, they work. Chloe knows her aesthetics. "Stupid Marinette would *not* know how to arrange queen wasp’s hair, thank you very much. Ugh, this is outrageous! Utterly outrageous! You can keep the changes, and keep your god awful awfully thought out designs out of my sight, next time!" With his open sketchbook shoved back into his hands, he stares down at it n truly appreciate it. Wow, this is some serious good job. He thinks about it, kinda smug, oh I can *definitely* play her. He starts leaving his sketchbook behind on purpose n she starts giving him more and more notes when sabrina isn’t around. At some point she comes to the art room and everyone is silent but she’s shy and makes an effort not to be mean. The art dude takes her a bit under his wing and she starts channeling her time n energy into art, peeps of the art room start tolerating her. She takes Marc under her wing confidence wise, and sabrina tags along and rediscovers a love for scrapbooking. Omll marc & sabrina besties qpr cuties?

Pas de deux: they have a random ballet class in PE and they get paired up for the project and chloe 1) wants a good grade for her dad’s rep 2) is goal-oriented 3) has much less barb when teaching. Also prob a sad side note about impressing her mother with ballet classes as a kid.

But Are the Curtains Blue or Just Your Tear-stained Veil: Nathaniel tended to notice things, notice people. To dissect them, as if they were a comicbook character. What was surprising about Chloe is that while her attitude was bolsterous and always seemed so heated, her eyes were like ice, distant. A deep blue, and curtained off, like she could not let anyone else see what they hid. But Chloe was mean and cruel, and sometimes, Nathaniel dug too deep at wasn’t there. Maybe, they were just blue. He always came back at the mystery of her, though, and was pushed and pulled in a one-sided dance with her like the come and go of waves. //Maybe they just weren’t any curtains, whatever that meant. Maybe he was making everything up. Tags: kinda like The Girl Of the Train tbh

Name ideas:

Buzz off

Sweet as honey: What chloe turns out to love in a man is how sweet he can be

Renaitre

Esquisse

Preen my feathers (peacock holder Nath + motif with Chloe & appearances)

Quick ideas:

"I’ve spent so long hoping to be saved, that it feels weird to save people."

Chloe realizes her mother will never love her, or even respect her. Everything changes. //She lets herself be and experience pain and failure

By fake dating chlonath can make adrienette jealous! A scene: chloe tightens her grip on his arm with a crestfallen gaze at adrienette, nath is like ...? and realize Chloe hated Marinette bc abandonment issues

Sabrina chews chloe out and is done with her when they were on an outing, chloe runs into the nearest building, a museum, to hide and cry her eyes out. She bumps into Nath, and a friendship goes from there.

Ever since nath learned chloe is queen bee, he calls her stuff like yes your stinginess.

Nath brings chloe to a emo concert to throw her off, all hell breaks loose. (She likes it)

Two works linked together, one from chloe pov about nath n the other vice versa. "It’s wicked how sweet you are" and "it’s sweet how wicked you are"

Impression, soleil levant: they have a run in in the museum. Chloe genuinely likes fine art. Nath likes popping color, lineart, contrast and stylistic appeal, more contemporary stuff. Chloe really like impressionism, it calms her down, she could spend a lot of time just watching a painting. When she was a kid her dad would bring her when talking business at the louvre so she ran off with Jean and she knows the museum very well.

Chloe’s dad keeps bothering her about rules and standards and finding a partner, so Chloe resolves to find the lamest lousiest boyfriend. To make a statement, of course, she tells herself so when her eyes keep flicking to the redhead sitting at the back of the class.

What better way to learn to be vulnerable with each other than ice skating, when you’re both awful at it? A date <3

She points out a panel with queen bee when he’s doodling it, she has no context she just chilling "why is her hair down?" Nath answers without missing a beat "It’s a metaphor for vulnerability".

Nath starts disappearing quietly to places more and more, now that he has a miraculous. Chloe susses him out. W-what?? How did you notice it? Nobody ever pays attention to me- Ugh, you’re *impossible* to miss with that fluorescent hair of yours. Well you’re the only person who pays attention to it, apparently. Hah, blame my superior eyes if you must. Well if *I’m* what your superior eyes choose to watch then- U-um, we’re getting sidetracked! W-what are you doing here! Reverse universe where she’s still denied being queen bee so she’s Nath’s sidekick? He doesn’t really have any friends besides Marc which not in this universe bc it comes before, so he wouldn’t have anyone else so lowkey he’s grateful. He notices her really truly changing for the better as they hang out more.

I dig my hole, you build a wall: As Chloe Bourgeois doubles down on being an irredeemable bully, Queen Bee continues to rise on a pedestral of adoration. It doesn’t help, nothing ever does, and it’s getting harder to make herself ignore how miserable she is. Chloe drowns herself in her superhero job, squeezes every drop of appreciation from her fans she can. Nath happens to be one of them, hardcore. She just needs someone to lean on.

26/11/‘22 Chloe gets akumatized into a dollhouse lover like with her teddybear mr cuddles, and she wants to kidnap some ppl and keep them like dolls to play with her and listen to her every want and choice of activities. Sabrina is mad at her so elle la boude. She picks Nath and they have a tea party isolated at Le grand paris etc etc. Maybe after Adrien cuts it off with Chloe so she freaks out amd wants friends, even if toxic controlling, but she’s not shooting for Adrien bc she’s upset at him and ignores him.

Outlined:

He forgets some comic pages behind, vs queen wasp, and goes back to get them and finds chloe reading them intensely, seeming genuinely invested. She’s lowkey having a panic attack n shoos off an akuma?? He’s shocked, but that requires introspection so in the moment he’s doubtful and bitter. She’s panicced and embarrassed about having been found out. He’s like, wtf was so upsetting about my comic?? Jealous of my art? Mad that something isn’t about you? Angry that I have talent and dreams, unlike you? she flinches. She upsetti "you wouldn’t understand." "Oh, try me. I have experience in being put down, after all." He bites coldly. She explains half-heartedly "Oh, here comes the self-pity." Her lips quiver, she looks down. "You’re right. It is self-pity. I’m miserable." The "and I have no one else to pity me but me" is muttered so quietly. Her fists clench, chin tucked in her torso. Then her gaze hardens and she snaps her head up. "Whatever." He blocks her way out. She grits dangerously "*Out*. Of. The way." Her eyes prickle with tears. He doesn’t even flinch "That won’t work today." She’s so close to snapping violently but instead just cries. Blabla "Yeah well, when you’ve dug a hole as deeply as I have, you can’t get out. Not without a miracle, anyways." She says, you could do one about queen bee next, please. N leaves quietly and he’s never seen her so... non-agressive.

Entracte/solo act: Picking on Nathaniel Kurtzberg when alone with him, Chloe found, was a much different experience than humiliating him in public. It turns out, he only unleashes his fury on the most deserving of private audiences. Notes: I headcanon Nath, bc of the reflekto ep, would stand up for himself more if he wasn’t being bullied in public. I feel like having all the eyes on him motivates him to shut up and try to make the ordeal as brief as possible & leave the situation, so when he’s alone and getting sass he has less qualms about snapping and ripping into ppl lol. Chloe goes to the art room and Nath is alone in it. He asks where Sabrina is, she rolls her eyes "She had *something important* to attend to." She goes to see what he’s working on and makes her snide remarks as usual but unlike usual he snaps and rips into her, she loses her haughty attitude real quick. The next time they make eye contact in class, she grimaces and looks away. He wins. But then she gets a fire and glares at him head on. Let the war truly begin. 

To Nathaniel’s and Choe’s horror, the class goes on a mandatory camping trip. It does not go well for either of them. "Um, I’m sorry mme Bustier but I won’t be able to come. I’m sick, yes, cough cough, how unfortunate." Bustier is not amused. She groans when it’s announced they’ll have a camping trip. Nath keeps his in, but for once they agree on something. Ugh.  Nath just wants to draw in his tent, that’s too much to ask??!

Royalties: nath finds out chloe is queen bee and threatens to tell it to everyone so that ladybug will take her miraculous away. In exchange for his secret, Chloe must praise him and his art on her social media, throw his name in at fancy soirées, become his "fan". To Nath’s surprise and Chloe’s horror, it backfires. Royally. Her "Nath is so cool" post was half advertizing half for public humiliation. Being the daughter of the mayor of one of the most famous cities in the world meant she has a lot of followers, quite a few in the elite sphere of Paris. The post’s a bit rebellious on her end because he doesn’t like her calling him Nath. Since Chloe *never* praises anyone and the tone was overeager/affectious, people start theorizing they’re actually dating. He takes the logical leap to be invited by her at an event, but as a plus one because it’s not her party to invite people at. Normally he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with a fancy party, but he begrudgingly has to admit networking is very important as an artist, plus he’d do it to piss off Chloe alone.

Vampire au!! Summary: Beyond her humanity, which Chloe had never truly cared about anyway, becoming a vampire hadn’t really, concretely, taken away anything from her. She was still rich, loved by all of Paris, and beautiful. And yet, she realized then that she had lost herself without knowing when.  //Chloe has been a vampire for a lil while, very upset. Mr cuddly is also a reminder of her past life. She longs to see herself again, she has had to keep out of the spotlight because she has no reflection and can’t be taken a picture of, she asks Nath to draw her like in Mirror, Mirror the awesome fic which I recommend! Nath finds out her new identity so he becomes tied up in it all, he’s the only one who knows so he becomes who she feeds on. "I can pay you. What do you want? A thousand euros per night? The latest drawing tablets? A gallery showing? Publishing deal? Just help me." Right from the start she feeds off from his neck despite his hesitance. She goes "a wrist? Are you kidding me? I settle for nothing but the best." But the reality is she just wants to feel close to someone, one time the bite turns into a hug crying session. -"... Does that mean my blood is the tastiest?" She’s shaken at that, "That- was *not* what I was implying. It’s not like I would know, anyways." She huffs n looks away. "Your blood is... satisfactory." He smirks, from her, that’s a huge compliment. He can just hear it in his mind "My taste buds are only the most refined!! I can tolerate only but the best!!" She does tell him he’s sweaty n stinks the first time tho. He has to hide his neck bite, ppl tease him about hickeys. At some point a classmate figures out it’s chloe that gives him his hickeys and Nath has to damage control and people start sussing they’re a couple.

No lullaby: No one liked her, but she could dream, couldn’t she? The delusions she lulled herself to had never really been dreams, but maybe to reborn anew she could find a lullaby in someone new, too. // based on the song No Lullaby by Siamés. Also La la la by Jason Chen Akuma that calls itself Lullaby, it was made because they have to move away from their parents or smth like that, so it lashes out and makes all kinds of kiddy & wholesome parenthood stuff. It turns people into happy kids/babies by tapping into childhood memories of parents(something like that), but doesn’t affect Chloe. Because Chloe never had her parents be around much, or them being much like parents at all. Chloe is fighting as Queen Bee, of course, in an AU where people know who she is but Ladybug still trusts her to want not to smear her family name by being a bad superhero. "I could be a superhero and my mother still wouldn’t blink my way... Oh, sorry, that actually happened, not much for an hypothetical." Everyone stares at her in shock. "What? I can have a smart vocabulary!" People look at her with pity and sympathy. "T-that’s not it..." Chat says. Anyways they’re fighting it and a lot of other miraculous holders get hit and she does too but is immune bc it taps into their happy parents childhood memories, meanwhile it’s only able to conjure up her plushie for her. Anyways so she gets swinged up to a rooftop where Nathaniel is sitting and drawing Queen Bee, he jolts and goes "Q-quee-Chloe?" but they don’t have much time since the akuma comes swinging in too and gets Nath under its spell. She carries around baby!Nath around because for some reason she feels a sort of duty to people she knows irl. She goes to the building the other holders are in or something but still ends up alone with Nath since everyone got affected, she panics as her miraculous beeps and she’s alone to fix everything, but Nathaniel draws with his fine art colored pencils like kids use crayons and does tons of kiddy imaginative drawings, and starts humming, bringing her out of her torpor. As the tune calms her, she does a “what would Ladybug do?”, "Ugh, I could have used Evillustrator right about now." She strategizes on how to break the spell over Ladybug for purification, and goes in to break the akuma item holder. When Nathaniel comes to, he’s mad to have ruined his pencils, now with blunt deformed tips, but then he looks at his sketchbook in utter confusion he sees pages and pages of kid’s drawings, recognizing his own infantile style, but the most curious are that some drawings include Queen Bee. His feelings are conflicted and he wants to know what happened, but dreads asking her, but he laughs at a drawing of him pulling her ponytail, and stills at the one of her hugging him. End notes: Next time Queen Bee gets swung onto his rooftops by an akuma, Nath jolts but responds to that adrenaline by crossing his leg over his other knee and raising an eyebrow over half-lidded eyes: "Somehow, I’m not surprised." You know, like sometimes when people flirt as fight or flight response lmao.

22/2/‘23 Chloe was trying really hard to be kind like a true superhero now, and with the birthday of her classmate Nathaniel coming up she would have to, painstakingly, do everything in her power to give him the best gift ever. One problem is, she doesn’t really know him, like, at all. She asks him what he likes. She thinks of supherhero stuff and art stuff. She doesn’t know about drawing tablets so she’s like, what about this professional drawing desk I’ll have my bodyguard carry? As if everyone has the privilege to have the space for a new furniture on a whim. She asks Sabrina for help like this close to a meltdown, maybe even Marinette: "The fool was in love with you, don’t you know anything about him that could help??" And then at the end shes like "omg. I can get him an interview with Queen Bee!" Ooh does she get akumatized with some gifter gimmick? Would be neat but naaah. Maybe two parts, idk what the end should be! Copic markers maybe

[numbersareimaginary]

Recently started rewatching Voyager. Some thoughts

the gods that be at youtube started recommending me Star Trek clips again recently, so I'm rewatching Voyager for the first time in maybe 6 years, and noticing so many things i didn't when I was a kid. here are some of them:

the Maquis officers have different rank pips than everyone else! I saw this on Lower Decks with Provisional Ensign T'lyn, so I guess that means the Chakotay, B'elanna, etc are all provisional officers, since they're technically wanted terrorists? cool! love attention to detail!

the first season at least has much more of an overarching story than I thought back then. I think i skipped through too many episodes to see what they were doing. I've seen people complain about the starfleet/maquis tensions not being addressed enough but so far they've appeared pretty often, and you can see the two crews growing together overtime. I like it, tbh. Not so much pressure to watch every episode but you can still see things are changing.

also overtime as the energy crisis is resolved the crew are seen using the replicators more and more!

Neelix is actually less annoying than i remember. maybe he gets Flanderized in later seasons, but so far so good. Still not my favorite alien crewmember in Trek, tho (Dr. Phlox my beloved <3)

I think when I was a kid i had a crush on Janeway, but now I just want to be her :(

Voyager remains the sexiest starship ever, tiny nacelles and all. Sleeker and meaner than any ship on screen before or since, imo. I know some people are attached to the Defiant, but honestly the ship design there is weird. It looks like a flying credit card scanner. What carried Defiant was the crew, and the story, certainly not the looks.

Speaking of skipping things, I forgot how bad all the """""Native American""""" stuff they put into this one is. Man, how could the showrunners not tell this stuff was fake as shit when it was being given to them??!

WHEN DO WE GET SEVEN I WANT SEVEN NOWWWWWWWWWW

I cried the first time I heard the opening theme. Absolutely undeniably the best theme of any of the 90s shows. No thoughts, head BWAH BWAH BWAH BWEH BWAAAAW BWAAAW BWEH BWAH BWAH BWAH

Ok I'm out of things to say now I think. God, I love this show.