#I will just never get over how incredible it is that we can make art

[archivegyu]

masterlist

tailored for you

The Manhattan skyline glittered against the evening sky as she gazed out of the penthouse suite window. The sun was setting, casting golden hues across the city that never sleeps. In a few hours, the Metropolitan Museum of Art would be hosting the most prestigious fashion event of the year—the Met Gala—and her childhood sweetheart, now the love of her life, would be making his debut on the iconic steps.

She turned away from the window to look at Choi Seungcheol, better known to his fans as S.Coups, leader of the globally acclaimed K-pop group SEVENTEEN. He was standing in front of a full-length mirror, adjusting the cuffs of his custom-made BOSS suit for what must have been the twentieth time in the past hour.

"Is it too much?" he asked, his eyes meeting hers in the reflection. "Maybe I should have gone with something more... conventional?"

She smiled, walking over to stand behind him. Her hands reached up to smooth down the shoulders of his impeccably tailored jacket. The designer had created something truly special—a modern interpretation of this year's theme, "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" (or "Tailored for You"), fashioning an elegant gray suit with elements inspired by traditional Korean hanbok. The clean lines, and subtle asymmetrical closure evoked his heritage while the refined tailoring showcased Seungcheol's strong frame and commanding presence.

"It's perfect," she assured him, her voice soft but certain. "You look incredible."

Seungcheol's reflection offered a shy smile, but she could see the anxiety swimming in his eyes. This was different from performing on stage with his members. Tonight, he would be representing BOSS as one of their global ambassadors, walking the Met Gala carpet solo, surrounded by Hollywood A-listers and fashion royalty.

"I keep thinking I'm going to trip on the stairs," he admitted, turning to face her. His hand reached up to ruffle his perfectly styled hair—a nervous habit he'd had since they were children—but she caught his wrist just in time.

"Don't you dare," she laughed. "Your stylist will have a meltdown."

Seungcheol pouted, and for a moment, she saw the same boy who had climbed the tree outside her childhood home in Daegu to leave little notes on her window sill. The boy who had promised, at just thirteen years old, that one day they would see the world together.

"How is it that twenty years later, you still get that same look when you're nervous?" she asked, cupping his face with her hands. "The same pout from when you were about to perform at the school talent show and thought no one would like your rap."

His expression softened into a genuine smile. "And you're still the only one who can calm me down."

The sound of his phone ringing interrupted the moment. Seungcheol glanced at the screen and chuckled. "It's the guys," he said, using his affectionate term for his fellow members. "Probably calling to wish me luck... or to make fun of me."

He answered the video call, and immediately the room filled with the chaotic energy of nine excited voices.

"HYUNG!" Seungkwan's voice dominated initially. "Show us the outfit! We've been dying to see the final look!"

Seungcheol laughed, some of his nervousness visibly melting away as he propped the phone up against a vase and stepped back to give them a full view of his ensemble.

"Wah, as expected of our leader!" Mingyu exclaimed, his handsome face filling most of the screen as he apparently leaned too close to the camera.

"Ya, move back, we can only see your nostrils," Soonyoung's voice commented, pulling Mingyu away.

"Hyung looks like James Bond," Hansol added appreciatively.

"Better than James Bond," Joshua corrected with his signature smile. "Our Cheollie is going to be the best-dressed man there."

She watched from the side, heart full as she observed the genuine brotherhood between these men who had spent their youth chasing dreams together. Now in their thirties, SEVENTEEN had achieved more than they had ever imagined—multiple world tours, numerous awards, and global recognition that extended well beyond the music industry into fashion, film, and philanthropy.

"Noona!" Chan, the youngest member, spotted her hovering at the edge of the frame. "You have to send us pictures! We know Seungcheol-hyung won't because he'll be too nervous."

"I'm not nervous," Seungcheol protested unconvincingly.

"Your left eye is twitching," Joshua pointed out in English before switching back to Korean. "It always does that before big events."

"Make sure he doesn't drink too much champagne," Jihoon added with a mischievous grin.

She stepped closer to the screen, smiling at the faces of the men who had become like family to her over the years. "I promise I'll keep him in line and send plenty of photos."

After a few more minutes of teasing and sincere well-wishes, they ended the call. Seungcheol's shoulders seemed lighter, his stance more relaxed.

"Better?" she asked, knowing how much strength he drew from his members, even from thousands of miles away.

"Better," he confirmed, wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing the top of her head. "Though I'm still not convinced I belong at something like the Met Gala."

She pulled back slightly to look him in the eyes. "Choi Seungcheol, you've performed in stadiums in front of tens of thousands of people. You've spoken at the United Nations. Your group's music has broken cultural and language barriers that people thought were impenetrable. If anyone belongs on that carpet tonight, it's you."

He gazed at her with such tenderness that her heart fluttered, just as it had when they were teenagers and he first told her he liked her more than just a friend.

"How do you always know the right thing to say?" he murmured, pressing his forehead against hers.

"Twenty years of practice" she replied with a soft smile.

[barabones]

With our Crips for Esims for Gaza Itch Bundle halfway to the $100,000 goal, let's take a minute to actually spotlight some of the works in it! A lot of stuff was specifically created or submitted for our cause, and are not only entertaining, but are great resources for getting yourself involved!

Let's check some of these projects out!

What Palestinians’ Use of eSIMs Can Teach Us About Tech

A fantastic introduction essay written by friend of the group, @chloetankahhui.bsky.social, specifically for our bundle! I highly suggest it as your first download after purchase!

What Is An eSim?

Another project designed to quickly inform people on how eSims are used in Gaza! Made by various volunteers in our own Crips for eSims group. We hope to use this as an easy printable way to spread the word of what we do!

Cartoonists for Palestine anthology

250 whooping pages of incredible art! It is worth spending an evening looking through all 63 stories! Thank you to @redgoldsparks for submitting this collection!

a fruit is a stone

A chapbook made by one of our volunteers, who also apparently studies rocks on Mars! Go ahead and take a minute to read some poetry about sediment.

Game Assist for Palestine Companion Zine

If you love video essays about video games, especially breaking down the politics in them, then grab yourself the companion zine for some of Game Assist's videos!

In Fear of Fucking It Up

In Fear of Fucking It Up is a zine collecting scraps of essays focused on the authors personal thoughts; all themed on the intersectionality of the Palestinian and African American struggle, the overwhelming pressure to perform socially, and general thoughts about acts of resistance. A neat little zine with a very personal perspective!

'Tis the Season

Have you ever wanted to be a mistletoe themed superhero? Check out this TTRPG to get involved with domestic actions from protecting protestors to destroying arms shipments!

ANY SAND

May be a little biased, since hexcavator is one of the wonderful authors of our bundle, but Any Sand is a beautifully crafted point and click game with themes of resistance similar to the Rasha Abdulhadi poem it is named after.

Drawings for Palestine

Now it's time for some free poster assets! This bundle by Axell is planned to be updated over time; with all works in the public domain!

RISO PRINT FILES FOR PALESTINE

I'm not entirely sure what a risograph print is, but these also have inkjet and laser printer file formats available! The concept of scanning in your own keffiyeh for the red layer is a brilliant way to make your own print run unique!

MASK UP! Poster print pack

Plenty of color options available for your needs! Gosh this poster is just so cool. Thanks @counterintuitivecomics for submitting it along with a really cool guide for navigating Covid-19!

Esims for Gaza Poster Graphics

Ending on my own art hahaha! I've been doing what little I can to make poster graphics for our cause since July of 2024. I never would have expected them to end up wheatpasted around Canada! I'll also be updating this pack with new assets or updated information when I can. Use these graphics and characters however you like, just be sure to send me pictures!

And that ends our round up of Palestine themed projects! This should be plenty to keep you busy for a few evenings, but that's only some of the over 200 projects submitted to our bundle! There's plenty more hidden treasure in there, but that may be for another day. This post is already getting to "color of the sky" length anyways.

But hey hey, did YOU read a zine or game in this bundle that you really enjoyed, and you think people should check out? Let folks know! And let them know that our bundle is still going until the end of May 19th!

At the time of this post, we are already halfway to our new goal of 100k! Let's get it up there!

[femslashbigbang]

[MASTERPOST] April Challenge

INCREDIBLE turnout for this month, which as brought us to a total of 250k+ written for this year's challenges alone. And that doesn't even cover all the wonderful art that's been created either. Thank you all so much for participating!

As always, May's monthly challenge is live now if you'd like to be on next month's list.

ARTWORK

Gertrude/Agnes by @rhywhitefang

Fandom: The Magnus Archives Pairing: Gertrude Robinson/Agnes Montague

WRITING

lost in the woods somewhere on the mountain and I’m never gonna make it to the top by chadsuke

Fandom: 天官赐福 - 墨香铜臭 | Tiān Guān Cì Fú - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù Rating: G // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: He Xuan/Shi Qingxuan Summary: On the way to deliver her brother’s dinner, Shi Qingxuan runs into someone.

fortunes in the trees by kopycat_101 

Fandom: 薬屋のひとりごと | Kusuriya no Hitorigoto | The Apothecary Diaries (Anime), 薬屋のひとりごと | Kusuriya no Hitorigoto | The Apothecary Diaries (Manga) Rating: T // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Gyokuyou/Lihua (Kusuriya no Hitorigoto Summary: Lihua is no longer the indisputably most beautiful High Consort in the Inner Palance. She now has competition. It’s as terrifying as it is thrilling. (A pre-canon fic from Lady Lihua’s POV as Lady Gyokuyou moves into the Inner Palace.)

it's a little piece of heaven here on earth by frankenjoly

Fandom: ダンジョン飯 | Dungeon Meshi | Delicious in Dungeon Rating: T // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Marcille Donato/Falin Touden Summary: “It’s a surprise.” Falin answered, turning towards her with a wide grin all over her face, and Marcille didn’t have it in her to keep trying for at least some clues. Instead, she smiled back and nodded. for femslash big bang's april monthly challenge: forests falin discovers a cute spot at the forest, so of course she has to show it to marcille.

sweet dreams (E) by yuribalisms

Fandom: 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game) Rating: E // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Yae Miko/Yumemizuki Mizuki Summary: Mizuki is determined to stop feeling inferior to Yae Miko.

Forest-er Gump by Butimachrldr2

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV) Rating: T // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairings: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma SwanMulan/Wicked Witch of the West | Zelena Summary: Zelena wants to show off her latest purchase to her sister Regina, while poor Emma gets swept up in the chaos that is the redheaded Mills sister. Potential Trigger Warnings: bad driving, sibling arguments/dynamics, nausea, Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time nor the original characters from the show.

my blood is singing with your voice by hannieuphoria

Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) Rating: T // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Toga Himiko/Yaoyorozu Momo Summary: “Toga-san, sometimes it feels as if we spoke in different tongues,” Momo confessed softly. She dared to caress her cheek with her fingers. Toga nuzzled her face against her touch almost greedily, her cheeks pink and cold. “I wish I could understand you.” “I could show you,” she whispered in the quiet of Momo's room, blinking her pretty eyes at her. “I don’t think I'd ever fall in love if it’s not with you.” there is no love without sacrifice. no sacrifice is without blood.

promise to give you (everything that i am) by GallifreyanFairytale

Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) Rating: G // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Asui Tsuyu/Yaoyorozu Momo Summary: Before Momo can think of how to possibly respond to a talking frog, it continues speaking. “Why are you so sad? I could hear your distress even from where I was sleeping deep in the well.” “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you!” Momo wipes the last of her tears away. “It’s just… I dropped my ball in the well, and now it’s lost forever. It was a gift from an old friend, so it was very special to me.” The frog croaks again, sounding almost thoughtful. “Maybe…I could get it for you?” Momo gasps. “Could you?” She clasps her hands together. “Oh, I don’t know how I would ever repay you! I suppose a frog wouldn’t be interested in gold or jewels… Is there anything your heart desires?” She places a hand over her own heart. “I promise I will do my best to fulfill whatever it is you wish!” once upon a time, there was a princess and a frog…

spinning on the airwaves by littencloud9

Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) Rating: G // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing:Jirou Kyouka/Yaoyorozu Momo Summary: Every Friday evening, Momo hears a lovely tune coming from the forest. or, a group of elves invite momo, a fairy princess, to play music with them, and it's more fun than she can imagine

a little lamb who's lost in the wood (E) by JediAnnieScrambler

Fandom: The Devil Wears Parada (2006) Rating: E // Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Pairing: Miranda Priestly/Andrea Sachs Summary: “No you didn't think,” Miranda snapped, “Just like all the other stupid girls before you, you didn’t think.” Andy drew herself up to her full height, slightly taller than Miranda, “You can’t talk to me like this; I don’t work for you anymore.” “You don’t work for me anymore,” Miranda repeated, "Which means I no longer have to be professional.”

wouldn't want it any other way cause this feels... by partially_planet

Fandom:気になってる人が男じゃなかった | Ki ni Natteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta (Manga) Rating: G // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Koga Mitsuki/Oosawa Aya Summary: Mitsuki and Aya on hike. They are gay about it. They totally don't have romantic feelings for each other.

overandover (M) by phaethon_exe

Fandom: 崩坏：星穹铁道 | Honkai: Star Rail (Video Game) Rating: M // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Acheron/Black Swan (Honkai: Star Rail) Summary: Let me guess," she said dryly, "you got lost?" The beautiful ranger standing in Black Swan's room on the astral express tilted her head in confusion. It's kind of cute, Black Swan decided, if it's possible to call a woman whose very sword can sap the world of its colour cute.

Michaela, for now by KapandherScratchpad

Fandom: Bridgerton (TV), Bridgerton Series - Julia Quinn Rating: T // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Francesca Bridgerton/Michaela Stirling Summary: Fran becomes a mother. A story set after Heartbreak doesn't feel good in a place like this Femslash Big Bang April Prompt: Forest

forest by yorit1

Fandom: Wicked - All Media Types, Wicked (Movie 2024), Wicked - Schwartz/Holzman Rating: G // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Elphaba Thropp/Galinda Upland Summary: Elphaba and Glinda go to the forest to spend time with the lion. They make a promise to him, will they be able to keep it?

dear verity by justadino

Fandom: Original Work Rating: T // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: OC / OC Summary: The day after Aevona is supposed to have died, she wakes up in a forest to the sound of birdsong and dew on her skin, beading on her hair and yet not soaking in. She doesn't feel any warmth, but she opens her eyes to see that fog curls around the trees like snakes in a dawn that hasn't yet brought the sun, and maybe some would find that suffocating, but… She can't find it in herself to. aevona tries to remember someone dear to her.

The Forest Through The Trees (E) by Hollie47

Fandom: Watson (TV 2025) Rating: E // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Ingrid Derian/Sasha Lubbock Summary: Getting lost in the forest while investigating a case, Ingrid and Sasha stumble upon a cabin to shelter them for the night.

a beat between time and heart by Grollow

Fandom: RWBY Rating: T // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Blake Belladonna/Pyrrha Nikos(Background) Nora Valkyrie/Yang Xiao Long Summary: A forest as large and dense as Forever Fall can hold many secrets. Luckily for Pyrrha, it just needs to holds one.

bitter smoke and dead dreams by AquamarineMemeBender

Fandom: 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs Rating: T // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Ozaki Kouyou/Yosano Akiko (Bungou Stray Dogs) Summary: “I’m not running away,” she manages, her voice steady and cool in a way that she doesn’t feel. “I’m not a fool.” “A fool?” the girl hums. “Is that what you’d call it?” Someone who doesn’t know how to accept their place in the world, thinks Kouyou, someone who is stupid enough to dream of a better life instead of surviving the one they have. Yes. “What would you call it?” “Desperate.” Or: years before Kouyou Ozaki becomes a Port Mafia executive and Yosano Akiko is a member of an ADA that's anything more than three people, they share a cigarette and a conversation at a gas station.

follow you wherever by sithfox (krazykikivii)

Fandom: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types Rating: T // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Arla Fett/Bo-Katan Kryze Summary: Newly orphaned, a teenage Bo-Katan Kryze runs to her kinsman Tor Vizsla and joins his crusade. Three scenes, each centering on a different Mandalorian deity.

death will never come near us, for ever in the sweet wood by feralshadowdemon

Fandom: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII Rating: T // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Aerith Gainsborough/Tifa Lockhart Summary: “..Thank you. What are you?” Tifa says, the words coming out a bit quicker than her mind could stop them, and she blinks. “Oh, god. Sorry, that came out way too fast-” Aerith lets out a laugh. “Oh, no, no. Really, when you’ve been chased by a unicorn throughout about half of the forest, you should be questioning some random stranger offering you tea to cure a cut, I believe.”

in a fantasy of our own(E) by theriverofdark

Fandom: Layton Kyouju vs Gyakuten Saiban | Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Rating: E // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Eve Belduke/Espella Cantabella Summary: Espella waits in the woods for the Great Witch to come.

It's Always Night In Space (M) by Shane_for_Wax

Fandom: Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek Legacy - Fandom Rating: M // Graphic Depictions of Violence Pairing: Seven of Nine/B'Elanna TorresRaffi Musiker/Seven of NineRaffi Musiker/B'Elanna TorresRaffi Musiker/Seven of Nine/B'Elanna Torres Summary: Seven of Nine, while still Borg, met with an alien species that subsisted entirely on blood. B'Elanna Torres grew up being told she 'wasn't Klingon enough'. Her mother did all she could to make B'Elanna into a proper Klingon. The girl was told that if she was a strong warrior, Kahless would 'bless' her with a 'transformation'. Raffi Musiker grew up knowing about werewolves and vampires. She had also always struggled with her inner demons. With the help of her lovers, Seven and B'Elanna, she got completely clean and was no longer an alcoholic or a drug user. And thus, she felt she had to repay them by keeping them out of trouble as the three of them traveled through the galaxy on the Enterprise-G. And then one day, during a basic survey mission, things got real. The stories the three of them had learned over the years turned out to be about real creatures. The galaxy was still full of surprises. (Even though this is listed as being part of the B7 and Along Came Raffi series, this is firmly an AU. I am not suddenly making them into cryptids/magical creatures for the rest of what I write.) Part of the Femslash Big Bang April Monthly Challenge: Forests

When we finally come face to face, will it be by the fairy ring? by Tinglecannon

Fandom: 大逆転裁判 | Dai Gyakuten Saiban | The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (Video Games) Rating: T // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Lady Baskerville/Asougi Kazuma's Mother Summary: The trailing sensation of the glittering reached her neck, and if she could cry she would’ve heaved a sob. She was going to die, wasn’t she? “I believe there’s been enough of that,” a feminine voice said behind her. As soon as the voice finished speaking, a pair of arms slipped around her waist and roughly dragged her backwards. It was as if she fell from heaven itself the way her body violently fell backwards down to the ground, shocking her entire system as air poured back into her lungs and her sore, aching muscles finally relaxed. The glowing silhouettes had all vanished, and instead all she could see was the face of a beautiful woman smiling down at her.

Next Time (E) by kopycat_101

Fandom: Vinland Saga (Manga) Rating: E // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Gudrid/Hild (Vinland Saga) Summary: Hild was just a bit oblivious to Gudrid's affections. Thankfully, during a walk into the forest that Gudrid insisted upon, Hild realized that Gudrid wanted her. Romantically. Sexually, even. The only drawback was they had little space or privacy back on the ship to explore their new relationship. They had to save their intimacy the few times they slipped from the rest of the crew to the wilderness, whenever they made camp during their journey.

on a sea of pure moonlight by thatwasanticlimactic

Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) Rating: G // No Archive Warnings Apply Pairing: Hagakure Tooru/Yaoyorozu Momo Summary: The last little bit of childhood she still has screams for her to jump at the chance to do something most kids (ones who didn’t fight in a war) would find dangerous. She wants to chase the thrill of doing something “wrong”. But it also scares her. “Toru, I-I want to, but…” she trails off, eyeing her composition book wearily. There’s still so much she doesn’t know, so much she needs to know. And if she stops learning, if she stops memorizing, she can’t help. (because, maybe, if she had known more, she would’ve been able to do more in the final war) [or, momogakure, forests, stargazing, and being seen]

[wizards4for20]

I am going to try and put this in as few words as possible, because my roommate and I spent an hour talking about this today; but there is truly nothing more incredible to me than human creativity.

Like, you’re telling me someone made this? You’re telling me this art came from someone’s own hand? You’re telling me this story came from someone’s mind? You’re telling me that someone as flawed and mortal and lost as me made this?

There is a beauty in math and in science, I am not here to argue that. But mathematics existed long before us. Science will exist long after us. And while the knowledge we have is a wonder, it is not ours. We did not make one and one equal two, we only learned and accepted that it did.

But our art is not universal. Our music was born through us. Our writing will die with us. And there is so much more beauty in knowing that we have made something. People have language and culture and poetry not because it was fact, but by our own whim and design.

This is something AI can never fulfill. An algorithm cannot create, it can only compile. A computer generated image has no link to us, to human emotion. To human flaw and struggle and passion.

Art is beautiful, and creation is the most powerful thing a person can do. Your stories, your art, hell, your fanfic and original characters, they exist not because of universal laws of math and physics, but because of your mind and skill; and if that isn’t the most amazing thing in the world, then what is?

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[thankskenpenders]

The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings review

The day has finally come. Many, understandably, thought we'd never get here. Maybe we shouldn't have gotten here. We've been through so much. Lawsuits, reboots, redesigns, unreleased NFTs, empty legal threats over the fact that movie Knuckles has a dad, an attempt to license out Scourge the Hedgehog to fans that immediately got canceled (in both meanings of the term), and many, MANY idiotic Twitter controversies. But now, here we are.

Thirteen years after first announcing it in the middle of his legal battles with Archie and Sega that changed the American Sonic comics forever, former writer Ken Penders has released the first part of his new series: The Lara-Su Chronicles.

Yes. I had to buy the book. I had to take one for the team. Look at the fucking URL of this blog, a blog I've been using to talk about the American Sonic comics for nearly a decade while the specter of this book loomed in the distance. The one time I've actually been paid to write an article about anything in any professional capacity, it was an article about the Penders lawsuits. I'm cited on his Wikipedia page. There was no way I was going to skip reviewing this, and there was no guarantee that scans would ever turn up online given the incredibly small audience for this trash. (Only 166 people preordered this, and even that number feels way higher than it should be.) No, I had to preorder it to ensure I could get a copy and cover it for the blog... even if that meant my name would be forever immortalized in the list of "supporters" in the back of the book. These are the sacrifices I must make as a woman who stumbled ass backwards into being an amateur Archie Sonic historian.

So, what exactly is in this book? How much of it is new? How bad is it? How did we even get here in the first place? How can this exist without Sega pursuing legal action? What happens next? And, most importantly... why are there multiple depictions of an Archie Sonic character breastfeeding in this book?

I'm here to answer those questions as best I can, and in agonizing detail.

First, for those just tuning in to this decades-long saga or those who maybe don't know the full story, here's a refresher on the background info.

"What the hell is this?"

The Lara-Su Chronicles is Ken Penders' long-dreaded long-awaited continuation of his 1994-2006 run on Archie Sonic, ignoring everything written after he left by other writers like Ian Flynn. In particular, it picks up from the cliffhanger ending of the 2003-2004 arc "Mobius: 25 Years Later," which was set in what Ken considers the definitive canonical future of the series. It stars Knuckles' daughter from that future era, Lara-Su, among other new and returning characters. The project was first announced near the start of Ken's legal battle with Archie in 2011, and he's been posting WIP previews online for about a decade. Now, after all this time, a Lara-Su Chronicles book finally exists.

We'll get to the actual contents of that book in a bit.

"He can do that without getting in trouble with Sega?"

Believe it or not, yes, he can.

Thanks to the outcome of Archie Comics' woefully mismanaged lawsuits against Ken (yes, they sued him after he started filing for copyrights, not the other way around), he now has full legal ownership of every story he wrote for Archie Sonic and every character he created for the series. This was explicitly granted to him in the terms of the settlement between him and Archie (acting on behalf of Sega). He can even reprint his old Sonic material as-is to his heart's content. The main catch is just that he can't write new stories featuring Sega characters or trademarks, and his new stories also have to be distinct from Sonic at a glance to avoid confusing readers. As such, reprints can't use Sonic iconography on the cover, a few Sega characters (mainly Knuckles) have been renamed and slightly redesigned in the new stories, and the art style has been changed to less closely resemble Sonic. But otherwise, he can do whatever he wants with his own characters.

All of this is because Archie lost the original copy of Ken's work-for-hire contract that signed over the rights to his work. Without that (or any alternative that was considered permissible in court), his comics and characters are the property of their creator by default. Yes, those old comics are full of Sega stuff, but Sega doesn't automatically own the copyright for every drawing of Sonic in existence. And Sega put their stamp of approval all over those comics and let them get sold at retail for decades, even though (in the eyes of the court) there was no legal paperwork granting them ownership of any of it. It's almost like they were unwittingly distributing a fan comic for years and declaring it a fair use of their property, and now there's no takesies backsies. It's a strange and unique copyright situation. Again, they worked all this out in the settlement. And, yes, fans have long speculated that Ken stole and destroyed his own contract to regain the rights to his work, but frankly Archie was so incompetent throughout the lawsuit (it went so bad that they had to fire and replace their lawyers midway through) that I completely buy the idea of them just losing important legal documents.

Also, in case it needs to be spelled out: while Ken's a weirdo, it's ultimately a good thing for creatives everywhere that Archie lost their lawsuit against Ken. We do not want to live in a world where corporations can claim ownership of peoples' work without the contracts to back it up. That would be an incredibly dangerous legal precedent to set. And more comic creators, and artists in general, should own their own work! Corporations are not your friend! They'll delete your work for a tax write-off in a heartbeat! It's just bewildering that this guy, of all people, was the creator who ended up successfully getting his shit back, and that this is what he's doing with it.

"What about his old collaborators? Are they involved? Is he paying them?"

Ken is mostly doing The Lara-Su Chronicles solo, though he has, in fact, talked about compensating the artists involved in any material he's reprinting. The ones who give enough of a shit to get paid for a small scale reprint of something they did 20 years ago, anyway.

On the subject of his collaborators, it's also worth pointing out that Ken's wasn't the only contract that was lost. Most of the early Archie Sonic writers from before Ian Flynn's time seem to be in the same boat as Ken, with the ownership of their stories and characters defaulting back to them. Again, Archie fucked up big time. But like I said, most of them don't really seem to give a shit. For most of them, Sonic was just a random temporary gig they took to pay the bills while Marvel was busy going bankrupt in the '90s, not the thing that defined their entire careers.

The only other Archie Sonic contributor who's tried to do anything on the level of what Ken is doing was writer and editor Scott Fulop. In 2016 he attempted to sue Archie for the unauthorized use of what are now retroactively considered his copyrighted characters and stories, and he even announced a standalone comic about his most famous Sonic character, the recurring villain Mammoth Mogul (sort of a pastiche of DC's Vandal Savage and Marvel's Kingpin, with wizard powers added for spice). However, Fulop lost his lawsuit because he didn't put together a particularly compelling case. Since then he seems to have wiped all traces of his ill-advised Mammoth Mogul comic and his company, Narrative Ark Entertainment, from the internet. For now, this leaves The Lara-Su Chronicles the only project of its kind.

"What about those other Archie Sonic reprints he just announced?"

At the time of writing, Ken is once again claiming that he's trying to get the band back together to reprint all of Archie Sonic, now under the bad new banner "Floating Island Productions: MOBIAN LINE" that I can't imagine he consulted literally anyone else on.

So, like, look. As we've established, Ken can reprint his own stories. And if he can work something out with the other contributors whose contracts were lost, he can print their work, too. But there is no fucking way he's getting his hands on Ian Flynn's run, which Sega undoubtedly holds the copyright for. Even if they don't, Ian needs to maintain a good working relationship with both Sega and IDW if he's to keep his job, so he'd never go for this. Not to mention that Ian and Ken just... don't get along! Ken's whole plan here seems to be predicated on IDW going out of business (a thing he REALLY wants to happen) and freeing up the Sonic comic license, after which he knocks on Sega's door and goes "hey I've still got dirt on you guys," blackmailing them into giving him the Sonic license back so that he can reprint the later comics. Every step of this plan is ludicrous. It's never gonna happen.

He's been saying he wants to reprint the whole series for a few years now, though. This isn't really anything new. And despite his lofty plans that set Sonic Twitter ablaze, he quickly backpedaled. The only specific things in the works right now are a "two-volume omnibus" of all of his Knuckles stories and a collection of artist Scott Shaw's work on the very early Archie Sonic issues, since they're on good terms with each other. I have no idea how Ken plans on packaging these when he can't put any Sega characters or the Freedom Fighters on the covers, but these projects are small enough in scale that there's a decent chance they'll see the light of day. Scott Shaw only did like five issues. But anything beyond that? I'll believe it when I see it.

Or, y'know, this could've all just been a publicity stunt for his new book. I wouldn't put it past him. Let's just focus on the book that actually exists.

"So he finally did it? He made a whole Lara-Su book? It's out? He finished it??"

Yes and no.

The book that's out now is The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings, a prologue for the series of seven graphic novels Ken somehow plans on making, even though it's taken him 13 years to put out literally anything new. I don't know whether or not this counts as book one of seven, because it only features 30 pages of new comics. 30.5 if I'm being generous.

Most of the book is actually just a reprint of his infamous Archie Sonic storyline "Mobius: 25 Years Later", which ran from issue #131 to #144 in 2003-2004. (Again, yes, he can reprint this, he just can't put Sonic on the cover.) Why's it infamous? Well, Ken had been building anticipation for this future era of the series for basically his entire run. We kept seeing King Sonic and Queen Sally from the future. Knuckles' entire backstory hinges on his dad having a vision of this future. Several years before Silver the Hedgehog was created, it was Lara-Su who was Sonic's equivalent to Future Trunks, the cool-looking child of one of the main characters who traveled back in time to try and prevent a dark future. Believe it or not, yes, there was hype for Lara-Su. And then we finally got M25YL, and none of that cool stuff happened. Instead it really ended up being about how unbearably boring the middle aged Sonic, Knuckles, Sally, and co. are in this peaceful future where Robotnik is dead and they're all married with kids, forced into traditional nuclear family gender roles. Lara-Su is present, but she mostly just does generic teen girl stuff and complains about how Knuckles won't let her do anything even though she REALLY wants to be the new Guardian of Angel Island, like, super bad! Come on, dad!!!

In its original printing, this meandering arc ended on an abrupt time travel cliffhanger that Ken was never able to follow up on before he left Archie in 2006. This new printing slightly changes that ending, using the unresolved timey-wimey shenanigans as a convenient excuse to alter the entire timeline. This creates the slightly different world of The Lara-Su Chronicles, where the few relevant Sega-owned characters have been replaced and everyone is ten times uglier.

After this, we finally get two short new stories picking up where M25YL left off: "The Storm," starring Acorn Kingdom super-spy and known creep Geoffrey St. John, and an early release of the first chapter of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows, the first full TLSC graphic novel.

And now that we're all on the same page about what we're looking at, let's actually talk about the book!

The cover

Let's start by beating a dead horse. The cover art: it's still bad! But why is it bad?

The cover is, of course, based on Patrick Spaziante's cover from Archie Sonic #131, the start of the "Mobius: 25 Years Later" arc. (Ken did the layout for that cover, though, so in the eyes of the law he's the original creator who owns that cover.) That cover was, itself, a tribute to the iconic cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum, the issue that introduced the version of the team with Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, etc.

Ken seems to have forgotten that the point of both these covers was to hype up the arrival of a new cast of characters. The new guys are supposed to make a dramatic entrance front and center. That's the focal point. Meanwhile, the cover for Beginnings has the old timeline versions of the cast from Archie Sonic dramatically bursting out of a shattered crystal ball, while their new counterparts look on in mild bemusement - if they're even bothering to look at all, since most of the characters here are just copied and pasted from their profile pages. That's just not how you do this particular homage! The point is supposed to be "out with the old, in with the new." And why are they using a crystal ball to view the past? Hell, why are they even using a crystal ball at all? The original arc was presented as a magical vision of the future courtesy of Tails' uncle Merlin (don't ask), but the new story leans all the way into being futuristic sci-fi.

Of course, there is no real artistic intent at play here. The old versions of the characters are placed front and center in the crystal ball simply because Ken traced over Spaziante's original art of Lara-Su and Julie-Su (the only two characters on the Sonic cover he owns) and threw out the rest, ruining the composition in the process. Look at the awkward empty space where Sonic, Sally, and Rotor once were, and the new drawing of The Character Formerly Known As Knuckles who's no longer properly centered between his wife and daughter. Even if Ken can claim ownership of the cover because he did the original layout, this all just feels scummy and lame.

And, yeah, if it needs to be said, the new characters and Ken's new rendering style look like absolute fucking dogshit. Putting new Lara-Su directly next to old Lara-Su does her no favors. The shattered glass effect looks absolutely atrocious. I could go on, but we'll have plenty of time to talk about the art style when we see how bad the stories inside look.

Changes to "Mobius: 25 Years Later"

Overall, 99% of M25YL is presented identically to its original printing. Sonic, Sally, Knuckles, et al. are still present with no changes to their names and no tweaks to the art. Even the original cover for issue #131 is included only a few pages into this book with its Archie, Sonic, and Sega logos still intact and everything. Again, because of the weird copyright situation described above, these preexisting comics can be released without any changes.

There is exactly one bizarre change to the art, though, where a hand drawn shot of Angel Island is replaced with an unfitting photo background and the ugly Floating Island photobash that Ken has been using as his personal logo for decades. I think he only did this as part of a test for his motion comic app that nobody asked for. I don't know why this had to make it into the print version. It's like the book is firing a warning shot for what's to come if you keep reading.

The new content begins on the final page of M25YL. In the original wet fart of a cliffhanger ending, Sonic and co. accidentally alter the timeline with an old time machine of Robotnik's and Lara-Su begins to fade away. Then, after everything goes white, we just cut to the present day heroes going "gee, you ever think about the future?" In this new printing, that last bit has been cut, and the rest of the page has been awkwardly shrunk down so that Ken can fit in a new panel. We now see the hands of an off-screen villain, seemingly named "Override," proclaiming that "the Praetorian" (Knuckles) has messed up the timeline again and that they'll finally get their revenge.

Who is this Override? I have no fucking clue. The new stories in this book make no mention of them. You have to buy the next book to find out.

My confusion over the identity of this villain overlaps with another big problem: name changes. So many names and nouns have been arbitrarily changed in The Lara-Su Chronicles, even ones Ken didn't have to change for copyright reasons, and I only know what half of them are replacing because Ken's been tweeting about this shit for years.

The echidnas are now a totally original alien race called "the Echyd'nya." Even in flashbacks to events from M25YL attempting to mimic the old art style, if it's on a new comic page, they're gonna call themselves "Echyd'nya." Evil echidna faction the Dark Legion is now the "Cyberdark Dominion," hailing from the "Cyberdark Colony." The Brotherhood of Guardians is still the Brotherhood of Guardians, but now the main guardian is called "The Praetorian." Angel Island is still called "The Floating Island," like it was in the older Archie comics, but it's ALSO sometimes called "Avion"? When I read this I wasn't sure if he had randomly renamed Albion, the other echidna city from the Archie comics. But no. Now we have an Albion AND an Avion. Sally is mentioned simply as "Princess Acorn," while Sonic is referenced once as an unnamed "blue-spined Erinaceinae," using the scientific name for hedgehog to make it sound more sci-fi. In an incredibly ballsy move, Ken even mentions Robotnik as "the Insurrectionist Kintobor," retaining his original surname from the Archie comics that's just "Robotnik" backwards. Guess Sega never trademarked that one.

Aside from every name change being a downgrade, this leads to confusion when you're not sure if something is supposed to be new, or if it's just an Archie thing you're supposed to recognize despite having a new name and design. Is "Override" someone I'm supposed to know already? Am I just supposed to have read a fucking tweet from Ken where he said he changed the name of some existing villain to "Override"? The answer is no, but I had to term search his Twitter just to verify this.

Moving on!

New story #1: "The Storm"

If you've been following the WIPs, this is that story about Geoffrey St. John that Ken's been posting previews of for almost a decade. The title page copyright dates it to 2015, and that absurdly long gestation is probably why the art is so inconsistent here. Even the style of speech bubbles and the font change between pages two and three.

This is a problem when there's supposed to be a deliberate and noticeable change in art style here signaling the moment where the time travel stuff alters the timeline, replacing the Archie Sonic world with the Lara-Su Chronicles world. If you don't already know that's what's going on, the idea isn't conveyed clearly at all. It just goes from one hideous art style to a slightly different one with no explanation.

The main problem here is that Ken has hitched his wagon to a franchise about anthropomorphic animals when he can't draw furries to save his life. (Though a bit later in the book we'll also begin to wonder if he can even still draw humans.) He's shifted away from the cartooniness of the original designs and given them more human proportions and facial features, but this just ends up making them look incredibly uncanny and lumpy and gross. With some designs he's trying to lean into more of a Star Trek alien vibe, but then he still insists upon retaining the giant Sonic eyes on most characters even though he has no idea how to make them emote.

The rendering of these godawful designs doesn't do them any favors, either. Ken's going for more of a painterly look now, but it almost seems as though he's shading everything with Photoshop's burn and dodge tools that are designed to darken and lighten select areas of a photo. The result is a muddy, smudgy look that makes it feel like the color layer has been smeared in vaseline. And it only looks worse after coming off of 14 chapters of M25YL that have way more palatable art.

The backgrounds, too, are a complete mess, a jumble of low res jpeg photo elements (sometimes with extremely noticeable pixelation), stock textures, and smooth digital gradients. There's no real sense of place here, and it gives everything a surreal, dreamlike quality when you can't really tell where anything is supposed to take place. This first story is seemingly set in a high-tech stronghold below Castle Acorn called "the Bunker," but it could just as easily be confused for the bridge of a spaceship. This whole story features characters speaking to each other over floating video displays and hologram projectors from three different locations, but without a hologram effect and without a clear sense of where the characters are it often feels like they're just in the same room as each other. Characters will be in one location on one photo background, and then the camera angle changes and they're in a completely different place, because Ken just uses mismatched photos off of the internet. It's been like 25 years since he first tried using photo backgrounds in the Archie comics and he hasn't gotten any better at it.

When I had my boyfriend read the book to see if it made literally any sense to him (it didn't), Anthony said this: "This is the kind of shit I'd see linked on a Second Life world that hasn't been touched since 2004." I think he really hit the nail on the head. Now, there's actually a contrarian part of me that thinks that might theoretically almost be kind of cool, in sort of a messy counterculture way. I love weird indie shit. I was a Homestuck reader! But this isn't a scrappy mixed media zine, or experimental outsider art from someone just messing around with Photoshop, or a loving throwback to weird old internet art, or even something intentionally bizarre and offputting like Xavier: Renegade Angel or a PilotRedSun video or whatever where the fact that it's weird and ugly is part of the humor. This is supposed to be a sincere sci-fi epic drawing on Star Trek and Jack Kirby comics, made by a guy who's been drawing comics professionally since the '80s. This is supposed to look good. This is supposed to compete with mainstream comics that are on sale right now. He thinks any day now IDW's gonna go out of business and Sega will come crawling back to him so that he can stamp the Sonic logo on shit like this. It just doesn't work.

But, okay. It's ugly. We knew it would be ugly. But that ugliness would be much easier to accept if it was in service of an otherwise genuinely good story. So what about the writing? After all this time, how does Ken choose to kick off this new saga? Well, credit where credit's due. "The Storm" feels like a proper continuation of Ken's writing style from M25YL.

Because it's eleven pages of characters standing around and talking while nothing fucking happens.

Here's the synopsis: A dog woman named Brownie, an ensign in the Royal Secret Service fresh out of training and the only character who's almost cute, walks up to Geoffrey to deliver a report. He's immediately suspicious of her, asking who let her in and if she's a spy for Elias (Sally's brother, if you're new here) or Alicia (Sally's mom). The art style suddenly shifts when the timeline is altered, but the scene continues uninterrupted. Geoffrey points a gun at Brownie when she won't say whose spy she is. Geoffrey is distracted by a call and proceeds to have a conversation via a mix of holograms and video screens with Remington (head of Echidnaopolis security), Spectre (Knuckles' great great great great great grandpa, the one with the helmet who always looks evil), and a new scientist character named Dr. Zephyr/Zephur. (The spelling of this character's name changes multiple times throughout the 11-page story, because I guess nine years wasn't enough time to spellcheck this shit.) They say a bunch of made up technobabble nonsense about how it looks like the timeline was just altered and Knuckles and co. seem to be involved. It's complete drivel that I'm not even going to try to make sense of. Everyone decides to investigate further, and the conversation ends. Brownie tells Geoffrey she's his spy, then walks out and implies she's actually Alicia's spy in her inner monologue.

To be continued!!!

Yes, that's it. It's really just a bunch of technobabble where some characters talk about how it seems like the timeline has been fucked with. That's it. The whole time Geoffrey doesn't even get up out of his damn chair, which he's of course sitting in backwards to show how cool he is. It's just 11 pages of Geoffrey sitting in a chair and talking to people and looking uglier than he's ever looked. Nothing happens. Nine years for this.

I'm also struck by how meaningless all of this is to anyone who hasn't read Archie Sonic. The added context from M25YL may help a little, but "The Storm" focuses on characters who weren't in that arc, and the story does very little to introduce who any of them are. Brownie could've been super useful as an inexperienced point of view character who's only meeting the others for the first time here, but instead she's really just a passive observer who's here as part of some kind of 4D chess game between Geoffrey and Alicia, an off-screen character whose motivations in this era of the story are completely unknown to even returning readers. Who are the good guys and bad guys here? What are the conflicts and the stakes of the story moving forward? What do these characters want? Basic questions like this aren't really answered. I can't imagine a new reader being able to make heads or tails of this. Hell, I can't really imagine a returning reader who hasn't been following the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets about this story making heads or tails of it, either.

...Maybe more will happen in the next story?

New story #2: Shattered Tomorrows preview chapter

After another message from Ken, the story of The Lara-Su Chronicles proper begins with the redesigned Lara-Su walking along a jpeg photograph beach at sunset and crying while thinking about how Knuckles - sorry, his name is K'Nox now - is dead.

Yep! Straight into the dad stuff!

Look, I'm the last person to complain about writers getting super personal and drawing from their own baggage in their writing, but Ken's just no fucking good at it. There's no nuance, nothing interesting to say. He just keeps writing mediocre-to-horrible dads whose misdeeds are always justified by their "good intentions," and then sometimes they die and their kids are like "we may have fought but actually you were the bestest dad ever and I'll miss you forever, I'll never be able to fill your shoes!"

This is the only part of the new material here that feels like it has any heart behind it, because I know how much his complex relationship with his late deadbeat father means to Ken (there's an author's note in this outright saying as much). But the guy died 42 years ago, and it doesn't feel like Ken has had any new thoughts about this part of his life in those four decades. He's just not an introspective or self-aware enough artist to actually mine his personal baggage for anything beyond "father knows best."

Anyway, so then it jumps forward in time(?) and now we're following this human guy who looks like this.

Previously, Ken got a lot of shit for literally just using the likeness of Anthony Mackie for this guy, based on his IMDB profile photo. Ken has thus redesigned the character... and by that I mean I think he looks more like Ernie Hudson now? Ken's clearly just working off of photo references (if not straight up tracing), given his face is the most detailed and realistic-looking thing on any page where he's present.

But you may be wondering: who is this, and why is he here? Well, for one, he's here to run around in front of some low res space photos while making trite references to things like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek. Haha, he makes a joke about red shirts! Original!! But beyond that, Commander Mykhal Taelor (yes, that's really how he chose to spell it) is a human... from Earth! Archie Sonic readers are probably confused, because in those comics Mobius is Earth in the distant post-apocalyptic future. Well, despite being a Planet of the Apes fan, Ken always hated that particular worldbuilding decision from Karl Bollers, always preferring to think of Mobius as a separate alien planet. And now he gets to make that canon in his own stories and throw out Karl's ideas. So Mobius is basically just, like, a Star Trek planet now, with its own alien creatures that sometimes just so happen to look like anthropomorphic Earth animals.

Also, at one point Taelor wonders if the inhabitants of the dead Mobius might have been human, and the alien ally he's talking to over the radio says it's unlikely. "I don't understand why your kind has a problem understanding you're a minority within a minority." Perhaps poor wording for a line said to the only Black character in the story.

Anyway, Commander Taelor here seems to have discovered the uninhabited husk of Mobius after the vague time-space cataclysm everyone was worried about in M25YL has come to pass, and he finds an audio log from Lara-Su that I presume will explain what happened. I guess those are the titular Lara-Su Chronicles. In theory this flash forward establishes some sense of pressing danger, but when the threat to the planet is so unclear and technobabble-y it just kind of lands with a thud.

It doesn't take long before we get back to Lara-Su being sad about her dad. A good little chunk of the chapter is spent with this new timeline's Lara-Su recalling moments in her life, including echoes of the original Lara-Su's memories from M25YL, which feels redundant coming hot off the heels of a straight reprint of that entire arc. And boy, for anyone who read the later Archie Sonic comics, the protagonist having vague memories of the old version of the series from before a lawsuit-related timeline reboot sure does sound familiar, huh?

The art inconsistency somehow becomes even worse in this story, with Ken flip-flopping on whether or not he wants to use outlines, with the no-outline art managing to look even worse by relying entirely on Ken's awful rendering. By this point in the book, readers are also likely to start noticing how often Ken reuses art from previous panels. This is a shortcut that tons of comic artists use, of course. Invincible famously did a joke about this. It's often understandable. But, again... it sure does stand out in a book that took 13 years to make with only 30 pages of new art. Amusingly, Ken even manages to combine his inconsistency and recycling problems by reusing the same art with and without outlines. And, of course, any time Ken tries to draw the Archie era designs it's just... the worst.

And, yes, it's in this dreamlike montage sequence of Lara-Su's life that we get...

The uncomfortable family nudity scene, followed by the dual timeline Julie-Su breastfeeding scene.

Yeah, you might have heard about this one already. If this incredibly eerie presentation of Lara-Su's hazy memories of the two different timelines make it hard to tell what's going on, don't worry. There's another, clearer version later in the book as part of Julie-Su's character profile, because I guess Ken was just so proud of it.

(I censored these myself because I'm not playing Russian roulette with Tumblr's inconsistent nudity rules and risking getting banned lmao)

Like, okay. Is a mother breastfeeding her child really that shocking of a thing to see in a story? No, not at all. But, like... when it's two characters who you previously created for an officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comic for 7-year-olds... and some of those officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comics for 7-year-olds are reprinted in the same book... and when it's drawn like this... yeah, it's kind of a shocker.

It just looks so unnatural. Julie-Su is posed very deliberately so that you'll see both of her breasts, and in the new timeline version she's barely even holding Lara-Su so you can really get a good look at her supermodel body, showing zero physical signs that she just gave birth. Most people will immediately jump to this being Ken putting his fetishes in his work (a type of criticism that I'm incredibly tired of - it's 2024, all the cool artists are blatantly putting their fetishes in their work now). And my immediate response is that, no, this is probably just Ken trying to come off as really mature on a surface level, a thing he's been obsessed with since the Archie days. Free from the shackles of writing a licensed children's comic, of course he's going to jump immediately into depicting some nonsexual, artistic nudity to try and prove he's A Real Mature Artist For Grown-Ups who just thinks the human body is beautiful and breastfeeding shouldn't be a taboo etc. etc.

But then, like. You look at some of the other character designs. Like Espio's daughter Salma, who's now this horrifying alien lizard person who's always nude, and her scale pattern puts scales exactly where her nipples should be. Or you look at his comments about the Echyd'nya age of consent. Or you look at how he keeps drawing Lara-Su in this. Like, does the shuttle really need this, like... reverse chaise lounge thing in the cockpit? So that we can keep getting these shots of the 16-year-old Lara-Su lying on her stomach and posing with one of her legs kicked up, her naked ass in plain view?

The vibe isn't great, is what I'm saying!

I'm not going to try to ascribe authorial intent here. I don't know. I'm not a psychic. Given his very blatant reliance on photo references elsewhere in the book, it's entirely possible he just referenced some figure drawing photos that were maybe just a little too sexy. And also, he's an American comic book artist, and a boomer one at that. Those guys tend to draw women a certain way, even when it's not supposed to be sexual. I don't fucking know. It just sucks. I'm not gonna make some hyperbolic statement about how this makes him a literal pedophile who should be in jail, but it is deeply offputting and objectifying.

But if you already knew about the nursing scenes and were hoping there was some other really shocking stuff in there for me to talk about in this review, sorry to disappoint, but nope. That's the only shockingly weird new thing in here. Once again, not a lot happens in this story, and what does happen is pretty boring.

Once we get past the recap stuff and the human guy, the plot developments boil down to this: The timeline was altered at the end of M25YL... but not as much as you might think. In the new timeline, Knuckles ("K'Nox"), Cobar (now looking significantly younger), and Rotor (now a rhino just called "The Emissary") still traveled via shuttle to go find a time machine in the Badlands and fix the time-space continuum, like in the climax of the original arc. This time, though, Sonic wasn't there, and Lara-Su came along without having to stow away. Lara-Su watches the ship while the grown ups go deal with the time machine, and then after a couple panels Not Rotor comes back with Cobar and is like "Hey, Cobar got hurt, we gotta leave. Dunno what happened to your dad." And then they just, like. Presume that Knuckles must have died. Even though we have no idea what happened to him. And then they just fly away. And then Lara-Su is sad that her dad died.

And that's pretty much it!

This is supposed to be a really emotional sequence - it's literally the scene where Lara-Su learns that Knuckles is dead - but instead it comes off as unintentionally funny because of how poorly it's portrayed. Not showing Knuckles' actual disappearance is a huge misstep, for one, making his uncertain fate more confusing and anticlimactic than dramatic. But also, Ken keeps just using the same two drawings of Rotor for two pages, so he doesn't really seem to be emoting at all, and he's in this spacey hazmat suit that honestly just makes him look like fucking Moltar from Space Ghost. So the whole time I'm just reading his dialogue in Moltar's deadpan voice as he's like "I dunno. We did what we could. Anyway, let's leave."

After this, we get a two-page spread previewing the rest of the story from Shattered Tomorrows. It's basically like a trailer in comic form. It has one of the most mystifying layouts I've ever seen in a comic book. I have no idea what order I'm supposed to read this in.

Yeah, I kinda have a feeling this is the full extent of what Ken has drawn for the rest of that book. I'd love to be wrong, but I fear that I'm right.

Bonus material: Data files

These are mostly very dull, recapping a lot of events shared between Ken's Archie run and the new Lara-Su Chronicles timeline. It seems like almost his entire run is still considered canon to the backstory of the new timeline, just with some names changed, and things only really diverge at the climax of M25YL. But I'll share the interesting stuff here.

Lara-Su

The main thing you'll notice in Lara-Su's profile is the massive, unreadable wall of text where Ken felt the need to list the entire Knuckles family tree, split across both pages.

This is literally so long that Lara-Su's personal history has to awkwardly cut off mid-sentence and be continued on the final page of the book, after the rest of the data files.

Also, please note that this list gives Julie-Su's mom's full name as Mari-Su of the House of Atrades. Incredible on all levels.

There's also a reference to the dark timeline Lara-Su was originally supposed to come from. You know, the one where Julie-Su is the leader of a rebel movement fighting against a Knuckles who had gone mad with power? The timeline that would have been way more interesting than the one in M25YL? Here it seems to have been written off as the result of another "timeline disruption." Lara-Su allegedly has vague memories of this timeline, in the same way that she has vague memories of the M25YL timeline.

Geoffrey

Geoffrey's bio mostly recaps events from the Archie comics, which means the Sonic/Sally/Geoffrey love triangle has to be alluded to. His rivalry with Sonic is described like this:

"He would later resurface when Kintobor was transporting his latest hi-tech weapon, the Dynamac-3000. It was during that mission he discovered a rival for the Princess' affections. Whereas the Princess would be one of a line of conquests where St. John was concerned, the blue-spined Erinaceinae who protested doth a bit too much regarding his affections for the Princess for St. John's taste would prove to be a source of great sport and amusement."

Yes. It's gross. Saying that Geoffrey saw Sally as "one of a line of conquests" is gross. Ken writing this and then still treating Geoffrey as the coolest badass ever is gross. The "Princess Acorn" is also first on the list of Geoffrey's "female relationships" elsewhere in his bio, though I suppose how much of a "relationship" they had is left vague. Honestly, at this point the fact that Ken didn't explicitly confirm that Geoffrey took the underage Sally's virginity in the book comes off as a display of restraint. The bar couldn't be any lower, I know.

Remington

His bio is, frankly, shockingly long for such a minor character, though I guess he does get a large portion of the word salad dialogue in "The Storm." There's a lot of stuff here about how the identities of his biological parents are shrouded in mystery, a plot point that fans have long speculated Ken just straight up forgot about in his time at Archie. (Ian confirmed that Kragok from the Dark Legion was Remington's dad, though, so this isn't really much of a mystery.)

Lien-Da

She gets a bio even though she's not present in the two new stories, just so we get to look at her awful new design and compare it to how Steven Butler drew her earlier in the book:

Commander Taelor

We get to see two drawings of him with the same exact Ernie Hudson face side by side! That's fun.

Julie-Su

She gets a list of "known friends," but the only character listed is Knuckles' mom. Poor Julie-Su.

Also, Ken feels the need to reiterate that Knuckles and Julie-Su are still distant cousins. He made a whole new timeline where he can change whatever details he wants, but THAT had to remain canon. Thanks, Ken.

And then after the data files we get the special thanks page, listing everyone who preordered the book and/or bought TLSC merch from Ken.

With my name on the list. Because I had to buy a copy to cover it for the blog.

My name is on the very next page right after the breastfeeding panel in Julie-Su's data file.

Yep. He got me.

Is it at least a well put together book? Like, in terms of manufacturing quality?

Its physical quality is... fine. It's a nice, sturdy hardcover. The print quality seems fine, though mine does have a bit of smudging from some sort of printing error on one page. The pages don't seem like they'll fall out on me. The image quality is crisp. The colors are vibrant. This is a low bar, but this is one of the few places where I'm able to give this book anything resembling praise.

The formatting and graphic design work, on the other hand...

(I didn't crumple those page corners, it came like that.)

For one, the placement and sizes of the M25YL pages is inconsistent, largely due to the fact that the book doesn't actually match the proportions of a comic. A lot of pages aren't properly centered vertically. Some pages go all the way up to the top edge of the paper, while others leave a visible gap of about half a centimeter. Every page has a 1cm gap to its left and right, which is sometimes filled in with a solid color or gradient that doesn't quite match the page it's surrounding. I have to assume Ken didn't have any sort of source files or original artwork to work off of, as those ideally would've had more generous bleed to account for slight shifts in printing. It kind of seems like he just got the highest resolution versions he could find of the digital releases online and printed those. The colors are a dead ringer for the digital versions, which have always looked slightly more saturated and pastel than they did in print.

I can't say this bodes well for his further plans for Archie Sonic reprints - sorry, Mobian Line reprints. If they ever come out, please, for the love of god, do not buy those. I don't care how much you love Archie Sonic, they aren't going to be good reprints. For comparison, IDW's similarly priced hardcover Sonic collections have none of these formatting problems, because they're made by people who know what they're doing with access to the actual source files.

The book also has its fair share of text-focused pages, split between the data files and messages directly from Ken about the history of his career and this project, and these are formatted in the most amateurish way possible. Just massive walls of Arial text over either plain white backgrounds, simple gradients, or faded photos. I've seen school yearbooks with better graphic design. Even ignoring my subjective feelings about the art and stories within, this book does not feel like it's worth $36 USD.

It's frankly shocking how shabby he let this thing look considering it's supposed to be his baby. And doesn't that really sum it all up?

Closing thoughts

Obviously, I did not expect this to be any good. But I'm still left kind of dumbfounded by it.

I think what really strikes me about it is that Ken had a blank check to do whatever he wanted here. He got an opportunity many writers would kill for when he gained complete ownership of his most famous work. He's free from the limitations of a monthly licensed comic book for children, free to make whatever creative decisions he wants without editors or other writers or Sega to worry about, free to completely reinvent the series to his heart's content and finally tell the story of his dreams. And with that opportunity and 13 years of his time, he made... this. A direct continuation of "Mobius: 25 Years Later" that barely changes anything about the characters or world beyond their awful new designs, even though much of the word count is spent rambling about how the timeline has changed. A story that makes zero concessions for new readers, or even returning readers who don't already have the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets explaining his creative decisions burned into their memory. 30 pages where nothing really happens and the story barely moves forward an inch despite the decades-long wait - but maybe something will happen if you buy the next book!

Who is this for? Maybe this really is a project for no one but Ken. Maybe he just really, really wants to finish the story he started, a story that's personal to him due to the family history it evokes, and the number of people who enjoy it or buy it beyond that is irrelevant. I think that many of the best artists are incredibly self-indulgent ones working with that exact mindset, artists whose enthusiasm for their own work jumps off the page or screen. So, if that's the case, then why the fuck isn't he telling the damn story? What's stopping him? Why is he still spinning his wheels? Where is that passion for his own work? Because it sure as hell isn't there on the page. There's a huge part of me that really wishes I could say "Man, what a weirdo, but you do you, Ken. You tell your weird little story." But there's barely any story here. It's like he loves styling himself as a storyteller, but he's terrified of finally having to actually tell a story after all this time. He's still stuck in the exact same mode of writing he was in almost 30 years ago when he was doing 6-page backup stories about Knuckles, just killing time and stringing readers along until he's eventually able to truly realize his vision. If not now, then when, Ken?

Even the back cover blurb is mostly just a dry recap of the history of this thing. It was a Sonic comic, the original arc was published in these issues, it went unfinished, Ken left Archie, the lawsuits happened, now he's continuing the story. There's nothing about why anyone should give a shit about this as its own story, even though Ken has spent years trying in vain to convince people TLSC is its own beast that shouldn't be judged as a Sonic story. I think deep down he knows that there's no pitch for this beyond the novelty of it originating from Sonic. And that's why, despite declaring that he'd leave the site, he's still on Twitter riling up Sonic fans. It's the only attention he gets at this point.

Maybe this is too harsh when those 30 pages of new comics are just intended as a preview for the "real" book. But the elephant in the room is that we have no idea if that "real" book will ever actually come out, let alone the entire series of seven graphic novels that will supposedly complete this saga.

Ken is undeniably a complete jackass and all around unpleasant, vindictive person who's rightly become an industry pariah. He's a self-proclaimed paragon of progressive values who'll send Comicsgaters after his successors for the crime of not worshiping the ground he walks on, and then turn around and announce he's going to reprint their work without even consulting them. He's a sore winner who already won his copyright battle on a level most comic writers would never dare to dream of, and yet still won't truly be satisfied until he sees an entire major comic publisher go out of business, putting god knows how many people out of work, because he thinks this would get him back the license to a video game franchise he doesn't even like.

But I still have to pity him.

As an artist, the trajectory of his life is my nightmare. I think all of us fear dying before we can tell all the stories we want to tell. There's simply never enough time to do everything. And here's Ken in his 60s, talking about how he's still planning on making his magnum opus all by himself out of stubbornness and pride, despite demonstrably proving he can't handle the workload, and also talking about how if he dies before the project can be finished he'll have to pass the torch on to his kids and get them to finish it for him. It's so grim. Even just typing that sends a shiver down my spine. It took nine years of his limited time on Earth to finish and release an 11-page comic about Geoffrey St. John sitting backwards in a chair.

This is a purgatory of his own creation. And yet... I'm not sure he's ever been prouder. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

I guess if I want people to take anything away from this review, it's this:

Lesson one: If you're an artist or writer of some kind, or an aspiring creator, don't wait around. No one else is going to tell your story for you. Start writing that novel. Start drawing that webcomic. Start making that game. If Penders can put out this damn book that no one asked for after 13 years of work, then proudly proclaim that he's still going to make six or seven more books and also reprint hundreds of comics he doesn't have all of the rights to, then show up to cons with that foul Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows banner and sit in front of it beaming with pride, fully aware of his critics but saying "fuck 'em, I know I'm hot shit," then you can do fucking anything. Tell the weird, sincere, cringe story of your dreams. If Ken Penders doesn't have imposter syndrome, then nobody should.

And lesson two: Don't buy Ken's books.

[miiilowo]

Help an audhd + disabled trans dude move out and get away from his violent unstable mother (please)

pre-tldr: i need help with funds for moving into a new place, my mom is very violent and irrational, constantly yelling/stomping, i feel very unsafe and uncomfortable, we have over 15 cats she refuses to get rid of and its a huge drain on my mental health. its filthy here and i NEED to get out. ok full post now

-

Hi 👋 my name is Milo. I'm 19, american, transmasc, audhd, got severe chronic pain and no medication for any of it. makes finding suitable jobs very difficult unfortunately

I currently live in an RV with my mom and have for around a year and a half after being homeless for about a year before that. We have a genuinely ABSURD number of cats (over 15 couped up in this tiny space), which is not only terrible for the cats, its terrible for my mental health, my moms, and is a big drain on our funds. We can barely afford to take care of them and no matter how much I plead with her to take some of them to a shelter or do SOMETHING she refuses to, so that should start painting a picture of the type of person I'm dealing with here.

Her temper is incredibly, INCREDIBLY short. She's impossible to be around, refuses to improve, is physically violent to our general surroundings / herself / occasionally the cats. She has thrown things at me before and threatened me. I generally dont feel safe or comfortable, and most times Ive tried getting her to stop any of the aforementioned behavior, she guilt trips me and things never change. Literally as I'm typing this she's been caterwauling, stomping and throwing things. What prompted this? No idea! This happens genuinely every single day. This is not an exaggeration. It's destroying my brain and I can't handle it anymore. This is going to sound particularly pitiful (sorry) but I do have capital T Trauma related to someone breaking into our house when I was home and loud noises / stomping / yelling does make me INCREDIBLY anxious, and no matter how many times I tell her this she doesn't give a shit. or if she does give a shit she doesnt give enough of a shit to change her attitude

She won't let me learn how to drive and (whether intentionally or not) obstructs any attempts I make to function as an adult. I'm currently self-employed on commissions, but it's not a living wage or something I could make into one (and remain sane. or keep up with). I'm actively searching for a job and have applied to several (fingers crossed) (will update this post when I get one) and, ideally, will be moving in with a friend of mine sometime in the late summer, but I need help with funds for moving in/covering rent for a bit/etc.

Since I do take commissions, if you want one of those and want to help with funds that way, that'll be an avenue for giving me money. I won't have them open 24/7 just to make things more manageable, but that'll be an option some of the time at least.

COMMISSION INFO (tumblr post link). Currently closed!

Otherwise, if you just wanna chip in (it would be VERY. VERY VERY VERY APPRECIATED):

Payp4l: millowo <- preferred

Venm0: miiilowo

GOAL: 720/4,000

see this ^^^ ? thats my art im gonna have comms open soon ooh ahh HERES A BUNCH MORE TO LOOK AT IF YOURE INTERESTED BELOW THE CUT

[drchucktingle]

On your blog you've talked about dealing with chronic as a result from the stress of masking your autism.

It's a bit of a different situation, but my little sister (who we've begun to suspect has adhd) has been experiencing chronic pain in her arms and legs. I may be totally off base, but I was wondering if a similar stess might potentially be a factor in her pain.

If you're willing, would you mind talking about how your pain affected before you found a way to manage it (I tried searching your tumblr, but not much came up, so sorry if I'm asking a question that's already been answered)?

Thanks either way, I love your books. Love is real!

sure buckaroo GOOD QUESTION. i have had chronic pain in some form or another for LONG TIME in a number of STRESS RELATED WAYS. in past it has been cracking teeth from clenching dang jaws while i sleep and things like that, but a few years ago it was FULL ON BODY PAIN AND TIGHTNESS like every muscle was clenching up. went to the doctor over and over all kinds of dang specialists and it was very difficult to figure out what was going on. eventually landed on a sort of nebulous trot of STRESS but i can get more specific.

there are several things about me that you would never know just from looking or even talking to me for long times. i am a bi buckaroo, i am a non-dysphoric trans buckaroo, i am an autistic buckaroo. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE THINGS IS EITHER HIDDEN AUTOMATICALLY OR I AM SUCH AN EXPERT AT HIDING THAT IT IS SECOND NATURE

autism presents its trot in many ways, so my words do not apply to all, but my version is EXTREME ORGANIZATION AND ENDLESS WORK ETHIC. in way of freud (which is a silly way but sometimes good for symbolism talk) i have what you would call an OVERDEVELOPED SUPER EGO which is a double edged sword. i can write 100s of books at an incredible pace, but also feel like my body is constantly collapsing in on itself

this is not really something i consciously think about much, but eventually these health problems started creeping up. it was all from carrying this mystery tension in my body, because while it feels EASY for me to mask i believe all that tension goes somewhere and it stores up and stores up and stores up.

so i think the HEALTHY way that i have found to deal with this (i think of it as releasing the steam valve a bit so the boiler does not break down) is ART. this space where i am allowed to be CHUCK TINGLE and write without obsessing over the spelling or punctuation, or to loudly express my queerness, or explore gender, and to let my neurotypical mask down DIRECTLY RELIEVES my chronic pain because it literally makes my muscles relax.

when i started out this ARTISTIC TROT as chuck i used a LOT of metaphor to keep my privacy, with different words or different versions of people for different things, and buckaroos found this very funny. as a way to express myself artistically i also liked this metaphor trot a lot, but i have also found that the LESS metaphor i paint over my life as chuck, the better it is for my health. if you have noticed, i talk less about some of the parts of my life that were metaphors, or maybe you have seen that my voice has relaxed a bit in interviews, or that i carry myself a little differently over time, this is partially why. (there is another artistic reason that was a planned trot from the beginning and it has to do with my feelings as a young autistic buckaroo of not fitting in on this timeline, but we can dive into that later).

anyway, as PRACTICAL ADVICE i would say that FINDING A SPACE TO EXPRESS YOURSELF WITHOUT FEAR OR MASKING has been the number one trot for me. that can be a pink bag over your head writing hundreds of erotic shorts, or that can be just laying on the ground howling your heart out, or doing whatever stim you need to do.

i will also say that ONCE I REALIZED IT WAS MUSCLE TENSION getting a physical therapist helped a lot. because there are two sides, you have to start releasing steam from the steam valve, but at the same time youve also gotta start HEALING THE DAMAGE. so i think stretching and techniques like that can be very helpful.

hope that helps buckaroo LOVE IS REAL

[kaiser1ns]

#. PINK BOW, MY HEART GOES POW !

featuring 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿 𝘅 𝗳𝗲𝗺!𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 ıllı. takiishi chika, endo yamato

fluff + slight suggestive. just you wrapping a pink ribbon bow around their bicep, the sight makes you insane.

TAKIISHI CHIKA

You have been dying to try this trend, even had a dream of your boyfriend being all adorned with cute little bows in his hair. But, now you sit in front of him with pleading hands and eyes, holding light pink lace as he just stares at you, a little blankly as he sits on the couch with his arms outstretched and the tank top he's wearing doesn't help at all. You try not to jump on top of him and start kissing and hugging him because he looks so hot, so incredibly hot.

"Please, please, please." you would never beg to a man, but right now your needs were getting the better of you, you had to do it and see it. It would look so cute, with him having a pink ribbon around his bicep. "I will let you do whatever you want, just please make my dreams come true!"

"Fine," he put one of his shoulders forward to you, not the first time you touched him there, nor would it be the last, but right now you just wanted to die. For some reason, you really loved his arms, especially at night when he was holding you close and couldn't let you go, nor did he want to. Once you enter his world, you can't leave. That was the golden rule in your relationship, as strange as it was at times.

You almost couldn't believe that he let you do such a thing, he is like a genie granting you the greatest wish in your whole life.  Quickly moving to sit beside him, unable to stop the squeaks and the giggles, you carefully placed the ribbon against his skin, smoothing it out as you started tying it into a bow. The sight of that pink ribbon on the muscles of his arms was so cute that you could hardly contain yourself.

He watched you, without any visible emotion on his face, as you fussed over getting the bow just right. To him, it was just a piece of fabric, nothing special. But to you, it was a symbol of how the most innocent and smallest things could make your heart swell with love for him.

“Oh my God, you look so cute!” you literally screamed, hands over your mouth, sitting back to admire your piece of art. Grabbing your phone immediately to start snapping pictures, capturing every moment from every possible angle. “Baby, you are just so adorable, I’m going to cry.”

He was so confused, just a ribbon can make you behave like a little kid with a sugar rush, obsessing over something as small as a bow.  “Why is this making you happy?” 

“You don’t get it, do you?” you teased, setting down your phone aside and leaning closer to him, heart beating so loud and so fast to the point it may burst at any given second. Poor Chika doesn't know that he can give his girlfriend a heart attack, just by being him. “It’s just my way of appreciating you and your beautiful and strong arms that keep me safe, day and night.”

“It’s just a bow, wrapped around my bicep.” he let out a sigh, shaking his head slightly, “It's nothing special, but if you say so.”

But you weren't paying attention to his words anymore, instead, you focused on how close you were to him now, just inches apart but you could feel the heat and the warmth radiating from his body. You wanted to do more than just look at him and without thinking, you sat on his lap, wrapping your arms around his neck, resting your head on his shoulder. You didn't miss seeing the tattoo, on the back of his arm as you smiled softly when you turned to look at his face now, the need to be close to him was overwhelming.

“Why don’t we just cuddle?” you whispered, looking him through your lashes, nibbling on his cheek. If he was cute, then he didn’t know what you were. “Just you and me, and that pink bow that ties us together.” 

What magic did you put on him to soften around you? The arm with the ribbon, wrapped around your waist as he relaxed. It ties us together, you say. He smirked, then he should also tie you later, to see what's so exciting about this lace, to show you how much he loves you too.

ENDO YAMATO

It was his idea for you to tie a ribbon to his bicep, and it's probably the best thing he has come up with. Endo didn't have such sculpted and tight muscles before, yes he was strong, but now... You were drooling at the sight of his buffy and tattooed arms. He knew what he was doing, he always did. Sitting on the kitchen counter, he was between your legs and you took a deep breath — you just had to tie two ribbons to both of his biceps. How easy is that, right? Wrong. It wasn't easy at all, especially the way he looked at you, so smitten like you were the only person in his world, knowing full well you weren’t but you sure took a large of his heart and mind.

“Doll, you just have to tie them, take a photo, and make it your new wallpaper,” he says like it's that simple, yes you're going to make the photo your new wallpaper, you can't help but do it. He smiled sweetly at you, a little playful even, and you took the two pink laces from his hands without hesitation. "I'll make the prettiest ribbons so you won't want to take them off."

"Your wish is my command," you first grabbed his left hand giving it a light squeeze before tying the lace into a cute ribbon. You met his eyes for just a moment and blushed slightly as you began tying a ribbon around his right bicep. "You have very gentle hands, you know that?"

Yes, of course, you do. ”Do I? Maybe I’m just extra careful because I don’t want to ruin this perfect canvas,” you replied, cheeks warming at his compliment, trying to focus on the ribbons and not how his muscles tensed beneath your touch.

Once you were done, he couldn't resist flexing his muscles again, and you could see the lase straining, almost ready to snap. “First, let me take a photo, then you can flex as much as you want,” you said, quickly grabbing your phone. You took a couple of photos, capturing the contrast of the delicate ribbons against his inked arms. But then you had another idea. “Yamato, hug me.”

He didn’t need to be told twice, wrapping his arms around you, the bows stood out even more. Only your face was visible, his was resting on your shoulder, but you smiled for the camera as you took a selfie. And just like that, you had your new wallpaper.

“You can let go now,” you teased, but Endo had no intention of letting go. Instead, he swept you off, lifting you in a bridal carry like you were some feather. “Wouldn't dream of it, sweets,” he murmured, eyes now telling you something else. “Now, how about I show you just how strong these really arms are?”

You were shocked by how easily he handled you, but you trusted him completely into letting him take the lead. His strength wasn't just physical—it was the way he could make you feel safe and excited all at once, just by telling you sweet nothings like it was his second nature. Your heart raced, cheeks getting ever redder as he carried you towards the bedroom, knowing full well that he was just getting started.

taglist :: @maruflix

©2024 kaiser1ns do not copy, repost or modify my work

[bunabi]

Whoever sent me that ask saying the devs contributed nothing but 'abysmal dogshit':

As someone who didn't enjoy her time with DAV for the most part I'm just gonna drop all these here and leave you to ask yourself who was responsible for Veilguard being a major departure from past games and where Bioware would be without people who genuinely care:

It helped that the Dragon Age team was full of veterans, and that over the years they’d developed a fair amount of chemistry as a team. “Muscle memory is incredibly influential at this point,” said Cameron Lee. “Through the hellfire which is game development, [we’re] forged into a unit, in that we know what [everyone’s] thinking and we understand everyone’s expectations and we know what needs to get done and just do it.”

From around the time of Trespasser’s release in 2015 to late 2017, the fourth Dragon Age was developed within an atmosphere that was apparently one of the most positive that some at BioWare had experienced.

“(...) some of the big changes included: 1) laying down a clear vision as early as possible, 2) maintaining regular on-boarding documents and procedures so new team members could get up to speed fast; and 3) a decision-making mentality where “we acknowledged that making the second-best choice was far, far better than not deciding and letting ambiguity stick around while people waited for a decision.

While BioWare’s publisher and parent company, Electronic Arts, tends to give its studios a fair amount of autonomy, there are still mandates to follow. By 2017, EA had not been secret about its desire to make all of its major products into “games as a service,” best defined as games that can be played—and monetized—for months and years after their release. Traditional Dragon Age games did not fit into that category.

By the latter half of 2017, Anthem was in real trouble, and there was concern that it might never be finished unless the studio did something drastic. In October of 2017, not long after veteran Mass Effect director Casey Hudson returned to the studio to take over as general manager, EA and BioWare took that drastic action, canceling Joplin and moving the bulk of its staff, including executive producer Mark Darrah, onto Anthem.

“I actually cannot count the amount of ‘stress casualties’ we had on Mass Effect: Andromeda or Anthem."

How did they manage to ship it in 15 months? The dev mentions working about 90 hours a week for 15 months. Many other devs on the team were also doing so and they think that others were doing 90 hours a week prior to the 15 month mark.

[carcassolie]

How I learned Astrology... well. (This is only for the natal chart) + Some notes:

• It all started with zodiac signs stories on Wattpad💀 and that led me to Tumblr years ago! It helps me learn the basic traits of each zodiac sign in a fun way and had seen some cool and some questionable fan arts.

• Learning about what each house/sign/degree represents and connecting it together, including all aspects (didn't focus on minor aspects much but they can be important!). Simple example is with Saturn (responsibility, restrictions), Uranus (unpredictablity, sudden changes, originality) with the houses and signs.

- 3h: (siblings, responsibility, communication, short travel), with Saturn (restriction, responsibilities, time, authority): shitty siblings, zero confidence, your communication and expression being restricted (problems with not being heard too), must have a strict teacher in early childhood. Problems with local travel frequently (late in getting a driver's license, the train leaving as soon as you step in the station, getting a fine then realizing you had a ticket💀).

- 10h (career, public image, reputation, social status, also authority), with Uranus (unpredictable changes, Innovation, freedom and originality): your reputation goes up and down depending on the day (fame and scandals), unconventional career that might change the world, fuck up traditional systems, difficulty listening to authority, frequent job changes and firings, needs freedom in work or goes apeshit.

- My personal FAVORITE, Sun square Moon, giving you the shittiest, most destructive inner arguments and wondering if you should listen to your emotional needs or what your ego needs.

- Degrees are important but not too much, they might explain the small changes though (for example you meet a person with the same placement as you but a different degree. Some degrees are helpful while others are karmic depending on the house and MOSTLY the sign).

• Tumblr posts, actual observations or explanations, you can tell if it's right or wrong if you have the basics. For example:

- 8h stellium might have a lot of death experiences (I consider this to be true, since a death experience is an intense experience, and that's related to 8h)

- Cancer moons can't survive without comfort food. (True, the moon is related to emotions and cancer to nurturing stuff like food and comfort literally).

- Aquarius/Aries risings are rare. (This can't be classified as right or wrong but it's a nice observation. It's a matter of where you live too).

BUT.

An observation that's incredibly specific isn't something you should easily believe in, it's possible, but not always!

- 8h/12h stelliums are doomed! (No tf not please! Sure their placements are difficult but why make it even harder on them by telling them that. Everyone suffers in life, they deserve happiness too.

Doomed or not depends on how we mature and follow the North Node rather😭)

- Transits that indicate incoming danger (possibly death even, or abuse or 🍇) and say 100% it'll happen. Astrology is a tool used to prepare and guide yourself and not say "oh no it's over".

• I never relied on YouTube or visuals, sometimes it looks boring (here goes my Gemini again). But most of them are professionals and it'll be good to take a look.

• I also recently started using AI. it's super helpful for me to be honest. (I use DeepSeek, I long have forgotten ChatGPT). It always helps me confirm some points and overly specific questions:

- I wanted to make a connection between a socionics function (Si: comfort, memories. Bit also in two specific types that tend to visit old places just to feel the emotions they felt in the past at that place. Like going back to a football stadium where you used to play with your friends during childhood, feeling all that fun and happiness again). With the moon. I asked DeepSeek if it's okay to say it's connected to Cancer/4h moon and it said yes.

• Connecting my experiences with my placements. Like the Saturn/Uranus observation. Or seeing what others say about you:

- I asked my bestie if I'm "Vague and poetic" (Mercury in pisces).

She said that I'm "Vague and chaotic" (I'm a Gemini rising LMAO)

- My bestie one time made a point on how I say things that are harsh, she understands that I don't do that on purpose (I love her), and that I even said things that hurt her too! (I suck idk when this happened). And I have Mercury square Pluto😭

- I ALWAYS hate people who have planets in dom/exalt while those planets in my chart are in detriment/fall. Best example is these stupid Gemini (dom) mercury who have it easy in convincing others of their ideas and debates with only words. While I (Mercury Pisces, detriment) have EVIDENCE, WITNESSES AND PAPERS and people still don't believe me (unless someone else steps in, it hurts).

- Also for my Jupiter in Scorpio (retrograde), the universe plays me with luck and I KNOW IT. Especially in 6h (DAILY, ugh). This happened a few days ago. My mom took me to this store and she was yapping about to buy pajamas. We went EARLY, BRO EARLY. And I wanted those at a 50% discount. Guess what? There wasn't ANY. I ended up buying what's left on full PRICE😭. Oh and just a day later they restocked them with another discount.💀 (I didn't go I was MAD while others got it). This also happens with papers (on the day I deliver them the administration is closed or the site is crashing). My dad always roasts me for having shitty luck.

I also hated the smartest guy of my last year class (Jupiter sag, dom) because he always goes absent (we had punishments for those, he got none! And he ended up being 1st place while i got 2nd..).

• Reading a chart, can be difficult. Which is why astro.com and other sites provide tables that are easier to understand (yes I used tables first before understanding the chart drawing and lines). I connected them though. So highly recommended!

• Connecting psychological behavior also helped me. Including physical appearances/aspects of people.

- I have Mars in 1h and I have a scar near my nose. (1h represents the face). A lot of acne too...☹️

- Also Mars in gemini and these hands, I do a lot of hand gestures and aggressive with hands (with a lot of nervous habits around them...I GOT Paronychia like 10 times in the past 5 years😭). Also I have a scar on my wrist from one time I was playing with scissors and my uncle yelled at me for something and I accidentally cut myself💀

- I don't have a dominant planet but a mix of three. Moon (gave me round curvy soft features). Jupiter (big features, wider body, chubby). And even Neptune (idk all I got is down turned, poop dark eyes).

- my family always complains about how I lose or gain weight (I don't realize this nor notice. I don't follow any diets either) unpredictably, it's perhaps a 6h Jupiter thing.

- Leo moons always tend to be beautiful from my experience (easily fitting the society's beauty standards no matter how different they all look, bro all of those I met).

- Lilith in 4h and my family telling me how to dress up properly and that I'm showing too much skin or my dress is too short (ever since I was a kid too, what is this). Also touching you inappropriately...ugh.

- People telling me to stop being loud while I got a Gemini mars and rising.

And that's about all it?? Thanks for reading my yap session🥳 (half of these are my placements, sure I could use others but I don't wanna mislead anyone).

[foodfightnovelization]

ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight

Holy chips! It's an exciting time to be a Foodfight! fan, because ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight is finally out! This really is THE definitive documentary on the insanity behind the movie, and it finally answers the question of just what was going on behind the scenes during production. Since I helped out with research (and I even get a short line of dialogue at 45:19) I've already seen everything that was shown off, but had to keep quiet until all the interviews were conducted and the documentary was finished. But now it's out and everything has been made public, the cat's out of the bag (the Fat Cat Burglar?) and I can talk about all the production material that's been shared.

Before I get into any of that though, I'd highly recommend you watch the documentary for yourself. It's insanely well researched and put together, and having worked together with Ziggy Cashmere (the documentary's creator) I know how hard he dedicated himself towards making this all possible. If it weren't for him, the most interesting Foodfight! discovery would've been finding the novelization, and we would have never gotten any real insight into how this movie came to be. It's also a documentary that really speaks for itself- I don't want to say too much about what it reveals since it's all expressed far better through its narrative and the interviews with people who actually worked on the project. My favorite is the interview with texture artist Mona Weiss- she tells such horrifying stories about how she was treated by Larry and other crewmembers, yet does it all with a sense of humor that makes it clear she's enjoying getting to talk about her crazy experiences. It's clear Foodfight! was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish, and there's nobody to blame for that but Larry Kasanoff himself. The movie was rotten from the top down and despite the countless talented animators and artists working on it, nothing could fix the fact that it was fundamentally mismanaged in the worst way possible. I think the quote from producer George Johnsen summarizes it best: "Foodfight! was a good idea that unfortunately lost its way during production. The technology, the art, and the direction were not in sync. Many very talented people gave their all to make the picture, but more understanding of process from the top was needed for it to succeed."

But if you saw the documentary, you already know all that, right? So instead, let's talk about the behind-the-scenes material that's finally been shared! You can find everything I'll talking about HERE on archive.org-

It's worth following the link and checking it out for yourself- there's so much it'd impossible to discuss everything. Artwork, storyboards, bloopers, models, a nude render of Lady X, an interview with Larry Kasanoff, the list goes on and it's still being updated! Despite the documentary already being out, people who worked on the movie are continuing to share new material! It's pretty incredible- for the past year I've ran this blog all I've really had to discuss are two tie-in books, and now there's so much Foodfight! material I can't even keep up with it.

I mean LOOK at all this, isn't it fantastic? The character art by Jim George showing off just how much better these designs originally were, the countless environments showing off just how stunning Marketropolis could've looked as well as the strength of the core idea "what if a supermarket came to life at night", and insanely detailed storyboards for a 7-minute pitch reel that was used to sell the movie to investors. Normally, I'd be ALL OVER this because it's all just incredible, but there's something far, FAR more fascinating than any of it.

There are even multiple drafts of the script (one from 2005 and one from 2007 respectively) and normally I'd be insanely fascinated by those too, making extremely detailed posts explaining the differences between the drafts and how they compare to the novelization, but there's something else that was found that blows ALL of this out of the water and is easily one of the most monumental lost media discoveries of ALL TIME.

That's right, a rough cut of the ENTIRE movie from 2005 has been found, containing nearly ALL the completed animation from earlier on in production. I mean, that's mindblowing right? We first got sent this around a month ago, a little while before the documentary came out, and I literally stopped everything I was doing at work to just sit and watch this. This is the closest we're ever going to get to the "original" version of Foodfight! after all- only 7 minutes of footage was ever actually made before they switched to mocap, made solely for the aforementioned pitch reel, and this workprint contains practically all of it! On top of that there are some great storyboards in here, as well as some truly hilarious ones cobbled together from 3D renders, and the plot is far better than what we ended up with, a lot of the more inappropriate jokes being absent. This rough cut is actually pretty similar to the novelization in that regard, and it also contains scenes that we'd previously only read about in there.

For example, in the novelization there's a snowmobile chase through the mountains, with Brand X soldiers on snowmobiles and a heavy avalanche close behind. This scene was completely left out of the movie itself, but in this workprint it's here! ALL the previously novelization-exclusive scenes are included, and this rough cut is seemingly based on an even earlier draft of the script than that- here Brand X are still defeated by a flood, whereas by the time of the novelization it'd been changed to a lightning storm. There are SO many exciting differences in this workprint, the snippets of original animation we get to see are SO good, and it's SO much better than the movie itself that I think it by far deserves the crown as the DEFINITIVE version of Foodfight! There's so much in it I want to discuss, that there's no way I can fit it all into this one post...so stay tuned, because in the next few days I'll be doing a FULL analysis of the 2005 workprint, pointing out all the extra brand mascots not in the finished film, and generally just gushing about how amazing it is.

I mean, this is it. Just take it all in for a second- the original footage was considered lost media for over a decade, and now it's practically been found in its entirety, embedded in an early cut of the whole movie...isn't that just phenomenal? All the mysteries have been unraveled, all the questions have been answered, and now we can relax, take a deep breath, and watch Foodfight!...the REAL Foodfight! Make sure to enjoy it, and join me next time for my analysis!

[mischiefmaker615]

Chef's Choice

Over the past time of having tumblr, i have collected my personal favorites- stories that i always get drawn back to when i need inspiration, something to read, and/or something to enjoy with whatever mood or situation that needs tending LOL (not in order and there are so many others i love!!)

Thought it be best to introduce you to some of the greats out there :D

“Seems like the prince of Asgard is seduced by a mortal woman”

By: @fictive-sl0th

(OMG i absolutely LOVE the doctor themed stories with Loki XD ya never know what direction it's gonna end up ;) )

A Coveted Bride

By: @magicbystarlight

(i absolutely LOVE jealous Loki, anything in the realm of dark theme and possessiveness XD we don't judge here. it's an enquired taste and darling, you cooked!!)

Duplicitous *Long Snake Moan*

By: @darkficsyouneveraskedfor

(everything you write, i got to read! truth be told, we didnt ask for but we absolutely needed!!)

Pinned Down The Rite Liberties

By: @lokisgoodgirl

(come on, just by the titles alone you know it's gonna be good! everything you've written, i've fallen in love with each detail, nothing is rushed and personalities are captured beautifully! i've caught myself gasping out loud in public with some of the stuff you bring us and i absolutely love it!)

Overstimulation Welcome Him Home More Between His Thighs

By: @sarahscribbles

(had me drooling in kinktober!!! just the title alone, i hit favorite so i could read it when i got time and darling, you didn't disappoint! so many stories just draw my attention and every aspect of them is truly perfect!!! i need more!!!)

thirty seconds

By: @muddyorbsblr

(what i would give to be in the readers shoes!! omg i loved this!!! hit all the right feelings and i cant help but reread this far more than thirty times LOL)

The Chambermaid

By: @wheredafandomat

(i want Loki to step on me!!!! i wouldn't mind slave life if it meant serving him LOL gods this was perfect!! i always loved maid x Loki themed stories, keep them coming!!)

Kinktober Day 16

By: @suguru-getos

("we listen and we don't judge" *cough* i love me some CNC! seems like a very hidden kink topic so i got positively excited when i saw this mentioned in your writing and just HAD to read it Lol kinky indeed!!! truly my favorite fic of yours so far!)

Overtime Safehouse Conquer Close Quarters

By: @cleo-fox

(I'm pretty sure all of tumblr knows who you are Lol i have enjoyed EVERYTHING you've come out with; your plots, details and character embodiment, Loki is on point!! i cant even fathom where to begin on making storylines this deep with all the bells and whistles. you are truly an incredible writer!!)

"I can do….terrible things to you."

By: @oh-look-at-her

(i can't literally do anything but bow down to you and get up only when given permission LOL truly a damn good time reading your work!!)

Firestarter

By: @delaber

(who doesn't love a good enemies to lovers story Lol can't tell you how many people i've shooed while i was in the middle of reading this XD)

Frozen Stiff Happily Never After

By: @simplyholl

(tbh i struggle finding REALLY good Jotun Loki fics and absolutely fell in love with this one!!! thank you for letting me die in peace now Lol had me giddy and blushing!!)

Have Mercy

By: @mochie85

(you captured his hot and pain in the ass personality so well!!! i LOVED this went through all the emotions on this one!! kinda like an enemies to lovers story Lol why cant it be me!!!)

A Tales of Tangled Desires

By: @angelremnants

(i fell in love with the part one, not expecting for my request to be answered but i got a part two and absolutely have become obsessed!! i love your writing so much and thank you for the prayer being answered! Lol)

And The Gods Made Love

By: @thefairywithboots

(thank you for my request being answered!! anything you publish, i cant get enough of and love the pure art like pace you take to form every inch of your story!!)

Plus One

By: @societyfolklore

(EXACTLY what i needed to start the new year ;) thank you!)

Mission Accomplished

By: @asgards-princess-of-mischief

(i love the whole "there's only one bed" scenario LOL this was absolutely perfect!)

Handcuffed Together

By: @anonymousfiction211

(it's in the title LOL this had all of my emotions :D it was fun, hilarious and incredible sexy!! truly loved this!)

Gentle Road Rage

By: @writingfics-passingtime 

(THIS HAS EVERYTHING I LOOK FOR IN A FIC!!! Never thought tickling could be so spicy LOL well descriptive, seasoned, paced, his personality is on point, plot is chef's kiss, everything!! i want a part 2!!)

[barblaz-arts]

I know you've been making a lot of art of it lately, but out of curiosity, what's your opinion on Hazbin Hotel in general? I'm referring to both the show and the fandom here. Just curious.

God. What a loaded question. Are you ready? Bcuz I'm fresh from Vaggie discourse on twitter and I have a lot to say.

I think that Hazbin Hotel seems worse than it is for people who know the fandom but haven't actually watched the show. Honestly, I think it's a fine show. It isnt super incredible and I'm not gonna sing praises about how deep and thought provoking it is or whether it's an artistic masterpiece. It never tried to be that and was never advertised as such(to my knowledge) anyway. I just had a lot of fun. Like, yeh sure the cussing in the dialogue can be a bit much, especially in ep 1, but there are different writers in other episodes, so it gets better. It can be super crude yeh, but I grew up watching things like the Scary Movie franchise and other dumb american movies (yes, i was too young for them. yes, i still watched them), so it's pretty tolerable for me. It also helps that Charlie is the main character. That's one of the main reasons why I watch HH but dont watch HB. It's probably a fun show, but without a sweetheart like Charlie to balance things out, I'd just get tired of the sex jokes and mean jokes.

Compared to my last hyperfixation, I think I have more things to love about Hazbin Hotel, believe it or not. With Netflix's Wednesday, I had already been an Addams Family fan for a while and hung on because I loved the family and eventually Enid and wenclair. The show itself was honestly meh... so far! I'll give season 2 another shot.

But with Hazbin Hotel, it catered to a lot of things I've always loved. Found family with a bunch of misfits? We didnt get to see it much bcuz of the fuckass 8-ep per season format we have nowadays, but its fine its there! The juxtaposition of a kind hearted woman in a harsh world? Love love Charlie for that, I watched the show in the first place because of her. A canon lesbian lover with a "fuck the world cuz my world is you" type of love for the protag? Fuck yes. How very Pearl-from-Steven-Universe of Vaggie. And the music? The music is soooo good. I didn't know the songwriter prior to watching, so I was nervous about the songs, but I knew most of the theater actors they cast(still cant believe Jeremy fucking Jordan is Lucifer) so I figured even if the songs are mid, at least the performances would be topnotch. And they were! But the songs were a pleasant surprise. Sam Haft did real damn well. I still listen to the soundtrack to this day.

The fandom, however, is probably the worst one I've been in. And I've been in a lot in my big age... Just... lacking media literacy, and based on the replies I get when I say something on twitter, it seems a lot of them lack reading comprehension and just plain emotional intelligence too.

There's a lot of criticisms about this show that I honestly think is fair. Pacing, character design, overuse of the F word, whatever. But in my opinion, claiming that Hazbin is a male-centered show is an unfair misconception that is mostly the fault of the fandom.

Bcuz, sure, the male characters are uber popular. Alastor, Vox, Lucifer, Angel Dust and the many web of ships they're involved in went trending every few business days. But come on now. How often does a fandom even have their main protag as the most talked about character? This has been going on for ages. Just because the boys have the most merch and fics and fanarts and thirsty fans doesn't mean that they had the spotlight for most of the show itself. It only meant that they were the ones the viewers paid attention to, in a fandom filled with people drooling over the next tumblr sexyman and toxic yaoi ship of the month.

But if you actually look back at what the show gave us so far, the boys didnt outshine the women. I actually think the women got to do more and be more as characters than the men did. Let's take a look at the male characters.

Alastor was not in all the episodes. In fact, he was MIA in two out of the eight episodes. In all the episodes he was in, he was a mere side character. His purpose in season one was to stir the pot and be the intriguing mystery that occasionally quips. But he was not the one whose deeper thoughts were explored and whose character and goals was challenged THROUGHOUT the show, merely alluded to at the VERY END of the season, which is hardly him taking the spotlight away from Charlie. If you merely looked at the fan content of him, you'd think he were a father figure to Charlie(or a love interest. whatever) and that he has developed a soft spot for the Hazbins deep down in that cannibal heart of his. But if you pay attention to the show, he never had even a meaningful one on one conversation with the Hazbins. The only time that happened is when (a)he threatened Husk's life (b)when he constantly mocked Charlie while she was down in the dumps and used this as an opportunity to manipulate her and (b)when he told Niffty watching the crew sure can "make one sentimental", even tho he had taken no prior opportunity to bond with them! There's no foundation for all the fandom's claims that he could be redeemed bcuz of a budding fondness for the group, but that's all you see of his fan content(aside from the horniness). I dont have any problem with his lack of an actual relationship with the Hazbins bcuz I believe redemption for him is not what the show is going for, but it's frustrating to see people interpreting it that way BUT not seeing how horridly developed it would be if that is the case, meanwhile they turn around and say that Vaggie and Chaggie as a ship "had terrible development".

Then we have the male Vees. Vox was only ever in episode two, and was essentially a youtube reactor in episode 8. He was in ep 4 but had no speaking lines. We only know of his obsession with Alastor and the toxic relationship he has with Val. Val, meanwhile, is merely shown as the sex obsessed fiend behind Hell's sex industry and Angel's abuse. They did what they needed to do with minimal screentime. It was fine, but that's IT. Despite what little CANON gave so far, you have hundreds of people writing essays and fics and fanarts about them being complicated characters. But to reiterate, this does not mean that they are bad characters or that they don't deserve the fame. But to say that these men are better written within canon than the women is such a bold statement when most of the depth they knew of these characters were lore drops given before the show and their own speculations as they dug into the shallow soil of what the show has so far.

I'm not gonna speak about Angel and Lucifer. Because I think they were characters who were legitimately well-explored so far.

Now onto the women. So many of them were given the opportunity to have their characters challenged or given the agency to push characters and the plot forward or give you intrigue about implications of what's to come for the characters and the plot. I've talked a lot about Charlie and Vaggie. So let me talk about the other, terribly underrated women of Hazbin.

Velvette and Carmilla were the ones who advanced the subplot in the war against Heaven. Because of Carmilla's love for her family despite being a demon, an angel was killed. It gave Heaven the excuse to escalate things, but it also gave Charlie hope later on in the season that they're not powerless. Carmilla was also the first demon shown to make selfless actions that is contrary to what is expected of demons, making it proof that Charlie's belief that demons deserve a second chance isn't unwarranted. She's an interesting character, as an overlord who hangs on to power but clearly has morals. But how often do you see people writing essays about her? Eating up the fact that she's a powerful overlord but would sacrifice anything for her daughters? If Carmilla were a man, hundreds of girlies would be drooling over the crime boss who has a soft spot for his daughters.

Meanwhile, Velvette got to demonstrate why exactly she's an Overlord despite being the youngest demon in there. She's calculating and observant. She gives off a haughty vibe and constantly boasts about how she's young and fresh, but she isn't naive. During that meeting, she paid attention to Carmilla and Zestial's relationship. In order to find out who killed the angel, she riled everyone up, and when she got the feeling it was Carmilla, she mocked Zestial so that Carmilla could slip up. By playing these Overlords who are older and more experienced than her, Velvette showed what exactly her asset was to the Vees and why she's a threat, something that Vox and Val have yet to be given the opportunity to do when they were busy eye-fucking Alastor and literally fucking Angel. But in fan content about the Vees, Velvette is almost treated as an after thought to the boys...

Then we have the Seraphs. Not only were their designs gorgeous, their dynamic and presence as characters had impact to the plot and main characters.

Emily is a much needed character to show that this story isn't meant to tell you that Heaven = bad; Hell = good. There is good and bad in both, and it is so important for the protags to know that they have an ally in Emily who represents the true virtues that heaven is supposed to uphold. And I love the confrontation she had with Sera when her own view of what's right and good was challenged. We got to see the strength of her character and started the seeds of what could be heaven's acceptance of Charlie's goals.

Sera is such an interesting character to me. She was also important to show that not all angels were sadistic like Adam and Lute, but not in the same way Emily was. I have no idea so far which direction this show would go with her. But I'm intrigued by the fact that she seems to be driven by fear, unlike Adam and Lute's cruelty. She knew Lucifer and was there when he was cast out for his disobedience. Whether everything she's doing is to prevent that from happening again remains to be seen, and I'm looking forward to this kind of subplot for her.

And then Rosie! I really really look forward to seeing more from her. Spoilers aside, something I barely see people talk about is how interesting it is that Rosie is every bit the leader that Charlie hopes to be. Rosie is able to be a respected overlord in her own faction without needing to sacrifice her love for showmanship and music and her positive disposition. When we were officially introduced to her, they show how she seems to care about actually taking care of her people, not JUST ordering them around, by talking to them personally and giving advice. That's exactly what Charlie wanted to do for her people, isn't it? The hotel to Charlie was what the emporium was to Rosie. They have a lot of similarities that could set up for Rosie to be the one to teach Charlie in becoming a leader. Now whether that's a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen, but it is rather compelling.

So yeah! With all that said, I really dont think this show ignores its women at all. Just because a bigger part of the fandom gravitated towards the men doesn't necessarily mean its a misogynistic show so far. But if certain people are claiming that the women are badly written, then I hope they also own up to the fact that their blorbos are just as shallowly presented within the show, maybe even more so. Which wouldn't even be a bad thing! Since when did a show or character have to be amazingly written for a person to like them? That's just no fun at all. All I'm saying is... Fuck this fandom's double standards, hiding behind claims that it's the writing's fault when the problem is they couldn't be bothered to think about the women.

[yunsound]

Director Jiaozi and the Chinese Animation Industry

If you’re on my page it probably means you’ve seen my endless gushing about Ne Zha 1 and 2. I’ve always been a huge fan of domestic animation (domestic for me meaning China) as well as international Japanese and Western animation.

In particular, I admire big blockbuster animated films that managed to both convey cultural, artistic and spiritual messaging through a medium as notoriously finicky as animation.

Some of my favourite animated movies (I think this is an opinion held by every animation fan) are the Spiderverse series (despite not being a Spiderman fan) and the Ghibli movies of my youth. 

Being Chinese, though, I grew up with 2D animated TV shows that cemented their place in my upbringing. Shanghai Animation Studio movies such as Ne Zha Conquers the Sea 1979,

Havoc in Heaven 1961,

and even 1878’s Calabash Brothers (or Gourd Brothers? I guess?)

are all iconic parts of growing up as a Chinese.

Chinese animation has never been widely acclaimed on a global scale the way Japanese animation and sometimes Western animation have. The domestic animation industry is made entirely up of passion projects, which can seem great until you realise passion projects don’t typically tend to make money.

In a film industry as hyper-competitive and critical as China, most animation projects never tend to make it far. Art and music, while highly respected once you achieve success, have high barriers to entry. Chinese people are very critical of artistic work because of thousands of years of artistic development.

You may have heard of a recent animated film in China called A Mermaid Summer (or however it was translated). 2 people spent 7 years making it- the movie was bullied to oblivion.

A Mermaid Summer is, quite frankly, shit. It’s terrible. The animation is bad, the storytelling is bad, the voice acting is bad. It was, however, a passion project made by like 2 people on their own- people understand why it’s bad, and it’s not like we expected Oscar-worthy visuals.

Does this seem incredibly harsh to bully these two hardworking people? YES, it does! And it IS harsh and mean!

Understand that thousands of beautiful works (made meticulously and with great care) receive little to no attention in the domestic industry, made by equally small teams as A Mermaid Summer but with much higher quality.

The creators weren’t seasoned pros and definitely didn’t deserve to be bullied so much, but it would’ve honestly been much better if they had scrapped it. (They had actually considered starting over but decided to keep going, which I think wasn’t a good decision). 

Putting out a bad product is never better than taking your time, even if it takes you a lifetime.

I tell you about A Mermaid Summer to establish some baseline rules in the Chinese film industry and how Chinese people want films to be made (both animated and non-animated):

It does not matter how long it takes. The end product has to be good.

If the product is bad, NO MATTER how beloved the director/idea/IP/characters are, it’s going to flop.

In an animated movie: either the animation has to be great, or the plot has to be great. If you have one or the other, it’s meh. If you have both, yay! You cannot, however, get away with having both be mid.

If the product is bad, no one cares how much work you put in or how sad your circumstances are: there is going to be ZERO people complimenting or watching your work. Results speak, not effort.

Doesn’t this seem very strict? That’s because it is, but it’s the reality. Recently a movie came out based on the beloved novel series by Jin Yong, called Legend of the Condor Heroes. Condor Heroes is probably one of China’s biggest ever IPs. 

Its fans are everywhere. My parents love Jin Yong’s novels and so do 80% of China’s population. It’s as big as Harry Potter, basically, just for a different audience.

The actors in the movie are all popular too. Xiao Zhan, Leung Ka-fei, Ada Choi are all big-names.

However, Legend of the Condor Heroes completely flopped. The art direction and writing was bad and the acting was mid. The movie industry is not like the TV drama industry: if your movie is bad, NO ONE CARES if the actors are hot or if the IP is big, it will flop.

In this harsh environment, animated films especially struggle. We’ve seen a severe lack of good Chinese animated films. Is this critical culture to blame? Certainly part of the problem, but it’s also (somewhat sadly and ironically) what drives people to want to excel.

A very tough love solution. 

This is why it is especially shocking and especially impactful that Ne Zha 2 is doing so well.

Ne Zha 2’s director’s stage name is Jiaozi (which means dumpling). His real name is Yang Yu. I will call him Jiaozi, though. 

He graduated from med school in a fairly-prestigious university in Sichuan. Everyone knows how rigorous med school is. While he was studying, he spent every night holed up in his dorm figuring out the basics of animation. After graduation, he didn’t go to work- he spent three years living basically in his mother’s basement trying to make an animated film. 

A very, very classically doomed story. However, against all odds, he did it. He released a 16-minute animated short in 2008 called 打，打个大西瓜 (or See Through).

It’s available on YouTube and it has a total of 0 lines of dialogue. This short, however, went viral for its anti-war, anti-hate and anti-propaganda message. It won a lot of domestic and international awards. 

Through those three years he spent making See Through, he lived off his mother’s retirement fund of 200 dollars a month (1000 yuan), bought virtually nothing, and worked 14 hours a day.

See Through didn’t garner him instant success. After all, it was just an animated short. Within a year it wasn’t really mentioned anymore. He did, however, get his foot in the door.

Ne Zha is one of the biggest IPs in China. He has the most film/anime/comic/game adaptations after Sun Wukong (that’s including Dragon Ball and all the Dragon Ball spinoffs). 

Jiaozi basically made Ne Zha 1 on two cents and a dream. The movie was low-budget (I’m talking 22 million) and in interviews, he revealed he had no money to hire a motion capture expert or a voice acting coach, so he did all of this himself. He even voice-acted some of the characters to save on costs.

The entire cast was unknown VAs. The animation was done by newbies just entering the industry. This movie was the definition of cutting costs.

Against all odds, it succeeded. Ne Zha 1 won fans over with its humour, stellar character-building and refreshing message. It became the highest grossing film of that year and catapulted Jiaozi into fame. 

Almost as soon as Ne Zha 1 succeeded (within a year), Jiaozi began work on Ne Zha 2. 

If you compare pictures of Jiaozi before and after producing Ne Zha 2, you can notice he looks like he’s aged a lot more than 5 years.

Jiaozi has said he’s an extremely introverted person prone to anxiety, and that he’s a huge perfectionist to the point where it’s harmed both his professional and personal life.

He outsourced many of the more complicated scenes on Ne Zha 2 to top foreign production companies. You can see their names (Korean, Indian, Japanese, American etc) in the end credits of Ne Zha 2.

However, he said in an interview that because the project was coming from mainland China (which, as we’ve established, has a fairly weak animation industry), these foreign companies sent only their lowest-rate animators despite the high rates Jiaozi was paying them.

As such, Jiaozi had to redo most of these scenes from scratch with domestic groups.

Hundreds of animation studios in China joined to work on Ne Zha 2. Jiaozi invested almost all the money he made off the first movie back into the second one. These workers were young, passionate newcomers to the industry- they once again didn’t have the budget to hire seasoned pros despite the much looser spending constraints.

The studios that joined Jiaozi worked at low rates (sometimes not even breaking even on labour costs) to produce Ne Zha 2.

5 years later it happened. Ne Zha 2 is making an incredible amount of money. 

Most people are worried about the pressure the success of Ne Zha 2 is putting on Jiaozi- about a week ago he officially announced he’s stopping all interviews and publicity for Ne Zha 2 to go into “seclusion” to work on the 3rd movie, before 2 even finished airing. 

He’s been working extremely unhealthy hours for over a decade. However, the results have paid off. That’s all we can say, I guess.

The reason why many Chinese adore Ne Zha so much isn’t just because the movies are good- it’s because the movies are good enough that they basically became hope for the future of the domestic animation industry.

A *relatively* small company (not small anymore, considering how big they’re probably going to get in the future) managed to make 2 of the highest grossing films in Chinese history and one of the highest-grossing films of all time. Jiaozi has made more in box office sales with 2 full-length movies than most directors with over thirty or fourty.

It’s incredible that what seemed like such a doomed journey turned out so fantastically. Many young Chinese animators now dream of working with Jiaozi, or becoming like him.

Of course, Jiaozi isn’t perfect. He’s at the very least extremely talented, probably a “genius” (or however you define genius) and incredibly hardworking. 

His workers describe him as a nightmare director not because he’s rude but because he is incredibly nitpicky and has seemingly impossibly-high standards. He’s also a little bit of a douchebag (he made a short film called The Boss’s Woman that’s pretty misogynistic but it was never formally released). 

However. You can’t deny that Jiaozi has accomplished what decades of animators before him haven’t been able to. Ne Zha 2 is the greatest animated movie in history. That’s incredible for the Chinese animation industry, which before Ne Zha has never been able to get a stable footing.

Some other Chinese animated movies I recommend as well as some notes.

As a general rating marker: I rate 

Ne Zha 1: 7.5-8/10

Ne Zha 2: 9/10

The Shawshank Redemption: 9.5/10

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: 9/10

Decide from these rankings whether or not you think my opinions on movies are valid and if you want to keep reading.

大鱼海棠 Big Fish and Begonia 2016

7.5/10

Co-produced with Korean animation studio

Very touching, very tear-jerking

Animation is beautiful

长安三万里 30,000 Miles from Chang’An 2023

6.5/10

Ehhhh?

It’s definitely touching but not for everyone

Not understandable for a wide audience: you’d need to know some basic Chinese history and culture

It’s okay

People either love it or hate it

西游记之大圣归来 The Journey to the West: Hero is Back 2015

7.5/10

The animation is just okay, but the story is great

Very hype

One of the first domestic animated movies whose release I actively followed

Without background of JTTW it’s not very good, but if you know you know.

新神榜：杨戬 New Gods Reborn: Yang Jian 2022

6/10

The animation is good: more precisely, the models are good

The storyline is kind of a mess

Much better than the other New Gods Reborn movie, which we don’t talk about

Worth a quick watch

白蛇缘起 White Snake 2019

6.5/10

Not bad, the storyline was meh

It got some hype abroad but it’s mid

Worth a watch but it’s way overrated

深海 Deep Sea 2023

7.5/10

The animation is beautiful and the story is good!

Worth a watch! I recommend it

Very dreamcore, floaty feeling

Gives you a sense of being not quite in our reality in a similar way as some Ghibli movies 

[celuere]

it‘s happening again.

pairing: ex!arlecchino x fem!reader

context: you just can‘t seem to get over her.

cw: modern au, desperate sesbian lex, rough sex, fingering, strap on,  unhealthy relationship, arle is very bad at feelings, hurt no comfort

word count: 900

art credits: bad thinking diary

got this idea while listening to right here from chase atlantic, i can‘t explain why it fits modern ex arle so well.

hot.

you felt so incredibly hot.

she was burning you from inside with each skilled curl of her fingers sending sparks of ecstasy down your spine. your skin seemingly boiling with how her lips made sure to leave no spot untouched.

you promised yourself to not let this happen again. to not fall back into her net each and every time fate forces you to cross paths again. whether it be at a birthday party of your mutual friends, the gym you both frequent or your local bar. it always ended with your naked bodies entangled with each other. you were the fuel to her fire just like you were drawn to her flame like a moth in the darkest voids of your heart. starved. starved of her. of her touch, her scent, her voice, her very presence. every single fiber in your body was screaming for her. craving her. you could never deny yourself a night with her, even though you already know what will be awaiting you the next morning. 

your attempts to form a single sentence between the breathy moans and whines falling over your lips were immediately cut off by her mouth. plunging her tongue into yours to avoid any kind of confrontation, your teeth clashing together in the instance.

she should know better than this. than letting you get close to her heart again. but it was you. her heart. the bane of her existence. but in her mind she just wasn‘t good enough for you. never will be. she doesn‘t deserve waiting for you at the altar one day, to promise herself to you for the rest of her life. you were the only good thing that life brought her and she didn‘t trust that.

the arch of your back into her while she felt you clenching around your fingers were enough indicator of your orgasm. she would usually stop herself here. however couldn‘t bring herself to. the way your fingers ran through her silky hair, that pleading look she could still make out in the darkness of your bedroom. pleading for her to stay.

in a moment of weakness she flipped you around on your stomach, she had to get you out of her system once and for all.

„a-arle…“

„quiet.“, the sound of a drawer being pulled open followed by the rustling of leather caused your core to slowly melt. you knew what‘s next.

„ass up.“, you hated how much of an effect that sharp tone had on you. causing your already puffy clit to ache at the bare thought. it wasn‘t fair.

feeling the weight of your mattress sink behind you before a pair of tattooed fingers snaked around your hips and pulled you back against her. a whimper so soft and desperate fell out of your mouth as she lubed up the silicone by rubbing the shaft through your slick folds. the sight of your bare ass presented to her, waiting to be plowed into gnawed at her already declining self restraint. 

she was gentle and rough at the same time. robbing you of your last bit of dignity with each drive of her hips into yours, a strong contradict to how tender her hand ran along the length of your spine. 

truth be told, arlecchino was happy she didn‘t have to look at your pleasured face right now. how full of love your eyes still were for her. as if she was somehow deserving of it. it angered her how you couldn‘t see it. how you deserved better than this mess of a person she is. she wants to hand you the world on a silver platter but she can‘t. and she hated it.

she hated herself for being everything you crave yet not what you truly needed.

the sound of your pleading voice bounced off the tense bedroom air, „a-arle, can we- mh-!“, your sounds now coming out muffled as a strong hand pushes your head down into the pillow, her pace turning almost feral.

„can we talk?“

you knew it was a foolish question and you felt beyond humiliated for even trying in the first place. just like it‘s foolish of you to have kept some of her clothes to yourself when she moved out. or how her toothbrush is still sitting in the same glass as yours. or how you refuse to throw away the shared photos of you.

or how you planned on proposing to her.

she was the future you wanted but never got. a flower that was just about to bloom but was stomped down before it had the chance to.

arlecchino was everything you needed yet nothing you owned.

were you crying out of pleasure or heartbreak? you didn’t even know the answer yourself. your fluids soaking the sheets underneath you just like your tears were staining the pillow now. but you‘d cry even more if she stopped now and you felt even more pathetic for it. 

but nothing compared to the emptiness filling up your heart when you woke up in your bed the next day. alone. in a cold bed. with nothing but the soft ticks of the clock thats hanging on the wall filling the room as you stared at the open chat on your phone.

„can we please talk?“

delivered.