#my art style is going to probably change a bunch and in fact already changed half way through this one post haha

[storybookclan]

Intro

…

Once upon a time, there was a group of cats…

Lignin took care of the younger ones… she named them too when they were given stupid names

She was sad and scared

Page was the youngest… so sweet and kind. He took care of Lignin because she couldn’t take care of herself

He was too pure for the world

Then there was Quill. He was troublesome and fun. Always made everyone smile, even when he was the most annoying thing alive

There seemed to be no end to his energy

And… Ink… he stepped in for Page when she couldn’t do everything… which was almost always…

The others joked that there were hearts on his pelt because he had too much love to contain it all inside him

There was also a cat named Story

…

He was a jerk

[bonnyhoddie]

Ocellus - Teenage Exocolonist OC

I need to post more so here’s something I made in February for a game I love a lot - I was a Teenage Exocolonist!

The character is called Ocellus (yes, like the changeling in MLP I could not think of anything else that sounded sciency or eccentric enough, ideas are welcome!) and their augment is chameleon, because I thought it’d be easiest for my mental health and art block to create a character with obvious signs such as that, without going into classic animals, like a cat or mouse. (Also I had a snake as a pet called Misty and I wanted to give a character a reptile tail)

The idea sketches (as you’ll find from the inconsistent outfits and lazier style, and also Ocellus being pink and blue to match the butterfly, when in the reference, it became decided that those colours would be romantic (I might change them actually)) and the reference drawing was actually made either on the same day or a day before I left my toxic environment lol

Also, fun fact, someone accused me of character theft because a bunch of members were planning to make a mod called Extracolonists (NOT Extracolonist by Seraphic on Reddit) so, AFTER I made Ocellus and just had to do some final details, I was like “omg how cool would it be if I joined in on the mod, they have some space left” so I looked through the discord search thing, looking up “chameleon” and I found a character called “Chanterelle”.

So, finding a chameleon augment character already I was like “oh ok so it won’t go in the mod, ah well, I’ll just post this in the art channel and make a little joke about it.”

Important thing to note: These characters looked nothing alike, aside from being POC and having multi-coloured hair. However, Chanterelle was default blue/pink and all I saw was an image, so I imagine a lot of the functionality stuff like the sign language and the tongue being too big in the mouth, is all mine (or, it’s ours now because sadly I did probably give too many ideas to them). Another thing to note is that I was exclusively following Exocolonist eccentric explorer styles, while the image I saw was Chanterelle’s child version just kinda in a blue hoodie.

And, at first I got compliments and, what confirms my thoughts about the functionality being mine, is that I was being COMPLIMENTED for my ideas AND my character. UNTIL, one person, decided to be like “I’m really uncomfortable with this” and, when I asked why, I get “Because it’s character theft! The characters look exactly alike!”

(They don’t, at all, whatsoever, again, aside from being POC and having multi-coloured hair with COMPLETELY different types of hair texture and multi-coloured types (Ocellus has straight thick hair that’s essentially just very tiny chameleon scales, so it’s a little heavy, with colours at the ends, while Chanterelle had afro space buns and split dye), which, is probably telling that those features make characters look “exactly alike” but idk I’m white, I don’t think I get to decide on what’s telling)

So then, the ENTIRE group, even ones that were COMPLIMENTING me, decided to just turn on me LMAO, (fucking pick a lane a stick to it dudes lmao /j) which, from the perspective of “I had just joined a few days ago and they don’t know me and they have established friendships” I get, but, first of all, I was doing a bachelor of ARTS at the time, which I stated on the first day, I’m sure that I wouldn’t be doing that if I was uncreative enough to be a thief, and, whenever I tried to defend myself and prove my innocence, I was not listened to and I had the EXACT SAME PHRASE repeated to me “you know how it looks right?” Over and over and over again no matter how many times I responded to that, it just was not going anywhere, my attempts of defusing the situation just was not working at all, and I was not being listened to. So then the person who “called me out” decided to post in another channel “let’s make another server for the mod because this doesn’t feel like a safe space for me anymore :(“

EXCUSE ME??? YOU accused me of character theft and dismissed my Timelapses, which is the ONLY way of proving that I didn’t steal a character design. I was reasonable and polite the whole time because I wanted to calm things down and clear up a misunderstanding, while you wanted to argue, and accuse me and my friend of being toxic because she has harsh tone sometimes, while YOU YOURSELF were displaying extremely toxic behaviours, the only bad thing I said to her was:

“I’m so sorry, this saying is only ever said in a mean way and I have no other way of saying this, but, I’m not gonna lie, I feel like it has to be said, you aren’t special, not every coincidence you see in a character is theft against you, and I’m literally in Uni for ART and MAKING CHARACTERS, where I am watched and observed when doing character design tasks, I’m not gonna be uncreative and steal a character design. I just checked to see if Ocellus could be in the mod, that’s it”

Because, I’m gonna be honest, the character wasn’t basic, and was fucking adorable, I’m not trying to insult the character, BUT, she had a LOT of popular character design choices when I checked, and not really much to separate her too much from the norm, which is absolutely ok, BUT, that means that that person is going to see a LOT of characters that look similar, and they can’t expect people to NOT have coincidental ideas of things that ARE unique to the character.

So I just sent a really long message about how I’m gonna leave because I TRIED to peacefully and calmly settle the issue, but everyone was willing to just attack me DESPITE complimenting me before, and not listen to me at all despite showing my Timelapses to show my thought process. And then for the person who started this whole thing to suddenly feel “unsafe” despite the fact that I was the one being attacked.

So, one of my friends (me and 3 others joined because we wanted to be a part of a community) stayed in the server, either that one or an 18+ one to see what happens after or for anyone to try and talk to me through her, and one of the mods did contact her, super sweet like:

“Hey I’m so sorry your friend went through that, we had a talk with the others, we don’t think Chari (me) did anything wrong and we’re gonna make a ticket system so things never escalate like this again, so if they want to join back at all, they are free to, again, we’re so sorry, we don’t let these things slide without a reaction.”

Anyway, I haven’t joined back since, because I said that I would if the person who called me out apologised, and, if I DID rejoin, I should get an apology from the people who escalated everything (bit immature I know and I did state that), but the mod kindly explained that she wouldn’t apologise and would just leave if I joined back, so I just decided that, instead of chasing her out of possible safe spaces by just existing, I was just gonna stick to talking about it with my friends and maybe in the future join another server, which I haven’t done yet. Also there was some Vace lovers /j

So yeah, fun story lol, I wonder how they’re getting on and I do hope the project is going well for them.

Might also add some more patterns and details to some parts of Ocellus and make an Ocellus mod, not out of spite at all, I promise, but because I really wanna do something with them and I really wanna make mods.

Also, despite how it seems, I’m not actually mad, I find this haha funny. I was also stressed and annoyed at the time but not exactly angry.

[cheeriecherrymain]

Hear me out hear me out. tattoo parlor and flower shop au

AU TIME

Viktor x fem!Reader (SFW)

-Now hear me out, anon.

-Viktor already works a lot with his hands, focusing on intricate details and tiny contraptions - that’s basically already an art. I feel like if this is an au where hextech didn’t exist, and he had more of an interest in visual design, he’d be a great tattoo artist. Plus he canonically carved a bunch of runes into himself so we know he can also tolerate getting ink.

-He can probably do a lot of different concepts, but I feel like he’d really have a knack for semi-realistic mechanical pieces - making it look like his clients’ skin has rubbed away to reveal the metal workings beneath. Honestly cool af.

-And then one day, you walk in. It’s a nice parlour that he works at, so there are all styles of people who come in looking to get work done - he’s only surprised when you ask for him by name.

-He doesn’t recognize you at first, since he doesn’t really have any reason to pop across the street to a flower shop, but once you mention that you own the place, he kind of remembers your face. Or at least…he remembers seeing you wipe out on the sidewalk in front of your store during the previous winter.

-But he doesn’t mention that.

-Instead you find a comfortable seat in the little lounge area and start talking. He asks the general questions - do you have a concept or ideas, where do you want it, what colours, how big, etc etc. 

-You pull out a couple pieces of folded paper and hand them to him. “I know it’s outside of what you usually do,” you say sheepishly, “but a friend of mine had some pieces done by you, and I loved your colour work.”

-He looks down at the references you brought, and skims over them. Flowers. Of course it was flowers.

-Your shoulders droop slightly when you notice his brows pinch together ever so slightly. “If you’re not sure about it, that’s cool,” you assure him, “I can ask around and see if I can find someone who specializes-”

- “I can do it,” he cuts you off, folding the pictures back up and putting them in his pocket. “As long as you’re alright with my own style, as opposed to exact copies of the image.”

-The smile you give him makes his heart skip a beat, wide and excited, and you begin buzzing with energy. “That’s what I was hoping for!” you say.

-You set up an appointment for a couple days out, to go over his designs and change up anything you wanted altered. When you skip out the door and head across the street, Viktor can’t help but feel a little mushy on the inside - something about your enthusiasm, or maybe your charm…maybe the fact that you sought him out specifically? Whatever it is, something about you has Viktor wanting to impress you.

-He works diligently on potential pieces for you, staying up later than planned to make sure that every colour and every line was perfect. And by the time your next appointment rolls around, he’s cranked out what is quite possibly some of his best work.

-And you seem to think so, too, staring slack jawed at the sketches he presents you with. “These are beautiful,” you tell him, in awe of how he was able to make something so bright and flowing. It’s hard to make a decision on which one you like the most, but eventually you make your choice, and the process begins.

-You pull your shirt off in one of the private rooms, and shrug off the straps of your camisole, getting comfortable on the chair. Viktor knocks before he enters the room, and you smile at him while he sets things up.

-He doesn’t usually chat too much with his clients while he works, preferring to remain silent and focus, but you’re…different. You ask him question after question about his job, but instead of getting annoyed, he finds it easy to continue giving you answers - where he studied, how he got into the profession, what some of his favourite artworks were.

-The conversation eventually flows into your own line of work, and he finds himself curious about you and your flowers - how you started in your field, what you enjoyed about it. 

-He learns that you wanted to be a botanist all your life, but you eventually fell into flower arranging. He learns that most of your clientele consists of event-planners, and that the little shop is just a front for a larger business. He learns that you do all your arrangements yourself, and hand-select every flower that goes into them.

- “It’s tedious,” you admit, “But it’s rewarding. The money is lucrative, but I get so many heartfelt letters from people about how much they loved the flowers I sent for whatever event they had planned; that’s really what makes it worth it.”

-You chatter back and forth for another hour or two while Viktor works, and when he’s finished, you’re almost sad that it’s over. You’re plenty sore after sitting so long -and after having needles repeatedly pushed into your skin- but you’re still bummed that you don’t get to keep talking with him.

-You pay for the tattoo, and make sure to leave him an incredibly generous tip for all of his effort, and then you leave. Viktor watches you depart from the shop with a little wave and a skip in your step, and then you’re gone from his life.

-Over the next couple of weeks, he finds himself easily distracted. Work goes on as usual - he gets a bunch of people with simple tattoo ideas that he’s done a million times, and a couple of repeat-customers who’ve had work done by him previously.

-But when he’s in between clients and sitting behind the front desk, he often finds himself casting his gaze out through the windows lining the front of the shop, across the street, and over to your shop. He notices you coming and going a handful of times, but you never seem to look over at him.

-He’s honestly a little weirded out by how hung up on you he is, scolding himself for getting too friendly with a client. He knows he’s not actually been too friendly -all he did was have a good conversation with you while he worked- but he’s just. A little taken aback by how you seem to always be at the forefront of his mind.

-He even doodles flowers on his downtime: blooms he finds pretty, or that he knows the meaning behind, designing tattoos that he thinks you might like and thinking of all the places on your body that he could sneak a little bit of art in.

-He fully expects you to be a one-and-done kind of client - you got a flower done because you’re a florist, and you don’t need more than that. But some weeks later, when he’s at unawares, the bell on the front door rings. And you traipse in.

-You’re just as pleasant as when you first met, skipping up to the front desk to greet his coworker. As soon as Viktor hears your voice from the front room, he ambles over and all but steals you away. 

-You exchange pleasantries, and you update him on how you’ve healed. You’re still in love with the little piece you’d gotten from him - so much so that you’re back for more. You admit to him that you don’t really know what you want, just that you want more flowers.

- “It would also be cool to see some of your own style, too,” you tell him softly, “My friend had a mechanical piece done by you - it’s gorgeous. It’s not really my aesthetic, but…I wonder if you think you might be able to combine the two? Plants and machines! Like, um….biomechanical?”

-He’s suddenly very aware of the fact that he definitely has a crush on you.

-You talk a little bit more, and he makes a couple of very loose sketches while you do so, to give you a general idea of what might work. He asks the typical questions again, but this time when he gets to sizing and placement, you shrug.

- “I have a high pain tolerance,” you tell him, “so…I was thinking that you might just. Pick for me? If that’s weird, then I totally get it. You hardly know me, after all! Um…”

-Adorable, he thinks, seeing you so flustered.

-But he agrees to make a couple of pieces for a couple of different areas, and then you can decide later depending on which sketch you choose.

-It’s all basically a repeat of the last art he made for you - he works tirelessly to draw out some of the best pieces he’s ever created, though they’re larger and more vibrant than the last. It’s startlingly easy for him to combine his usual style with yours, incorporating delicate plants and tiny flowers into his wired and industrial machines.

-You end up loving all of what he makes, once again having a hard time picking a single design. But eventually you decide on a drawing, and the two of you settle down to get through the process.

-Conversation flows just as easily as the last time you met, except this time you both end up dipping into more personal matters - your childhoods, your relationships, your hopes and dreams. It takes most of the day to get all your ink done, and there’s barely a moment where the two of you aren’t talking the other’s ears off.

-You’re thrilled with the finished product, too, even moreso than the last. You want so badly to trace your fingers over the intricate lines, but you know he’ll only scold you for touching a fresh wound. You settle for tearing up instead, quietly laughing at yourself as you wipe your eyes.

- “It’s perfect,” you tell him.

-You pay him what he’s owed, once more leaving a hefty tip for all his troubles - but this time, you give it to him in cash.

-Only once you’ve left the shop does he go through the roll of bills, his eyes nearly bugging out of his head when he realizes how much you’ve given him. He’s half a mind to call you back to return some of it, or at least ask if you gave him as much as you intended to. At least, until he gets to the center of the roll, when he finds a slip of paper.

-A little note scribble in your handwriting, thanking him for the beautiful work, and telling him not to stress over how much he’d received. -And there, on the bottom of the paper, is your phone number, scrawled beside the question ‘Wanna get coffee sometime?’

[meimi-haneoka]

Thank you Cinzia! I seriously need to check my notifications more. I didn't even realise that you had answered my ask. Loved your timeline and fanfics. I completely get what you are saying about writing fanfic. It kind of just flows out when you are that invested in a pairing. Also, that CCS in Public domain ask.... if I am not wrong, Japan seems to have a different approach to it. I mean I have seen doujinshis and light novels being sold legally featuring (and being advertised with) CCS characters. I am not sure but it seems that is legal in Japan? Not sure of all this but I assure you that I have come across some R18 doujinshis featuring Junior High aged SyaoSaku. The horror...... Also, I didn't realise that Akiho and Sakura had lived together as sisters for 5 months post Alice in Clockland. I mean, they all don't look much different (I kind of presumed that it had been just a bunch of weeks, like autumn is over and winter has begun). Frankly, they should be nearer to the heights in the final chapter of OG CCS manga if the second year is about to begin (since Sakura and Syaoran were reunited in the beginning of the second year of JHS in the OG manga). Oh well, I will just chalk it down to art style change.

Thank you so much for reading my drabbles and finally check my timeline, Aubretia!! 😁I'm glad in the end it worked for you! ✨

About the doujinshi matter, hehe, it's not that simple. From what I know, doujinshi are considered 二次創作, "derivative works", and as such technically they aren't legal, if they don't have the authorization of the author. Often fanartists who produce doujinshi also produce what we call "fan merch", like printing their art on acrylic keychains, stickers, acrylic stands and such. Those fall into the category too. However, in the industry there is an unspoken agreement that such works are "tolerated" by copyright holders as long as the price they're sold at can be proven as a mere "reimbursement of the cost" to produce such merch (like the printing cost for the doujinshi/anthologies and the manufacturing cost for other items). Basically, the fanartists don't have to earn money from this (or I guess the don't have to earn too much). Usually artists print a definite amount of copies to sell at conventions and a definite amount to sell online, so it doesn't "become too much" and attracts "too much attention" from the copyright holders. These are tolerated only because it turns into further promotion for the IP, so of course the fanartists need to know their place and not overdo it. So it's not legal, but it is common practice to "close an eye" on it (and yes, this means that there's literally anything, as you pointed out, out there).

For Akiho and Sakura living together, yeah it's more or less from 4 to 5 months! I calculated this from the fact that when the play started, they had barely changed into their winter uniform at school, and usually that happens on a set date in Japan, on October 1st. Now, in the chapter of the play (63) you can see lots of people attending the school festival, and many of them wear short sleeves, while other wear mid or long sleeves. This definitely made me think that there were still quite nice temperatures so it probably wasn't in late October but rather at the beginning of it (I even thought it might have been September and they changed uniforms early). When Kaito activated the forbidden magic, things continued exactly from where they were left off before he brought Sakura and Akiho to Clockland, so when we come back in chapter 70 it's still everything on the same day of the play. And then, when we see how things are going for them in chapter 71, we see everyone wearing the "super winter uniform", as I jokingly call it, along with coats, scarves, gloves, it's even snowing at some point! And they also say that "soon" Sakura is going to become a second year student at Tomoeda Middle school, so I had already pinpointed the month when all of this was happening as end of February. When the last chapter dropped, turns out I was right, because just 4 days after the "last battle" Akiho says she would've left Tomoeda one month later, and when we see her and Kaito on their departure day, cherry blossoms are starting to bloom, so that means that they are at the end of March. So, in short, Sakura and Akiho spent as sisters an indefinite part of October, all of November, December, January and all of February together before they realized what the heck was happening. Yeah, it's all a matter of looking around you and observing "the silent hints" (isn't all of Clear Card like that, after all?) and you can get a lot of the context. 😉👍

And oh, I absolutely don't suggest to take any of the OG manga panels as a reference for the heights and such because back then CLAMP's style was very different. They tended to make their characters so tall (and their legs so long!) especially when they had to indicate that kids had grown up. Their chins were more pointy, the shoulders wider (I always laugh when I look back to Syaoran with those wide shoulders)...yeah it was something completely different. Now Mokona sensei respects body proportions a lot more and I also have to say that the poses of her characters are more natural and not "stiff" as they were before. I also love how more expressive they've become. I do agree though that if she could make them a tiny bit taller it would be better. This is something that I've constantly "complained" about during the serialization.

Besides, I always understood that Sakura and Syaoran were in their first year at Tomoeda Middle school, at the end of the OG manga? Cause Sakura says "my brother is going to poke fun at me oversleeping even though I've become a middle schooler!" so it suggests that the change had just happened? Well, Clear Card is its sequel and it starts exactly like the last pages of volume 12, with an "extended version" of the finale, so I think that the kids being in 1st year of middle school is what CLAMP had always intended since 2000.

[aspl1tl1fe]

Setting Up Audre 5.1

Today we return to PI Strip, a renamed public community lot located at 10 Pleasant Boulevard in @one-plumbob​’s world Pleasant Island, which is called Audre in my save. 

Last week, I shared images of the entrance and first floor of Audre’s African Art Gallery, and today we venture up the spiral stairs to view the two room second floor, where the art is showcased.

So a little story about the stairs before going up. 

Those are a custom item I got somewhere off the net, while desperately seeking build variety. I’ve never used them before because the style is rather limited. They look very 80s Barbie doll wedding, and don’t at all fit the modern style of this gallery. Still, I really wanted to use this, and plopped them down before I did anything else in this shop, before, in fact, I even knew what the place would be.

As I was renovating I thought, maybe the owner of the gallery recently purchased or rented the space, and it hasn’t really had much attention since the building was originally built. Maybe the owner of the gallery is just starting out or relocating to the town and can’t yet afford full renovation. Even better, the gallery is publicly funded and most of the funds go to just keeping the place open.

Whatever I go with, I’m keeping the stairs because I’m stubborn, lol.

Anywho, on the second floor I used some half walls (which might also be custom) to make a little stairwell, through which you can already see the pictures hung up on the walls. 

As a quick aside, AAAG specializes in photos and paintings. Unless I decide to use sculpting in this game to actually sculpt, which I highly doubt, what’s sold here probably wont change. 

If you take another look at the picture of the exterior, the second floor has a bunch of windows which limit wall space, and could cause damage to the featured paintings. To remedy this, I placed two and three tile walls, one tile in front of, or partway in front of, the windows, and then I tried to block the spaces off using plants. I’m hoping this will prevent sims from trying to route around the walls instead of using the open more navigable space.

I know we all know how TS3 is (and TS4 definitely has this game beat in that regard). If it’s hard to get there every sim in town wants to be there. Still, I am hopping they walk up, not do the toe tap and complain because I’ve got a mod to prevent that, see they can’t get there, and go around.

I may find that this was the biggest mistake ever, as I’ve also placed one tile walls in the next room to hang more art.  

I’m pretty sure I mentioned in last weeks post, that I didn’t have room for a lot of seating in the sales room (yup that’s what I’m calling it now), so I’ve placed two couches around the stairwell, along with a little coffee table. That way I can make and place coffee up here, and make it look like the gallery owner is chatting up potential artists or sponsors.

From the entrance way to the second room, you can see the one tile walls I mentioned before. There’s a bit more space in this room, as it’s the space above the in progress housewares store. I’m hoping that means this won’t become the portal to lag hell, but I won’t really know until I can get multiple sims in here at once.

I guess that if all else fails, I can at least place invisible fences where the walls are blocking the windows, and maybe do the one tiles if that still doesn’t help.

I should say, I have downloaded lots of black art (I also tend to download Indigenous and or non-black POC art that doesn’t give me racist fetish vibes), and “the lighting is dark enough that this person in this image could be black” (lol) art. All custom, of course, as diverse representation is scant in the game.

Because I have so much, I was able to fill out my gallery with a number of different images in different sizes and styles, and use a lot of cc I’ve yet to be able to incorporate into my residential homes.

I forgot to note, (or... if I’m repeating myself, forgive me), that the gallery is dark despite the lights, and it clearly being day outside, because I have a mod that fixes auto light mode so that the lights are only on in rooms where sims are, and not on during the day in rooms with windows.

All those walls make for wonderful places to hang up pictures, but they make it even darker inside unless I manually cut on the lights, and I forgot to when I took these.

Well that’s it for this shop.

So next week I’ll share game shots of the last lot I completely renovated in this world. I am working on the housewares store, but I haven’t been able to go into my game as often as usual, as I’m putting a lot of work into battling agoraphobia and finding my own place. It’s slow, and tiring (because also autistic burn out) but I’ve been making a lot of progress.

[apatchedupdoll]

There’s a lot on Tumblr that I didn’t know I needed in my life. It gets distracting, but then sometimes it flares me up into wanting to make more. It drives me to want to make, either the art style, the ideas, the stories, or something else that makes me want to create. Even if it’s not drawing it could be writing or something else. That being said! Here’s todays art dump <3

This is pretty much finished, I may add some detail and touches later, but so far I’m happy with it.

The Komoraku or whatever I’m gonna call it is also going okay. I’ve colored everything, I just need to start adding detail, maybe a little more color differations but it seems to be going on fine. I’ll probably finish this tonight after I work.

Oh look! Turtle ocs? Nah it couldn’t be. Totally not a bunch of characters I made for the Prisoner’s Bale story. But seriously this is a lot of fun. This is pretty much the first iteration of the family so things could massively change before anything is set in stone. I’ve already changed Tobi’s age like 3 times already. I’m not totally convinced by Sophie’s design and Alex’s patters need some work for sure. There are a few other things I’m thinking about but you’ll have to wait for those changes to find out.

So why am I showing off the characters of Prisoner’s Bale? Well if I haven’t said or made it clear in my last posts (idk man sometimes I don’t make things easy) I’ve decided I’m going to make a comic for the story. Unlike Oh, Where Have You Been Brother? this one will be thought out very extensively. Think of this as sharpening my blade before I even try the Mother’s Land comic. ‘But wait, if you’re making two stories for rottmnt, then why are you making something that doesn’t relate at all?’ I hear you ask curiously while trying to get the cookie jar from the top of the fridge while I start to monologue. Ah, well I really like rottmnt and (as much as I’m happy we’re getting a new movie) I really don’t want to let it go just yet. I find fanfictions are the perfect way to help skills develop. If you’ve seen my Oh, Where Have You Been Brother? you may notice my writing skills are shit. I’ve also realized I tend to write myself into corners without realizing it before the last minute and have to rewrite almost everything, in fact I had a plan and when I posted the latest chapter I realized, oh wait oh shit fuck that means that this won’t work so that means oh god oh fuck shit fuck! I’ll let you guess what I fucked up lol. The point is I’m using my love of TMNT to help me develop better skills for projects that don’t need and can’t have the crutches fanfictions give. Does that mean all TMNT fanfictions do this? No, but this is what I use it for. I just feel like acknowledging it is good and something I shouldn’t be ashamed of.

So that’s my ramble. I hope y’all like the art. Maybe you found something useful and relatable hehehe. Oh and chapter 5 of OWHYBB is on its way. I can see it being finished around Thursday, but spring break is also over tomorrow so bleh! Things will def slow down when writing, still will have daily art uploads. Have a good day! I hope y’all remember not to eat too many cookies!

[celestialseawitch-ff]

Hey, Wondering if you are planning to finish Child Bride?? I love this story and re-read it multiple times. Thanks, Sky

Oh, boy, okay, so... I haven't made any posts about it or done anything to the stories but Child Bride is maybe, sort of, technically... going to be archived. It's not being abandoned though, but I'm sure that will be of little consequence to all the people who love the story.

To clarify, I mean that I am finished with Child Bride and am unlikely to ever update it again. I'll most likely change the title to be "Child Bride [Archived]" and then label it as complete with an author's note at the end to explain. The reason I don't consider this abandoning the story is that I'm actually maybe, sort of, technically... rewriting it?

For those of you who don't know, I started this story so many years ago. And while I was very happy with it for a long time, it's been a while since I could even look at it without being upset about a lot of different things. Part of that was community expectations. People kept asking when something would happen or something else would change when I never intended to do those things in the first place? And so I felt compelled to please so many people asking for the same things and it just radically changed the direction of the story in ways I didn't like. I felt upset when I worked on it. I didn't like where it was going.

Now, so much time has passed that the story is of what I consider to be a lower quality (in comparison to my current writing style). That always upsets me -- one of the issues I have with "As It Should Be" is this same problem. I also just, would have done so many things differently in this story if I were to write it now? Like, there are so many glaring issues with it that I just... to fix them, I'd have to start from scratch. And it's honestly a really appealing idea to me.

So, I have in fact started a re-write of Child Bride that is already so much better than its predecessor. It involves ritual magic, a better laid-out idea of pure-blood dynamics, and some other changes that I'm really excited about. It has a new name, new art. And I might do some AU one-shot spin-offs of it -- sort of like "What If" scenarios. What if Older Sirius had gone back in time with her? What if Hermione had married Remus instead? What if she hadn't gone back in time at all? There are just so many possibilities and I'd like to play with them in a bunch of different ways.

That being said. The re-write is also only ten pages, so I'm unlikely to post it any time soon.

I know how much people love Child Bride. I have no intention of deleting it at any point, but in my opinion, that story can't go anywhere from where it is. I do have a good fifteen to thirty pages that haven't been posted yet. So one day, once the re-write is posted, I'll probably put that up on tumblr (the re-write is still using some things from the OG version, so I don't want to post spoilers!).

Anyway, I'm sure this is not news anyone wanted to get today and I'm very sorry! If it makes everyone feel better, maybe I'll post a tidbit from the re-write on here?

xx

[sineala]

How would you say fandom culture has changed over the years? What are some differences you notice between older and younger fandom folks?

I’ve been thinking for a while about how to answer this, and I’m not sure I have a really good answer, but I’m going to try.

I’ve been in fandom since approximately 1995. Maybe 1994. At that point, the world wide web was a relatively new part of the internet, and the fandoms I was in had most of their activity on privately-hosted mailing lists (predating eGroups/OneList/Yahoo Groups) and on Usenet newsgroups, with fiction beginning to be available on websites as part of either fandom-specific or pairing-specific archives as well as authors’ individual pages. Fanfiction.net did not yet exist. LiveJournal did not exist. AO3 definitely did not exist. If you wanted real-time chat, there was IRC. I was coming in basically at the tail end of zine fandom; zines were no longer the only way of distributing fanfiction, as fandom started to move online. So I have a selection of zines from 90s-era Western media fandoms but even by then zines weren’t where I was doing most of my reading.

I think in terms of generally “what it was like to be in fandom,” the big-picture stuff hasn’t changed. Fandom still produces creative fanwork and likes to, y’know, get together and talk about fandom. Also, almost every fight or complaint that fandom has about something is a thing that has been going on for actual years. People complain that, say, the kudos button is ruining comment culture because back in the LJ days the only way you could comment on a story was, well, by leaving an actual comment, or sending an email on a mailing list, and this might mean that people who would have otherwise commented have left a kudos instead. But back in the LJ and mailing list days, people were complaining that commenting was going downhill since the days of zines, when in order to comment on a story you had to write a real paper letter and mail it and because you had to do that, the quality of feedback was so much better than you got nowadays because people could just dash off a quick email or comment. You get the idea. Top/bottom wars are not new either. Pairing wars are not new. If you’ve been in fandom a while, you will pretty much have seen all the fights already. I think one thing that is new, though, is the fandom awareness of things like privilege and intersectionality and various -isms, as well as things like “providing warnings might be nice” (do you know how much unwarned deathfic I have read? a lot!) and I sure won’t say we’re perfect at any of this now, but I think fandom is trying way way more about all that stuff than it used to.

There are some fights we actually don’t have anymore, as far as I can tell. I feel like it’s been years since I’ve seen the “real person fiction is wrong” battle, but also I don’t hang out in a whole lot of RPF fandoms, so it’s possible that’s still going and I just don’t see it.

There also used to be a recurring debate about whether gay relationships that were canonical were slash or not. When slash started, obviously this wasn’t a question because there weren’t canonical gay relationships in fandoms, period. But as gay characters began to appear in media, people started to wonder “does slash mean all same-sex relationships, or does slash mean only non-canonical same-sex relationships?” Now, you may be reading this and think that sounds like an incredibly weird thing to get hung up on, but that’s because what appears to have happened is that the term “ship” (originally from X-Files Mulder/Scully fandom) has, as far as I can tell, come up and eaten most of the rest of the terminology. Now people will just say, “oh, I ship that.” For any pairing, gay or not, canonical or not. Fandom seems to have decided that for the most part it no longer actually needs a term specific to same-sex relationships as a genre.

Similarly, there are a few genres of fic that we used to have also pretty much don’t exist anymore. There are also plenty of genres that are well-entrenched now that are also extremely recent -- A/B/O comes to mind. But there are some kinds of fic we don’t write a lot of now. Like, I haven’t seen smarm in years! I also haven’t seen We’re Not Gay We Just Love Each Other in a while. There was also a particular style of slash writing where you’d basically have to explain, in detail, what made you think that these particular characters could be anything other than straight. You’d have to motivate this decision. You’d have to look at their canonical heterosexual relationships and come up with a way to explain why all those had happened in order to reconcile how this one guy could have romantic feelings for another guy. When had he figured out he wasn’t straight? Who might he have been with before? How does he interact with people in ways that make you think he’s not straight? That kind of thing. You had to, essentially, show your work. And these days a lot of fanfic is just like, “Okay, Captain America is bisexual, let’s go!” It’s... different.

Fandom also used to skew older, is my sense. A lot older. I don’t know, actually, if it really was older, but I get the sense now that there are some younger people who are surprised that adults are still in fandom. I have seen people saying these days that they think they’re too old for fanfiction because they are not in middle school anymore. And I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the barriers to access fandom are a lot lower than they used to be. You used to basically have to be an adult with disposable income (or know an adult with disposable income who was willing to help you out; but even then if you were reading explicit fiction you also had to swear you were 18+, usually by sending in an age statement to whoever you were buying the zine from or to the mods of the list you wanted to join, so a lot of fandom was very much age-gated). Internet access was not widely available. Even if you had internet access, you maybe didn’t have your own email address, so you couldn’t sign up for mailing lists; free email providers didn’t exist. If you wanted to buy zines, you had to have money to buy them. If you wanted to go to cons, you had to be able to afford the cost of the con, travel to the con, et cetera. If you wanted to have a website you had to know HTML. Social media did not exist. You want to draw art? Guess what, you’re probably drawing it on paper! You might be able to upload a picture to your website if you have a digital camera or a scanner, but both of those things are expensive, and also a lot of people don’t have the capability or the money to download pictures from the internet (some people have data caps with overage charges, and some people have text-only connections!), so they won’t get to see it. Maybe you can sell your piece at a con! You want to make a fanvid? We called them songvids, but, anyway, you know how you’re doing that? You’re going to hook two VCRs together and smash the play and record buttons very fast! If you want anyone else to watch them, you are either making them a tape personally and mailing it to them or bringing your vids to a convention. Maybe you can digitize them and upload them, but it’s going to take people hours to download them!

(Every three hours my ISP would kick me off the internet and I’d have to dial in again. If it was a busy time of day, it might take me 20 or 30 minutes to get a connection again. And that was assuming no one else in the house needed to use the phone line. Imagine if your modem went out every three hours now.)

And now, for the cost of my internet connection, I can read pretty much whatever fanfiction I want, whenever I want it. I can see all the fanart I want! I can watch vids! Podfic exists now! Fanmixes exist! Gifsets and moodboards exist! If I want to write fic I can write it with programs that are completely free, and as soon as I post it everyone in the entire world can read it. If I want to draw or make vids that may require some additional investment, but I may also be able to do it with things I already have. Do you have any idea how good we all have it?

There are a couple of kinds of fan activity that don’t seem to exist anymore, though, and I miss them. I know that roleplaying still goes on, but I feel like these days most people who do real-time text roleplay have switched to things like Discord. I know that in the LJ days, RP communities were popular. But I really miss MU*s (MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs, MUXes..), which were servers for real-time text-based RP with a bunch of... hmm... features to aid RP. There were virtual rooms with text descriptions, and objects in virtual rooms with descriptions, and your character had a description, and they could interact with the objects as well as with other characters, and you could program things to change descriptions or emit various kinds of text or take you to different rooms, and so on. Just to, y’know, enhance the atmosphere. It was fun and it was where I learned to RP and I’m sad they’re pretty much gone now.

I also don’t think I see a lot of fanfiction awards in fandoms. Wonder where they went.

Going back to the previous point, the barriers to actually consuming the canon you are fannish about are way, way, way lower now. You can pretty much take it for granted that if right now someone tells you about a shiny new fandom, there will be a way to read that book or watch that show or movie right now. Possibly for free! Of course you can watch it! Why wouldn’t you be able to?

This was absolutely, absolutely not the case before. I’m currently in Marvel Comics fandom. If there is a comic I want to read, I can read it right now on the internet. I have subscribed to Marvel Unlimited and I can read pretty much every comic that is older than three months old; the newer ones cost extra money. But I can do it all from the comfort of my own home right now. I was also, actually, in Marvel Comics fandom in the nineties. If I wanted to read a comic, I had to go to a comic book store and hope they had it in stock; if they didn’t, I had to try another store. Not a lot of comics were available in trade paperback and they definitely weren’t readable on the internet. I used to read a lot of Gambit h/c fic set after Uncanny X-Men #350. I never found a copy of UXM #350. I still haven’t! But I did eventually read it on Unlimited.

Being in TV show fandoms also had similar challenges. Was the show you were watching still on the air? No? Then you’d better hope you could find it in reruns, or know someone who had tapes of it that they could copy for you, otherwise you weren’t watching that show. It was, I think, pretty common for people to be in fandoms for shows they hadn’t seen, because they had no way to see the show, but they loved all the fanfic. The Sentinel had a whole lot of fans like that, both because I think it took a while for it to end up in reruns and because overseas distribution was probably poor. So you’d get people who read the fic and wrote fic based on the other fic they’d read, which meant that you got massive, massive amounts of fanon appearing that people just assumed was in the show because it was a weirdly specific detail that appeared in someone’s fic once. Like “Jim and Blair’s apartment has a small water heater” (not actually canonical) or “Blair is a vegetarian” (there’s an episode where his mother visits and IIRC cooks him one of his favorite meals, which is beef tongue).

Like, I was in The Professionals fandom for years. I read all the fic. I hadn’t seen the show. As far as I know, it never aired in the US, and it certainly never had any kind of US VHS or DVD release. I’d seen a couple songvids. I eventually saw a couple episodes in maybe 2003, and that was because my dad special-ordered a commercial VHS tape from the UK and paid someone to convert it from PAL to NTSC. I didn’t get to see the whole show until several years later when I got a region-free DVD player someone in fandom sent me burned copies of the UK DVD releases and then I special-ordered the commercial release of the DVDs from the UK myself. But if I were a new fan and wanted to watch Pros right now? It is on YouTube! For free!

I think also one of the things about fandom that’s not immediately evident to new fans is the way in which it is permanent and/or impermanent. There are probably people whose first fannish experience is on Tumblr or who only read fanfic on FFN and who have no idea what they would do if either site, say, just shut down. But if you’ve been in fandom a while, you’ve been through, say, Discord, Tumblr, Twitter, Pillowfort, Imzy, DW, JournalFen, LJ, GeoCities, IRC, mailing lists. And sure, if Tumblr closed, it would be inconvenient. But fandom would pack up and move somewhere else. You would find it again. It would, eventually, be okay. Similarly, if you’ve been in a lot of fandoms, if you’ve made a lot of friends, drifting through fandoms is like that. You’ll make a friend in 1998 because you were in the same fandom, and then you might go your own ways, and ten years later you might be in another fandom with them again! It happens.

But the flip side of that is that I think a lot of older fans have learned not to trust in the permanence of any particular site. If you like a story, you save it as soon as you read it. If you like a piece of art, you save it. If you like a vid, you save it. Because you don’t know when the site it’s on will be gone for good. I have, like, twenty years of lovingly-curated fanfic. And I feel like people who have only been in fandom since AO3 existed might not understand how much AO3 is a game-changer compared to what we had before. It’s a site where you can put your fic up and you don’t have to worry that the webhost is going out of business, or that the site might delete your work because they don’t allow gay fiction or explicit fiction or fiction written in second person or fiction for fandoms where the creator doesn’t like fanfiction, or whatever. Because all of those things have absolutely happened. But, I mean, I still save pretty much everything I like, even on AO3, just in case.

So, basically, yeah, fandom is a whole lot more accessible than it used to be. I think fandom is pretty much still fandom, but it’s a lot easier to get into, and that has made it way more open to people who wouldn’t have been able to be in fandom before. There is so, so much more now than there ever was before, and I think that’s great.

[liesoverthec]

OG 911 Character Details from Canon Pt 2

Hi y’all I’m back! I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reblogged the last details post - I sort of just thought people would like it and it would die, so to see it travel and hopefully reach more writers was so great so thank you again!

Details under the cut since I went a little crazy 😅 and if this is your first time seeing this, the first part, and any future parts, can be found under this tag here!

Quick note before I get to the details - always, ALWAYS take details from dialogue or plot over details from the set or props if they contradict each other. The writers have the ultimate say over what happens on the show/for the characters, so whatever they say goes, even if it goes against something props has already laid down (eg, Chim’s birthday, sorry Libra crew. He’s an Aries or a Pisces). So keep that in mind for the future in case some of these details I have which are from props/set are changed in the future, or if you’ve noticed something yourself!

Also if you have questions, I am MORE than happy to answer them, although if you leave them in the tags on this post I’m probably gonna lose them, so if it’s something you’d genuinely like an answer to, drop it in my inbox! Besides my standard “ask” tags, I’m also tagging asks about canon details with this tag here. Every time I make a big post like this, I’m going to link all the asks I’ve gotten since the last post, but if you’re looking for more info in the mean time, that’s the other spot to look!

Buck has a grill on his patio.

Eddie doesn’t hang Christopher’s art on the fridge - instead it is either hung on the corkboard in Chris’ room to the left of the door, or Eddie puts it in an actual frame and hangs it using a hammer/nails in Christopher’s room. All the Diaz family has on their fridge is a bunch of bendy people magnets. (I absolutely ADORE him putting all this effort into treating Christopher’s art like it’s something you’d buy from a professional artist).

Info on everyone’s ages can be found here. (Little more discussion of Chim’s situation here).

Albert has a bachelor’s degree! I don’t know in what though, except that it’s some field for which is a Master’s is useful.

Athena was in a sorority in college, Delta Sigma Theta. Their website describes them as “ ...a sisterhood comprised primarily of Black, college-educated women ... [that] considers the issues impacting the Black community and boldly confronts the challenges of African Americans and, hence, all Americans ”, which I love for Athena, and feel is very in-character for her at that time in her life!

Chim is an aviators dude. When he wears sunglasses, they’re always aviators.

Athena also wears nothing but aviators.

Bobby wears square aviators.

Eddie, on the other hand, always wears Wayfarers.

Buck either doesn’t really like sunglasses or he constantly forgets he owns them, since we’ve only seen him wear them once in 60 eps, in a move I’m pretty sure was ONLY for dramatic effect.

Hen’s sunglasses change style over the seasons like her regular glasses do, but she tends to like browline sunglasses.

Info on Christopher’s school can be found here!

There are two colors of dispatch polo, and there doesn’t seem to be any rhythm or reason for who wears what. Maroon - Maddie and Linda. Blue - Josh and May. Jamal has actually worn both maroon and blue, so it doesn’t seem to be TOTALLY set in stone although I’ve never seen anyone else switch. Sue is too badass to wear a dispatch shirt.

Both Bobby and Eddie drive 4 door pickups. Bobby’s is navy. Eddie specifically has a black, 2020 GMC Denali 1500 pickup truck (in case you want to specifically look up what the inside of it looks like or what features it has 😂)

Info on the 118’s medical certifications can be found here.

Correction to Eddie’s living situation from last post: no next door neighbors, but instead UPSTAIRS neighbors. (Pointed out by Abigail in this ask). Also since someone else was wondering the notes of the last post - no, there is absolutely no discussion on the show of whether or not Eddie rents the apartment or owns it. But based on the fact that it’s 1) LA and 2) an apartment, my guess would be he rents it.

When Maddie isn’t feeling like herself, she tends to straighten her hair rather than curl it. It seems to be more when she’s uncertain about her place in her own and other people’s lives, rather than just when she’s simply worried - eg it’s straight in 2B, when she’s uncertain if she wants to continue working as a dispatcher/is unsure about her relationship with Chim.

For work, Chim, Eddie and Buck all use black duffel bags with a LAFD patch on the top. Hen uses several different cute bags, and Bobby seems to have a plain black duffel bag.

Watches - Bobby, Athena, Chim, Hen and Buck all wear their watch on their left wrist (but Athena ONLY wears hers for work, she takes it off at home.) Eddie wears his on his right wrist, and Maddie doesn’t wear one.

Chim (and Maddie by default) literally still have the exact same couch as in the pilot. (Which means that Chim has cuddled Tatiana on that couch, AND Albert has had sex on it. TIME TO GET A NEW ONE, BUCKLEY-HANS 😂)

The 118 has five different rigs - the engine (E118), the ladder truck (T118), two ambulances and the captain’s truck. 95% of the time, when the team is chilling in the cab of a rig and chatting (eg the ‘stuck under a live telephone pole’ scene in Jinx), they’re in the engine, not the truck. (Which I personally learned recently are NOT interchangeable terms!)

Athena and Michael got married when Athena was 37.

If you’d like to give Maddie a full name beyond “Maddie”, you should use Madeline. (I know, I know, in 4x04 she says Maddie is the name on her birth certificate, and that you should never use props details if they contradict script details, but I always thought that was a super weird exchange in 4x04 which could be explained by Maddie getting a nickname since she was born when Margaret and Phillip, you know, actually loved their kids and showed it, so of course Buck doesn’t get one, and in 4x04, Maddie was trying to avoid the entire issue of why she got one and Buck didn’t. But! Do what you want, and use Madeline as the full version of Maddie if you’d like, since that’s what’s on the BOLO in 2x13 😂)

Athena’s call sign is 727 L30, but she doesn’t have a specific squad car - the number changes throughout the series.

Chim really likes chewing gum, but he’s the only one out of the entire family!

The station has an Xbox One S, and it’s white.

In the real LAFD, there are stations 1 through 114. To avoid confusion while filming on the streets (I’m assuming), our fictional LAFD never uses the number of a real station. So if you want another station for a fic, and you want something that would be real in OUR universe, use the numbers 115 and above. They’ve gone as high as 221 in our universe.

Battalions - station 118 is in Battalion 7, which is also not a battalion in real Los Angeles. The 118 has interacted w/ Battalion 1, which is a real battalion, but other ‘non-real which makes them more likely for our universe’ battalions include numbers: 3, 8, 13, 16, 19 and above.

S1 Buck knew the term Jedi, but based on context, didn’t understand AT ALL the context provided by Star Wars, so there’s another edge of his pop culture limits for you.

Chim is the most tech-savvy out of everyone, hands down.

Athena has a VERY active Twitter account.

Abuela’s house number is 8902. I don’t have a street name for you unfortunately though. :/

Athena’s favorite flowers are white roses. None of the other women are really flower people.

Michael likes to wear purple.

When they’re at a call, Buck does pretty much all of the stuff with the hammer and the saw. Eddie does all the work needed with the drill.

Harry goes to Meadowbrook Elementary.

Buck lives on the fourth floor of his apartment building, across the hall from Apt. 416. The lovely @lovelessmotel found this listing for what is more or less the apartment. What happened was: the set crew rented this apartment for the one episode at the end of s2 when Buck moved in, and then over the summer before s3 built their own set of it, and changed some things - eg giving him an island, and moving the sink to a second counter against the far wall, you can see the changes here in this amazing gif set by the awesome Austen, but the listing should let you click around a little more upstairs and figure out dimensions better than what the show provides!

When Athena and Hen go out to eat together, it’s always fast food burgers and fries.

Waffles are Athena’s favorite food, and tiramisu is her favorite dessert.

Every takeout we’ve seen Buck eat has always been in a Chinese food takeout container, and we know he likes Thai food the best. EXCEPT! The one time we see him eat takeout with Eddie and Christopher, they have pizza. So take from that what you will......

Eddie has a cell phone and a landline.

Chim is a shameless multiple texter.

Chim and Bobby sleep closest to the door in their respective bedrooms (both right side of the bed if you are standing at the foot, facing the headboard), and Athena and Maddie sleep furthest away from the door (left side).

Some canon last names for other firefighters at the station in case you wanna add more people to a fic - Mitchell, Sanchez, Serrano (woman), Porter, Meyers (woman), Maxwell, Voyta

Hen and Karen really love decorating their house with dark/red wood.

Karen is Mommy and Hen is Mama.

Bobby has a brother, and a grandmother, and that’s literally ALL we know about his family outside of Marcy and the kids.

Evidence points to Eddie being the oldest child in his family.

Karen has multiple brothers (no sisters), but no idea how many - just that one of them is named Trey, and one of them lives in LA and has kids. They might be the same brother and they might not be.

Both Hen and Athena are only children.

Athena has been on the police force for 30 years.

Christopher and Denny are the same age (born in 2011), and Harry is two years older than them.

Michael lives in apartment 308.

The bank in this universe is CalAm.

Hen and Karen have a picture of Denny, May and Harry on their fireplace mantel.

Eddie having a black thumb + a lot of plants in his living room = him buying fake plants bc he likes the aesthetic ™ or someone (cough Carla cough) is taking care of them for him.

The COVID timeline in OG’s universe is fucked up compared to the real world’s, so it shouldn’t be used as a way to measure time! They just throw it in wherever it makes sense for the story they want to tell (eg the vaccines in s4 ep 8), since s3 was both done before COVID hit but also airing while it was happening. It makes absolutely no sense for May to graduate in March nor for Chris to be going to what is specifically labeled summer camp, and the vaccine plotline was INCREDIBLY early, even for real life, so don’t use anything from that as a measure of time. I’ve found except in specific examples, eg the two tsunami episodes, it’s very safe to say every episode covers a week - fall holidays on the show line up with their real life counterparts, indicating about the same amount of time is passing for us and them.

On that note - Jee-Yun was born in late January, early February 2021. (Conceived in Pinned, which was end of March/beginning of April, meaning Maddie was around a month along at May’s graduation in May ➡ 42 weeks + 3 days from then = late Jan/early Feb. Which unfortunately means we most likely won’t see her birthday celebrated on screen. If we assume she was conceived on the date Pinned aired, aka the very sexy hotel scene, then January 21st or 22nd would be Jee’s birthday, depending on if she was born after midnight or not.

Buck has had at least one other Jeep between the one Maddie gave him, and the one he has now, which means that when he needs a new car, he is purposefully choosing Jeeps.

I hope this was all as interesting/enjoyable to you as it was to me! And just to repeat - I love answering questions so pls let me know if you have any at all ❤

🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

Tagging: @buckbuckley

[goddess-pan]

Tailor!Reader in Dream SMP

Dsmp x reader prompt; Tailor!Reader in Dream SMP. Credit would be appreciated so more people can find this and make their own things based on it.

Can fully be read as platonic. GN!reader with they/them pronounce as a placeholder so anyone can adapt it however they want. Both general and character specific parts included.

Characters who have a lot written for/about; Eret, Ranboo, Foolish, Tommy, Technoblade, Philza and Michael. Mentioned; Tubbo, Sam Nook, Purpled and Foolish Jr.

This ended up being super long so I’m putting it under the cut in order not to clutter people’s pages. My personal favourite part is Phil’s and Techno’s part. These could be read as headcanons but are still available as a prompt(s) to use for anyone.

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

The reader joining after the doomsday as a time frame in my mind.

The reader helping people patch up their current clothes since most of it got pretty banged up during the doomsday, and it's not like they can just go get a new outfit since quite a few people had just lost all their belongings and only had the clothes on their back. So at first prioritizing helping patch up the current clothing people were wearing and then moving on to making some simple fast to make and easy on the resources clothes for people. Just like basic shirts and shorts/pants, nothing fancy. Then when everyone has at least a couple of different clothes to change to and from starting their own business to sell people more if they wanted. However waving payment if they brought them the materials and what they wanted wasn't overly complicated.

People at first thinking they are just some chump who knows basic sewing or something. A very kind chump, but still a chump. So imagine their surprise when one day they are just walking by the reader's now established tailors and they see these absolutely stunning designs displayed at the windows. 

Just like their reactions seeing these beautiful designs they can't help but stare at. I'd imagine some of them just doing a double take when they walk by, someone pressing their face up to the glass trying to see it closer, the braver ones going inside and talking to the reader about their designs and the more anxious and/or shy ones only going inside when the reader isn't there to look at designs closer. 

And the reasons they like/are amazed by the designs vary also ! Some just have monkey brain that goes "Pretty. WANT", some who just love the colour and art of the pieces, some who imagine how epic this design or others would look on them, some who love the fashion aspect of it and of course the very small portion who actually know anything about tailoring/sewing and the amount of work that goes into making something intricate.

Some specific character/group interactions I thought of;

Making warm well insulated clothes for people moving to Snowchester so they don't freeze. +A warm cape for Ranboo for the same reason.

Eret being one of the firsts (if not the first) to get himself a fully tailored and customized outfit. Them also being the first and very possibly only person to get a dress or a skirt since most of the other people on the server prefer to wear pants (excluding maid dresses which people might get as joke). The reader crying in joy for getting to design something different for once. And hey if the reader ends up making a few extra ones that she didn't order, but decided to give her anyway it was all just some extra ones they had lying around, never mind the fact that the dresses/skirts are perfectly tailored for Eret and are her style. Just a coincidence, nothing suspicious there. Eret also models for the reader and once he even convinced them to hold a fashion show to showcase some of their work to the whole server. Of course he was the main model presenting the outfits.

At start of the reader beginning to display their designs at their shop Ranboo sees a really cool looking suit on display and his brain just goes "Want." He probably wouldn't be able to buy anything pre-made and be comfortable in it due to his physique. And him having just moved into the arctic and only starting to get settled in, he doesn't have comfortable enough funds for him to get something as expensive as a custom tailored suit AND have enough for any possible rent that he might be required to pay. 

Eventually when he gets richer he starts considering getting one but the anxious side of him always ends up winning and he doesn't. However once he finally gets the courage to go commission the suit for himself he doesn't regret it at all. The reader did their best to not overwhelm him and to make it the best possible experience. Just imagining the absolute joy he would feel for having a properly fitting suit that's made just for him, not too short sleeves nor too wide torso and shoulders, just perfect. If he ends up ordering a couple more suits that's between him and the reader. He actually ends up probably being their most frequent and reliable customer.

And we should all know why that is, but let me clarify just in case; Michael.

The reader basically becoming Michael's personal stylist (/hj) . Not only does Ranboo buy a god awful amount of clothes for Michael, the reader also makes some free ones for him. The free ones are things the reader felt like designing since they absolutely adore Michael and the ones Ranboo pays for are commissioned by him. Michael absolutely has the biggest wardrobe in the whole server. The reader learning how to make plushies so Michael could have some more toys, this learning experience including learning to crochet and knit to see what he like best.

Using their newly acquired plush making skills, the reader starts their quest to make some plushies for others after seeing people stare at the plushies wistfully either while they were working on them or seeing Michael with the plushies. People who got them include the minors, their close friends and basically anyone they thought might benefit from them. Some of the ones they made (that I could think of);

Of course a bee for Tubbo, but also throwing in a little ram one as well

Ranboo gets a grass block plush/pillow

Tommy gets a cobblestone block plush and a cow plush. He also later receives a Sam Nook plush while he's working on the hotel

Purpled getting two different sized ufos, one to hold and the other more of a big pillow

Eret definitely gets a flamingo plush

Foolish gets a totem and a gold block plushies

Phil gets crow plush as well these tiny fake coin and gem plushies (the latter causes problems for him which I'll expand upon later)

Techno gets a pig one as well as polar bear one

Back to the individual/group part

The reader just chilling w/ Foolish as a fellow artists. Them talking about both their arts and catching up every time the reader comes to deliver something to Snowchester when Foolish is building the mansion. Just two pretty peaceful artists talking about their passions. I’d imagine Foolish and the reader could relate to each other and their place in the server due to their similar hobbies/jobs as well as their similar time of joining the server. Foolish's first commission from them being an intricate blanket for Foolish Jr so he could have a more comfortable resting place. He may or may not end up receiving that and several other (though less intricate) blankets as well as a tiny shark plush to give to Foolish Jr. Later on when the reader gets better at either knitting or crocheting they end up making a tiny shark jumper with a hood for Foolish Jr as well. Foolish would definitely cry when he sees his tiny shark baby. Any commissions of clothes for himself tend to always take some time due to sheer amount of work needing to be done due to his size so he always makes sure the reader doesn’t already have a lot on their plate and that they know he’s fine with waiting if they need to take a break from it.

Then there's Tommy, who they sometimes teach more about sewing since he already knows some basics. Him probably being the first person aside from Michael they make a plush for, due to him demanding one once he saw the reader making them. Then proceeding to get three plushies in rapid succession. The first being the cobblestone, the second being the cow and the third one being the Sam Nook one. He ends up losing one of them during the prison fiasco and when the reader asks if he'd like a new one they only get the answer of "Don't want to think about what happened and the same one might make me do that". He then promptly receives new clothing (so he isn't wearing the same ones he was wearing in prison) and some extra blankets (for comfort) from the reader. 

After Tommy meeting Michael does he use him to scam the reader to make them matching outfits for free? Yes, yes he does. Does it work? Yes, yes it does. Are they bothered by it? Not really, they look adorable in their matching outfits.

The reader being the source for Sam Nook's construction gear/clothes or at least the original patterns for them.

And then there's the arctic boys (minus Ranboo, who will still get mentioned) who are an interesting bunch clothing wise. The first one to commission the reader out of them would be Phil who got the original warm cape for Ranboo but also at the same time commissioned one for himself that would include slits for his wings. Eventually getting to design clothing for him which is always an exciting challenge with his wings. And when Phil finally manages to convince Techno to get something made for himself as well, Techno almost immediately gets addicted to having high quality clothing when they finish their first piece for him. The fun the reader has designing clothes for these boys is immeasurable with their different styles and needs in the clothing. Aside from clothing Techno also commissions them for a pet bed for Steve. 

When the boys got their plushies it was adorable but also a very chaotic. Techno giving his pig one to Steve so he wouldn't miss him when he was away from home, but also bringing the polar bear one with him when he couldn't or wasn't allowed to bring Steve with him but still needed comfort. While on Phil's side of things; he was showing his crows the crow plushie joking about he'll replace them if they aren't careful however he made the mistake of showing them the tiny coin and gem plushies as well. I want you to imagine hundreds of crows descending upon this poor fool of a man in the background while the reader is walking away hoping they like their plushies. 

The war that ensued the couple following days amongst the crows starts to cool down but the bickering doesn't, every waking moment Phil can feel eyes on him and one or more of the crows coming to complain about the others having had the shiny plushies for too long. He quickly caves under the pressure and commissions more of the tiny shiny treasure plushies. And by more I mean a lot more. 

When he finally has enough of the things he goes around distributing them to the crows. Finally a moment of peace, but he still feels like something is staring at him occasionally. Deciding to ignore it since it's finally quiet he goes to makes himself a cup of tea and while waiting for the water to boil he fishes out the few shiny plushies he had saved for himself. The second he does he feels eyes burning into him and now that it's quiet he hears it, quiet muffled snuffles and snorts of discontent. Then he sees what ‘it’ is, it's Techno behind the window looking at the shinies in his hand with such intensity Phil fears for his life (/hj). Phil just sighs deeply before walking over to the window and opening it. For a second Techno looks like a deer in headlights before returning to intensely staring at the shinies in Phil's hand before Phil just dumps the shiny plushies into Techno's hand and closes the window. Happy piglin noises can be heard outside while Phil debates the pros (getting to have shinies himself) and cons (the embarrassment of having to commission even more of the shiny plushies than he already has) of getting new ones from the reader. And in all this the reader has no idea the amount of chaos they inadvertently caused.

And finally; Techno commissioning robes/cloaks for whole the Syndicate to wear in their meetings, because he’s dramatic like that. But since he’s a thoughtful guy, he wants them all to fit the members well and not be uncomfortable to wear so he gets everyone’s measurements. Once he has them all he goes to the reader with the order for the robes, he has all the measurements written down under just Person 1, Person 2 etc. to keep their anonymity and when asked what the robes are for he just tells the reader it’s a book club. When he gets them all and the reader asks no further questions he thinks he’s gotten away with getting some cool robes for the Syndicate with their secrets safe. Little does he know the reader actually now knows all the members in the Syndicate since they can just reference the gotten measurements with everyone’s measurements written down from previous work done by them. Whether the reader thinks it’s some weird cult they all are a part of or just an actual book club people are too embarrassed to admit they are in, is up to interpretation. 

[abybweisse]

💬 Can I confess that, once I knew about the Victorian trouser etiquette, that I assumed the reason Ciel wears shorts, is bc he still has the body of a 10yo? I know it's just Yana's choice, but suspense of disbelief made me think that's a good enough reason. He looks like a 10yo, which makes people view him as even more childish, and even less of a threat. And if he looks like 10, but dresses like an #Adult in the streets, people might focus more on him, than him just wearing childs wear.

💬 for random chat

It’s difficult to reconcile all of that with how our earl is trying so hard to be seen as an adult. And his shorts are about the only truly childish thing in most of his outfits. He’s got heeled shoes to add a little height, and he’s not wearing much of the brighter, more childish colors.

Most of the fancier outfits we’ve seen him in are from official art that’s never seen in the manga itself (fancy cover art outfits don’t count as canon within the storyline). Those strike me as Yana-san just wanting to make fantasy outfits for him — ones he wouldn’t really be okay with wearing otherwise!

The main culprits here (within canon) seem to be who’s dressing him up like he’s a doll: Sebastian literally chooses his outfit for the day and gets him dressed; Nina designs and makes most of the clothes (including the dress for Druitt’s party); Lizzie also plays dress-up with him by buying an outfit she sees and basically forcing him to wear it (ch2). There’s even a later scene (after the circus arc) where Sebastian says some of these clothing choices have gone too far, arguing with Nina to say her choice of ribbon color (red for his necktie) is too childish looking. Since Nina likes to design for women, as well as for boys under 15… and because she’s a personal fan of wearing shorts… she’d probably want to keep our earl in shorts as long as she possibly can. It’s a delight to her that he’s not growing (and that his waist size actually went down).

Truth is, sons of the British royalty and aristocracy are expected to wear shorts until they are 8.

So, he’s being dressed most of the time more like he’s 7, thanks to the shorts… but with some styling details that are more mature.

The oddest outfits (for him) in the manga canon (not including the party dress) are probably:

The one that Lizzie buys. It’s more like the fanciful outfits that Yana-san puts him in for official art, but they are never part of the manga canon. But where on earth did she see an outfit like this, as ready-wear, and decide to get it for him? It might be one of the things Yana-san wishes she could change about the early chapters, before serialization, but the mere fact Lizzie saw an outfit like this… for boys his size… hanging in a shop… suggests that some designer thinks this is good fashion for an aristocratic kid his size (not necessarily a kid his age), but Lizzie sees nothing wrong with dressing her (then) 12 year old cousin like he’s… 10? 7? So she picks it out for him as a gift.

The one designed by the tailor working for the demon cultist who buys the twins. And that gives me the eeriest feeling that it’s this same designer and tailor who later has a shop, where Lizzie sees the outfit for ch2, a couple years later. Both outfits are made for a 9/10 year old boy (size), and both have details that wouldn’t be typical of boy’s clothes… at any age. Perhaps Yana-san knew exactly what she was doing with that other outfit in ch2? In January 1886, that demon cultist is killed, and his tailor no longer has this wealthy client who appreciates their skills and designs. Just like Nina works for the Phantomhives but also has her own shop, this other tailor might have already had one, too. Still, a major client has been lost. The outfits for ready-wear might be a little less flashy than the ones the cultist ordered, so that they will better appeal to the general population… but these are still unusual fashions.

It’s no wonder, to me now, how our earl got so angry in ch2, particularly over the ring… when he’s wearing an outfit that might give him vibes from the night of horror we finally saw in ch135….

Keep in mind he dresses more appropriate for his age when he goes to Windsor to receive his title (11 or 12) and again when he’s at Weston (13). Even Nina gives him longer shorts (in ch66) than usual, so the long shorts and tall boots make that outfit completely cover his legs.

Seems to me that our earl particularly enjoys making Sebastian wear odd things, or at least placing him into situations where he has to change out of the butler uniform. He was too embarrassed by what Lau had for him to wear to be able to get a laugh at Sebastian’s expense. Everyone with our earl was forced to wear clothes they aren’t used to. But there are at least three times he’s had the chance to really turn the tables on the demon: 1. Lizzie shows up with a pink hat with fake strawberries hanging from it (ch2), 2. Lizzie shows up after the Campania with the nightgown, slippers, and sleeping bonnet (extra chapter), and 3. Nina makes Sebastian try on a bunch of outfits, and some of them are just bizarre (ch116). That last one has our earl even asking what the demon thinks about being treated as a doll.

I think that, most of the time, our earl just puts up with the clothing decisions made by others, and I’m not sure why these other people (particularly Sebastian, Nina, and Lizzie) think it’s a good idea to dress him up like a little kid, instead of the titled earl he’s supposed to be. People probably think he’s just very eccentric, because he should be wearing full trousers all the time now.

My, my. Methinks their creator is the one who really wants to play dress-up. No wonder the god of their world is smiling when misfortune strikes….

Anyone else think it’s weird that Finny also usually wears shorts, even though he’s a servant and working in the gardens? He’s wearing short trousers, that end just below his knees, and long boots that go up to the shorts. He should have full length trousers with knee patches.

[imjeralee]

i request that you drink plenty of water and take care of yourself !!! ·o·b after thats done, came i pretty please get headcanons with link, Kaeya and maybe Childe about an s/o who draws them one day as a confession and gives it to them? :) (maybe they already knew and saw them drawing them before ? who knows) thank you in advance!!

Thank you anon! *looks at cup of green tea beside laptop* yep I think i’m doing well in keeping myself hydrated recently hehe but thank you :3

Anyway please see below for the ask! (it’s pretty long)

Link

He was grooming one of the ponies when he saw you standing behind a tent peeking at him curiously and when he turned round properly, you quickly scampered away and he got worried so he followed you to the room you share to see you sitting on the bed with a wine red book propped up in your lap but upon his return, you immediately hid it behind your back, smiling widely at him

He wonders what it was but decides not to pry, but he later discovers it was actually a sketchbook when he’s packing up for tomorrow and you’re taking a bath and the sketchbook drops out of your pack and onto the floor, opening at a random page

He picks it up with the intention to return it to your bag but then he sees the various drawings of him in his Ancient Armour set, Hylian and Snowquill set. They’re fully coloured and it looks like you’ve spent hours on them. He didn’t know you were this artistic and wondered why you hid this from him

The date you wrote on the bottom of the page indicates that you drew all this in one day! He’s super impressed

Then he sees the note you wrote below: “To my Dearest Link, I hope you like my drawings of you. All I can think about is how lucky I am to be able to be by your side, you’ve changed my life for the better and-”

Obv half complete so now he knows why you didn’t want to show him and he respects your privacy, so he puts the sketchbook away 

Outside, he sees Beedle and goes over to see what’s new for sale. Beedle has some cool art stuff (well, it’s more like stuff that can be used for dye but can also be used as paint) so he buys some for you as a present which he will give to you later.

Next day, you get chased by a group of Bokogoblins and the book and all your drawing supplies drops out from your bag. 

You didn’t see it drop and returned to the stable, ransacking your bag like crazy only to find your stuff missing

When you realise everything must have dropped out when you got chased, you quickly leave the stable to go back to the area but it’s thunder and lightning so Link chases after you

“Link, what are you doing? Go back, the weather’s awful.” You tell him but he shakes his head, unable to leave you alone in the rain like this

He helps you with your search and you end up locating your book and your supplies which are lying in the mud

The book has been trampled over and some of the pages have been torn out. The remaining pages are soaked with dirt and grime. Your pencils are snapped in half and your paints have been left to bleed all over the grass. All of your drawings are ruined, too. This is your worst nightmare.

Link observes you silently as tears begins to form in your eyes and you look at him, sniffling slightly.

You’re experiencing a mixture of devastation, frustration, anger and exasperation - from your carelessness to the stupid bokogoblins - and this incident infuriates you so much you throw the book to the ground angrily

Before you can march away, Link grabs your wrist 

Turning round, your gazes meet and he looks at you softly, intently.

‘What’s wrong?’ he is saying. 

“I was going to use those to confess to you!” you end up roaring out by accident. 

Link looks at you, a little stunned

“N-Never mind! Everything’s ruined!!!!” 

You’re about to storm off again when Link suddenly pulls you into his chest and gives you a hug

“!” you’re so shocked you can’t speak

He pulls away though, and leads you to the hollow of a nearby tree trunk where he gestures for you to sit down to shelter from the rain whilst he glances around, then sprints back over to where the ruined sketchbook is

He picks it up and holds it against his chest as if it’s dear to him. That’s not all, you watch as he begins to pick up the remaining pages that were torn out and once he’s collected them all he returns to you, clutching the pages tightly

"Link...” you murmur breathlessly as he he kneels down in front of you before he fishes around in his pockets to reveal a random bunch of paint pots in his hand.

You’re a little confused, but realise he has some spares which he must have bought from a merchant

it’s not much but...

he nudges it to you for your offering

You gawp at him for a few moments before you smile and chuckle and upon seeing you back to your usual self again, Link smiles and helps you back onto your own feet to stand

You thank him as you cradle the paints to yourself. You will need to restart from scratch from somehow it feels ok and something tells you you don’t need to hide it from him anymore

And you return to the stable, sheltering from the rain by sharing a large leaf together

Kaeya

Let’s begin with the fact that alongside you, there is a maid who also likes Kaeya as much as you do and she’s a bit of a sneaky bugger and you don’t show your drawings to anyone or watermark your artwork until they’re complete. You can probably see where this is going

One day, Kaeya finds out you are drawing a picture of him when he comes to your office to inform you that there’s a group of abyss mages outside Mondstadt so you hurry off to dispatch it and leaving Kaeya in your office

He accidentally comes across your drawing when he sees his face on a piece of parchment and his interest is piqued so he heads over to check it out

It’s a really good sketch!!! the amount of detail is insane! he had no idea you possessed such skill and who knew that you could create such beautiful art like this? He also finds some rough doodles and sketches you made earlier on some scrap paper you had also written on so he knows it’s you

Anyway, he puts everything back to join you in battle, but not before passing a maid along the way who is heading to your room to clean up

She comes across your drawing and she’s always fancied Kaeya herself, so for some reason other than just thinking she might be able to get away with it if she’s sneaky enough, she takes your drawing and sets off with it

Meanwhile, you return to your room after the battle, take off your coat and sit comfortably in your chair, reaching for your quill

“Ah, time to get back to my drawing of Kaeya.” you say with a smile, looking at your desk.

Wait a minute.

Something is wrong.

Very wrong.

It’s GONE!

After checking the rest of your office (and its clearly not there), you rush outside, wondering what happened to it when you see Kaeya and a maid talking in the corridor

they didn’t see you, so you quickly hide

“Please accept this, captain Kaeya!” gushes the maid, presenting your drawing to him. “I drew this picture of you to show how much you mean to me.”

What in the Samachurl shit is this? 

You’re about to storm over when Kaeya takes the drawing with a delicate brow raised, studies it intently and goes, “Oh? But I’m not so sure about that.”

“W-what do you mean, Captain Kaeya?”

“There’s no watermark on it,” he points out, “....one could’ve taken anyone’s artwork and claim that it’s theirs.”

“T-That’s - ! Ah, Captain Kaeya, h-how could you think so lowly of me?”

“I’m only just stating some simple facts, that’s all. You won’t hold that against me, will you? And I’m certainly not accusing you of anything...unless you...?”

“Oh....uh....I...I-I’m so sorry, Captain Kaeya, you’re right! I-I....please excuse me!”

The maid’s too embarrassed to proceed any further and leaves, running away.

Indeed, what in the samachurl hell had just happened? 

It goes quiet and you wonder if he’s still there; you step out of your hiding place only to go nose-to-chest with Kaeya.

He greets you with a smirk. “if it isn’t the little kitten, what are you doing here?”

“Um...uh, I....that....that drawing - “

What he said is right, there’s no watermark. How can you prove it’s yours? Would he believe you if you told him?

“Hm? Ah, yes, this drawing. I was going to keep it for myself.”

“No, wait! I mean...er...it’s not finished yet-”

“So you drew this then?”

“Yes, I did. it was me.” Though you wonder if he would believe you after everything you had just heard.

“Why?”

You lamely tell him you really like him and wanted to use it to confess to him.

He watches you for a few seconds, then hands the drawing to you. “I’ll wait until you’ve finished then.”

“Huh?” You gasp. He gave it back to you so easily despite what he said to the maid! “You...you’re not-”

“I knew it was you who drew it. I recognised your style.”

“Then why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“If I said so earlier, how else would I get you to confess to me?”

“KAEYA!!!”

(from then on he’ll want you to draw him more often)

Childe

Saw you sitting on the grassy hill near Qingxu Pool drawing earlier and because he is good at sneaking up on people, you didn’t hear him as he casually leaned over to peek over your shoulder and said, “Hey girlie, what’re you up to?”

You’re like “UWAGH!” and quickly close your sketchbook before turning round to see Childe.

“N-nothing!” you exclaim, before you get up and run down the hill, leaving a very amused Childe on his own

Later, when you’ve finished your masterpiece, you nervously approach Childe and tell him, “Um....this is for you, let me know what you think.” before rushing off in a blushing mess and Childe will open the sketchbook to see that you’ve drawn a very nice portrait of him in a battle stance, wielding his bow, surrounded by his hydro blades

Childe stands, staring at the picture

Then he sees the words ‘do you like me?’ scribbled at the very bottom

Childe staring hard now

He’s used to giving people gifts but now that he’s received something so thoughtful, he’s a bit overwhelmed. he can tell you put so much effort and hardwork into this. Ah, what is this feeling? 

He closes the book without further ado and scrubs a hand over his face

he actually wasn’t expecting you to do this. he knew you were drawing him but the result is really....something else

You don’t hear him from Childe in a few days and you are so nervous and worried.

Is this a rejection? Maybe he didn’t like your picture after all...

You’re walking in the streets and sigh and sit on the stone steps of Liyue, staring at the sea, upset and dejected

But then you hear a whistle from behind and throw a glance over your shoulder to see Childe standing on a higher step, a hand in his pocket

“Hey girlie, heads up,” he tosses a paper plane into the air which makes this little loop before you stand to catch it

Looking up, Childe has gone

You unfold the paper plane to its proper size to reveal that Childe’s drawn a little sketch of you in return and he has written: ‘Yes I do’.

[possiblyimbiassed]

The lying liars who lie

Years and years late to the party, I’ve finally gotten my hands on all the DVDs of BBC Sherlock, and I thought it would be fun to watch the extra material carefully, one piece after another, and also listen to at least some of the show makers’ commentary of the episodes. But at this point, after S4 where DVDs seemed to be a constant lying device in general, I tend to look at them with a bit more suspicious eyes...

I still love the show of course, but now that I’ve taken this deep dive into all the special features, I find them a truly hard thing to try to wrap my head around. Even this long after the fact, I’m amazed by the amount of shameless, self-congratulatory BS in the DVDs, where the people involved can’t have enough of complimenting each other and their show, while they skillfully avoid to discuss anything actually meaningful about the plot line. ;) For example, Moffat claims in the S2 DVD that “In fact, you’ll never see a more obsessively authentic version of Sherlock Holmes than this one”. But if we follow their light-hearted commentary, which basically takes the show at face value, I’d call that not just hyperbole, but an outright lie. If you want to see the ‘authentic’ stories from ACD’s work in this show, you’ll definitely need to go much deeper into the subtext and meta levels - neither of which are mentioned on these DVDs of course. Here’s my own (rather subjective) ‘review’ of the whole thing, trying to pinpoint why I view most of the commentary of the show from its own makers as an advanced art of deception. 

(My musings under the cut)

Series 1 - a wealth of extra material

First of all - as many of you probably knew already - the whole of the Unaired Pilot is added to the DVD of S1. In the extra material about the making of the series, they (Sue Vertue, Mofftiss and others) talk about what things they changed between the Pilot and ASiP, claiming that many changes were necessary improvements once they knew that they had a whole series and a lot more time at their disposal. 

Which I can perfectly understand and agree with in general. But I think what’s missing in their discussions is more interesting than what’s actually there (”Mind the gap” ;) ). Things that I would expect from the show makers when they go to the trouble of comparing the pilot version with the aired product. There’s not a word, for example, about the fact that they added both Mycroft and Moriarty to the story in ASiP - two characters who later turn out to play major roles and appear in almost every other episode until the end of TFP. Or about the choice that one of the screenwriters would play Mycroft. 

Neither do they discuss why they chose to relocate the place where Sherlock was challenged by the cabbie from 221B to Roland Kerr’s School of Further Education. Instead they focus on the details, like for example the new design of the interior of 221B.

Not to mention the fact that almost every scene in the Pilot is mirrored in ASiP (as pointed out long ago by @kateis-cakeis X), but at Angelo’s in the Pilot Sherlock follows the events with the cabbie while looking in an actual mirror. I even noticed that in the Pilot the cabbie is offering Sherlock dark-coloured bottles with the pills in them, while in ASiP those bottles are transparent, as if the cabbie is offering Sherlock to play Black or White in the chess game that he is simulating. What’s with all these mirrors, though? Not a word on the DVD... ;)

Now, even though these rather remarkable choices are neglected together with a great bunch of minor ones, I still think that the most interesting fact about all this is that they actually included the whole pilot version within this DVD, which is sold by the franchise. Why even do this, when it raises far more questions than it answers? The only logical reason I can come up with is that they’re laying out a track of little hints that anyone with a deep enough interest in the show to actually buy the DVDs can try to follow. And it seems to me that lying by omission is one of the first steps in the long line of cryptic and misleading author comments on this show. But at the same time, they clearly want the fans to have access to it all, even the abandoned version.

Moving on to Series 2, time for bigger lies 

In the extra material of this DVD Benedict himself describes how his character "faces one of his deadliest enemies in the shape of Love, and it comes in the form of Irene Adler, who is this extraordinary dominatrix [insert here a bunch of superlatives regarding Adler]...”. And then we see how Adler whips Sherlock with a riding crop (without any kind of consent, I have to add) while he’s lying on the floor, and we have Lara Pulver telling us how it was to have a go at Benedict on set. So Holmes whips dead bodies and Adler whips living; seems like a match made in hell! :))

Gatiss claims, grinning with his whole face, that “they’re clearly, absolutely made for each other”. OK, so I think we can see Sherlock being intellectually impressed by Adler, and even trying to protect her from Mycroft, and we can see John acting jealously. We can also see her being dressed and styled as a perfect, female mirror of Sherlock. But I’m still at a loss what all this has to do with love on Sherlock’s part? Especially since he’s not even responding in any fashion to her various attempts at seducing him. 

And there’s more: Paul McGuigan, the director of ASiB, claims that the scene where Sherlock has a conversation with Adler inside his Mind Palace about the crime case with the car that backfires "is a part of a kind of love story, if you like...” No, I don’t. Maybe it’s just me, but if their aim really was to convey to their audience a love story between Sherlock and The Woman, I think they failed miserably. All I see is a guy ’mansplaining’ to a clever woman how to use her brain, while she’s trying to flirt with him by expressing her admiration (to no avail, though) and make deductions at the same time. Nothing new under the sun, really. John did the same thing repeatedly in ASiP (without making own deductions) and got far more attention from Sherlock, but I’ve never heard any of the show makers call that ”a love story”. But by ’lie-splaining’ the scene with Irene to the audience, they try to manipulate us all to see it as such...

In all the direct commentary of this episode, where Steven, Mark, Sue, Benedict and Lara are present, I get the impression that every time they even touch on the relationship between Sherlock and John, they hurry to add the term “friendship” or “man love” or similar words in case they forgot them at first, avoiding even the tiniest possibility that there could be anything more going on between them. They even explain that when Irene calls them “a couple” she does not mean anything romantic. This whole approach feels almost paranoic in the midst of all the laid-back jokes and light-hearted talk about the filming. It’s as if a sort of restrictive, heteronormative filter or blanket is being constantly applied, to teach the audience the ‘no homo’ lesson of it all. And the more I listen to this, the more tiresome it becomes.

In the commentary Moffat does reveal an interesting detail, though: that the ‘Flight of the Dead’ in ASiB was inspired by a cut out scene in the Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service. To me this is just one more reason to question the ‘authentic’ quality of this scene, as opposed to possibly taking place in Sherlock’s Mind Palace. But I digress... 

Listening to the commentary in general, it’s like it’s aimed to distract the attention from what’s going on at the screen rather than highlight it and try to explain their intentions. They do mention that Irene didn’t actually ‘beat’ Sherlock in the end of ASiB, but there’s no explanation of this obvious deviation from canon, where Adler does indeed fool Holmes, taking advantage of his prejudices.

The rest of the extra material of S2 is mostly about technical stuff, special effects and such, and also about filming techniques and Benedict’s delivery of fast deductions. But the part I really do love is the one where Andrew Scott talks about how much he enjoyed playing the scene where Moriarty dances before breaking into the Crown Jewels. That’s one of my favorite scenes of he whole show. :) Also, the takeaway message from this DVD is Moffat’s words at the end: 

“These are still the formative years of Sherlock Holmes, and the most important thing about this series is not that it’s updated; it’s the fact that those two men are still young and they’re still at the beginning of what they don’t yet know is gonna be a lifelong partnership”. 

And then comes Series 3... 

...and its extra material, with the most blatant attempts at deception so far, I believe. At this point Sherlock is called a “psychopath” by both the show’s characters, John’s blog, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as if it were true, which is a big deviation from ACD canon. That simply doesn’t happen there; while Holmes is sometimes described as eccentric, no one in the books is ever claiming that Sherlock Holmes has some kind of mental illness leaning towards cruelty and egotism - not even his enemies say this about him. In the show, however, they begin in ASiP with making him torture a dying man for information (something that is not included in the Pilot). And in S3, where they avoid discussing the reason why they turned Mary Morstan into a ruthless assassin, this major shift is glossed over by the fact that in the same episode (HLV) they also turn Sherlock into a murderer, who cold-bloodedly blows the brains out of a blackmailer for threatening to make said assassin’s crimes public. 

But without ever getting into the “why” of it all, the cast and crew seem overly happy and smiling describing these rather morbid choices as something positive; “fantastic”, "fresh and new” and "amazing” are their choice of words. Benedict claims that Mary, who has literally shot and almost killed Sherlock in HLV, is now "a new best friend of Sherlock’s”. Amanda claims that Mary “is protecting John” when she shoots Sherlock in the chest. Now they’re both psychopaths, and poor little John is forced to stomach them both because he’s addicted to danger. In Amanda’s words, Mary also “kind of gets in between the two of them, but she wants them to be together as well”.  Which is a load of BS considering that Mary tries to kill the protagonist of the story.

Lars Mikkelsen thinks it’s “such a good script” because “you’re mislead as an audience”. But he never gets the chance to expand on what the misleading actually contains, because then Mofftiss cut in to express how much they love playing with “what ifs”. As if this whole mega-budget project of a show were just a big experimental playground without any actual story to tell. 

Benedict repeats his line from HLV that Magnussen “preys on people who are different” and Moffat also says he “exploits people who are different”. Which is really confusing, considering what we can see Magnussen actually do in the show. Lady Smallwood and John Garvie are two well-established, powerful governmental politicians whom Magnussen blackmails by finding their respective pressure points. In Garvie’s case his pressure point seems to be alcohol problems in his past, but according to media he’s later arrested on charges of corruption. Lady Smallwood is blackmailed on the basis of her husband having sent compromising letters to a minor many years ago, in spite of later claiming that he thought she was older and stopped when he found out the truth. And then Magnussen is blackmailing an assassin who recently threatened to execute him but shot Sherlock Holmes instead, in order to try to get at Sherlock’s brother Mycroft, another powerful governmental figure. 

But what does media seeking out dirt on certain people in power and their families have to do with “people who are different”? Despicable as the method may be, isn’t this unfortunately how political power play usually works in our society? Or are TPTB somehow a repressed minority group now? Unless this whole “people who are different” accusation is actually about something entirely different, something that none of the show makers even cares to mention... ;)

In these DVDs, none of the involved persons is ever discussing the change of roles with regards to canon, though, or the (lack of) logics in this turn of events, or even a hint about the narrative motivation behind them. It’s all about the great Drama, the extraordinary visual effects and the aim to endlessly “surprise the audience”. Which is fine by me to a certain extent, but when this is all that’s being said, it feels extremely superficial, as if the audience is merely seen as a bunch of consumers that have to be triggered more and more by horror, special effects and cliff hangers to be able to appreciate the show. (“Warm paste” indeed, like Gatiss has later criticized some viewers of wanting...) While the "why”; the idea behind this surrealistic adaptation, made by self-proclaimed fanboys of ACD, is not even touched upon. Around this, the silence is total and therefore totally confusing.

Maybe I shouldn’t even go into Series 4...

...but why not, since I’ve already started? :) 

First of all, there’s a lot of extra material on this DVD and I particularly love the parts about the music and composing and Arwel Wyn Jones’ work with the design and build-up of John’s and Mary’s flat and the interior of 221B. Those bits are truly enjoyable. What I could live without, though, is the leading commentary that kind of instructs us, the audience, how we should interpret the show. 

Benedict is on it again on this DVD, telling us that in TST they picked up where they left off in S3 and “It’s a very happy unit of three people that then become four.” Why does he feel the need to make this statement, considering how S3 ended? Actually, if there’s anything I totally fail to see in S4, it’s happiness. The banter between the three  of them may seem entertaining for a while, but who could have a relaxed, warm relationship with someone who tried and almost succeeded to kill you less than a year ago? Without any sign of remorse? Now there’s a dark tone of discomfort and mean jokes that feels forced and not even a bit happy to me. 

But Martin tells us how excited John and Mary are about starting a family and Amanda mentions how much they’re looking forward to the baby. Again and again it’s repeated, as though trying to rub it in: “they’re in a good place, they’re a loving, married couple”. Yeah, right - a child that (judging by TSoT) wasn’t at all planned and now with an assassin for a mother... Twice we see the new parents complain that their daughter has the mark of Satan on her forehead and debate which horror movie she’s from. The clichéd hypocrisy of it all is sickening, and I’m willing to bet that it’s really meant to be. ;) 

But Gatiss chimes in, deciding for us all that the christening of Rosie is “a funny scene” and “they’re enjoying each other, enjoying being on adventures as a three”.

An interesting detail is that Gatiss also tells us that the working name of this episode was “The Adventure of the Melting power Ranger”. So this little blue guy was that important? :) And - even more interesting - is when he says: “Cake is now the code for violent death”. So how should we interpret Sherlock, John and Molly going out to have cake in TLD then, on Sherlock’s (supposed) birthday? 

These might be jokes, though, but when they tell us that Sue cries every time she sees Mary’s death I strongly believe they must be joking. How could anyone feel truly moved by this overly sentimental long monologue where far more efforts are put into reacting to Mary’s speech than saving her life? And John’s mooing like a cow, is that also moving? :)

One thing Martin says about TLD that actually disgusts me is regarding the morgue scene where John assaults Sherlock and Sherlock lets it happen: “From there, really, their relationship can only sort of rebuild, that’s the absolute worst it can get”. As if outright physical abuse would be something that makes you want to rebuild a relationship? Wow - just wow... How far can they go with this crap?

Anyway, when we finally arrive at the absurdity of TFP and Sherlock’s ‘secret sister’, everything is of course discussed as if she actually does exist on the given premises, and everything she does is ‘real’, no matter how impossible it would be in real life. The abandonment of any attempt to have the story line make logical sense is skillfully covered up by more distraction with fascinating technicalities of the film making process. This is where Gatiss makes his now almost classic statement that after Sherlock and John jump out of the window at 221B when a grenade explodes there, it’s just “Boop! And they’re fine.” 

Of course there’s no serious attempt at explaining this logically. Except perhaps Gatiss claiming that they both landed on Speedy’s awning - whatever good that would do to them, since the awning is leaning downwards, but never mind... But we never even saw that happen, did we? A great deal of time is then dedicated to show all the precautions to have Martin and Ben jumping safely at low level onto a madras supported by empty cardboard boxes.

Sian Brooke did say something interesting about Sherrinford, however, that got me thinking. She said that Eurus “wants revenge for the years and years that she has been held captive” there, isolated, and that in TFP the Holmes children are now “lab rats” and “it’s an experiment”. On a meta level, I think we can indeed see this episode - and maybe the whole show - as a kind of experiment, but maybe we, the audience, are also lab rats? Since Sherrinford is slightly shaped like a film camera (not commented in the extra material, of course), it leads my thought to all the adaptations through the years and years where Holmes and Watson have not been allowed to be together. A whole century when Sherlock Holmes has been held captive, restricted by the very same sort of heteronormative filter that all this extra material imposes; it’s like Sherrinford, isn’t it? Which gives all the more meaning to Moriarty’s arrival to the island, accompanied by Freddy Mercury’s “I want to break free”...

I think I’ll let the final words in this little exposé come from Mark Gatiss in The Writers’ Chat (my bolding):

“Moriarty is a fascinating thing in that in our sea of ongoing lies, one thing we’ve genuinely been completely consistent about is telling people he’s dead. But no-one believes it! And it’s a rather brilliant thing.”  Again - self-congratulatory statements. But instead of providing some actual evidence of the death of this character, who has kept popping up in almost every episode since his supposed demise, they think that the more a confirmed liar repeats something, the truer it gets? And the more we’re supposed to believe them? Well, all we can do is wait and see. :)

Tagging some people who might be interested: 

@raggedyblue​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @sarahthecoat​ @gosherlocked​ @lukessense​ @sagestreet​ @thepersianslipper​

My earlier meta on a similar topic (X)

[lamp-calm-sanders]

Racism In The TS Fandom

You know the racism issue goes way beyond the b/l.m Roman posts in this fandom.

This racism issue is beyond Thomas and deals more with the culture we have created here in this fandom. It deals a lot with the fact that most Fanders are white and probably not pick up on any racism in their actions.

As I’ve spent time in this fandom, talking to other POC fanders and learning, I realize that there are people in this fandom who feel comfortable saying racist things. There are people here who have biases and refuse to check them.

And I know a bunch of you are young, but you got to listen to POC when we tell you something’s offensive.

A lot of Fanders are queer so here’s a scenario. Say your in another fandom and none of the characters are canonly queer. And most fans are straight. But people will occasionally draw the characters with LGBT stuff? It’s not super popular and while you like it, the fandom tends to not do that. Some LGBTQ+ fans even get harassed for their art

But then someone gets homophobic comments on a post with a straight character with a gay flag saying I’m gay. The artist is straight and has never experienced homophobia and never will. Understandably people are upset so they make art to help. The most popular ones, for the most part, are made by straight folks, most of which tie there art to an event that’s a serious fight for equality for LGBT folks and trying to change homophobia and tagging it with the name of that event. Some of this art ends up being offensive because straight people don’t understand small things that are offensive to gay people

You and other LGBTQ+ people try to call this out. You go, “Hey what your doing is offensive! Don’t!” Some listen, some ignore it, and others start calling you the f-slur. Things only get better when straight people start speaking up, and even then they still spread misinformation. More people get it but people still attack gay folks in the fandom. You make posts but people still divert from the point.

That’s what it’s been like here. For all POC fanders, but particularly black fanders.

Y’all might want me to say “Don’t call people the n-word and its fine” but I’m not going to. Because not saying a racial slur is the least you could do. You don’t get any appreciation for that.

You might think “This is a minority of fanders, it’s not that big a deal” But it is. If racists feel safe here, we’ve created a culture where racist feel fine attacking POC. There’s POC who are hesitant to share there thoughts and call out problematic behavior because of the bullying and hate sent to those who do.

And you might even say “Well POC handled this rudely.” Which is wrong. I’m so so so sorry that a lot of us are so sick of dealing with systematic oppression and with racism that’s supposed to come from “safe places” (Note sarcasm).

Also a lot of us are polite but you all keep trying to “debate” whether something is racist when your white. And you expect kindness from people you hurt? People who already have so many issues beyond this?

Even if your intentions are good, if we tell y’all something is problematic! Listen! We most likely know what we’re talking about and can probably pick up on racism more than you can.

You need to be anti-racist. Look at your own biases, which is something we all need to do, including me. I had to unlearn behavior and problematic mentalities. You need to question things. Ask POC if things are okay. @skyscrapersanddandelions @mxnte and I have said a lot and given great advice you can find on our blogs and I’m sure there is more. If you have more questions ask us if it’s okay to ask us something. (Respect whatever our response is). You can also find stuff for yourself by searching it online. (Especially if it’s a question about if a certain art style is offensive, like references and posts explaining things are out there).

My inbox is open and so are my PMs. I’m usually willing to have a conversation.

Also for the love of god learn the difference between valid criticism and hate. A good portion of this outrage comes from people not understanding the difference.

[kanene-yaaay]

Go to Sleep

Kanene’s note: Gosh, having a schedule is weird. I just wanna post everything I already wrote and ramble non stop about it asdfgtyujkigfdo. XD

Well, this was suppose to be a drabble, but it’s very long so sdftyujikgfred. I hope you like it!

Warnings, fun facts, random things and stuff:

* This characters don’t belongs to me! They all belong to Thomas Sanders from the serie Sanders Sides.

* This is a SFW tickle fanfic. If you don’t appreciate this kind of content, please, look for another blog. There are a plenty of fabulous arts in this site!! ^w^)b

* This is Lee!Virgil with Ler!Roman. Around 1.500 words.

* Sorry for any spelling, pontuation and grammar mistakes! Any and every advice is very very welcome! \(-w-)/

* Listen a bit to the birds today. Changing the way you think is not a bad thing. Drink water, sleep, eat and love!

[~*~]

Roman growled, missing by a few inches the button of his thunderous, infuriating alarm before finally hitting it. Staring and blinking lazily at the numbers his brain struggled to discern and recognize, only to confirm it was really time to wake up and start the day. He grabbed his pillow and squeezed it with all the strength he could muster, rolling from one side to other on the mattress, trying to wake up his body as quick as his mind and almost falling from the bed a reasonable number of times during the process.

 He got up, yawing, stretching and humming as the first lyrics of the day stuck on his head, hand rubbing at his eyes as he followed the kitchen’s direction with slow steps and tired sways on the beat of the song.

 Two dark, wide eyes stared right back at him, their owner completely frozen on the spot with his hand inside the cabinet, probably already holding some sort of a snack. Roman also stopped mid-step, gears running inside his mind, gaze locked on the other, his brow progressively furrowing.

“Virgil,” he began, voice slightly hoarse “What the heckty heck are you doing up? It’s barely seven in the morning!” Virgil only stared back, slowly closing the cabinet’s door, as if afraid the movement would startle the other. Roman proceeded to get some eggs and other cold ingredients from the refrigerator for the breakfast, his words growing more awake and vivid as they spilled with no filter or whatsoever from his lips. “You got an early shift again or something? Those are absolutely hellish. A bunch of people exhausted, tired and glaring at you as if you are the holder of all their problems and their solutions can only be achieved by being insufferable pieces of- Urg. I can’t believe they would give you one right after you got the night one. Damn, I didn’t even see you arriving here yesterday!”

 He turned his attention back at the other, looking for a kind of frustration in the place of the still startled, wide gaze which continued to be directed at him. Virgil nodded slowly, stepping away and putting some physical distance between him and the confusion on Roman’s features.

 Then, between the strings of sleepiness that clouded his brain, it clicked.

 Suddenly more details on the other’s behavior started to become clearer: the way Virgil’s hair was messier than his usual ““style”” (Roman scoffed mentally, thinking that if he rolled his eyes any harder they would never come back to his normal place again), his wary, yes, but way too much slow movements, the way he seemed to be unable to stop blinking at every millisecond and, above it all, the final piece of the puzzle.

 Virgil wasn’t wearing his pajamas.

 “YOU DIDN’T!” Roman gasped, as if Virgil’s life choices were a personal attack. “YOU DIDN’T GET ANY SLEEP LAST NIGHT!!” A turn of heels and he was again fixating his glare on the other, his free hand accusingly pointing in his direction, receiving an annoyed hiss as immediate answer.

 “Shut up!” Virgil snarled, practically growling back at him. “It’s fucking seven am don’t be so freaking loud.”

 “Don’t change the subject! Why didn’t you go to sleep?”

 The one being questioned just snorted, half amused. “Bold of you to assume I’d ever sleep in my whole life.”

 “That is it.” Virgil didn’t even have the time to wonder the meaning of his friend’s sentence before the aforementioned picked him up, resulting to a not very contained shriek escaping from his lips and his hands not much gracefully – or gently, although since they were keen on just jumping on each other out of nowhere to play fight Princey would be fine - meeting his friend’s face.

 “Roman! What the he-”

 “Did you just SLAP me? My beautiful face?! Before my own beautiful eyes??” Virgil Storm always got, even if he would never admit this out loud, surprised with Roman’s capacity of doing a series of offended incoherent noises which evolved to words before being carefully metamorphosed in weird noises all over again, and in the end still managing to form comprehensible sentences. His surprise did nothing to quell the grumpy snark immediately flying from lips, though.

 “And I’m going to do it again if you don’t let me go in this exact instant.”

 “You go and try to help and that is the acknowledgement you get,” The one wearing pajamas with little crows printed on it huffed, mumbling in a lower tone as he noticed the sharp gaze being thrown in his direction. “fucking unbelievable.”

 “I still can hear you, Princey. You’re literally carrying me.”

 “I sTiLL cAn HeAr yOu-OW! Ow! Ow!” The sentence was interrupted when the sleep deprived one punched Roman’s shoulder. “You’re insufferable, you know that?”

 “Let me fucking gAAH!” In a way his wish was granted, one could say as they watched his protest being cut as Storm was impolitely tossed on his bed, Roman quickly following his friend on the mattress, arms hugging him from behind, and physically preventing him from escaping his current soft predicament. “Prince, you’re dead.”

 “Shhh, no talking. We’re sleeping.”

 “We are not. You are being a pain in ass and I am about to defenestrate you.” Despite his fervent protests, his sharp, flaming glare began to lose its heat, his body not doing any actual effort to free himself from the other’s – strong, good - grip, muscles starting to relax against the great warmth involving him in a comfortable and secure blanket.

 “Sure, sure, mister Grumpy Pants, you can do that when you wake up.” He tightened a bit his hold around Virgil, yet being the most careful as possible, actively ignoring the annoyed hiss his friend gave him. His hoodie was really fluffy at the touch, slightly remembering his stuffed animals he frequently hugged to sleep.

 For a moment, everything was pleasantly quiet. The one with smudged makeup, since he hadn’t time to get it off before being trapped by his roommate and best friend, felt the tiredness becoming sleepiness as the seconds went by.

 …That was until an electric sensation shot across his spine, leading him to almost jump in the same place 

 “S-stop nuzzling me!”

 “Hm? Oh sorry.” Virgil pressed his lips tightly closed, preventing the wobbly giggles to escape as Roman speaks, not realizing how close his mouth was from the base of his neck, every breath sending tickly shocks across every nerve. “You’re just too much sooooft.”

 Roman opened an eye when realized that no snark remark from the other followed his words, the figure in his arms shaking too much to be asleep. A frown painted his feature as he readjusted the position of his hands, trying to get a bit more of balance to look at Virgil’s face when suddenly a high-pitched yelp escaped, cutting the air and immediately catching their attention.

 “Did you just squeal?” He questioned as his glare assumed a playful shine seeing a blush spread on his now frozen friend.

 “It was NOT a squeal! It was a yelp.” Virgil’s words came so fast that they almost tripped on themselves. Roman snorted, a smile taking over his face. “Get off me!” and, in the moment the one wearing a hoodie tried to pry his hand from the spot on his right side where it was resting, the pieces finally clicked in the right place and his smile quickly submerged, giving space to a smirk.

 ‘No WAY Doctor Doom and Gloom is ticklish!’

 However, the red lover only blinked as the true personification of innocence and naiveness, his hand firm in its place, fingers starting to slowly move, light pokes being delivered on the sensitive skin. “But why that, Knight Mare? It’s cold and all I could ever want is just to hug my bestest friend!”

 “You already hugged me, now go aWAY!” His voice trembled in the last second, the exact moment his thumb experimentally scratched the spot right under the lowest ribs, leading a surprised squeak to leave Virgil’s mouth.

 They both stared at each other, gleaming, filling their wide eyes.

 “No.” Virgil said, trying to squirm away but finding himself stuck between Prince and the wall. Roman didn’t even attempt to hide his smug grin, anymore. This was going to be so much fun

 “Don’t you dare! Don’t you freaking dare!!” His friend only laid down again, now carefully, yet firmly, pulling him one more time against his chest, growling playfully. Years and years fighting for the Tickle Monster title on his family, battles and battles against Remus only sharpening his skills, which showed by the way his fingers seemed to find every single weak spot on Virgil’s skin, wiggles, scribbles, pokes and scratching exploring everywhere. “No! Nononono! You fucker, you moron, you bitch, you-” A few chuckles cut his curses as he one wearing pajamas squeezed his side a couple of times, the tip of his fingers also teasing his ticklish stomach. “Roman!!”

 “No, no, my so dear, so ticklish, friend. Roman is no longer here, this is…” He paused for a dramatic effect, basically beaming at the giggly giggles and wiggly wiggles from the other. He shoved his face on his neck, the next words vibrating almost as bad as the spidering on his ribs. “The Tickle Monster!!”

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Comics: Spies Like Us and Dime after Dime or Weblena: The Preschool Days (Lena Retrospective) (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Shadow Into Light, My Lena Retrospective, which fittingly has now come to Women’s History Month! I sadly do not have anything besides this arc prepared for the month. This month is pretty packed for me with two shows a week to cover, as while there’s only two weeks of Ducktales left final space starts up right after to take it’s spot, two arcs to cover, and two time specific movie reviews: animal crossing the movie and the 1990 TMNT film. I will try to get more than the currently planned top 12 superheroines list out there... but this month is very tight as is, so if I do not I deeply apologize.

Now that’s out of the way, it’s appropriate we start Women’s history month on some likely lesser known parts of Lena’s history, with some comics stories focusing on our faviorite emo lesbian duck and her 87 counterpart. Before I get started on that though Kev my patreon pointed out something intresting a few weeks back i’ve been forgetting to get to and since we’re looking into Minima, I felt this was the perfect time to do so: Lena’s Concept art. 

There’s quite a few things to gleam from this. For starters as pointed out in the reddit thread I got the image as a whole from this was made in 2015, meaning Lena was one of the first new characters designed for the series and was part of it from the VERY early stages, as evidenced by the fact that despite clearly having their new personalities established, Beakly and Webby still had the old designs. 

The other notable change is that her first design was way more like both Magica nad Minima, a bit more modern, but clearly far more obvious who she was related to. She also had all black feathers making the shadow twist a bit more obvious and was likely done away with both to avoid giving that twist away, the same reason for the fake lestrange name, and to avoid accidently black coding her, as while Lena being black would’ve been intersting, it also would’ve invited a firestorm of controversy given that their one black character in season 1.. woul’dve started off as a homeless, manipulative antagonist, and none of that would play well nor was it something the progressive crew of this show couldn’t spot from a mile away.  And even this early on they have an almost final design ready, simply changing the shirt to fit her personality more, and her hair to be pink because it honestly looked better She also had green eyes throughout, but for whatever reason they phased them out. That part I don’t quite get as they look nice but probably they were hard to translate to the reboot style once they settled on their own. Her purple eyeshadow and haircut though have stuck since and were good calls. 

One last VERY obvious note.. Webby was gay for Lena from minute one. While Dana helped it is now VERY obvious they gay coded this relationship from the design phase, and the crew was entirely aware the whole time and I gave them less credit than I should have. They clearly had this in mind, and it’s very likely ONLY subtext because Disney, while making more and more progress, is very reluctant to have queer characters as Owl House was a struggle and since they have a tighter leash on properites based on the sensational 6, that means Frank knew they had the same odds of making Webby or Della queer in anything but subtext that a pig has of suviving in a slaughterhouse. I bring this up because I fear the series getting accused of queerbaiting somewhere down the road instead of doing what they could with a bad hand and hoping they could make the show as gay as they could. Penny is as out as they posisbly could get her, and Violet and Lena’s dad’s got a full apperance, if no speaking role that made it obvious beyond a shadow of a doubt their gay and did it in a plot important episode. So they did their best and I want them to get credit for that. 

But while this is all intresting stuff, join me under the cut for the meat of today’s review as I dig into Lena’s only apperance in the tie-in comic that was never punished here, and the only apperance of her protoype Minima.

Spies Like Us:  As I mentioned this comic was never published here which is doubly weird to me because of how I knew this story existed. Since I follow comics weekly and buy trades reguarly, I read the solicits companies put out eveyr month to see what new series are coming, what the ones i’m currently reading are doing, and what trades are coming out. That sort of thing, and it’s something I love. I know their basically adds.. but their well put together adds that really pull you into the books you like. The big two and the indies are all very good at it and sometimes i’ts the only way to know a comic is coming if the company dosen’t make a press release for it ahead of time. 

So naturally given there are several comics I follow at idw, paticuarlly the TMNT comics, I read those solicits and found they were going to do an issue with Webby and Lena becoming spies, and was excited about it. I ended up forgetting about it and never really followed the Ducktales comic as it came out, and upon reading an issue or two recently, one for another comission by kev as one story, happy happy valley, was particularly terrible. For those who haven’t read the story or my review, it involved the family getting stranded on an island where their forced to partake in activites and smile..that somehow turned into an aseop about Louie wanting to be rich. It ended with this

Yes.. really. That actually happened. But even with this, I fully planned to cover the issue when I covered Lena, and brought it up to Kev when he commissioned the retrospective. He gave me the discord equilvent of a blank stare and had never heard of it. I soon found out why: the story was replaced as, and fair play to disney, it spoiled Beakly’s past from the agent 23 episode which wasn’t going to air in time.  What dosen’t work is they never reprinted the story in The US.. didn’t put it in a future issue and just swap it’s place didn’t put it in the nothing. And the story was fully complete as we’ll see, with a cover and everything so they had no excuse whatsoever to NEVER use it, even with what happened to Lena in the season finale, this clearly took place before that and it was weird to just shelve it because of that. But thankfully when a bunch of the stories were reprinted overseas, this and another one, also webby centric got published overseas. But not in english.

Lucky for me, I was able to find an english translation of an english story which you can read RIGHT HERE. It was translated by @neopuff and I thank them for it as without them this review would not be possible and want to give them all the credit. So was it worth all their hard work translating it? Well let’s take a look. 

We begin at the Manor where Lena is skulking around suspiciously.. though it turns out she and Webby are just playing hide and seek. Though Lena accuses cheating. The dialouge here is pretty flat though that’s not Neopuff’s fault at all. As I can attest from reading other stories a lot of the early IDW comics are just this flat in dialoguge no matter the writer as they were likely given character descriptions and basic info about the show they likely had written up for merchandising and Frank and Co were given no involvement and likely weren’t made avaliable to consult on the comics to help them be a bit more fleshed out. It’s very obvious to me Disney just tried to get these pumped out so they’d have a series in stores to tie in without carring about qualities and given Scrooge debuted in comics, their lack of care toward that side of things in general, but especially in the first american published original duck comics in a while, bothers me a lot. It’s inexcusable. 

That being said the story isn’t half bad nor is the setup as the two hear a beeping and find it’s Beakly’s phone going off with a mysterious message from Q, Webby thinks she’s been reactivated, and is encouraged by Lena to go look after her while she stays along. While Webby says in response

It just feels grossly out of character for both. Lena is far more subtle about manipulation as shown five minutes ago and Webby blindly trusts her. Because she has a massive crush on her and is naïve about how the world works. It just seems very odd of her to get suspicious as she never does on screen, and again it comes off as Disney having barely given the writers any materials on them when i’m sure Frank or Matt would’ve been happy to write up a thing for them to help outside of the usual press materials they were given. 

Though hte last line isn’t all that out of character and has an obvious answer as within a jumpcut Launchpad’s taking them to London and is told to blend in.. which he does with an australian flag and accent.. good gag. 

So our heroines do some heroic breaking and entering and look for the package, but soon find while hiding it’s already in transit.. and had obvious bows on int. Whoops. Our heroes trie the old follow tha tcar bit and refreshingly, it dosen’t pan out as the guy stops and tells them to get out. A nice twist. Unable to follow, our heroes instead find launchpad lost, as his map is upside down

So Lena dares him if he can follow that plane, a nice bit of character for both. I will give Joe credit. While the dialouge’s a bit flat and there was that out of character moment.. for the most part he does nail the actual character down and does use it decently enough. He’s just not given enough page room or actual details to work  with is all. 

So while our heroes follow they end up having to crash as they run out of fuel.. lucky their with the expert but end up near home where the package is delivered to. Turns out this wasn’t a spy thing, this was just a thing with her aunt. That’s fine and a nice gag.. it’s just ruined by just sorta.. ending. Lena leaves disapointed and Beakly scolds webby for “playing spy” and she’s sad. That’s it that’s how it ends. Which dosen’t fit the characters, as while Beakly would defintely scold her, it just dosen’t FIT that she’d be that tearse or not appricate the effort or give her an actual lecture and it feels like Joe had no idea how to end this after the gag and just.. ended it. 

Final Thoughts for Spies Likes Us: This was okay.  It is a bit of a disappointment as for the only story not available.. i’ts just okay and not really above an average Ducktales comics story, with some nice character bits but feeling a bit weak overall, as do at least the first half of the idw comics. I haven’t read the later stuff to see if it got better. It’s worth a read if you like Webby and Lena as characters and it’s not BAD, it’s just not anything impressive and is a simple hyjinks filled misunderstanding story. 

Dime After Dime:

So now  we go back a bit to the original. I didn’t do these in chronological order because frankly, Dime after Dime is the better story of the two and the bigger one at that, so I have more to work with here. But the original also had comics and honestly from the few i’ve read much BETTER comics. I chalk this up to two things: The Ducktales 87 comics seem to have come out AFTER the series was already a hit, and since Ducktales is pretty close to the original uncle scrooge comics minus it’s own tweaks here and there, it’s easy enough to just write the stories like you would a regular uncle scrooge story, just with Webby and Launchpad added, whereas the idw writers were staffed with writing for all new versions of the characters with noticable differences without much to go on.  It’s why to me with tie in comics you have two options: Wait long enough so you can put your story inbtween the episodes like the Steven Universe and Regular Show comics did or just make your own continuity entirely like the Adventure Time Comics and the Archie TMNT Adventures series did. The ONLY time i’ve seen a comic work like this is the Bravest Warriors comic, which had a talented writer and fit well enough in the margins until it sadly ended.. and honestly is BETTER in some cases than the series. I might get to it someday. The point is this comic shows why you need to have a deft hand adapting something instead of just falling your arms about and hoping it’ll work. 

So today’s comic was part of some Disney Series called cartoon tales, which clearly repackaged comic stories from wherever, and put them together. I don’t know much about it and the only other issue avaliable collects the disney adventures adaptation of “Just Us Justice Ducks”, which I might cover at some point. This book does have two other stories which i’d be happy to do on comission or on my own at some point, one involving gladstone the other gizmoduck, but for now, i’m just sticking to the title story and the reason you all came here. 

So we open with Magica gazing into her crystal ball from her Mt. Vesuvies base saying that Scrooge will never know what hit him I know exactly what and who wiil hit him thank you very much. 

Scrooge is seeing Webby off to her first day of day camp, getting all teary eyed which is touching. Beakly apparently goes with her as the story never SAYS Sshe does but she’s not also not around when the story moves on, as Launchpad says it looks like rain. Scrooge dismisses him, though Launchpad turns out to be right. Scrooge had good reason for once though, instead of just being a dick good on you comic for making me not want to punch him in the face, trust me that is a high bar to clear with the scrooge comics, as the weather was fine just a minute ago. Naturally it was Magica All Along! Nothing scrooge can do now that eveyrthing has gone wrong! Her entrance though is sadly not a catchy earwormy tune, but .. this confusing line

I think your thinking of Gladstone. And he’s still single so.. have at that but no Scrooge is the one who values hard work over anything else and brags about THAT or being rich. I .. I don’t get this line and frankly I don’t want to. Even in stories where the dime is supernaturally lucky and the source of his wealth he dosen’t boast about it because he’s not stupid and dosen’t want everyone knowing how to bankrupt him instantly. This line will baffle me until I die, presumably, given my life’s tragetctory, after reviewing an episode of mighty ducks and slipping on some a jerky wrapper. 

Scrooge asks what she wants... 

No this isn’t that kind of story sadly. Her plan is to.. zap the bin with lightning and take the dime. Really just went with your first draft didn’t you magica? But as stupid as this plan is Scrooge has prepared for it. He installed a lightning rod on the bin to save on power, and to power his new super soaker traps. So all Magica did was save him money. She flies off and nothing is acomplished. 

So we get back to Webby at the Teenie Weenie Day Camp.. and just so you don’t think that was a terrible joke on my part...

My theory for how this name got approved at all is the editor KNEW how that sounded and just wanted to see if Disney would actually print a comic with the phrase Teenie Weenie without getting what it means in slang or how hilariously inapproriate it is to namme a children’s camp after it. 

Your probably wondering who that grown woman calling Webby a dweeb is. Well story wise, she’s SUPPOSED to be another kid at the camp around Webby’s age. In practice, she looks like THIS in closeup

So it looks and plays like a 30 year old woman snuck into the day camp and no one’s noticed she’s not actually a children. Or their just humoring her because she had a week to live. I don’t know. I do know she doesn’t get to judge on names. 

Snippy Von Glitz, proof rich people really do hate their kids and this this comic is trying personally to give me material. Snippy is your average alpha bitch, taking a chair from Minma and being obnoxious and classist and all that jazz. Minima gets hers back by making the chair bouncy then returning it to normal so Snippy gets in trouble when she makes up things about the chair, with the lady in charge getting ready to call her Dad. You cannot convince me that her “Dad” is just what she calls her husband, this is how they both get off, and that the lady at the preschool only tolerates it because they pay her a lot and so far the kids haven’t noticed Snippy is 30. Webby likes minima finding her name pretty, proving that the ho yay is alive no matter the webby and magica relative, and Minma returns the favor by saving her from a block. 

Minma is reluctant to make an actual friend, finding they aren’t worth anything and given most of the kids here apparently pick on her and her aunt is well.. Magica, it’s understandable why she’d be so cold. But Webby presses on and says something from Scrooge about friends. Which given Ducktales scrooge has none goes weird but it gets Minma to find out she knows and lives with Scrooge, so she cons webby into taking the dime for show and tell, showing that she can manipulate them with her powers, and that he won’t notice it’s missing, getting her with “I thought you wanted to be friends” 

So let’s pause for a second and compare and contrast the two: Both are the niece, or at least sorta in Lena’s case, of Magica, both manipulate webby, and both are her first real friend: The 87 boys are little monsters and I don’t consider them friends or even brothers, while the 2017 ones are just that: brothers. Their her siblings in all but blood, not friends and have hteir own long complicated history. 

But otherwise the two are vastly different. Lena is a far more complex character as she’s been abused her whole life, is a rebel because Magica hardly gave her agency, and while she starts wooing webby out of self interest it’s clear even as far as the first episode she cares. Lena would gladly be part of the world if she could and this whole scheme is to gain that choice. 

Minma is still sympathetic but very different: She walls herself off because the other kids laugh and mock her for being herself and lashes out at them.. not unreasonably mind , but still feeling she needs no one else.. but as we’ll learn later she’s only helping Magica to finally feel accepted, to get all the fancy clothes and stuff that will make her popular instead of that grown woman masquerading as a kid for disturbing reasons. Minma is at her heart just a hurt kid desperate to fit in. And while Lena shares the desire for a place to belong.. it’s at it’s core much sadder. Lena.. wants a family. Someone to love her and to care about her and actually look after her. Minma has that she just wants to be loved. it’s similar but very diffrent and I can see why Lena evolved into what she did, as Frank and Matt ended up going in a far darker but ultimately more interesting direction. Minima is not a bad character at all though and without her I don’t think we would’ve had Lena, but at the end of the day the 87verse is just not that complicated, so the reboot needed something more and that more evolved into who we have now. 

Both kids excitedly talk about their new friends, with their respective guardians being distracted. Scrooge is distracted by the fact his car is a bit bumpy and Launchpad offers to fix it up for free with some parts from a buddy, which given the sentence “This won’t cost you anything” makes him erect, Scrooge agrees. Magica meanwhile, whose watching Minima while her mom is away which raises a LOT of questions we don’t have time for like who she is, is she’s poes wife or does Magica have other siblings... it’s a lot of questions we’re never going to get answers to. 

The next day Webby got the dime easy as Scrooge was distracted. so Minima swaps them while she’s distracted. But while swiping it was easy, which to be fair Webby is likely approved in his security so it woudln’t match her.. or the story just needed to progress. You make the call. 

Magica does the logical thing and goes and get sthe dime and the story ends there.. and i’m shitting you, she of course brags to scrooge, reveals minima as her spy, and offers to RACE him for it shortly after he realizes he has a fake.

The only major flaw in this story is Magica’s overconfdience, which isn’t BAD persay, but here has gotten to dumbass proportions. She just can’t plan for anything and a CHILD has a better plan than her that only dosen’t work for reasons we’ll get to. And that plan is almost ruined by Magica taunting scrooge!

So a race is on but Launchpad has transformed Scrooge’s old Model T into this

Damn that’s cool. Scrooge of course dosen’t like it, but honestly you get what you paid for. Oh that’s right you paid nothing for something you NEED to use every day for transportation. 

At  the rickity thickity bridge, Steve Buschemi’s worst roll and her minion ask Webby to roll with them and Minima mistakes this for betrayal planning to soak them all.. only for Webby to DEFEND HER, pointing out minma’s her friend, how she dresses is fine and she loves her no matter what.. the last part’s implied. The 30-year old asshole and her minon leave Webby and Minma is genuinely touched, as no one’s done that for her before. She put up so many walls... she didn’t realize someone could ACTUALLY care about her, so obessed with thinking she had to be like that soccer mom in preschoolers clothing, she just had to be herself: kinda werid but in that fun adams family way. Webby says she knows Minma would do the same.. so while she prepares to let’s get back to the race. Magica realizes Launchpad’s roadster is actually gaining and spreads some tacks, but Scrooge counters with some money.. because of course he has a lot of money in the trunk. But Magica takes out the bridge and while scrooge awesomely JUMPS IT... he’s still too late. 

As you probably guess though, Minima had a change of heart, and gave Webby the real dime back, and Scrooge confirms it. Minima TRIES to tell Magica, and Magica is horrified her niece is a goody goody “I”ll never hear the end of it at my astral aerobics class”.. I.. I want to see that. Let’s raise those spirit ladies and kick kick that soul, doge that shadow king punch them in the soul. Yes! Now eat it eat it and absorb it’s power!

We end on a button joke as Webby apologizes for taking the dime., Scrooge accepts it and Webby tells them magica learned to carpet and they gulp for some reason. 

Final Thoughts on Dime after Dime: This story was decent. It has problems, some jokes don’t land and Magica is made horribly incompetent, but minima’s character arc is endearing, and Webby herself is precious as always and her winning Minima over feels genuine. And Scrooge is in prime adoring uncle mode with her and i’ts just so cute. And the roadster race is pretty awesome to watch honestly. It’s an exceptional and enjoyable tie in story.. and not the last ducktales 87 story we’ll be covering here. Wink wonk. 

Next Time: Things get DARK as Lena and Webby head into the depths of Scrooge’s hidden bin and Lena heads into the depths of her own soul. 

Tommorow: Woo-Ooo mofos as we go back to the very beginning of the reboot! A family restored, a lost city to explore, and a glomgold rises! Be here or be square.