#I like the first one but I kinda copied it off another artist

[allthenicknamesweretaken]

Deciding how turtle my turtles should be

Not going well so far I can not decide

Actually I'll do a poll

[wombywoo]

Ok! I've finally decided to put together a (somewhat) comprehensive tutorial on my latest art~

Please enjoy this little step-by-step 💁‍♀️

First things first--references!

Now I'm not saying you have to go overboard, but I always find that this is a crucial starting point in any art piece I intend on making. Especially if you're a detail freak like me and want to make it as realistic as possible 🙃

As such, your web browser should look like this at any given point:

Since this is a historical piece, it means hours upon hours of meaningless research just to see what color the socks are, but...again. that isn't, strictly, necessary 😅

Once I've compiled all my lovely ref pics, I usually dump them into a big-ass collage ⬇️

(I will end up not using half of these, alas :'D)

Another reference search for background material, and getting to showcase our models of choice for this occasion~

When picking a reference for an actor or model, the main thing I keep in mind (besides prettiness 🤭) is lighting and orientation. Because I already kinda know what pose I'm gonna go with for this piece, I can look for specific angles that might fit the criteria. I should mention that I am a reference hound, and my current COD actor ref folder looks like this:

Also keep in mind, if you're using a ref that you need to flip, make sure you adjust accordingly. This especially applies to clothing, as certain things like pants zippers and belt buckles can be quite specific ☝️

Now that we've spent countless hours googling, it's time to start with a rough sketch:

It doesn't have to be pretty, folks, just a basic guideline of where you want the figures to be.

The next step is to define it more, and I know this looks like that 'how to draw an owl' meme, but I promise--getting from the loose sketch above to below is not that difficult.

Things to keep in mind are--don't go too in-depth with the details, because things are still subject to change at this point. In terms of making a suitable anatomically-correct sketch, I would suggest lots of studying. This doesn't even have to be things like figure drawing, I genuinely look at people around me for inspiration all the time. Familiarize yourself with the human form, and things like weight, proportions, posing will seem a little more feasible.

It's also important at this stage to consider your composition. Remember to flip the canvas frequently to make sure you're not leaning to one side too often. I'm sure something can be said for the spiral fibonacci stuff, which I don't really try to do on purpose, but I think keeping things like symmetry and balance in mind is a good start ✌️

Next step is just blocking in the figures. Standard. No fuss 👍

Now onto the background!

It's frankly hilarious how many people thought I was *hand-drawing* these maps and stuff 😂😂 I cannot even begin to comprehend how insanely difficult that would be. So yeah, we're just taking the lazy copy and paste way out 🤙

I almost always prepare my backgrounds first, and this is mostly to get a general color scheme off the bat. For collage work, it's really just a matter of trial and error, sticking this here, slapping this there, etc. I like to futz around with different overlay options until I've found a nice arrangement. Advice for this is just--go nuts 🤷‍♀️

Next, I add a few color adjustments. I tend to make at least 2 colors pop in an art piece, and low and behold, they usually tend to be red and blue ❤️💙There's something about warm/cool vibes, idk man..

Now we move on to coloring the figures. This is just a basic block and fill, not really defining any of the details yet.

Next, we add some cursory values. Sloppy airbrush works fine, it'll look better soon I promise 🙏

And now--rendering!

I know a lot of beginner artists are intimidated by rendering, and I can totally understand why. It's just one of those things you have to commit to 💪

I've decided to show a brief process of rendering our dear Johnny's face here:

Starting off, I usually rely on the trusty airbrush just to get some color values going. Note--I've kept my sketch layer on top, but feel free to turn it on and off as you work, so as to not be too bound to the sketch. For now, it's just a guideline.

This next stage may look like a huge jump, but it's really just adding more to the foundation. I try to think of it like putting on make-up in a way~ Adding contours, accentuating highlights. This is also where I start adding in more saturation, especially around areas such as ears, nose and lips. Still a bit fuzzy at this point, but that's why we keep adding to it 💪

A boy has appeared! See--now I've removed most of the line layer, and it holds up on its own. I'll admit that in order to achieve this realistic style, you'll need lots and lots of practice and skill, which shouldn't be discouraging! Just motivate yourself with the prospect of getting to look at pretty men for countless hours 🙆‍♀️

I'll probably do a more in-depth explanation about rendering at some point, but let's keep this rolling~

Moving forward is just a process of adding to the figures bit by bit. I do lean towards filling in each section from top to bottom, but you can feel free to pop around to certain parts that appeal to you more. I almost always do the faces first though, because if they end up sucking, I feel less guilty about scrapping it 😂 But no--I think he's pretty enough to proceed 😚

They're coming together now 🙆‍♀️ Another helpful tip--make sure you reuse color. By that, I mean--try to incorporate various colors throughout your piece, using the eyedropper tool to keep a consistent palette. I try to put in bits of red and blue where I can

Here they are fully rendered! Notice I've made a few subtle changes from the sketch, like adjusting the belt buckles because I made a mistake 😬 Hence why you shouldn't put too much stock in your initial sketch~

The next step is more of a stylistic choice, but I usually go over everything with an outline, typically in a bright color like green. Occasionally, I can just use my initial line layer, but for this, I've made a brand new, cleaner line 👍

And the final step is adjusting the color and adding some text:

Tada!! It's done!

All in all, this took me the better part of a week, but I have a lot of free time, so yeah ✌️

I hope you appreciated that little walkthrough~ I know people have been asking me how I do my art, but the truth is--I usually have no clue how to explain myself 😅 So have this half-assed tutorial~

As a bonus, here is a cute (cursed) image of Johnny without his mustache:

A baby, a literal infant child !!! who put this wee bairn on the front lines ??! 😭

Anyway! peace out ✌️

[venus-haze]

You're My Best Friend (Homelander x Reader)

Summary: Homelander was a test tube baby, raised in isolation in a cold, clinical lab. But that doesn’t inspire America, does it? Vought tasks you with creating the idyllic backstory for its hero, and what starts as a limited comic run spirals out of control when Homelander himself demands your help in making the story a reality.

Note: Gender neutral reader, but no other descriptors are used. Based on a request by @crash-and-cure as well as a bastardization of one of the sweetest love songs ever written (sorry, John Deacon!) This got kinda meta? Do not interact if you’re under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 2k

Warnings: Emotional manipulation, I guess some gaslighting on Homelander’s part? Do not interact if you’re under 18.

When Vought hired you to create their long-awaited Homelander origin comic series, you were thrilled—until they gave you so little information about his childhood to work with, you weren’t even sure you could come up with one comic, let alone the ten they requested. The details about his childhood were minimal, not even a full printed page—a loving mom and dad, played baseball, did well in school, strong sense of justice from a young age, his friends called him “Johnny.” Your requests to meet with Homelander so you could get some stories from the man himself were constantly denied.

You almost considered dropping the project, until you decided to throw caution to the wind and pull from your own childhood and set it in good ol’ generic suburbia. Some of the storylines were based on your own experiences or things that had happened to people you’d grown up with, though you changed enough names and details to not link it to anyone in particular. Except yourself, of course. Using a pseudonym professionally meant you felt no need to change your own name in the comics. Sure, making your cooler fictionalized self Homelander’s childhood best friend was a bit self-indulgent, but no one would know, really.

To your relief, the editors at Vought loved your ideas, making minor changes before bringing the storylines to their comic artists to bring it to life. The result was Finding Homelander: A Boy’s Journey To Be a Hero. The issues flew off shelves when they were first released, ironically praised for their relatability and authenticity. Vought extended your contract, asking you to produce the cartoon adaptation and another ten issues.

Still, in all of that, you’d never met Homelander. A representative from Vought emailed you to let you know to tune in to his interview on a talk show one day, saying that he’d be talking more about the cartoon project on it. You recognized the host, Tracey, always chipper and having some extravagant giveaway for her audience members. Daytime TV was never your thing, though.

“I think what resonates with so many people is how relatable your childhood is,” Tracey said, holding up a copy of Finding Homelander issue #3, where he saved ‘you’ from getting hit in the face with a baseball at one of his games, catching it with ease. It’d been the happy ending to a short storyline of him struggling to find his place on the team and you encouraging him to not give up. “You and Y/N were pretty close, do you still keep in touch?”

“You know, Tracey, not as much as I’d like, unfortunately. Adulthood can be so busy, you need to cherish those childhood memories,” Homelander said. “I did give them a call when the comics first came out, and wow, the laughs we had over those old antics of ours. Talk about a walk down memory lane!”

You guessed the bullshitting was all part of the promotional circuit for Homelander. Knowing this childhood of his was your own fabrication, you couldn’t help but wonder what else about him was fake. Maybe he wanted to maintain his privacy, you could certainly understand that. You couldn’t shake the voice in the back of your mind that said it wasn’t so simple, that the narrative Vought pushed was a cover to hide something in Homelander’s past.

“Now, I’ve heard rumors of a cartoon show based on the comics in the making, is this true?”

“It is! I’m excited for this project, getting back to my ‘roots’ so to speak. I’ll be voicing myself, of course, but it’s funny you’d bring up Y/N, because they’ve agreed to voice themself, too.”

“How fun!” Tracey exclaimed over the roar of the talk show crowd’s applause and cheers. “I guess this is the hopeless romantic in me, but I hope this reconnection leads to something a little more. I’m just a sucker for childhood sweethearts!” 

Homelander laughed along with the host’s giggles, “Well, you never know.”

You balked at the television, mouth agape. Surely he couldn’t be talking about you. ‘Y/N’ could be anyone with your same features. Vought had probably hired a professional voice actor for the role and were pushing the authenticity angle. The whole situation felt odd. 

When you checked your work email again on your phone, you nearly dropped it on the floor. 

SUBJECT: Meeting with Homelander This Week

The email contained a list of days and times throughout the week wherein Homelander would be free, apparently wanting to meet you to thank you for the success of the comic series and discuss upcoming work. Yeah. That last part you sure as hell wanted to discuss too. You responded with the soonest time available, in a meeting room in Vought Tower the following evening. As soon as you hit ‘send’, you wondered what exactly you were getting yourself into.

Anticipation filled your gut as you went about your day leading up to meeting the supe himself. What would he be like, really be like? Was there even a version of Homelander that wasn’t hopelessly manufactured for the masses? You knew then that his upbringing was a lie, and thus stood the probability that so much else was, too. 

When you stepped into that meeting room, you hadn’t been expecting his face to light up at the sight of you. 

“Homelander, hi, it’s great to—“

“No need to be so formal, Y/N! You can call me Johnny, just like old times,” he said cheerfully, in on a joke you clearly hadn’t been aware of.

“Sorry, Johnny,” you said, playing along. “It’s great to see you again.”

He pulled you in for an unexpected hug that you returned. “Figured we should catch up before things really start getting crazy, don’t you think?”

You nodded, your nose brushing against him as you did so. Just as your lips parted to offer an apology, he smiled, shooing away the assistant who’d accompanied him out of the room. 

He sat down, motioning for you to do the same.

“Gotta say, I’m a fan of your work,” he said.

“Thank you,” you said. “I’m not sure I understand exactly what’s going on, though.”

“What’s there to understand? I’m not allowed to know more about my best friend, our lives together growing up?”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Wasn’t hard for me to put two and two together, but considering everyone else around here has their head up their asses, they have no idea,” he said, before lowering his voice conspiratorially and giving you a charming smile. “I haven’t told anyone. What’s a secret between friends?”

You nodded, overwhelmed by the intensity of his attention on you. “What do you want to know?”

He sighed, resting his head on his hand. “Everything.”

So you told him. Not quite everything, of course, but enough to abate his curiosity. At least for the time being. His interviews were sharper, more specific with details rather than rattling off whatever had been in the comics. You watched in shock as convincing photos of his Little League days were posted to his social media accounts, anecdotes provided by his increasingly frequent conversations–or more like interrogation sessions–with you, but in his style, of course. It was almost scary what the graphic design team at Vought could accomplish, not that you’d ever know how, exactly, as they were all under the same strict NDA that you were.

He started spending more time with you, too, and after a while, it did seem like you were old friends. Part of you flinched whenever you called him Johnny, because Johnny wasn’t even real, but with your complacency, this fabrication was slowly morphing into a strikingly tangible memory. With each conversation, he drew you deeper into the world you’d been paid to create for him until you found yourself slipping up.

You’d been showing him a goofy stuffed monkey on your desk, a cute little thing with big sparkling eyes. A prize for getting two out of three at the ring toss. Probably spent more money winning it than it was actually worth, but it was about the effort, the memories made.

“You remember, don’t you? You won it for me at the county fair,” you said without thinking.

He laughed in agreement, as if he actually had. Except he hadn’t. Your high school boyfriend won it for you a week before graduation. Sensing the mood shift, he set down your prize and looked at you with the same intensity he had when you first met.

“It’s been a while since we were there, huh?” he said. “Why don’t we go back?”

You furrowed your eyebrows. “Go where?”

“Home.”

With a strong arm around your waist, he took off for your hometown. You could hardly tell which way was up or down, he was flying so high, but he didn’t seem to mind the way you clung to him at all. When he finally landed, you recognized the community baseball field where all of his fictional games were set. 

“Geez, it’s like nothing’s changed,” he said cheerfully.

You looked at him in disbelief. How long was he going to expect you to go along with it? Or maybe the question you should have been asking was, how long were you going to enable him? The end wasn’t anywhere in sight as he took your hand, and you walked him through your childhood, further enmeshing him in it until you arrived at the house you grew up in. 

The middle of the day, no one was home, and so you let yourselves in like you owned the place. Suddenly, the house seemed too small for a man like Homelander to occupy, but he was engrossed in the details of it. He scanned the kitchen, no doubt inspecting the contents of the fridge and cabinets with his x-ray vision. Moving onto the living room, he stared at photos on the wall, the magazines and DVDs that were strewn on the coffee table, giving away your parents’ taste in entertainment.

“Which one was your room again?” he asked.

You swore you could feel his breath on the back of your neck as you wordlessly led him to your room. Each step down the hall felt dangerous, as if you were about to walk into a trap. Face-to-face with the closed door, you opened it, standing aside while Homelander looked around, from what you had hanging on the walls to the knick-knacks you’d left behind.

An uncomfortable tension settled over the room when Homelander closed the door of your childhood bedroom. An odd blend of hurt and amusement spread across his face as he observed the way you were eyeing him, body ready to fruitlessly run from him the way a rabbit would a hawk.

“C’mon, after how long we’ve been friends, I would never hurt you,” he said, as if reading your mind. “We’ve been through so much together. I mean, we were each other’s first kiss.”

You froze. Issue #9. That was something Vought’s editors had added, claiming a romance angle would make the series appeal to the younger female demographic. You hadn’t thought much of it at the time.

He slyly backed you into the wall, leaning over you as you slinked down the slightest bit.

“Show me how we did it,” he whispered, his hand caressing your cheek. “So clumsy and nervous, I can even feel you…quivering.”

“Homelander, I don’t know what you’re—“

He tsked. “Y/N.”

You let out a shaky breath, “Johnny—“

He hummed in satisfaction. “It’s alright. I know it’s been a while.”

You let him kiss you, sweetly in a way that put your actual first kiss to shame. His lips were soft against yours, his tender movements intentional as he cradled your face, pulling you the slightest bit closer to him when you kissed him back. 

A sense of familiarity settled over you, warm and comforting like pulling a blanket out of the dryer on a chilly evening. Every time it seemed like you were beginning to overthink the situation with Homelander, he drew you back in with the kiss, a more than effective distraction until you pulled away with a dazed smile on your face.

[ariseur]

'Ello luv, it's been a while since I saw someone writing for DMC ugh, miss when dmc(5) was trending... What a good time!

I don't know if your requests are open or not, but catch up with me!! Our pretty girls and boys with a vampire!reader! Or or— A WITCH! BOTH

Like, you choose if it's a bunch of headcanons, blurbs, a full one shot with a character or not, I just really want to see it!

Well, obviously if you can do it honey, if you can't it's fine <3

dmc crew dating a vampire 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

devil may cry x reader

┊ ˚➶ notes ｡˚ 🎼

this was actually my first request on this blog!! i don’t know why i put it off for so long bc it’s literally so cool?? i ended up just doing a vampire instead of witch/vampire witch so i hope you guys enjoy considering my phone crashed trying to copy n paste this from my notes to tumblr 💋

┊ ˚➶ warnings ｡˚ 🎼

blood (but in the vampire way ykyk), fangs and mentions of sharp teeth, intended lowercase, kinda spoilers for dmc5 in v’s,

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ . ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ . ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ . ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓓ANTE — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ you are literally so hot in DANTE’s eyes, you could honestly do no wrong.

❥ i think you guys already know what i’m gonna say..

❥ if you feed on blood or need it for some sort of sustenance, dante will gladly volunteer. he thinks it’s the hottest thing ever.

❥ although, i’m not sure if vampires much like demon blood..

❥ eh, oh well. dante will still think it’s attractive, especially if you have fangs or some sort of sharper canines.

❥ only downside to being a vampire and dating dante is that you’ll occasionally hear a super bad transylvanian accent. like.. really bad.

❥ but!! if you’re also a demon hunter like him— and you have some cool freaky powers like draining blood or energy from empusas or really just any ability that’s useful, it’s heart eyes all around from him.

❥ you could be covered in blood or feasting on something and then you’ll spot dante in the corner wielding devil sword dante after defeating like seventy fuckin other demons and he’s just.. mesmerized.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈ ｡ﾟ

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓥ERGIL — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ VERGIL’s much more curious about your species. do you have any weaknesses? are the fictionalized versions of your kind portrayed accurately? what are you exactly?

❥ luckily he’s a lot more quiet about his curiosity compared to, maybe— nico. his staring is intimidating, though. when he sits with you or near you, he’ll usually just study you. maybe it looks like he’s judging but he’s really just analyzing your appearance. especially if you have any distinctive features.

❥ if you have that dark ruddy aesthetic, he’ll likely admire from afar even if red isn’t exactly his favorite color.

❥ if you really needed it, he’d let you feed off of him although it’s definitely not his first choice. he’s not really a fan of being bitten, especially if you need to bite his neck or something like that.

❥ probably finds some esoteric artistic poem or painting with an underlying meaning of having to do with vampires and thinks of you every time he looks at it.

❥ his gothic poetic side is showing

❥ ugh i just wanna kiss his scowl so bad but i also wanna punch him.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈ ｡ﾟ

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓝ERO — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ nero literally thinks it’s so cool.

❥ he might be a little wary once he first meets you? like are you gonna tackle him rn and sacrifice him with your own lil blood ritual?

❥ but once he finds out you’re docile or that you pick and choose on whom you feed on, he’s like, “oh okay that’s cool”

❥ probably like dante where the only version he knows of vampires are the hollywood adaptations of them. so like.. he’s confused if you can go into sunlight? or you can eat certain foods? or if you can go near churches??

❥ he, too, thinks you’re super hot. however!! very iffy about you drinking blood or feeding in front of him. not like it grosses him out but it’s kinda.. weird to watch for him?? idk.

❥ another thing is that he doesn’t want you biting him at all. he’s like vergil where he’ll be baffled if you even ask, except he’s super hesitant to offer himself unless you’re super injured and in dire need of it.

❥ just step on him to shut him up atp

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈ ｡ﾟ

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓥 — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ V’s goth ass won’t shut up about how divine your species is and how fascinating he finds you.

❥ curious on your feeding habits and what you essentially need to survive, tries to find any and every book that he can about vampires so he can learn about you even more.

❥ he’s like those people who romanticize the 1800s or the salem witch trials or greece or ethel cain or lana del rey while kicking their feet and posting about it. he will find a way to make the situation poetic, trust me.

❥ finds it amusing if you’re annoyed by griffon’s teasing and threaten to eat him first if you were to ever go rogue, you might even be able to get a close mouthed chuckle out of v.

❥ utterly fascinated by just your very being, even if it’s just mundane traits. especially loves to see your fangs, dunno why but they’re just aesthetically pleasing to him.

❥ considering he’s kinda like a deteriorating human that’s basically turning into a husk, i wouldn’t recommend feeding on him unless you plan to kill him—which who would wanna murder our emo bae right here? (capcom)

❥ the type of person to roll his eyes at false folklore and representation because he’s literally in love with an actual vampire?? how dare they portray you like this??

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈ ｡ﾟ

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓛ADY — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ LADY also finds you super hot!!

❥ also interested because she’s probably never seen a vampire outside of media— so it’s a nice change of pace rather than being face to face with demons all day.

❥ despite all this, after the initial introduction, i’m not sure she’d care too hard? like— sure, you’re considered a supernatural being and all that.

❥ and although she thinks it’s super dope, i feel like it wouldn’t matter as much to her. she’s seen and done a lot of things at such a young age, i feel as though she’s almost desensitized?

❥ she’s so badass she can’t even care. she’s literally respected by dante, whom is titled ‘the legendary devil hunter’. (dmc5 did her dirty with her lack of part in the storyline 💔)

❥ she’ll respect any of your needs, and ngl also thinks you biting into her neck is hot.

❥ kinda surprised that you’re able to go out into sunlight even if she’ll never tell you that 😭

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈ ｡ﾟ

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓣RISH — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ another one who doesn’t care that much. it’s not like TRISH is dismissive of your species and where you come from, but she’s literally a full on demon who’s probably seen everything.

❥ you guys r so hot though, like the ultimate power couple.

❥ oh, and if you’re a devil hunter, too? you guys r gonna kick sm ass together. she’ll invite you to roll around with her for a while rather than with dante, although if you’re associated with devil may cry then that’s fine too. she’ll put up with dante’s ass just to visit you more often.

❥ i don’t recommend feeding off of trish?

❥ idk how vampires take to drinking demon blood

❥ but shit, if you have that red aesthetic and are just a total femme fatale (or other gender equivalent to that), trish is in charge of your outfits now.

❥ don’t even fight it, you will end up in the outfit regardless.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈ ｡ﾟ

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓝ICO — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ oh boy

❥ if you’re lucky enough to survive the first meeting with NICO and you end up actually being in a relationship? you are def a trooper.

❥ when you’re first introduced, she bombards you with questions.

❥ where did you come from? do you have powers? are you like a demon and are there more of you? if so, can she harvest parts for a new bio-weapon? do vampires reproduce the same as humans? are you gonna suck her blood??

❥ she’s just a curious lady cut my girl some slack

❥ she thinks you’re so cool though!! wants you to tell her everything you know about vampires so she can log it. even if you’ve been in a long term relationship, she still can’t help but ask more questions.

❥ but!! as cool and hot as she thinks you are— like nero, she does not wanna see you feed and does not wanna be fed on!! (except.. maybe just one time to see how it feels.)

❥ ugh she just loves you sm please indulge her

[crazylittlejester]

This ask is your excuse to yap about whatever headcanons you wanna talk about 💙

- hero-of-the-wolf

YIPPEE THANK YOU

- You’ve heard of French Warriors (he is Scottish and Brazilian to me), but may I suggest: French Hyrule?

- Warriors, Sky, Hyrule, and Wind’s first languages are Not whatever language it is they speak in hyrule (i’ve been callin it hyrulian common because im insanely uncreative), and while Warriors tries incredibly hard to hide his accent by mimicking what the people of his Castle Town sound like (British), the others don’t. Wars and Sky grew up speaking two languages at once, but Wind and Hyrule had to learn when they were a little older. Wind’s accent is a bit odd because he unintentionally copies the accents of people around him and he spends a LOT of time around Tetra and other pirates so he kinda adopted that accent, (and he eventually ends up mimicking certain members of the chain by accident) but if you stuck him back at home near his grandma and Aryll he’d sound more similar to them (<- based on my friend from another country who adopted a southern accent whenever he speaks english)

- All of them know at least ONE other language, but the two who know the most languages are Wars and Legend. They refuse to put a number on how many languages they know so no one knows which one of them knows more, but Legend is unfamiliar with Warriors’s native language and he holds that over his head and has declared himself the winner just because of that

- Wild is deaf in one ear and has an audio processing issue he’s just always had, even before he died. He can hear just fine out of his other ear but sometimes he just stares at people blankly because he heard Noise and not Words

- Time also has an audio processing problem and he, like Wild, won’t ask someone to repeat themselves he’ll just stare at them blankly. I also headcanon he’s autistic but I think I’ve said that before lmao

- Wind and Twilight are both very good artists, they can sketch almost anything. Twilight likes drawing Ordonian goats over and over and over again from memory, but Wind sketches scenery and other members of the chain. Sometimes he gifts them to the others, sometimes he burns them, and others he keeps, but he draws a LOT

- Four is the weapons police and if he sees someone mistreating their sword he’ll snatch it. The only swords he hasn’t snatched are the Master Sword from Sky, Time’s Biggoron Sword, and Wars’s sword. He’s had SOME reason at SOME point in time to put the other five’s swords in ‘sword jail’ while they were sittin around at camp

- Wild and Warriors one time disappeared and came back covered in soot and ash and Time just ignored it because ‘Warriors is a responsible adult’ but Twilight ripped them both a new one when he saw a stick stuck in Wild’s hair was still smoking. They are no longer allowed to go off alone together with ANYTHING that can be used to start a fire

[sorenphelps]

All the artwork I made for the fanfic Crazy Ex-Boyfriend by @amethystheart2421 for this year's @rsbigbang!

It was a wild run, we got paired up quite late due to our original pairs dropping out of the Bang, and even though it was already December and time was running thin, I decided to make this whole deal a way bigger challenge than it supposed to be... So I ended up drawing all 7 fantasy sequences, trying to mimic a different style for all of them, and finishing both versions of the banners I had in mind. I know, I know, but I swear even I wasn't aware that I am such an overachiever either!

Also, I usually like to hide little details as easter eggs on all of my artwork, so naturally this was the case with these too. I'm gonna list them one by one, also share a little story about each piece, sort of like a "directors cut werk", just so we stick to the screenplay motif. The numbers in brackets lists the order in which I drew the pictures.

The banners (1.,9.): I haven't watched Crazy Ex-Girlfriend the show, so I really had no idea about this whole thing, hence my initial idea of re-drawing one of the official promo posters of the show as the banner. But then Nicole shared the first scene with me when we got paired up, and also told me that her original artist wanted to draw the stargazing scene, which I also really liked. I sketched out both versions to see which one would look better, and also to warm up a bit for this version of the characters. (Nicole also shared some faceclaims, so except Sirius' and Lily's design, I tried to stick to her vision as much as I could.) The Netflix poster was considered the final one for quite a while. The stargazing banner was the last piece of artwork I finished, which I also edited to be used as Chapter dividers. I liked the idea so much I actually referenced the starry sky on the other pictures too. On the Netflix banner, Remus' socks and Sirius' suit handkerchief (how do you call those things in English, gahh) both have the starry pattern.

The western (3.): By this time it was decided that I'd do all fantasy sequences in a different art style, but I couldn't really come up with any specific style which could have fit the western vibes, so the characters are drawn in my own usual style, only the colouring is different. I tried to go for a sepia effect, without using a filter, I think I could pull it off well enough. I was considering to draw Sirius as a Native American for this, because I just don't see him as Caucasian in general, and also, Black Dog sounds like a badly translated indigenous name... But I discarded this idea for the sake of "historical accuracy" (and to save time, haha), as I think they wouldn't visit a saloon this way. I added the starry sky pattern to Sirius' handkerchief and... scarf? (I really should learn how certain textil items are called in English...) There is a wanted poster in the background with Voldy. And I swear I didn't mean to draw Remus looking this horny, it just kinda happened by accident! He is sure VERY fascinated by Sirius'... pistol.😜

The Star Trek (6.): My original idea was to draw like usual and just add so many lensflares to the picture that it's not visible if I copied another style or not. But in the meantime I started to watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds with my bf and also found out that there is a new cartoon too, so it was then settled. This style is very different from my own, but it was so much fun! It was weird not to draw every single strand of hair in excruciating detail, actually that was the hardest part, haha! I struggled a bit with the placement of the lensflares too, the first version had too many and too bright, it had a disco vibe rather than a spaceship. I wanted to add easter eggs to the background screen, but I was running out of time, so there's only one light blue star similar on the screen! Also now I know that the uniform colors are not really consistent in Star Trek, and Remus’ might have had to be gold as Captain…🤷🏻‍♀️

The Disney (2.): This one sparked the first idea in my head after I read all fantasy scenes Nicole kindly shared with me. When I first sketched this, I still had no idea that I will end up drawing for every chapter and the style copying was not settled either. It started with this piece, I had the vision of the wolf chasing scene from Beauty and the Beast, and we were discussing whether it's plausible to collect berries during the winter or not... I've tried to make the final piece look as classic Disney as I can, and since I could pull it off, it was not a question anymore whether I'd try to do this with other styles for the other scenes. Retrospectively, this one was the easiest to make, apparently my usual style is not that far from Disney (I grew up watching those movies, so it's not a surprise), but I had to really focus on drawing the animals, it's been ages since I last drew any! (The trick is to give them eyebrows, and bam, it's Disney style!) Sirius' armour, clothes and sword has the star, and I also designed his own "crest" with the black dog and a star on his shoulder plate. The whole concept of the picture is Sirius' side being very bright coloured, while Remus' with the scary wolves in the background being very dark. This might have worked better if it was not set in the winter, but I wanted to stick to the Beauty and the Beast vision I had.

The Comicbook (4.): I was very excited for this one, I really like the looks of the old Batman the animated series, and the way some of his comics are drawn. It's such a unique style, I really like the simple shapes and bold contrasts. Well, it turned out I am very bad at this! I struggled quite a bit trying to capture what I had in mind, but I couldn't even come close to it... So I kinda cheated a bit because I just traced the lineart directly from the reference pictures of Batman comic books I found online. I tried to make Remus less buff, but it looked very weird, so I let him keep his muscular Batman body instead. I drew the wolf mask and the whole Sirius panel, and the coloring went smoothly after I finalized the lineart, even though I only realized that I switched the colour schemes of Remus' superhero outfit when I looked up the quotes for the comic panels, oops. Overall I like how it looks, but I am not that proud of it as I had to "cheat".

The Hobbit (5.): I've probably spent the most time with this one! I actually really like Martin Freeman as an older Remus FC, so I was quite excited to do this piece. My original idea was to mimic John Howe's style, as he is the Tolkien illustrator god, but his level of skill and mine are very very far from each other... and as I struggled a lot with the Batman piece, I felt like going for a smaller challenge. That's why I decided to have a go at Alphonse Mucha's art nouveau style. Turned out it was the worst possible idea! 🤣 The whole point of art nouveau is depicting attractive ladies in an ethereal way... But if you switch the ladies with a fat hobbit, the vibe def won't be the same! The first version just looks so extremely absurd, it's both awful and hilarious. By the time I could fix the pose so it wouldn't look as ridiculous, the final style looked nothing like art nouveau... I still have no idea what style it is now, not my own or any of the ones I tried to capture, that's for sure. I considered adding the star pattern to that tablecloth, but I decided that the lupin flowers in the foreground and the whomping willow-like tree are enough reference for this pic! I like how it turned out in the end tho, I think I could do justice for the watercolor-looking coloring technique, and the end result looks a bit like a fancier version of old children's book illustrations... Which is essentially what The Hobbit is, so it all sorted itself out by the end.

The Anime (7.): I like anime (I'm a little picky about them tho), so it was not a question that I would give this style a try! I am a huge fan of cyberpunk (the genre), so initially wanted to do that, I'm such a slut for Ghost in the Shell and I really like the aesthetics of the Akira posters, but after reading the actual scene, it was not really fitting. So I saved the cyberpunk AU for later, and went for the post-apocalyptic vibe instead. Obviously anime had a great influence on my art style, so similar to the Disney one, it was not that much of a challenge to mimic it. However I'm not that good at drawing backgrounds, and oh boy, I really made myself get over this obstacle with this series of pictures! Also as I was more comfortable with this piece, I actually added the starry sky pattern from the beginning to the scarf/blanket Remus has on this picture!

The Sitcom (8.): The original idea was to copy Hanna Barbera's old family cartoons' style, but as my deadline was very close and after reading the scene I realized that it will have a shitton of characters, I quickly abandoned my original plan. So this one is drawn in my own style, sort of, the designs of the characters are more aligned with Nicole's vision (sans Sirius, Lily, and partly Peter). The hardest part was definitely to figure out how I could fit 10 characters into one picture, let alone sitting in a living room! Also, I had to actually draw the living room too, considering perspective and scaling... Something I am not that good at. In the end the coffee table is maybe a little too big, but I needed that to hide the legs of the characters sitting on the sofa, haha! Also, the sofa is the Millennial Dark Green Velvet Sofa, because I also want to have one and it really emphasizes the general existential dread! (Just kidding.) Also also, I just realized that I have no idea how to eat tacos without making a mess (they are not that popular where I live). I added the starry sky pattern to Sirius' shirt, and gave a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt to Peter, as he is talking about that in the scene. I wanted to squeeze in further references to the newspaper Remus is holding, but it was too tiny. The star from Knight Sirius' armour is in the background on the bookshelf. Also that globe just makes no sense but I had no better idea how to fill the empty space 😅. Molly is holding a mug with "BEST MOM" written on it, and I intentionally made Marlene's eye colour the same as Remus', who btw should have worn a bathrobe according to the original scene, but it was too late to fix that by the time I realized it. All in all, I am quite satisfied with how it turned out, it has the necessary sitcom vibes. And it is kinda a record for me in terms of number of characters drawn (the most was 12, but that one has no background, so I'd call it a tie!)!! I am very proud of myself for pulling this piece off, it really is the achievement of the year!

TLDR; (I mean really, my rambling is just too long!) I am happy that I was paired up with Nicole, working with her was such a creative process! My absolute favourite thing to do is work on AUs, and she has provided me with the opportunity to do so, I am grateful! It was truly a pleasure to participate in this (even if it's not that clear from all the complaining I just had above, haha)! If you ask me nicely I might show you the cursed first version of the hobbit picture!

[blossomwritesthings]

𝐚 𝐟𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 | 𝐟𝐢𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫𝐬

⬷ 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞┊ 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 ┊ 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 →

pairing: minho x felix (minlix)

genre: dancer!minho/artist!felix. brothers best friend troupe. college au. age gap (abt 4 years). minho pov. extremely dark themes throughout, including smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

word count: 3.2k

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a/n: I've written sooo much of this recently, I'm literally on chapter 10 already!! 😭 I have plans to probably make it 15 chapters long, which I feel like is a good length for the type of story and narrative im fitting into once piece. I wanna make sure all of the loose ends are tied off in a perfect kinda way before I move onto the next project. ☺️ this is the first chapter where we get some TRUE backstory on what really happened between minlix during the time when they were growing up... there's some insinuations in this chapter that will make a lot more sense later on in the story haha... but for right now, I hope you guys are enjoying slowly putting the puzzle pieces together~ 💗

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ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ʀᴇᴘᴏsᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ sɪᴛᴇs (ᴛʜɪs ɪɴᴄʟᴜᴅᴇs ᴛʀᴀɴsʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴs). do not copy, spin-off, or write inspired work based off of this fanfic without full permission to do so. ©ʙʟᴏssᴏᴍᴡʀɪᴛᴇsᴛʜɪɴɢs ⤐ ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛs ʀᴇsᴇʀᴠᴇᴅ

̶﹒⊹﹒ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʀʏ ᴛᴏ ᴍᴜsᴛᴇʀ ᴀ ғʟᴀʀᴇ  ᴛᴏ ᴛᴇʟʟ sᴏᴍᴇʙᴏᴅʏ ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ sɪɴᴋɪɴɢ ！،، 🌌  𖥻 𓂃 ʙᴜᴛ ᴀɴxɪᴇᴛʏ ɪs ᴀɴ ɪɴᴅᴇx ғɪɴɢᴇʀ  ᴘʀᴇssᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʟɪᴘs╰╮ 🌑

  After the night of the party at Felix’s place, Minho never uttered another word about it. As soon as he had stepped into the door of his shared dorm with Chris, and his best friend saw the defeated grayness of his face — the stormy crimson rage in his eyes — Chris quickly figured out what had happened. 

  But Chris never dangled it over his head that he had been right the whole time. Instead, he just gave Minho a long hug and said goodnight to him. 

  Minho’s other friends acted similarly, pretending that everything was fine and that they definitely hadn’t heard rumors about the party that night and what had gone down at Felix’s Dorm.

  So instead of focusing on the past and shit he couldn’t change, Minho threw himself into his studies. He and Hyunjin had a big project they were working on together for one of their fall semester exams, which took up most of his time. And when he wasn’t spending hours at the studio practicing on campus, he was at his apprenticeship gig, teaching young middle-schoolers classical and modern dance styles. 

  Lee Minho was a very busy man, that, everyone knew. And he also knew that the more cloudy his mind was with dark thoughts, the more he’d push himself. The more he’d work, work, work, until one day… he'd face an ugly burnout. 

  But for right then, he was completely fine. Surely, the burnout was very far down the road… 

  He couldn’t help but hear the rumors, though. About Felix and his crazy friends and the times he was caught having sex with all kinds of people around campus. Minho even saw it with his own two eyes once — when he stopped at the cafeteria to grab a quick bite for lunch before heading to his critical dance theory class. He noticed movement in the very back corner of the place, and there… Felix was. 

  Blond locks disheveled, immaculately dressed, and dripping in pearls and light violet hues. There was a girl with fire-engine red hair right beside him, seemingly resisting the urge to climb onto his lap at that moment. They were making out like there weren’t at least a hundred people around them and it wasn’t an open, public space.

  Felix had his hands wrapped in the girl’s firey hair, and the purple against the red of their aesthetics caused a shocking display of colors in Minho’s mind. But mostly, he tried to ignore it all. Just like everyone else around him was doing. So he quickly grabbed his food and escaped from the cafeteria as fast as he possibly could. 

  There was no use sticking around to watch another person stick their tongues down Lee Felix’s throat. There was never any use in crying over spilled milk. 

  “Minho— what the fuck has gotten into you? You keep misstepping on this part when just a few weeks ago you were doing fine.” Hyunjin said a week later, frustratingly running a hand through his dark locks. They had been in the practice room on campus for most of the day, tirelessly running through the choreo for their routine. The exam’s deadline was in a week and they couldn’t afford to laze around until then. 

  Taking a long swig of his cold water bottle, Minho pressed his back against the practice room’s mirror, offering his friend a deep frown. “I’m sorry Hyunjinnie, I just— I don’t know, haven’t been myself lately…” 

  He let his voice drawl on into the silence after that. Because they both knew the catalyst for why that was. The practice room grew quiet after that since it was just the two of them what with it being so late on a Friday night. Everyone was busy partying outside the campus grounds or in their dorms sleeping off the stress of exams. 

  “Is it… Felix?” Hyunjin asked, slowly sitting down beside Minho and taking out one of his fidget toys from his gym bag. The guy always had at least five on him at all times — claimed it helped calm him down when he was stressed. Spinning the pink and black fidget spinner between one hand, he reached over and squeezed Minho’s knee in a comforting gesture. “You know, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But it’s just that… we’re all kinda worried about you. We just wanna help as much as we can.” 

  Turning his head to look at Hyunjin, Minho noticed the way his friend's dark brows were wrinkled with concern. The way his eyes sparkled as they searched his face, pulling for any answers he could find there.

  “I know, and I’m really sorry. It’s just… I guess, I didn’t expect to see him again, after such a long time. Chris never talked about him or where he was planning on going after high school, so it kinda came as a shock.” Minho said slowly, trying to find the right words as he shrugged nonchalantly. But the feelings he had were anything but nonchalant.

  “Are you mad at Chris for not telling you? I mean, it is kinda weird that he never really mentioned his younger brother, but I suppose that’s because he felt there was no need to. It’s not like you and Felix were best friends growing up, right?” 

  Even though Minho knew Hyunjin was right, his words still hurt. Hurt like ice picks digging into his heart, ripping it to shreds with each bit of truth and reality. 

  Even still, Minho could feel the wallowing sadness bubble up inside of him. “Y-Yeah… we had an… interesting relationship growing up. He was always seen as the annoying, little innocent younger brother. We didn’t hang out that much, but the times that we did— it was nice, I guess.” Minho found himself playing with the battered hem of his oversized t-shirt, completely avoiding Hyunjin’s gaze. Because Hyunjin was perceptive like that and could read anyone like a book with just a single glance. 

  Hyunjin let out a long sigh, slumping against the mirror behind them. “I think I understand, though. To some extent. It must feel weird, seeing him again after so many years, and to have him be so changed,” Minho watched, as Hyunjin’s long fingers spun the fidget in his hands over and over again. It was relaxing for Minho too, even if he wasn’t the one playing with it. “He’s the opposite of how you always knew him, you know? That’s gotta hurt in some way. I’m sorry, Min, that’s a lot to deal with.”

  Minho’s eyes trailed over to the studio’s windows, noticing how dark it was. How late it was becoming. He could just barely catch a glimpse of the moon shining high up in the sky, already halfway across the sky. “It’s not just that, though… sometimes, we’d hang out without Chris. When he was out of town for a school field trip or some dumb shit like that.” Minho’s voice came out as quiet and soft as a dove’s feather. Almost like, if he said it too loudly, the whole campus would hear and berate him for details. 

  There was a long bout of silence after that. It felt like a confession that he had never made before. He could feel Hyunjin tense up a little bit next to him, just from knowing that this was extremely sensitive information and vital to the situation at hand. 

  “Does… Chris know about this?” 

  Of course, that’s the first thing Hyunjin would ask. Always putting others first. It was a sensible thing to wonder, too- since Chris was their best friend and Felix’s younger brother. 

  “Not really,” Minho whispered, swallowing against the dry lump that was starting to form in the base of his throat. He could feel his heart slowly constricting in his chest at the topic change. He was fine talking about their childhood and shit, but not… that part of it. “I mean, yeah— he knew we sometimes hung out when he wasn’t around, but I don’t think he realized how… impactful that shit was to us.” 

  He was still staring out the studio’s nearby window, still studying the half-crescent moon. And the more he looked at it, the more he was reminded of… his face. Milky, like the moon, shining always and— 

  “When you say impactful… what do you exactly mean by that?”

After Hyunjin's question, there was a long bout of silence. As Minho's thought paused in his head, and he weighed his options... tell the truth, or keep lying about the past once again? In the end, he chose the former. 

  “I mean like, we fucking fell in love with each other.” 

  After that admission, the air in the studio suddenly constricted. Like a bowstring, everything drew taught and frozen. And just like that, Minho was turning his attention back to Hyunjin. Studying the look on his face. For a moment, he was entirely surprised, and then that melted into gentle understanding. 

  “And I’m assuming Chris never knew about that part?” Hyunjin simply asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow as he spun the fidget in his hands a little faster. 

  Letting out a sardonic kind of cackle, Minho flashed his friend a fake, bright grin. “Yeah, because it’s definitely not weird that an eighteen-year-old was in love with a fucking thirteen-year-old.” He gave Hyunjin a thumbs up, trying to brush it off like it was simply a funny joke. But in actuality, it was a lot deeper than that. 

  Hyunjin stopped playing with his fidget then, reaching out with one hand and taking ahold of Minho’s. He squeezed it tenderly, forcing Minho’s attention back onto him. Hyunjin’s face melted into sympathy, eyes dancing with a myriad of emotions. “I’m sorry, that must’ve been a lot to deal with. But really, the age gap isn’t that absurd. I mean, I knew plenty of couples growing up that had even bigger ranges than you guys.” 

  Minho squeezed Hyunjin’s fingers back, noticing how the feel of human touch was keeping him grounded in reality at that moment. Helping to stop his heart from beating out of his ribcage and chest. “I know. But it just… it felt different between us. I don’t know, it’s really hard to explain. We just— we bonded over our shared depression and love for video games and art and—” 

  “Sounds like you guys had a lot of similarities.” 

  “Yeah. And now… it’s the opposite.” 

  Slowly, Hyunjin began drawing senseless shapes across Minho’s palm. And Minho knew why he was doing it — Hyunjin could always understand when Minho needed help, needed someone to guide him through returning his thoughts to normal. 

  “I can see that. I think, you probably liked Felix for who he was back when you were growing up. That innocence, and how it sounds like he looked at the world with rose-colored glasses on,” Hyunjin started in a quiet tone, tracing hearts on Minho’s skin and making the older man giggle a tiny bit. “But now, he’s changed a lot and it feels like a bucket of ice water was just thrown over your head. Even still, you have to remember that you’ve probably changed a lot too— you’re not the same young boy that Felix fell in love with. And five years is a big gap of time to have not seen each other, so you have no idea what Felix went through during your absence to have such a metamorphosis in his adult life now.” 

  And just at the mere thought of Felix going through such bad hardships in his past that he turned out to be so degenerate and crazed in university, Minho could feel his entire body tightening up. He squeezed Hyunjin’s hand, practically feeling his racing pulse in the pit of his throat. 

  “Oh fuck— I hope nothing like that happened to him. I don’t… I don’t know what I’d do if—”

  Hyunjin squeezed his shoulder tightly, bringing him out of his reverie of panicked thought. “Min, stop. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. But what I meant is… He’s probably experienced things that have made him change into the person he is today. Try to understand things from his point of view." 

  Minho leaned his head against the mirror at his back, squeezing his eyes shut. And as soon as he did, he saw visions of Felix. Of being in high school alone back in their hometown, suffering all kinds of shit at the hands of the cruel kids there. He didn’t want to imagine it, but he also couldn’t be naive. He knew the kinds of people that lived in their small coastal hometown in Busan. He knew how mean the kids at school could be, how merciless. And Felix probably had walked in there as a beautiful beacon of light. Minho didn’t even want to imagine the kind of shit he was probably put through at high school alone. 

  “He threatened me when I was leaving his place during the party. He told me to never come back to his dorm.” Minho blurted out, clearing his head of the depressing visions of Felix growing up. Instead, he focused on the way the younger man had looked at him that night, near the elevator. So full of rage and anguish. “He was so fucking angry with me— and goddamn it but I was so mean to him.” 

  “Having a shitty college house party be the first time you guys hang out in almost five years probably wasn’t the best idea,” Hyunjin said slowly, finally pulling his hands away from Minho and focusing back on his fidget. “It’s understandable why you two would be on edge with each other. There’s a lot of water and shit under the bridge.” 

  Carding a few fingers between his hair, Minho pulled at the roots as he held his head in his palms. “Hyunjin he was teasing me at the party with his friends— he was trying to fucking make me jealous, I swear to God.”

  “Well… did it work?” 

  “I— I guess… I don’t know!” He burst out, throwing his hands up in the air in defeat. “Sorry, I just… I hate feeling this way and not knowing what to do about it.” 

  Hyunjin let them sit in the quietness of the practice room for a little bit after that, allowing Minho to collect his words and thoughts. Minho could slowly feel his breathing regulating again and his heart beating at a normal pace once more. 

  “So then does that mean… that you still love him, Min?”

  Staring down at his clasped hands, Minho studied the way his hands were so calloused from dance practice. He did as much as he could to help the problem — exfoliated and moisturized — but nothing seemed to work except taking a break from dance. Which was never going to happen. 

  “No,” He finally said, shaking his head slowly. But even as the words left his mouth, they didn’t feel quite right. “I mean, it would be stupid for me to. We’re both so different from who we were during our childhood. And we're too far apart in age and maturity."

  Hyunjin shrugged slowly before he shoved his fidget toy away in his duffle bag and took a long swig from his Pocari Sweat bottle. “I mean, it really isn’t that far-fetched. At your core, you guys are still the same people. You just hang out with different friends and lead different lives these days. But you’re still interested in the same things as before— art and video games and whatever other shit.”

  “Hyunjin, no. It’d be fucking weird. I’m a senior and he’s a freshman. I'm going to be graduating in under six months and he just started. There’s no way in hell I’m dealing with that bullshit.” 

  Just then, Minho’s friend finally stood up from his spot on the hard, wooden floor. He gathered up his things and then offered a hand out to Minho. Taking ahold of it, Hyunjin hoisted him up and offered a slow grin as Minho grabbed his bag. 

  “You guys are both adults now. That kinda taboo shit you felt back in the day is irrelevant now,” Pulling out his car keys, Hyunjin started leading them to the front doors of the studio. Hyunjin shared a dorm with Changbin that was about a twenty-minute drive from campus. “So my advice on everything? Just go with whatever your heart and mind wants. If that’s to never speak again, great. But if that means something more… I’d say, do it.” 

  Minho offered him the best smile he could muster at that moment, completely depleted of all energy and emotion. “Thanks, Hyunjinnie. You’re the best and I’m glad you’re such a good friend and listener to my crazy problems.” He said, squeezing Hyunjin's arm just as they made their way outside into the chilly autumn air.

  “Now we should both go home and get some rest. We need to replenish our energy for that stupid exam next week.” Hyunjin said, stepping over to the nearby parking lot and unlocking his electric Toyota Camry. “Oh, also— I’m gonna be gone all weekend. My family’s celebrating my grandma’s ninetieth birthday back in our hometown in Jeju.” 

  “Have fun and take it easy Jinnie. I’ll see you on Monday for another ball-crushing week of practice.” Minho shouted across the parking lot, giving Hyunjin a wave as his friend rolled his eyes sarcastically. 

  And then Minho was watching Hyunjin pull out of the lot and drive off. Suddenly faced with the silence of only his presence, he realized how heavy his shoulders had felt before talking about everything. Just like that, Hyunjin had helped him tremendously. Without Minho even realizing it, he had been holding onto a lot of shit for the past few weeks. Seeing Felix, and going to the party that night, definitely stirred up a lot of murky feelings inside of him. 

  Sure, nothing was solved and he still had a lot to process and work through. But the fact that he was even strong enough to get it out of his system accounted for something. 

  As Minho walked back to the dorm that he shared with Chris, he decided to fling himself into the work of perfecting the choreo for their exam. That way, once Hyunjin came back from his weekend trip, they’d be all ready to go for the final few practices. 

  Besides, distracting himself from everything with a long weekend in the studio would do Minho a lot of good. 

  Help him take his mind off of it all. 

  Take his mind off of thinking about Felix and what they used to be and what they could’ve been and— 

  Yes, dancing would suffice as a therapy.

─── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ───

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[rosewaterconley]

I solved a mystery that only I care about lol

ok so I have no clue what I'm doing and social media terrifies me. I will probably never touch this account again. why did I have to follow 3 algorithm-selected accounts to get into this website? I can actually name 3 people I'd want to follow on here and it's none of the people your fucking robot told me to follow. but hey, I feel like I have to post it here rather than my blogspot since nobody in the world actually uses blogspot and I want people to see this!

so anyway, there's this band out of the city of Milwaukee called Hero of a Hundred Fights. they dropped a couple CDs in the early 2000s and seem to have broken up, though all their members have been in bands since. that'll be important a little later. for now, Hero of a Hundred Fights are important to me on 2 levels:

I'm a Wisconsinite who has a tiny bit of an obsession with local history and art and really fuck with their weird mathy little corner of the 2000s hardcore scene

I'm a Faction Paradox fan and their 2001 EP The Remote, The Cold contains numerous references to the series! if you've heard of this EP before, it was probably in the context of some "music that references Faction Paradox" list or another

about #2... see, everyone already knows that track 2 is called Faction Paradox and track 3 is called The Celestis. we've all long since put together that the title is a reference to Lawrence Miles' Interference. but what about the lyrics? unfortunately, we don't know. they're not online, and the vocals are good, mind, but rather incoherent.

well, we didn't know. until I ordered a CD copy for like $8 lol. that's all it took! so here you go, the lyrics booklet plus some of the other artwork featured on the CD. artist Nick Slough did a great job on this art and it's a shame only the cover is widely available online (though that's hardly a problem unique to the physical version of this one album). turns out, this is some kinda concept album based on the Miles novel Interference. cool! really love the lyrics on Rope especially. "I need your blood to get this vessel running" and "my life was in your hands, I cut them off and now they're mine" are both raw as hell.

the cover art is pretty interesting. this album was recorded in 2000, released in 2001. the entire creative process occurred before the first standalone Faction Paradox release, The Book of the War. this means the album is entirely Doctor Who-based, not based on the FP series itself. it also means, if we assume the humanoid characters on the art are supposed to be the Remote, that this is the first-ever professional art depicting them!

disclaimer: the booklet lyrics don't 100% match up with what's said in the songs! it's mostly accurate but unfortunately there are some sections missing, some repeated bits that are only written once et al. that's all par for the course but I figured I'd mention it - especially in the case anybody wants to use this to transcribe the lyrics on Genius or some other site like that.

and while we're here, Hero 100 member William Zientara has been in a billion different bands, and I think he's probably the most responsible for the Doctor Who theme on this album. See, he was also in a short-lived band called Managara - named after a Doctor Who tie-in novel so obscure even I, owner of a complete set of Virgin New Adventures who spends my work breaks combing through digital copies of old fanzines, have only ever heard it discussed a handful of times. one of their songs is called Happiness Patrol. more recently, in 2021, he was in the band Fuiguirnet, who have a song called What Grows From the Seeds of Doom! which means Zientara has been randomly tossing Doctor Who references into songs from at least three different bands for twenty years!

so uhh without any further rambling here's the lyrics and art:

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Asians are all the same, right? The racism of a company cock gurgling moron

Like herpes and unlike the Dobbear, I am back baby.

At this point, deepest apology for my long absence. Personal issues over the last two years prevented me from writing anything and also destroyed for the longest time any desire to really continue the blog.

However, I don’t want to let things unfinished and seeing how the hypocricyofandrewdobson still manages to get some rise out of old Dobson related stuff, I wanted to just return, in order to properly contribute a bit more critical thinking in regard to his old comics.

And while I will not immediately return to my retrospective of SYAC, here is at least (for a start) my opinion on one comic of his, that in my opinion just proved hilarious and controversial in hindsight, and rather racist even back then.

I admit, I don’t know anymore what the title of the comic here is. All I know is, that it came out around 2018, shortly after the release of his “Black Panther” comic, another malignant piece of Dobtrash that has made the rounds online ever since. However, unlike the Black Panther comic, which became the center of a lot of discussion regarding Dobson’s racist assumptions about comic book fans while ironically trying to present himself as woke, this one was weirdly drifting off into obscurity. Which is kinda weird, cause in my opinion, it is way more racist and actually kinda insulting to the very craft Dobson supposedly “dedicated” his life to.

Let me explain.

First, over the course of three panels, Dobson comes essentially off like he is considering the medium of comics as inferior to the medium of movies. Making it look as if comics are unsuccessful because they cannot rail in the same amount of money than certain flics and calling them at best nothing more but a pitching ground for corporations to create new shallow mass product.

Now I am a bit of a realist and I know that, especially in the world of mainstream American superhero comics, this is kinda the case. Most comic book characters, stories and franchises are owned by multibillion dollar corporations, who either have a direct hand in the creation of the product (via corporate mandate for example) and/or use the likeness of the product to make profit in additional, more valuable revenues than the printed medium. Such as cartoons, merchandise and movies. One example I can think of, to show that it isn’t just an American issue: Yugioh. The card game wouldn’t have come to be if there hadn’t been a manga starring a little boy putting together an ancient Egyptian puzzle, but while the original manga ended way back in March of 2004, the card game makes millions globally still after 25 years and counting.

But that doesn’t change the fact, that comics as a medium still have value. Without the stories told within their pages, we wouldn’t have characters such as Captain America, Superman, the Mask, the Ninja Turtles and so on to begin with. Don’t get me even started on stories that aren’t falling into the American mainstream comic trend, but still succeeded in the printed comic medium partly because of genuine artistic and profound value such as Maus, Barefoot Gen, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, TinTin and a shitton of (other) stuff from Europe and Asia.

So when Dobson, who always acted like he is proud to be a cartoonist and that comics are a superior medium to others, suddenly reduces them to just being a “pitch ground for better stuff down the line” at best, I as a fan of the medium and just the art of creating stories in itself, get kinda pissed.

Additionally, the way how he compares movies to be better than comics, is severely flawed.

He brings up the fact, that “Captain America: Civil War” made over one billion dollars at the box office as an example, while pointing out the fact, that most single comic issues barely manage to sell 100.000 copies, while holding up a copypasted “Civil War” issue.

Already, Dobson essentially compares apples with bananas, while also giving both false and incomparable data, that also ignores many aspects to be considered.

For starters: He compares the earnings of both movies and comics with two different values. For movies, he goes by the monetary profit a superhero movie could possibly make, while for the comic issue, he goes by the total number of copies sold.

But here is the thing: Assuming the average selling price of a comic is at 4 dollars for a single 30 page issue, selling 100.000 copies would ring in like 400.000 dollars. And considering that producing one issue likely costs a company less than 20.000 dollars (obvious costs for mass production and distribution not withstanding) they can still make a decent profit this way from ONE issue alone. One issue. Not multiple issues of a long running, but sadly underperforming series. All of that by the way doesn’t even account for the fact, that most single issues at best tell only a quarter of a decent short story nowadays and ignores later “long term” factors, such as reprints of the issue, late term buying of the issue, tradepaperback sells of the issue, the longterm effect and cultural impact the issue may have on the actual series or plot continuity  (such as Amazing Spiderman 122, aka “The Night Gwen Stacy Died”). Don’t get me even started on the fact, that many of these issues get first sold in the US and only over the course of one year or longer may then additionally be sold in other parts of the world, therefore bringing in even more money for the publisher.

Example: The Duck comics by Don Rosa, which earn more than four times more in Europe, than they ever did in America, despite the guy being from California. Finally, a a little add addendum: that example Dobson gives indirectly via the “Civil War” issue? A quick google search revealed, that Civil War issue 1 sold over 300k copies in May of 2006 alone. Sure, not necessarily the best numbers ever for a single issue (as evident by the following list: https://bookriot.com/bestselling-comics-of-all-time/ )but still nothing to be ashamed of.

And yes, I know that we live currently in a time, where comic book sells have dropped significantly for a variety of reasons, one of them being an overall lack of decent stories. But as long as other stuff still manages to run freaking circles around American superheroes (*cough* One Piece *cough*) I wouldn’t say the medium itself is dead. Just a specific branch of it is suffering from a lack of quality and the customers are jumping ship.

A superhere movie meanwhile is a completely different beast. Ever since “The Avengers” came out in 2012, most superhero movies are 150-250 million dollar behemoths, that get overhyped by advertisement campaigns that are almost equally as expensive and try to trick the audience into believing, that they all are somehow the next big mindblowing thing on the big screen. Plus there hasn’t really been a superhero movie in the last 10+ years, that didn’t release simultaneously worldwide, instead of only coming out in the USA, and then a few months later, in other parts of the world.

So is it any wonder then, if a superhero movie that got advertised like the second coming of a saint, makes 1 billion, when there are already billions of potential customers worldwide all at once when the product launches?

That number btw becomes actually less impressive, once you start to think about how it came to be. Something our blue bear obviously didn’t.

See, on average every movie theater demands like what, 12-14 dollars per movie nowdays?

If we divide the box office of Civil war (1.152 billion btw) with 12 dollars, that makes on average 100 million people worldwide who watched the movie. A bit more than one or two percent of the worlds population. Not to forget, that of the box office success we have to substract such things as production cost of the movie, advertisement, the earnings of the theaters… so suddenly the movie may at best have had only earned one quarter of its box office for Disney as actual profit.

Not to forget, Dobson made that comic in 2018, when superhero movies on average did ring in so much money, because of the hype machine. But now we have 2023 and within the last five years (and especially 2023 itself) we have seen how superhero movies can also utterly fail to make money or even earn just enough to make back the production cost. Birds of Prey, Eternals, Ant Man 3, that Secret Invasion streaming show that still cost over 200 million… Do I need to get on?

Bottom line, Dobson’s indirect jab at comics as the less profitable revenue doesn’t hold that much water really in the real world, where once the hype dies down, comics may actually prove themselves as the more valuable longterm medium. Even if it may just be for the fact, that they end up staying longer relevant in the popcultural subconscious than the current movies, which tend to lose relevance with each new hastily produced and released installment in the franchise.

But where this comic really shines and shows Dobson’s ignorance on a cultural level, is in the last panel. When all off sudden it turns “racial” by claiming that Asian people, unlike “traditional” comic readers (aka white, in Dobbear s eyes therefore instantly racist people), would eat a Marvel character like Amadeus Cho up.

Question Dobson: Why do you assume, they would eat him up? You give no real argument based on anything the character does storywise, that the “target audience” may find admirable. So I can only think, that your reasoning is, because he is ever so slightly east asian coded.

Boy, do we have to unpack not just a can of worms, but a whole package of cans now.

First, the chosen language by saying “eat it up”. When being a writer, you should know that you need at times to choose your words wisely, because of the sheer implications they can carry. And the statement “eat it up” sounds way to close to a negative statement like “suck it up”. Making it come off as if Dobson considers Asian people to be mindless cattle that will consume the grub the House of Mouse will give them without question or any desire for actual quality to it.

Second, it recks of a certain mind set I hate within the American entertainment industry and some of its creators and consumers. That mind set being, that “non-traditional” American cultures supposedly don’t know better than Americans in what is okay for the sake of representation and entertainment or not. It’s a mindset that goes beyond the necessity of e.g. localizing a foreign product to the national market, by e.g. creating a sterilized, corporately mandated and rather unrealistic depiction of another culture within their product, that will fall apart as soon as the people who are supposed to be represented get a proper look at it and realize, how pandering and often times badly researched, if not outright offensive, it is.

Only recently did we see in the world of animation how that can backfire, when Disney released the trailer for “Primos” an upcoming animated show supposedly about a half Latina girl spending her summer vacation with her annoying cousins, people calling it based on the intro (and a leaked pilot) pandering towards a latino audience in a racist manner. And guess what: currently, Disney shelves it and tries to bury its existence like Dobson his old inflation art.

Dobson himself has actually indulged in that sort of shit kinda, back with his infamous Nintendo comic.

Essentially calling the “true”, Nintendo corporation approved depiction of his childhood Nintendo heroes disgraceful, for not falling in line with the late 80s depictions he saw in localized, made in America products such as the DiC cartoons. That and minor homophobia mixed with misogyny by calling Link “girly” for having longer blond hair since Ocarina of Time and blaming fangirls for it.

Third, and that is kinda related to my prior point, the reality of things is, that “Asians” actually did not eat up that sort of thing in the last couple of years. Sure, there is always that thing about a Chinese market. the big movie companies try to pander to and may succeed with some dumb action flics featuring big robots.

But the reality is, that not even people living in a dictatorship will eat up every trash you give to them, just because it comes from Hollywood or is supported by their glorious leadership. Disney tried to create two pandering messes of movies for Chinese people to watch, called Mulan (the live action adaptation) and that Shang Chi movie. And how did they do there? Oh right! The government did not even allow Shang Chi to be released and Mulan was released but supposedly didn’t do so well, considering (COVID not withstanding) it only made 70 million globally!

Don’t get me even started on every human right controversy in relation to the later, starting with filming in China near a concentration camp and ending with the main actress being essentially a Chinese propaganda puppet.

So, if those movies flopped, why would Chinese people for example flock for an Asian Hulk? A hulk that is not even Chinese but Korean.

See, this is another issue that fails with the example: The actual choice of character Dobson name dropped is actually kinda terrible.

For those unaware: Amadeus Cho is a supporting character in the Marvel comics, created in 2005 by American writer Greg Pak and artist Takeshi Miyazawa. The later, despite the name being very east Asian, sounding, actually being from Canada. Now both do have east Asian roots so to speak (Pak  e.g. is the son of an Korean-american man with a Caucasian woman), but they also have grown up within a society that taught them both western social values more so than we would see in east Asian countries. So with the creators already not necessarily having the most real life experience with the average mindset of a Korean citizen, can we really say that their actual creation helps “represent” those people of a foreign, non-american culture?

And that is not even covering stuff like the actual story of the character itself.

See, in the comics, Cho is supposed to be an American-Korean genius (wish fullfillment much, Greg?) and one of the smartest people in the Marvel Universe. His parents named him after Amadeus Mozart (a pretty white motherfucker as far as I remember) and he grew up under Methodist beliefs. So basically the “Korean heritage” of the character has already been thrown out of the window. Now I don’t expect the character to act stereotypical Korean, listen to K-pop, declare bulgogi to be his favorite dish or any of that shit. But when you want to sell me the character as being in some way or another connected to his ancestral culture, shouldn’t he engage at least in some “Korean coded” things?

I mean, the character of Anne Boonchuy in Amphibia is a Thai-American who acts more like a 13 year old girl that learns to be less selfish and impulsive over the course of the show and whose “heritage” isn’t thrown at us, the viewer, most of the time. In fact, Anne herself acknowledges that she e.g. can’t really speak thai, despite her own mother being fluent in it and a season 3 episode reveals, that Anne is “begrudgingly” a part of the L.A. thai community. And yet, in connection to the shows story and as part of Anne’s characterization, her heritage is acknowledged and plays a part of who she is. Even if it simply means she knows how to cook certain thai dishes, loves her parents and their customs, helps out in their restaurant, can speak a few words thai and knows the basics of Muay Thai, a form of martial arts (and fighting sport) from Thailand.

Amadeus doesn’t even have Korean parents anymore, because they were killed as part of his tragic hero backstory. Nor has he ever visited an Asian country. Oppps.

To build further up on it, Amadeus becomes for the longest time simply a major supporting character in the Marvel universe for the likes of Hulk and Hercules, two white coded characters. Sure, he plays a major role in the defeat of some cosmic horror level villains (such as Mikaboshi in the Chaos God storyline most people forgot even existed) but it takes a long time for him to become a “A-lister” so to speak.

In fact, according to Wikipedia, it wasn’t till after “Secret Wars” in 2016 (eleven years after the character was created), that Amadeus thanks to a chain of events eventually got his chance to Hulk out. And then they still had to kill Bruce Banner to make Amadeus “stand out” initially (don’t worry, Bruce came back. I mean, characters actually staying dead in comics, so that heroes can learn there are consequences? Preposterous) In fact, Amadeus hasn’t really proven himself as a decent “solo” act. Instead he became a member of the Champions (among Miles Morales, Mrs. Marvel, Vision’s daughter Viv. Nova and Cyclops), essentially creating yet another superhero team for teenaged vigilantes. Despite the fact, Cho himself should be by now in his mid 20s.

Now look, I do not want to shit talk the character. Partly because I haven’t read everything he was in myself and partly because in the few things I did see him in (both pre- and post Hulk) he was okay. He is a decent hero and person, who tries to do good, even if he screws up here and there. That is something I can admire in a character in general. But he is not a good “representation” of another culture, because his complexion and minor physical features aside, he is NOT embodying even minor values or traditions of that foreign culture. He is simply a Korean-American (or technically Canadian), who falls more on the American side of things.

So essentially, Dobson who virtue signaled on multiple occasions how bad it is when companies he didn’t like tried to speak on behalf of other cultures, would have no problem at all to ask for Asian people to swallow this obviously “Made in American” product. The “Made in America” line actually working both on a metaphorical and a storytelling level, cause trying to google what “east Asian coded” heroes in the Marvel Universe actually come from an Asian country instead of being simply born on American soil, is pretty damn small.

After 20 minutes I only found Shang Chi, as he was born in China, and that character was created as part of kung-fu exploitation in the 70s by white dudes.

Yaiks

However, none of that tops the next two points that really sell Dobson to me as an American centralistic racist. Or at least a twat who doesn’t understand how through bad wording he comes of as ignorant of other people’s cultures.

The way he generalizes Asian people in his statement, while also ignoring the actual accomplishments in the creation of entertainment in multiple Asian countries.

If you’ve read closely what I typed, you may have seen that I used the term Asian at times in tandem with the term “east Asian” to e.g. describe Amadeus Cho.

And that had a very deliberate reason. While I was not a fan of geography in school, even I know that Asia as a continent is not “nationally” as homogenous as let’s say Australia or North America. In fact, Asia is the biggest continent on the planet, hosts more than half of earth’s population and consists of at least 47 internationally acknowledged states.

States such as Turkey, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, North- and South Korea, Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Iran and so on.

Now what all these states have in common, is that they have their own unique historical, social and “racial” culture and background. Heck, religiously speaking, Asia is the cradle of the world.

As such, Dobson stating that a “Korean coded” character such as Amadeus Cho (who is only Korean on the most surface level and would technically just be a legacy character of yet another white person) would be an immediate hulk smash hit with all these different people of different backgrounds…. Yeah, it sounds like condescending, colonization inspired shit, a smooth brain would come up with.

To Dobson “Asia”, at least based on that comic, is only defined as the “yellow skinned” people from the far east, who like rice, noodles, spicy food and give us anime, Godzilla, fireworks, buddhism and communism. It does not include anyone from the middle east or of more European ancestry. And if you are even remotely familiar about history, you would also know that Japanese, Koreans and Chinese all around do not e.g. like to be thrown into a pot with the others for a variety of reasons. Many of them political.

Or to sum it up even shorter: Dobson insinuated that a very shallow, “east Asian” coded American comic character would be an immediate hit with more than 47 different countries, ignoring that not all of them share the same background despite being part of the “same” landmass. And in doing so, he simultaneously generalized and denounced entire groups of people based on their racial and cultural background, which in as far as I am aware of, is considered racist.

But the “racism” is supposedly justified, because “representation” matters, it would be giving the middle finger to “traditional” comic fans and those nations and their culture are underrepresented globally.

Which is baloney.

Don’t get me wrong, I myself think that representation does matter. But the world does not necessarily rely on the good old US-Ayy only to give it to us.

Cause a lot of the Asian nations I brought up here? They have their own entertainment industry and stories, which again, get ignored by Dobson to make a dumb and false point.

I mean, manga is currently dominating the international comic market, all while Japan has also a booming animation industry and some of the most iconic heroes in modern popculture with the likes of Son Goku, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai etc.

China has a prominent -if propaganda driven- movie industry.

India has Bollywood and delivers some of the most ridiculous but awesome musical movies on the planet.

Russia had authors such as Tolstoy and movie directors, that redefined the “art” of filmmaking.

Korea had a few years ago one of the biggest streaming hits with Squid Game, while also earning an Oscar for a movie titled Dobs- I mean “Parasite”.

Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey… even nations that have not entertainment living up to “western standards” still produce stuff in some way or form to entertain the masses and their people. Just google up the character Kara Murat aka the avenger of Anatolia.

And don’t get me even started on the sheer ton of mythology, stories and history each of their cultures have provided the world with. Journey to the West? Baba Yaga, the entirety of the Gilgamesh epos...

And yet, there is this indirect assumption by Dobson, that all of them would be so deprived of “heroes” in their media and folklore, they would letch on second hand shop Hulk? Fuck off, Dobbear. I know you like to suck corporate cock as long as you think they are woke and you have childhood nostalgia for them, but this is pathetic. Take Amadeus before A Rama Raju comes around and roundhouse kicks him back to Canada. Then get the taste of mouse smegma of your Disney cock gobbling lips.

[thevioletscout]

Did you know!

Betty Boop was based on an African American jazz singer named Esther Jones, pictured below!

Despite this, Betty Boop has been consistently portrayed as white, and Esther Jones' likeness was used without her permission. 

And if you've actually read this far and not just nodded and scrolled on, congratulations! I was lying to you, that entire thing was bunk.

Esther Jones, better known as Baby Esther or Lil Esther, was only a child when Betty Boop made her debut, her exact age is a mystery due to a lack of records. That image I showed you before? That's of a model named Olya P. for the magazine Retro Atelier in 2008. Also Olya’s not even black, she’s white and either Russian or Ukrainian.

Betty Boop was indeed visually based off a jazz singer and actress, but it was Helen Kane, a white woman. Clara Bow, another white singer, is also sometimes cited as an inspiration, but with less evidence. 

It was Helen Kane who found out her likeness was used without permission and filed a lawsuit against Max Fleischer and Fleischer Studios for it. While he would later wholeheartedly admit it, he denied the likeness as part of his testimonies. In the process, he argued that Kane had taken most of her songs and style from Baby Esther. However, according to Wikipedia it’s possible a lot of the evidence for that was fabricated in an attempt to discredit Kane.

So to be more precise, Betty Boop was based off a white woman who might have based her image off a little black girl.

Also, the topic of Betty Boop's intended race gets a little silly regardless given that she was first conceptualized as an anthropomorphic poodle. While it's not exactly unheard of for the 1930s, I don't think they were really focusing on coding her as a specific race at that moment.

The cartoon Minnie the Moocher (remember this) would even depict Betty Boop as coming from a German immigrant family. Many speculated she was even Jewish due to this as well as the Fleischer brothers and her voice actress Mae Questel both being Jewish, but Benjamin Ivry of Forward pointed out that her family's meals were not Kosher so this was unlikely. 

Now you might be thinking; okay but what's the harm in portraying Betty Boop as black? Can’t black people reclaim this one character for themselves? And honestly, I kinda agree. Personally I think Betty Boop is one of those characters that can be ANY race, not just white or black, given her ambiguous and stylized features. I love seeing black women cosplaying Betty Boop or her being portrayed as black in art.

However, the reason I bring this up is because I personally think false or misleading information does not make for good representation. Especially when it leads to situations where artists have to explain themselves for giving Betty Boop light skin when the reason cited otherwise is blatant misinformation. Though thankfully the one interaction I have had about it before posting this was very polite.

Not to mention, this kind of thing maybe not necessarily buries but distracts from the very real contributions and accomplishments of black people in Betty Boop's history.

Let's talk Cab Calloway, for example.

Cab Calloway was a singer and bandleader acclaimed for mixing jazz with vaudeville. He was the first African American to sell one million copies of a single record, and collaborated with Fleicher Studios for three animations, Minnie the Moocher, Snow White, and The Old Man of the Mountain. In these, he would perform a song, the first and last even being directly named after his music, and he was even directly rotoscoped while dancing. 

I can't find any sources for who approached who for these collaborations, but I feel its needless to say there's an inherent respect for Calloway and his work in these cartoons. For a black man in the 1930s. And they didn’t even hide it, Minnie the Moocher and The Old Man of the Mountain features live footage of Cab Calloway and his very visibly black band.

These cartoons bleed passion from both the singer and the animators. And if you’ll excuse the sidenote, I watched those cartoons as part of my research and even today his music is still absolutely enchanting. 

And Calloway was not immune to racism just because of his success either. He and a friend, Felix H. Payne Jr. were even victims of police brutality by officer William E. Todd in 1945 when they were attempting to visit Lionel Hamptom at the whites-only Pla-Mor Ballroom.

His work matters. Betty Boop was only one small part of his career, the man did a lot in his time, but he brought something truly amazing to the table.

There are real people whose accomplishments deserve to be recognized, but I feel they often get pushed aside in the efforts to make up representation that was never actually there under the false belief that there was none in the first place.

Hell, this entire thing is a discredit to the real life of Esther Jones herself!

She was a literal child who’s date of birth and especially death are unknown. She gained fame in her hometown Chicago which led to her becoming an international celebrity, touring Europe as an honored representation of African Americans alongside Josephine Hall. Then she basically retired as a teenager and disappeared from the public eye.

And what is her memory nowadays? As a sexy flapper that supposedly inspired Betty Boop’s creation.

Even knowing this was false, I had to fight back so much misinformation while making this. This photo right here? I was led to believe this was a photo of an adult Esther Jones, but it’s not! We don’t have photos of her as an adult! This is a completely different, unidentified, woman photographed by James Van Der Zee!

And quite frankly, as a white woman I feel like a jerk having to be the one to tell black people that actually no Betty Boop was based on Helen Kane, not Esther Jones.

So in conclusion, STOP MAKING SHIT UP.

[Sources:

Betty Boop - Wikipedia

Cab Calloway - Wikipedia

Baby Esther - Wikipedia

Модель Оля | BETTY BOOP Wiki | Fandom

Dizzy Dishes (1930)

Minnie the Moocher (1932)

Snow White (1933)

The Old Man of the Mountain (1933)]

[taybatwo2]

Monster High IDW Comics Review: Part 1 of ?: Free Comic Book Day 2024 Issue 

A late review, but I wanted to review this and the Pride Comic together.

Comic Overview: The Free Comic Book Day MH IDW preview has an almost completely different staff to the Pride Issue; the writer is Jacque Aye (she/her, writer who has her own series of novels and likes to “spin tales about woeful women with a surrealist, magical touch.” I don’t feel like that necessarily fits with MH, but her novels look good).

She is interviewed in the back of this preview and it sounds like she has about 40 dolls from various toy lines, and loves her Skullector Series Beetlejuice and Lydia (she used to be afraid of them).

She says that the comic “is YA and inspired by the darkness Wednesday and the drama of Gossip Girl.” Aaaaaand the only thing people need to know about the comic beforehand is to watch the G1 animated webisodes, read the new Once Bitten, Twice Dead novel (it comes out in mid-July) and “to buy a few dolls for your collection ;)”  The artist is Siobhan Keenan (she/her, also did “Summer Fangout” in the MH Pride Comic and has a ton of GORGEOUS art on -Twitter- “x” and Instagram: @ siobhanchiffon).

The colorist is Rebecca Nalty (she/her, also worked on “Summer Fangout,” and has beautiful artwork on her own website and Instagram: @ sharkberri). The cover artist (and the MonsterNet artist) is Luciannys Camacho (she/her, again, BEAUTIFUL artwork -including some G3 Venus- on Instagram: @ opal_lines).

Lettered and design is Kielamel Sibal (she/her, another artist on Instagram @ labis_lemaleik). The editor is Riley Farmer (she/her, I think, I can’t access her LinkedIn profile), with the production done by Johanna Nattalie (she/her and has worked on a lot of IDW Sonic titles). They are the same team that also worked on the Pride Comic Issue).

The full series will be rated “T” for teen.

In the back of the preview, it lists a “schedule” for the upcoming releases in the IDW New Scaremester” G1 comic series (I assume they didn’t want to call it Boo Scaremester due to the G1 doll line of the same name).

The floppies will be releasing every month starting in August-May and all 10 copies will probably be collected in the listed “Monster High Fearbook 2024-2025” also in May. ….I assume.

There are three more One Offs: Halloween 2024 (in “Fangtober”), Snow Ball (in December 2024…only October gets a pun), and Spring Break (in April 2025). I don’t know if these will be collected in the Fearbook too, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. 

The “2025-2026 Scaremester” will start its new set of floppies in August of 2025. If this schedule is followed to the “t.” 

Some information on the G1 canon to date, because G1’s canon is kinda a mess that contradicts itself EVERWHERE (unlike the EAH books, which all kinda mesh pretty well with another and a pretty good read) and can be broken down into several categories:

The Doll’s Diaries 2010-2022 (I consider these to be the most important as they delve into the characters internal feelings and we get a deeper look at them and their relationships with one another. I wish they continued making them, but not everyone has read them). You can lump UK’s MH Figurine Collection Mini-Diaries, and Nessi Monstrata’s MH Diary Series in with these as they follow the same premise.

The Monster High G1 Animated Webisodes (175 webisodes, 2010-15)/Commercials/New Ghoul at School (these seem to be what most people still imagine the G1 characters acting and sounding like. It’s kinda a mixed bag of episodes -especially the first and ending seasons- and I feel like the diaries do a better job at characterization, but I have a nostalgic soft spot for these webisodes. It does sometimes contradict itself and the diaries). 

Monster High Supplemental Books/Web Stuff: Books that mostly just repeated facts/pictures from the Webisodes and Diaries (such as the MH Annuals 2014-2016, 2013’s MH Fearbook, 2013’s MH My Monster Life, 2013’s MH Meet the Monsters, and the 2014’s MH Collection) or LIGHTLY built-off the canon that was mostly explored in the webisodes and diaries. (For some reason the movies were not mentioned quite as often). These include 2015’s Scare-ific Secrets (this one was a great read for a G1 fan), the Monster High website’s 2012 Boo Year’s Eve Countdown, 2012’s-2013’s Freaky Fab 13, and the 2014 Dance the Night Away: A Night in Scare-adise Prom. 

The 13 G1 CGI Monster High Movies (these would contradict themselves. Like MH’s Ghoul’s Rule involving a lot of more of New Salem/Salem’s normies, or the Great Scarrier Reef forgetting a lot of Lagoona’s characterization. They do have some of my favorite MH moments in them).

Could MOSTLY fit into the lore. These are stories that can technically fit into the main timeline, but may not be mentioned again by other characters (the Ghoulfriend’s Book series -has a whole new villain, some new side characters, and MH dorms, and the two Graphic Novels: “I Only Have Eye for You” -it is mentioned off handedly in Kieran’s Diary, but doesn’t fit in chronologically- and “Hopes and Screams” -basically a collection of original webisodes in comic form, and Shannon Hale’s EAH/MH crossover: “The Legend of Shadow High,” EAH is hinted at in “13 Wishes” and “Boo York, Boo York”). Or they are just slightly off from the main canon (2011’s MH Ghoul Spirit and New Ghoul in School games have in-game only main characters). 

Information given by the creators (such as Garrett Sander’s Q and A’s and Instagram doll breakdowns). They’re really fun and interesting but teeeechnically not canon.

Their own thing (the Lisi Harrison novels were MH in name only and the Monster High Anime: Scary Cool Ghouls, a fun watch, but their own continuity). I’m also going to guess that the just announced Universal Live Action G1 movie will hang out here too.

I’m going to assume (after my breakdown of the FCBD IDW preview that the main IDW comics and Once Bitten will be in the last category…oh…joy…)

Okay, that was a lot of information. Time for my personal thoughts/review and more pictures under the cut!!!!

First off …I don’t have much confidence that I will like it due to:

1. Being out of the age range of “YA” (I still like some of it, but it’s not guaranteed).

2. The writer comparing it to two shows I didn’t personally care for.

3. It sounds like it will be in the same G1 continuity as the Once Bitten, Twice Dead novel and that novel screams NOT FOR ME (it honestly sounds like my least favorite YA fiction tropes: overly angsty and dark…and in a cringy way to try and make it sound more adult. Like CW shows! Or that cancer live action Power Puffs reboot/ continuation). It’s not continuing the G1 MH canon I was personally connected to.

4. Despite all the artists having great looking artwork in their instas, I personally do not care for the artwork….or maybe the layout…both…(?) in the comic. I think it looks a bit generic looking (where is Frankie’s boxier head, Clawdeen’s larger nose, Cleo’s sharp angles?!). Like, it’s not necessarily bad, but the art style just doesn’t grab my attention in this comic (maybe it was rushed…?).

I will probably check out the first full floppy volume for this run, but otherwise I don’t collect floppies (single issue released comics) because they’re so fragile and it’s more affordable for me to get their collected versions. 

5. I am not the biggest western-comics fan and generally prefer independent graphic novels or manga/manhwa due to their stories feeling more cohesive (I generally don’t have to worry about different runs being picked up or dropped by different artists and writers) and I like knowing the inside/panel art will look very similar to the quality of the cover art (generally different artists will work on ongoing western comic series and I find it disappointing to pick up a comic with a beautiful cover to only be met with a different art style inside -like this comic-). 

Soooo taking that all into consideration, let’s delve in:

The opening letter is from Headmistress Bloodgood (using her original G1 signature, what a fun detail). Remember how Bloodgood would fight for her students and was a fair, but lightly strict Headmaster? Maybe the school board gave her absolutely no choice.

Speaking of Bloodgood, is she a reanimated normie? Or does she come from a long line of headless monsters….ghosts?? I’m pretty sure Hexiciah is mostly human (besides the little bit of fairy blood in him), and Victor Frankstein is most definitely human….

I would be surprised if Jackson/Holt are going to be in this continuity. Their mom definitely broke the “no romance with normies claws” to have made them and Jackson is often considered a normie. I’m guessing the Ghouls Rule movie didn’t happen in this continuity either…

This letter is alluding to a bunch of fuuuuuun (aka dark angsty shit with normies) that went down in Once Bitten and that this comic series is going to be dealing with the blowback from that.

Geeze, for being the most “inclusive and accepting school for monsters” it is hardcore against the real monsters….THE normies. DUN! Dun! DUUNN!

I feel like these “no normie rules” are influenced by G3’s NO NORMIE policy; or the Lisi Harrison books. I’m getting a whole lot of vibes reminiscent of the Lisi Harrison books. Woof…

“”The School Board has voted to more stringently uphold these claws moving forward.”” I do find it funny that the Monster High Universe seems to be run by Monster High’s school board.

If the artwork in the corner is anything to go by, it looks like the G1 CGI movie version of the school will be used for this iteration. 

I might have to re-upload the comic pages without the speech bubbles for copyright reasons, but since this one was a free issue, I thought it would slide:

Page 1:

The actual comic starts off with a very distraught Frankie wanting to spend time with her dad this summer, but he declines. He’s too busy with his research into trying to make a perfect reanimating process….?

Whoaaa buddy I’ve got some bad news for you. I think you are a bit late to the party.

G1’s Victor Frankenstein reanimated you and your wife, I believe you guys both made Watzie for Frankie, Frankie created Hoodude and the gingerbread boy and that’s just the Steins. Hexiciah Steam created Robecca, and I’m sure some of Monster High’s Zombies were reanimated and not born naturally!! Another change in this comic, they decided to call Viktor Stein (Frankie’s dad) just Frankenstein. Aaaand make him both conventionally attractive and constantly in partial shadow (is he going to be super broody in this??). I remember him being a lot more playful towards Frankie in the diaries and liking dumb puns.

And, I mean, I’m not against more dilfs in MH (Hexiciah *cough cough* and G2’s Dracula *cough cough*), but I was kinda hoping for a more interesting/fun-take on the monster-y design.

MH already has these designs kicking around!

A small nitpick: they used a distractingly large/thick brush to ink-in the black parts of his hair, and I don’t like how it messily covers the finer lines of hair.

““The day I sewed your parts together and zapped you to life was the best day of MY life.””

From this line, it sounds like G1’s Viveka Stein is going to be MIA in this series as he doesn’t mention her at all in creating Frankie. This man is either taking all the credit here or Viveka was taking a snooze or something…

Pros: Frankie looks very cute in the second panel (except for the fingers which look a bit off) and Siobhan can draw hot older men VERY well.

Page 2:

“Frankenstein” explains to Frankie that he’s too busy trying to get his (redundant) research ready for the “World’s Scare Science Exhibition.” Frankie interrupts and sees that her ghouls need her. Frankenstein once again alludes to this version of G1 being a melodrama “let me know how they’re faring.”

I find Frankenstein’s: “I could never create another you my dear. You’re one of a kind.” Kinda silly.

Alivia has entered the chat (shhh I know she’s G2).

“What I am doing here is something different. Something that’s never been done before.” Again -Vik- Frankenstein, you’re a bit late to the party there.

Personal Nitpick: Why use “Scare Science Exhibition,” when you’ve been using the “Mad Science” pun in G1 already. IMO, I think it also sounds better.

Pro: Frankenstein’s face looks well drawn (especially in the fourth panel-ignoring his blotchy, black hair streaked- look at his cute little bolt eye-glasses).

so does his armchair in the first panel,

and Frankie’s face in the first and second panel.

Con: I think all of their hands look off (especially the fingers). I don’t know if it’s the line work or the coloring, but they all read as awkward and oddly sharp (Frankie’s thumb in the first panel, and whole left hand in the third panel).

Page 3:

Sounds like the ghouls are fighting again, Frankie is caught in the middle, and Draculaura is dealing with the brunt of the shit show from the “Once Bitten” book.

Personal Nitpick: Draculaura is drawn REALLY tall in this photo (in the webisodes and CGI movies, she is teeny).

Pro: Frankie looks great in the first panel, I like her and Clawdeen’s smile in the photo, and her expression in the fourth panel. Con: Frankie’s hands look janky in the first panel.

Page 4:

Apparently Frankenstein remembered electricity being vital to reanimation, and rushes to find his notes (that were apparently not on his desk). But his notes are missing. Dun! Dun!! I wonder who the brains in the jar belong to?? Perhaps Vivika and Victor Frankenstein are in this version of G1 after all…

Pro: I liked his exclamation: “by Mary Shelly’s ghost.”

I really liked how Frankenstein is drawn in the third panel and how he breaks out of the frame of the panel too. It just feels a lot more “alive” and energetic.

The lightning bolt is drawn well and the toppled mug of coffee in the background of the fourth panel is a nice addition. Page 5 (the last of the paneled comic in this preview):

A super eeeevillll person suddenly sprouts up from nowhere (was this guy squatting down in the corner of the room; waiting for Frankenstein to figure out the key to reanimating life) and grabs Frankenstein’s “life’s work;” threatening to destroy it, unless he agrees to work with him. Frankie-boy agrees. Meanwhile, Frankie is still talking to her boos, while flipping through her photo album.

I also wonder if the ghouls are not allowed to fang out during summer break and can only see each other during the school season?? Otherwise, why can’t they all fang out. :/ Personal Nitpick: how did that burglar get into that room?? Was he there the whole time (pretending to be a table) or did he sneak in after Frankie left?

Frankenstein’s “life’s work” is entirely made up of a two whole envelopes(?) and two spiral notebook pages. That’s it Frank?!? That’s all?!? And is Lagoona not part of the main squad in this version of G1 (maybe she WAS actually boiled alive in the previous book)?

Pro: Frankenstein’s hand (once again breaking the panel’s outline) looks very well drawn. Frankie mostly looks great in the last two panels (I love her pose in the fourth panel

and her cute smile in the last one). Con: Cleo’s face doesn’t look like herself in the last panel (where did all of her sharp facial angles go)??

They gave Frankie yaoi-sized hands in the fourth panel. Haha! They’re huge!

This is the last “comic page” in this FCBD preview. There are four Monster Net profiles of the main ghoul, a Schedule (I covered this earlier), an interview with the author (also covered earlier), and another picture of the cover art. The Monster Net is a clever G1 upgrade, I like these and the details that went into them (even if I don’t like the implication of what written here). The artwork is done by the cover artist: Luciannys Camacho, and looks great.

In Frankie’s her dad is confirmed to be her only parent… :/ Boooo!!!

Draculaura’s profile is just…very sad. The poor ghoul apparently has had a bad year with her dad (who may or may not be dead) making her drink blood (to save her life…? Was it a ritual..? He was begrudgingly okay with her vegan life style beforehand) and going to meetings (is she taking over a business, is she being called in to testify what happened the last year at MH)? I am so not looking forward to what’s going down in “Once Bitten”….

I guess that her new step mom from the Diaries Series (Ramoanah) is also not a thing in this either (none of these ghouls get moms). Draculaura also looks super cute in this artwork!!

Clawdeen’s bio really plays up her being a fashion influencer and I think that perfectly works for her. Her bio is also hinting at everyone being sad, distant, and off. It confirms she has a girlfriend: Toralei….which I have mixed feelings on. I really like G3 Clawdeen and Toralei and I have seen REALLY cute artwork for G1 Clawdeen and Toralei. But that’s about it. Besides their dog/cat theme, I haven’t been swayed to ship them just yet (Toralei did some horrendous things to the ghouls and while I’m a sucker for enemies-to-lovers they haven’t done enough flirting with each other for me to hop on board yet). I assume they will have their relationship built up in “Once Bitten” and not just “Summer Fangout” (because that still just felt like it was skimming the surface).

Her artwork also looks great (her outfit especially looks well drawn).

Cleo’s profile is also fine. But WHY did the newest Monster High Diaries (from the Haunt Couture line) and THIS comic want to break up G1 Cleo and Deuce?!? They are a great power couple and have already gone through so many ups and downs in G1 to prove that they love each other. Since when does Cleo care about who Nefera has dated (apparently Nefera has dated someone in another dimension….is she dipping into the fairy tales and dating someone at Ever After High or the Barbie verse? Is this what happened to Blaine after Barbie dumped him to be with Ken again?!?).

Final Thoughts:

Well, that was certainly a preview of what’s to come and I’m super wary of it. :/ Again, I might’ve just aged out of G1’s YA melodrama that they’re leaning into. But I was hoping for a semi-proper continuation of the MH G1 continuity. Maybe see the ghouls graduate (after following them around their senior year) and head to college…? See some of their family members start MH…? G1 Monster High has some good bones and ideas to play around with (it’s far from perfect-I already mentioned how confusing the lore is). Plus, writers now can be inspired (or know what to avoid) by what’s happened in G2 and G3.

I already stated that this fits into the last category of MH G1 Lore “It’s Own Thing,” and this IS just a peak into it, and MAYBE I’ll be swayed, but so far, I’m just not super impressed. I give this preview a 5.8/10. The artwork is mostly pretty good, the paneling is not groundbreaking, but also not bad, it flows well. The story is what’s holding me back (but it is a free issue and it got me to finally go into our local comic book shop for Free Comic Book day).

Anyways, those are just my thoughts. What do you think of the story so far? Are you excited about “Once Bitten”/IDW MH comics living their best alternate G1 lives? Are all of my takes awful? Let me know!

Part 2 of this series of reviews will be part one of (hopefully four posts of) MH’s Pride Issue’s Comic: “Summer Fangout.”

[averagewriter-inthedark]

Different Kind Of Runway ✨ | Reuben “Payback” Fitch Headcanon

Link to my TGM masterlist

Lt. Reuben “Payback” Fitch married to a supermodel would look like:

Believe it or not, Reuben is quite the fashion guy and how y’all met was cause he managed to go to New York Fashion Week due to his sister being a makeup artist. She had him as her plus one and they both got to attend one of the after parties. It was at the party you met Reuben and he of course knew your face—-you had captivated him on the runway that day when you walked for Tommy Hilfiger.

Spotting his sister, who had done your makeup for the show, you sped over to say hi which is where she introduced you to the man who would become your husband. When you saw him the first thing you thought was, “wow.” He was TALL and you are quite the tall girl yourself (which was how you got scouted at 17 standing at 5’11) but he was taller and the finest man you’d ever seen—and you’ve dated male models before.

“Y/n, I’d like you to meet my brother, Lt. Reuben Fitch. Rue this is Y/n L/n.” “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am. I’m Reuben.” Before you knew it you two had talked all night way past the party ending and had went to a bar to continue to the conversation. You found out he was a Naval aviator with a call sign called ‘Payback,’ and stationed at NAS Oceana in Virginia.

“Payback? That’s kinda badass—how’d you get that name?” “Well in flight school I sorta..intentionally made someone buy a round for everyone in a bar but I felt bad and paid them back.” “And here I thought it was because you know how to get revenge if someone wrongs you.” “Well I can do that too.”

You both knew that night you’d want to continue getting to know one another, so you exchanged numbers and planned a date. Being based in New York meant you didn’t have to travel far to see him and vice versa. On weekends he’d come to New York or if you had a week off from shoots you’ll drive to Virginia. Your relationship was like that, and then when you got married you moved in with him but traveled whenever you booked a gig or show.

Reuben is that husband who if he comes with you to a shoot or show he’s taking pics and videos of you on his phone. Sometimes he’ll copy your poses to make you laugh, which the photographer loves when they want some candid shots. Expect to hear him go, “woooork. Yes ma’am, give me face. Show me your best Vogue.” Sometimes the photographer will ask him to join and Reuben will throw you over his shoulder and spin you around in a fit of giggles. Dip you before kissing you, hold you bridal style, and of course do some model poses with your help.

Whenever you are featured on the cover of a magazine like Vogue, Playboy, Sports Illustrated or Variety Payback collects them and will have at least one of them in his office. His coworkers are always like eye boggling it then they see the wedding photo next to it and are like “Holy shit….Payback got GAME.” But who could be surprised, mans is like sex on legs it’s no surprise he and his wife are the hottest couple on the planet.

Because of his job he can’t go to every show or fashion week, but he always tries to make time for NYFW since it’s sentimental to y’all. Paris, Milan, and London are rare but he has attended them once or twice, especially to see you walk Versace, Prada, & Fendi. He doesn’t embarrass you by cheering but he will pull out his phone to record you and just beam at you like a kid spotting the toy he wants for Christmas in the window of a store.

After about 5 years of marriage and 15 years of modeling you had finally achieved the status of Supermodel and had won the award of Model of the Year a couple times—becoming one of the highest paid in the industry with a staple walk that had designers booking you left and right. Unlike most models, you didn’t really attend award shows when you were invited, although you did go to the Met a few times and had Reuben as your plus one whenever you did. You were a very reserved and private person despite your public status & thankfully paparazzi who followed you were unable to get on base. This definitely came in handy when Payback was called back to Top Gun for a special mission.

When the team arrived on base for the first day of training—you had opted out of going to the bar the night before—all were confused as fuck by the crowd of cars and cameraman waiting at the visitors center. “Did the base commander die or is the president flying in?” Hangman chuckled as they took their seats. Fanboy smirked, patting Rueben’s chest, “nah it’s for his woman.”

You’d known Mickey since he and Reuben were assigned together at NAS Oceana. The two of you were as close as siblings with Mickey even coming out to support you at shows when Reuben asked him to tag along. He did fanboy like his call sign and was embarrassed to admit he did follow you on social media, which you found amusing and told him it was nothing to be embarrassed about.

The second the words left Mickey’s mouth everyone turned in their seats to look at Reuben. “Who’s your woman, Payback?” Coyote questioned, and before Reuben could answer he was cut off by Nat’s gasp, her phone in her hand as she pulled up his instagram. “You’re married to supermodel Y/n L/n!!”

You can imagine the questions your poor hubby was bombarded with. And then when he finally introduced you the day everyone went to the beach you knew they were all gonna be a part of your life forever. After the mission concluded you both kept in touch with the squad and would meet up throughout the year.

They like to joke how you are like them just you walk a different type of runway. “Hey, the jet basically struts down the runway like you when it takes off….only its pulling hundreds of miles per hour.”

Whenever y’all go out you get hit on, it’s a common occurrence and usually they back off when they see your ring or Reuben comes in sizing the dudes up. But the best is when you and Phoenix are getting borderline harassed when y’all are sitting down and you give Nat a look. She knows what’s about to happen and gets her phone ready to capture the reaction of the asshole when you stand up, in heels which make you over 6ft and look down on him. Then Reuben, Bob and Rooster come up behind you which has the dude scurry off. Nothing punches an insecure mans ego than when you size them up.

A favorite memory of yours was inviting all of them, including Mav, to the Calvin Klein show you were opening and having to get them all styled with your team. It was such beautiful chaos in the hotel suite with the guys and Phoenix having to get fitted before being hauled into hair and makeup. You had time before you were called to the venue for your own glam and dress, so for your entertainment you vlogged the whole scene. “Javy, could you please tell the people who and what you’re wearing for tonight’s show.” “Well we got the custom Calvin fit going on, curtesy of Mr. Calvin Klein himself. The suit is the finest material you’ll ever see, leather shoes and oh! —can’t forget the shades so the paps are unable to my eyes.”

“Phoenix, you look gorgeous—can you tell us a bit about your outfit?” “It’s a little chilly in New York so your team was kind to give me this beautiful Calvin Klein dress with some knee high boots and matching coat. I actually feel like a movie star—wow *laughs* is it always like this?” “Trust me when I say one can never really get used to it. If someone says so they are lying.”

Before every show Reuben gives you a kiss and tells you to keep your head high and work that runway like it’s your own personal stage. You are so grateful to have found a man who supports you and anytime you walk a show at NYFW you can’t help but wonder how lucky you are that your dream job brought you to your dream man. It’s funny how you both have a runway in your jobs that are an essential part, though it is a different type of runway 😉

……………..

Tag list: @avaleineandafryingpan , @caitsymichelle13 , @poppyalice2001 , @cutelittlepotatofry

[fantasyfantasygames]

MiDDDle Space

MiDDDle Space, Stacked Studios, 2002

@identityuniverse sent me a copy of this and I would like to return it please.

The map of Middle-Earth is, as many fantasy maps are, roughly page-sized. It fades out near the edges of its flat world. It is extremely rare for someone working with Middle-Earth to fill in the least bit of that blank space. This game does it in a very unusual manner: it fills that blank space with outer space. It's a little bit Spelljammer, but it's more Starfinder. Elves and Ewarves and even the occasional Ent colony in space, with big ol' spaceships.

"But why the weird spelling?" you may be asking. Well, that's because it's a cross of Tolkien and extremely horny 90's cult TV show Lexx. You know. DDD like a bra size.

Which also explains the name of the game studio.

The setting doesn't bother explaining how anyone got into space or talking about that obviously-Middle-Earth-shaped postage stamp in the corner. It's all about "planet of the Warriors of Men" and "planet of the Dwarven smiths" and "ice planet of the Elven sex clothiers". I like the "Forest Asteroid of the Ents" but that might be more because I love space-forest stuff and Ents. NPCs are bog-standard stock characters who also want to bone.

The rules look kind of like they started off as Rolemaster (MERP, really) hack before shifting over to d20. It uses some custom classes to cover things like the Animist, Mentalist, Mystic, etc. It has plenty of critical hit/fail tables. It ports in some MERP skills directly, overwriting some d20 skills with them. There are places that refer to MERP mechanics like Maneuver rolls, which were not ported in. It's mostly playable if you're willing to do a fair amount of house-ruling.

You have a choice of five ships, with build-your-own ships in a supplement that's "coming soon" (it is not). One of the ships is very Lexx-looking, with the insectoid feel and the phallic look. It's very powerful and extremely unmaneuverable. You can also get a Spelljammer-like galleon with sails and everything, one that looks like an Elven Armada vessel, a vaguely Millennium-Falcon-like ship, or you can each get your own small ship to flit around in. I kinda like that last option. There is never any crew; the ship flies fine with just however many PCs you have. Regardless of which ship you pick, you're going to have a very rock-paper-scissors setup against other vessels and utter domination against anything ground-based.

The art is halfway between Elfquest and Dr. Voluptua. It's all greyscale. I do kinda like that you can see the artist improve in their anatomy and backgrounds over the course of the few years it took to create the game. It does not have a fun-and-sexy sense of humor, and the game plays things straight in multiple senses.

Honestly the thing that makes me unhappy about this game is that it's lazy. If you want to make a horny elfgame (or a horny-elf game), you do you. There are plenty of them out there, another one is fine. But don't make it a knockoff of two or three different IPs, with mechanics from two more, and nothing in it that really provides commentary on any of the above. Do something different or do satire, don't just push out content.

MiDDDle Space was swamped in the d20 tsunami. There were only about 200 copies made in the first place, so it's a bit of a collector's item in some corners.

[boldlyvoid]

No Longer Alone Together: Part 8

Part 8 | Masterlist

December 24th:  

Once the kids are all asleep, they each gather all their presents for the other person and meet downstairs in front of the tree. She has just one box full of things that she wrapped and he has all her gifts individually wrapped inside a Christmas bag. 

The only year they missed this tradition was when they had Atlas, they had to wait till boxing day to open gifts with their tiny little baby in the bassinet beside them. This year they’re alone again, Atlas went down to bed last, so very excited for tomorrow because he can’t wait to give his dad his present. Not because he wants to open everything Santa brought him… he just wants to give people things. He’s the sweetest boy in the world, maybe even the whole universe? 

“Okay, you first,” Spencer announces as he hands her the first little box. “I got this one in Chicago…” 

“Are they all from your trip?” 

He nods, “I got some before I left but there were so many new stores I’ve never seen before and even when I was travelling all over the county for work, I never had the time to just shop… so I got you anything and everything that reminded me of you.” 

“You’re too sweet on me, Dr. Reid,” she teases, slowly peeling off the wrapping paper to find a jewelry box. She hasn’t worn a ring at all during their entire “marriage” which makes her wonder if thats what this is… “Spence?” 

“Just open it,” he doesn’t want to do any explaining until it’s open. 

Much to her surprise, it’s a bracelet that she finds inside the velvet box. “Oh my god?” She picks it up delicately and stares at all the little charms. 

“There’s the earth for Atlas, the moon for Luna and Jupiter for Noelle because she just gives me that energy,” Spencer explains, “the sun is for you and here,” he hands her another tinier box. “This one has the other planets in it so you can pick one for me and one for our new baby…” 

She wraps him up in a hug, arms around his neck as she holds him tighter than ever, “I love it, I’m going to wear it to Florida in March and everything.” 

“That’s what I hoped,” he rubs her back gently before she pulls back. “I have a bunch more for you, I kinda went a little crazy…” 

“that’s okay, so did I but they’re nothing major,” she pushes his box towards him. “They’re not individually wrapped either, I didn’t have the time.” 

“I don’t mind,” he says as he rips the paper off the box and opens it slowly. The first thing he see’s is an empty notebook with blank paper, it’s not even lined. “What’s this for?” 

“You’ve been doodling on the inside of your story notes so I thought you’d want your own sketchbook,” she explains with a sweet smile. She loves Spencer’s little doodles and the freaky people he draws. It’s very Tim Burton… 

“And there’s some new pencils and art stuff,” she can’t help but smile back at him. “I was getting the art stuff for Luna and thought you’d like to draw with her over the break…” 

“You know I will,” Spencer assures her. “This is perfect, thank you… here,” he pulls out a big, flat square that looks a lot like a wrapped-up calendar for the year. 

She starts unwrapping it to see it’s not a calendar… it’s a vinyl record. “We don’t have a vinyl player?” She’s confused but happy, she really wanted this copy of her favourite artist's new album, it’ll be nice to just look at it even if they can’t play it.

“I’m still waiting on it to arrive,” he smirks. “The big winter storm pushed back the delivery.” 

“No way,” she can’t believe it. So abundantly happy, they were finally going to get to play her mom's old Christmas albums on vinyl for the kids and enjoy that old crackling sound alongside the fire every Christmas from here on out. 

“I love you,” she gets right into his lap and holds him tight, resting her chin on his shoulder with a small smile, trying so hard not to cry already. 

“I love you,” he whispers before kissing her cheek. “That’s the one you wanted right? The blood moon one?” 

She nods, “yeah, I love it.” 

“It’s signed inside…” 

She pulls away with wide eyes, “what? You found one of them?” 

He nods, “I actually got it through Jimmy Fallon… he called it in for me, it arrived at my hotel the day before I flew home. Open it up.” 

She hurries to grab the record and open it up, finding a photo card inside the sleeve where the lyric booklet is. She takes it out carefully as to not cover it in fingerprints and almost sobs. “No fucking way, Spence?” 

On the front, it’s just her signature over a photo of herself, but on the back, thats where the sweetest message is. 

Y/N, 

Your Lover is one of a kind for having someone reach out and find this for you… I looked him up and loved his books, tell him I think we’d make a wicked No Body No Crime thriller together, don’t you think? Call it what you want, but from everything I’ve heard about you, from your Christmas Tree Farm adventures to falling in love while your parents were in Paris, I can tell that you’re soulmates. Have a wonderful Christmas, hug the kids for me, and enjoy 5 tickets to bring them to the Eras tour in Philly on May 13th ♡ see you soon! 

Taylor

She’s sobbing as she reads it, it’s unbelievable. She knew Spencer met some amazing people on his book tour but she never expected Taylor Swift of all people to be one of them. She holds it close to her heart, having listened to Fearless and Speak Now so much during her divorce and breakup, then Red all year before she met Spencer… they got 1989 the year they had Atlas and Reputation when Noelle was about to turn 2. Lover not even a month before Luna was born and now Midnights has a sound for every memory from every era of her life inside of it too. 

“I love it, Spence,” she assures that the tears she’s shedding are happy just as Spencer reaches out to wipe them off her cheeks. She holds the photo to her chest in a hug, “this is so thoughtful.” 

“I’m not done yet,” he reminds her. “I have like 9 other presents to give you…” 

“Come here,” she stands up with his hand in hers, taking her phone out of her pocket to puts on Lover just for good measure. “Having you home with me is all I wanted for Christmas.” 

At a volume the kids won’t hear, but it’s perfect for them, they slow dance in the living room under the Christmas tree lights. She can’t always go where he goes, but they’ll always be this close. 

“You’re my, my, my, my… lover,” Spencer sings along in her ear, memorizing every word she listens to in the house when he’s working and she’s cleaning and the kids are off at school or Uncle Wills. 

This is one of the songs that will always make him think of her when he hears it. 

She loves him more than she would ever be able to explain, no gift is good enough to show him… this is as good as it’ll get. Holding him close to her heart, dancing along to one of the most beautiful love songs there are, promising forever to him without ever needing to wear a ring to prove that she’s his. No marriage will hold their love in, no court document can make what they have any more real… 

Their home is their chapel, and his heart is her god. they’re married in every way that counts to them. 

He kisses her cheek and jaw and then down her neck, “I love you, so much.” 

“I love you,” she cups his face in her hands and pulls back to look at him. “And as much as I’d like to take this where ever you’re going, we still have to set up their presents and stockings.” 

“And then we can screw in the empty present room?” He teases, but it’s less of a joke and more of a question, he really wants to. “Please?” 

She nods with a cheeky smile, “yeah… I’d really like that.” 

December 25th: Christmas Day 

They don’t get much sleep, they finally get into bed around 1 but then they can’t stop talking about how fun the morning is going to be. They finally fall asleep around 3, only to be woken up at 5:30 because the kids want to go downstairs. 

“No…” Spencer groans, spooning Y/N, he buries his face in her neck and holds her tightly, “we’re sleeping.” 

“Come on,” Luna pesters him, poking his back while her siblings are on mom's side of the bed, looking at her while she keeps her eyes closed. 

“It’s too early, guys,” she agrees with Spencer. “Get in,” she lifts the covers, letting Noelle and Atlas cuddle into her while Luna got in on Spencer's side. “We’re going to sleep a little longer okay, the presents aren’t going anywhere.” 

“But it’s exciting,” Luna complains, “I can’t sleep!” 

Spencer rolls away from Y/N and onto his back so he can pull luna into a cuddle, “you’re going to have to try, we were up all night waiting for Santa… how else do you think he gets in when we don’t have a real fireplace?” 

“You met him?” Noelle can’t believe it. 

“Oh yeah, so many times,” Spencer exaggerates.

“Not like the fake mall Santa right?” Atlas doesn’t believe him. “The real one?” 

“The real one,” Spencer repeats. “I went up to the north pole with the team once and everything… Santa had a break-in at his workshop and we caught the thief for him.” 

“Wow,” they all believe it because he’s a good storyteller and an even better liar. “What’s it like?” 

“Just like the Tim Allen Santa movie,” he teases, “it’s magical… and Mrs. Clause is lovely, she’s just like your mom. She makes the best Christmas cookies.” 

“We are just like them,” Y/N can’t help but sleepily smile as she listens along. “We also got married on Christmas Eve…” 

“You did?” Atlas asks, “but you don’t wear a ring?” 

“You remember at the end of Santa Clause is coming to town, the claymation one? They got married just in the forest, alone? Me and your mom said some vows all alone and that’s why she calls me her husband to everyone now, even though legally, we’re not married,” Spencer explains. “We loved each other so much we couldn’t wait and then never went and made it official.” 

“We should have a wedding,” Luna suggests. “In the backyard… or uncle Daves!” 

“Maybe,” Y/N doesn’t say no. 

Spencer turns to her, amazed and wide awake now, “really?” 

She sleepily nods, two kids cuddled into her and one pushing against her bladder inside of her now, so much time has passed, she isn’t the same person who said no all those years ago. “Sure, why not?” 

“Okay then,” he settles back into his pillow with a smile. 

Luna is kneeling by his side, her knees digging into his hips while she leans over him with all her weight on his chest. “Are you awake now? Can we go downstairs now?” 

“No,” Y/N answers again. “We need to make a rule, it’s not Christmas till the sun comes up.” 

“The sun comes up around 7:45 in December,” Atlas remembers from one of his books. “That’s in 2 hours and 15 minutes.” 

“Exactly, so why don’t you take your sisters to your room and read them some more facts while we sleep?” Y/N explains, “please? The baby needs me to sleep a bit more or I’ll be sick and I don’t want to throw up on Christmas morning…” 

They love their sister already, so of course, they listen. 

“Okay,” they all say as they hop down off their bed and head out. 

“Thank god,” she rolls over and into Spencer, closing her eyes again. “I’m exhausted.” 

“You want to marry me?” He can’t get off the topic. Genuinely surprised that she’d say yes now of all times. 

She lets out a deep sigh, “yes, Spence, I would like to marry you, just, let me have a few hours of sleep first I don’t want bags under my eyes in my wedding pictures.” 

“Okay,” he chuckles lightly, soothing his hand down her back and kissing the top of her head. “Go back to sleep my, love.” 

She falls back asleep quickly, taking that extra 2 hours and running with it. Spencer has to shake her back awake at 8am when the kids are ready to go downstairs and the sun is coming through the blinds. The 3 of them stand in the doorway with matching smiles and Christmas pyjamas, waiting for both their parents to be ready to open presents.

She gets dressed and grabs a snack from her snack drawer, having to eat as soon as she gets up or else the baby got mad at her. She munches on some crackers while Spencer uses the bathroom and then they’re all ready. 

“Remember, we’re taking turns,” Y/N calls as they run out in front of her and down the stairs. 

The shout and cheer at the sheer amount of presents surrounding the tree in the living room, they spread out almost into the main hall. Mom gets them all to sit on the couches while dad turns on the electric fireplace and the tree lights to make the room really feel like Christmas. 

She walks around the tree and looks at all the presents as if she wasn’t the one to set them up. “Wow, Santa really likes you guys…” 

“Because he knows daddy,” Luna cheers, taking Spencer’s story this morning to heart. 

“Should we start with Santa presents or family presents?” Spencer asks, standing beside Y/N and wrapping an arm around her. 

“Can I give daddy mine first?” Atlas asks, putting his hand up while he sits nicely, almost like school has trained him too well to be patient and polite. 

“Sure, why not?” Y/N doesn't mind, “you remember the ones we wrapped for him before he came home, right? Daddy go sit down,” she moves Spencer over to the couch while the kids all scatter to sort through the presents and find the ones for their dad buried at the back of the tree. 

They come back to him with an assortment of wrapped goodies, making his heart fill with glee. “Oh wow, really? All this for me?” 

“Mine first,” Atlas hands him the bag from the Christmas market, it’s been under the tree for what feels like forever to him, and he’s so excited to see his dad open it. 

“Okay,” Spencer takes it from him and carefully removes the tissue paper before he reaches in. He pulls out the cardigan with a genuinely shocked face, “Woah? Bug, this is so nice?” 

“Put it on!” He starts jumping up and down, too excited to stay still. “Do you like it?” 

He slips his arms into the sleeves and buttons 2 of the buttons up, “I love it!” He pulls Atlas into a hug and squeezes him tight, “I’m going to wear it all day today, do you think it’s fancy enough for the party tonight?” 

He nods, “with suit pants, maybe?” 

“And a green shirt, purple tie,” Luna adds, very opinionated about his outfits. 

“Of course,” Spencer agrees, he would’ve picked that anyway but he validates her opinions anyway. “What next?” 

“Here,” Noelle hands him one that she spent a lot of time on. 

It’s easy to find a seam and open it with her newly acquired wrapping skills… he tears into it to find a bunch of socks. 

“I miss matched them for you,” she explains. “See dolphins and diamonds and then flamingos and flames, it all makes sense this way…” 

“I love it,” he wants to cry, it’s so thoughtful and it’s just socks. “Thank you, I’ll wear them today too.” 

“Here’s mine,” Luna places it on his lap, getting closer so she could help him open it. 

He lets her pull on the paper and start opening it for him, they tear it off together just for him to see it’s a box. The tape is easy to peel back and inside the box is all his favourite candy. “for your writing jaw in your office, it’s empty…” 

Another thoughtful gift that he wouldn’t have even thought of asking for but his kids knew him really well. He gives them each a hug and a kiss as he thanks them, whispering something to them about getting mommy’s presents next. Y/N had no idea that he took them all out shopping one afternoon after school while she was still at work. 

They scurry away from him and come back with a big box that takes Atlas and Noelle to carry over… more like push it over. It glides over the hardwood floor easily until it’s right in front of her. “That big one was for me?” 

“Open it!” They all cheer, gathered around in case she needs help. 

She takes the bow off first, ripping into it slowly. “What the heck is this?” She asks, under the wrapping paper is just a brown box. 

“Remember you said you wanted to be able to make s’mores in our backyard like we do at Daves?” Spencer explains as she tilts the box back to read the words “gas-powered outdoor fireplace.” 

“No way!” She can’t believe it, “this and the record player?” 

“Christmas is about giving,” he reminds her. “You can’t spend all season giving us things, you have to get some good gifts too.” 

The kids grab a few more gifts for her, placing them on top of the box, “we got you these…” 

“Oh wow, thank you,” she’s overwhelmed to get all these presents before they even get to their Santa presents. 

Atlas got her a pretty shirt, Noelle got her a scarf to go with her winter coat and Luna got her some more of her favourite makeup. They’re 3 simple gifts but they also mean the world to her. 

“Okay,” she stands up before she gets too emotional thinking about it. “Each of you picks one present with your name on it and sit back down…” 

They each run to the tree and grab the biggest present they can find, “this one says Luna,” Atlas announces, handing the present to his sister. He finds his own next and Noelle finds one for herself easily. The three of them sit back down together and wait for their mom to give them the go-ahead, she simply smiles and nods. 

They rip into their presents quickly, all gasping when they realize what they got. Luna screams the loudest, “MY DOLLHOUSE!” 

Both her siblings smile at her, happy she got what she wanted. “I got the book set I asked for,” Atlas announces, bringing to peel the plastic off so he could flip through the pages. 

Noelle is almost speechless as she flips the box over a few times. “Is this… this is a skateboard?” 

“It is,” Y/N can’t stop smiling, she gets down in front of the Christmas tree and hands her a few other gifts. “These go with it, Santa said…” 

While she tears into the presents, Y/N finds a few more to hand to Luna and Atlas to make it even. Luna gets some dolls, Atlas gets a few more science kits and Noelle gets knee pads, elbow pads and a helmet, all in the same green her cast used to be. 

“I’m going to teach you some tricks once the snow is gone,” Spencer teases, “but we’re going to do them without breaking an arm this time.” 

“You know how to skateboard?” Noelle can’t believe it. 

He nods, “it’s just physics…” 

“Ugh, science is everywhere,” she complains, everyone around her was too smart for their own good, she knew that. 

“That is is,” Spencer ruffles her hair and kisses the top of her head. “I think it’s time we give you guys your big gift from us…” 

“Are you sure?” Y/N gets excited, so ready to share these big plans with them after knowing about it alone for so long. 

He nods, “it's in your stockings,” he points at the 5 socks hung over the fireplace. He helps them take them down one by one and sit on the floor once more, “okay, start emptying them…” 

Luna goes right for the fidget toys, bypassing the headband with Mickey-mouse ears and the paper saying they’re going on a trip. Atlas is the first one to unfold it and actually read it. 

“What does this mean?” He holds up the printed-out boarding pass, “is this another NASA thing?” 

“no… thats a real flight we're going on, those are your tickets,” mom explains. “Can you see where we’re going?” 

“we’re landing at… Orlando, Florida?” He reads the ticket fully and then his eyes widen. “Are we going to Disney world?” 

“Are we?!” Noelle breaks a window with how loud she screams. 

“Shh, yes, oh my gosh, yeah, we are,” Y/N can’t help but laugh, pulling the kids into a hug when they just want to jump around with excitement. 

Spencer explains when it is, who they’re going with and most of the itinerary for the trip. They’re going to Disney world, lego land and the Kennedy space centre, making sure each kid had a special interest to indulge in. They’re over the moon, barely even thinking about the rest of their presents, it’s too exciting. 

They manage to have breakfast together before opening the rest of the presents. They got little things like clothes and colouring books, accents for their rooms and necessities for school. It all happened so fast, all they are left with is a pile of each kid's gifts on the couch and a mountain of trash once every toy was opened and freed from its box. 

The kids all go to the playroom, setting up their new toys and setting aside old ones they want to donate into the box that once held their mom's new fireplace. She takes a seat beside Spencer once everything is all said and done, laying her head on his shoulder while he wraps an arm around her. “Another good one for the books…” 

“The last one as a family of 5,” Spencer sighs, happily. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too,” she tries not to cry again but then she decides fuck it. She cries, experiencing the moment the way her body wanted to. “This is my favourite one yet…” 

“And we have so many more to go, how will we top it?” Spencer teases. 

She shrugs, “they’ll find a way.” 

—

Penelope spent her morning at the airport, waiting for Derek, Savannah and Hank to get off their plane. They got in around 11, they had lunch all together and then headed straight to Rossi's place for the annual All-iday party. They were the first ones there this year, waiting for every other family to start showing up too. 

The Simmons show up next, all 5 kids running straight to the playroom designated to them on days like today. Rossi didn’t need all that space at his house for fancy things, so they got a whole room just to be kids in. 

The LaMontagne’s are next to arrive, all dressed up like they are every year, JJ dressed to the nines and Will looking handsome as ever. And Sandy Jareau comes with her emotional support dog, Ozzy, a fluffy golden retriever that all the kids loved. 

Emily and Laura debated if they wanted to go this year, with a brand new baby and all the kids being in different schools and Derek being on a plane that day, that was a lot of germs gathering in one place… so day of, they call out, not ready to venture out into the world with little May yet. Y/N offered to pack up some of the leftovers and stop by with them later, and whatever presents people bought for them too. 

Rossi’s daughters show up too, it’s the first year Portia is celebrating Christmas without her mother, it’s hard, but having this extended family is good for her. Joy comes with her husband and Kai as well, now living in DC, it was a lot easier for them to join. 

When Spencer and Y/N arrive with their kids, the party is already well underway. Diana and Liam weren’t too far behind, just finishing the festivities at their retirement home before heading over. The kids run off right into the playroom with the others, leaving all the parents in the kitchen where the food and booze was. 

Tara comes with her girlfriend and Luke comes all by himself but migrates to Penelope’s side and stays there like he has for the last few years. He’s helplessly in love with her, everyone can see it, but Penelope hasn’t given into him yet. She’s fighting his love for some reason, and everyone in their group can't wait for her to surrender, wave the wire flag and just kiss him already. 

In the kitchen, Spencer rushes Derek and wraps him up in a hug, as if he didn’t see him in Chicago last month. “Where’s my little man?” Derek asks, looking past him for Atlas. 

“With your son in the playroom,” Y/N teases, taking Spencer’s place against Derek's chest for the next hug. “How are you?” 

“Great now,” he kisses the top of her head before she can pull away. “I hear congratulations are in order?” 

She nods, “oh yeah, you’re getting another little niece.” 

She’s congratulated by everyone in the room, many of them hearing it for the first time as Laura and Will really knew how to keep a secret. Everyone has either a glass of wine or champagne, Y/N pours some ginger ale into a champagne flute and celebrates with the others, all over the moon for her and Spencer. 

“So do you have any names picked out?” Sandy, JJ’s mom, asks, loving Spencer’s kids as if they were her own grandkids too. 

Spencer shakes his head to say no but Y/N shrugs, “I kinda have one…” 

“You haven’t told me this?” Spencer is shocked, “what is it?” 

“You said her birthstone would be a Ruby and I think Ruby Reid sounds cute…” 

Some of the others repeat her name with a swoon, holding their hands over their hearts. “You have to name her ruby now,” Penelope chimes in. “That’s perfect?” 

Spencer purses his lips as he thinks about it, “yeah, I can see her name being Ruby, too…”

She smiles, leaning in and stealing a kiss from Spencer right in front of everyone, they were a lot more used to Spencer's PDA now than that first Christmas… it was refreshing to see their love never dwindled and it looked like it never would, either. 

Those lonely years of her life feel like such a long time ago now. Being alone together felt just as far away from where they are now… okay, sure, they’re no longer alone together, but they wouldn’t have it any other way. 

[thattimdrakeguy]

Hey, I've been lurking on your posts, definetly agree with a lot of your takes, but one thing that always bother me is your depiction of Tim Drake's skills. Like, making him out to be really weak and downplaying his strengths. That's not saying he's this super awesome dude who can do anything. He was described as not as natural at combat stuff as Dick and Jason, but he worked hard to overcome that and became someone that stands as an equal to them. He wasn't the weakest Robin, he was equal to them because he put in the work. That's what makes him relatable. The talk of forever weak Tim, like Damian saying he could never lose to Tim, and Tim agreeing and using trickery to take the win, it stinks of genetic superiority. Considering Post-Crisis, where he was depicted as pretty buff actually. He was about as big at 13 as Jaso was when he died at 15. It was only after flashpoint that you see talk like this. And I agree, that sometimes fandom exaggerates his intelligence, but his Robin and Red-Robin runs show that he is pretty equal to Bruce and Dick as a detective, that in Gotham he is second only to Barbara in computer work. It's not that Tim's weaker and less skilled than everyone, and it's not that he's so much smarter than everyone either. I'd take 15 year old Tim and put him equal to 15 year old Dick and Jason. I'd put Red Robin as close to an equal to Nightwing, and equal to Red Hood. People do forget he's also won against Red Hood in canon, as well as lost. They've fought a couple of times. So yeah, I don't vibe with Tim being considered the weakest Gotham vigilante, and with 14 year old Damian being considered top 3, with Cass and Bruce. I'd buy it when he's older. Sorry for being long-winded, I was kinda venting. I'd love to hear your opinion. No hate either way, reply to this or not, it's your choice.

That was very difficult to read. So I'm gonna briefly write, what I think is a summarized version of it, and I'll answer what I gathered out of it, and if I'm wrong, I want you to send me another ask so I can answer this right.

"Why do you make out Tim to be really weak? Art depicts something different from what you said. Comics have said he's better in this and that."

Basically, the answer is, the art style in the 90s made everyone really big and buff, look at the Marvel cartoons at the time, most action figures, and it even went for most comics. BUT, the way Tim was written, and shown in his brief time before the 80s and that bit of time when that fad ended shown Tim wasn't meant to look like a steroid abuser.

Tim was constantly talked about as being skinny, and small. Well, skinny in what he seemed like when he had civilian clothes anyways. He was lean.

So, yeah, what he looked like a lot didn't match up.

In the 90s and I'm sure other eras, and art styles. You gotta learn to accept the sensibilities at the time, and not let it trick you into thinking something the intention wasn't.

Also 13-year-old Tim definitely isn't meant to be seen as the same size as 15-year-old Jason.

Here's how they're depicted by the same artist in the same story:

While Jim Aparo does have a same face problem, there's a lot of panels where Tim looks entirely generic, and does make Tim more buff in the costume compare to civilian clothes, which is an inconsistency. Not counting how his sizing of Tim is off compared to how George Perez, the guy to draw the proper first appearance of Tim as we know him. He still makes sure Tim is seen as softer, smaller, and far 'cuter' compared to how he depicts Jason on a regular enough bases, that you can tell what Tim is actually meant to look like, when he's trying harder.

(Ignore the Robin in the upper left corner, that is Dick not Jason.)

Jim Aparo was also the artist for most of Jason's Robin run on Batman (The Jason we know, not the Dick Grayson copy.) Which includes Death of the Family, where he's still depicted as being larger than Tim.

While Jim has a clear love for the ever large, imposing Batman. Jason is still taller than Tim, and has quite the mature look to him.

While a bit inconsistent. Jason is just under Bruce's shoulder. While Tim is basically at Bruce's belly button. And Jason is consistently buff while in costume and not. There was even a panel (that I don't have now, but I did once. I have a large Jason post you may be able to find) that showed Jason working out with bar bells. The intention clearly being that he's meant to be a more of a brawler compared to Dick, and later Tim.

So within the art, and the writing, no, Tim is meant to be quite small, and Jason is meant to be quite large. Jason just wasn't allowed to make Batman seem less imposing when around him, as it'd look silly. Certainly in that ridiculous original Robin costume.

Also I just don't care for Red Robin. I think it just wrote in stuff that felt more like sudden changes to validate a sudden decision, more than it did depict Tim in a new chapter of his existence. Therefore I don't like it, nor do I care for what it says.

Chris Yost is more often than not a great writer.

Red Robin to me, is not one of those comics where he is a great writer.

Lot of great ideas, but more executions I don't think work than anything else.

I don't think all comics are equal.

Canon is very weak even when they tried to maintain it.

So for my sake I go purely off of what I interpret to be the intention, and only care for stories that I personally think do a good job at continuing, and developing narratives that feel in-line with the intention.

Because a writer can write what ever they want as long as the editors, and publisher, and who ever else allows it to be released.

If I were to treat every comic as equal these character's personalities and skills would be so inconsistent you'd have to be a world class mental gymnast champion to bother finding reason for it.

I don't personally bother with it, because why would I? If I don't think a story is well written, then I simply don't think it's well written. I don't get anything out of forcing myself to think I like something I don't.

Also I never said Tim is very weak. I don't think he should be very weak. And if I have said something like that, I likely meant it within a context.

I just like it when writers remember that his way of winning fights, is his wits, not his brawn.

You can be talented, and a winner, without being great at everything. Tim isn't relatable when he's great at everything. Do most people practice so much they become great at everything? No, because that isn't realistic. Not that Batman characters are realistic. It tends to go against Tim's point is all, in my eyes at least.

Tim somehow becoming Dick's equal within 3 and a half years, when Dick has been at it for a decade or more, is insanely hard to believe. Especially when Dick is a natural talent, and Tim is not.

If everyone is depicted as talented in the same exact ways, that is extremely boring to me. So I don't care for it.

Why bring up a character being this, this, and that, to never use it? That's pretty lazy, boring writing to me. So when a writer acknowledges how Tim is supposed to win fights, and actually puts the effort into depicting that, I give it praise, because I think it deserves it.

Also, within the specific example you gave: Damian is a genetically altered super warrior, trained from birth, with (I don't know if this is canon anymore, or was ever much of a thing past one story) enhancements grafted into him.

It's way more interesting to me, to have Damian be able to best Tim at normal combat, 'cause of their immensely different upbringings. Rather than simply saying "Tim is older, so he should win". That's not very clever, or fun to think about.

Although proper power scaling in comics is nonsense as well, in my personal opinion, because really, who ever wins is up to the writer. Any writer can have a character can find a way to beat another character. What makes it well-written or not, is if the writer goes through the effort to make it believable within what's established.

Which is why I liked Zdarsky writing Tim to use his wits to best someone who has far more experience and natural talent in one on one combat. It let's Tim beat someone, he probably shouldn't be able to, in a way that's interesting, and true to character.

However you are entirely free to enjoy buff, Red Robin, as talented as the rest of them Tim. I'm not meaning this as anything in the form of disrespect, or anything like that. You're entirely free to enjoy whatever you want.

All I'm saying is, I don't buy it, and I don't think it SHOULD be how Tim is depicted, because it makes him a lot more generic and typical, when I think he's a lot more interesting when writers follow the intentions of him.

I'm not asking for him to be identical to how he is before he even properly starts being Robin.

I ask for consistency, and writing that cares about maintaining what was the charm, and likability, and uniqueness of a character, even through out their developments, so they don't become lost, or lose their identity, a fate that can infect a lot of characters that get writers without those sensibilities.

'Cause a LOT of stuff is considered canon that doesn't match.

And I'm not one of those people that tries to act like "Oh you can't ignore that just because you don't like it' because everyone does. I've never seen someone say that, and not have some complaint about it. I'm a man of honesty, even in times of disagreements.

All respect to you, though.

I'm mainly hoping this doesn't read like a strongly worded letter. When really I'm casually saying all of this. I'm just insanely Autistic and long winded in my own right.

[zeounds]

The Age of the Understatement - The Last Shadow Puppets

Hello! The Last Shadow Puppets, what a great start.

The Last Shadow Puppets are an English supergroup consisting of Alex Turner, Miles Kane, James Ford and Zach Dawes. They were formed by co-frontmen, Alex Turner and Miles Kane, in 2007, after they became friends when Kane's band supported Arctic Monkeys on tour in 2005. They bonded over their shared love of artists such as David Bowie and decided to write songs inspired by that music. At first, thought of as a one-off project, they went on to release two records, The Age of the Understatement and Everything You've Come To Expect.

You know I didn't realise supergroups were a THING. A supergroup is a musical group formed with members who are already successful as solo artists or as members of other successful groups. I think it was originally a thing for charity like Band Aid, but like there's the Traveling Wilburys who have Bob Dylan and George Harrison, and I think Boygenius technically count too.

This is my go-to album for when I want to listen to something upbeat but not too heavy. I saw this in a charity shop and like nearly went feral. And then my friend Kenny bought another copy for my birthday. And I like using that one because Kenny<3 but also I didn't appreciate how the other copy is SO scratched. Like unbelievably scratched. Like I don't know why I didn't check beforehand.

I got into the Last Shadow Puppets through Arctic Monkeys. I was looking at a playlist and a couple of their songs were on it and I was like woah they're kinda cool. Their Everything You've Come To Expect record is SO delicious, but I have such a soft spot for their earlier stuff because they're just so silly. I had SUCH brainrot for this band, like consistently listening to the music and now I've kinda gone off it a little bit, like I find myself skipping their songs more often when they come up. Which is sad because I loved them so much, and still do, but I think my music taste has just kinda evolved past them. But every so often I do like to return to them every so often because their music is just really comforting.

I'm literally BEGGING they release a new album soon because I would die to see them live because the chemistry that Miles and Alex share onstage needs to be studied.

Favourite song: The Time Has Come Again Favourite lyric:

Without permission His face became wet He thought he'd learn how to not get upset

The Age Of The Understatement - 3/5 Standing Next To Me - 4/5 Calm Like You - 4/5 Seperate And Ever Deadly - 4/5 The Chamber - 5/5 Only The Truth - 3/5 My Mistakes Were Made For You - 3/5 Black Plant - 5/5 I Don't Like You Anymore - 4/5 In My Room - 2/5 Meeting Place - 5/5 The Time Has Come Again - 5/5

Final thoughts: 8/10 Banging album! Will forever love it and will always return to it. The last two songs are my fave, i think they're just so beautiful. Anyways, thanks for reading I appreciate it :3