#Which sucks because most of my sales came from there

[sirladysketch]

It gets worse.

Holy fuck are you for real right now. How does it keep getting worse.

Holy shit this is horrifying.

[andy-wm]

AYS Behind the scenes: behind the paywall

Now that the Disney+ episodes are complete (sob), my attention is firmly fixed on my mailbox as I wait impatiently for the AYS photobook and QR code.

I was always going to buy the Jikook photobook, even though I doubt there will be much we haven't already seen in the episodes. But the inclusion of the QR code was the clincher.

I must admit, Hybe locking up the behind the scenes for AYS was not on my bingo sheet.

Making behind/additional clips available on Bangtan TV would have been more in line with their regular MO. We don't generally have to pay for what really amounts to outtakes.

Okay, yes, we have to pay for behind cuts of Run BTS, but the actual episodes are free. With everything else the behind clips are included when you buy the series (I'm thinking of BV, ITS, and concert boxed sets).

In fact I can't think of any other time a behind/ bonus clip hasn't been available to fans who pay for the main content.

Maybe it is because Hybe was only contracted to deliver 8 episodes to Disney+ and the price was fixed. Maybe they saw an easy way to make the series more profitable.

We know they will take any opportunity to lighten our wallets.

But I think there's more to it

Let's talk business:

If Hybe wanted to make money from this, having the sale point directly on Weverse would make more sense. That way anyone could buy it any time without having to buy the photobook as well. Even if they charged just a few $$ for these extra clips, the return could be substantial over time. Long tail products can be very lucrative and Hybe clearly knows this - they have heaps of old footage for sale on Weverse. Since they're hosting the content already, it makes sense to keep that 'buy now' button active and let the dollars trickle in.

So why reduce the potential pool of buyers? Why limit this to those who buy the photobook??

Well, let's consider who is going to buy the photobook?

Who is going to fork out US$28 plus postage for a keepsake of these two on their third honeymoon?

I doubt OT7 ARMYs would buy it. Even ARMYs who bias JM or JK - if they aren't part of the SGMB they probably don't want it either.

Solos sure as hell don't want it - they are probably wishing the whole thing never happened... sucks to be them haha

Who really wants to see these two living their best lives together?

We do!

And by we, I mean Jikook supporters.

People who want to see more of this:

and this

And this

We are the people who will buy this photobook (and probably never look at it more than once, let's be honest)

But let's get back to the topic at hand....

The photobook/behind combo seems like a chicken/egg situation to me.

Which came first - as a concept - the photobook or the behind clips?

Did they decide to offer a photobook, and then think of adding the extra footage to make it more appealing?

Or vice versa?

Did they decide to make the behind clips, and think of the photobook afterwards?

Hard to say, since behind clips have always been a thing and recently Hybe is putting out photobooks for everything.

But I think I have a fair idea

Consider the price point for this photobook - it's the same price as most of the others produced recently: +-US$28.

AYS photobook & behind is the same price as the Photo-Folios, Tae's Type 1 (magazine version) photobook, and the Beyond The Stage photobook

🗣 So they aren't charging any extra for the behind footage?

No, they aren't. They're basically giving it to the buyers of the photobook as a gift.

🗣 Could they be making money off it?

Yes, the could.

Long tail, remember?

Looking at the profit-making potential, it makes WAY more sense for Hybe to offer the behind footage on Weverse for a few meagre dollars and... wait for their ship to come in...

See what I did there? hahahhaha (laughing by myself)

They really aren't making any money off this!

how unlike Hybe...

So why go to the effort of setting up QR codes and putting it behind a paywall? It costs money to host content this way. They are in fact SPENDING money to bring us this footage.

Not only through the hosting costs there are also production costs to consider.

Wouldn't it make more sense to just freely share it with ARMY via Bangtan TV? Or not release it at all?

Yes, it would...

So there's only one logical answer...

Hybe has chosen to make the content available - but also make it just that little bit more difficult to access.

This whole exercise seems to be about releasing additional footage without releasing it to the general public. It's being shared specifically with those of us who support them.

Does that mean we'll see slightly more personal content?

Maybe it's a little more revealing of their undeniable bond and their hot chemistry...?

Whatever they contain, these behind clips are definitely for a limited audience - and purposefully so.

The only reason for it, that I can think of, is to safeguard Jimin and Jungkook from too much scrutiny and criticism - from within the fandom (unfortunately) and outside of it.

We will find out in a few days I guess.

In the meantime, I'm camped out by my mailbox

[mrsshabana]

♡ 𝐌𝐲 𝐆𝐲𝐮𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐨 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 ♡

I decided to take pictures of my collection since so many people asked! This is everything I've collected over the past two years. I'll give links for items that are still easily available. Also, please excuse how terrible these photos look. It took me over 3 hours to get everything out and take these photos, I was pretty tired and I was trying to figure out how to do it. I decided it'd be easiest to separate everything by type. And for some categories, I separate Gyutaro and Daki. The majority of these items are official merchandise, but I will make a note for items that are not official. (∩｀-´)⊃━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

𝐅𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬

These are all of the large figures that I have! There was a new one that was recently released in Japan, and once I get it shipped I'll make a review about it. I got all of these figures from BigBadToyStore. Most of them are still available and a few are even on sale right now. I'd highly recommend their website! Out of all of these figures, I'd have to say the large one in the middle with Gyutaro using his blood demon art is my favorite.

𝐆𝐊 𝐅𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬

These are the garage kit figures that I own! None of these figures are official. The one on the right can be found super cheap on Amazon. I got this one from a good friend of mine. I'd say for how large it is it's definitely worth the price. The two on the left I got myself for my birthday. The one with the lantern even lights up, and it's definitely my favorite. You can still buy these, but only on eBay. The prices skyrocketed after I purchased mine, so I honestly can't recommend anyone buying them. They are just way too expensive now in my opinion. But here are the links anyway if you are still interested. Gyutaro lantern statue & Human Gyutaro and Ume

𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐅𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬

And here are the rest of the Gyutaro figures! I believe this is all of the ones that are currently released (except for the new one I mentioned earlier). A few of these are also available on BigBadToyStore. The one on the top left is one of my favorite items that I own. I've never seen him sold outside of Japan which sucks because he's absolutely adorable. The top middle one is really cool too because he comes with changeable arms and you can pose him in different ways - this one is also on sale on BigBadToyStore's website.

Here are the Daki/Ume figures! Most of these came in pairs with the Gyutaro figures so that's why I have a lot of these too. Again, most of these can be found on BigBadToyStore's website.

𝐏𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐬

Gyutaro plushies!! I don't know about you, but I am so obsessed with Gyutaro plushies. They make me so unexplainably happy. To be honest, all of them are my favorite haha. But if I had to choose, I'd say the teddy bear in the back. I also really love the Kitty Gyutaro on the left. The kitty Gyu, and the other Gyu doll on the right are not official. The one on the right was a gift from a close friend, it was custom made on Etsy. The Kitty Gyu was actually available on eBay (they are sold out now, but might restock later). I got mine elsewhere though. The human Gyu plush is also available on BigBadToyStore's website along with the Ume one. The little grabby Gyu's in the front right are some of my favorites too. I'll just clip them onto my laptop while I'm writing or drawing. I bought them from Amiami, they are out of stock now but I have seen them occasionally go on sale again.

And here are the Daki/Ume plushies! I got a few of them from AmiAmi with the Gyu ones, so they might come back up for sale eventually.

𝐀𝐜𝐫𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐜 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬

Sorry for the terrible photo, I tried my best to fit all of these into one picture. I didn't include the demon gathering diorama because that thing is way too big. It's so hard to pick a favorite for these ones. I love the holiday ones and the world tour one the most. Surprisingly these aren't often available outside of Japan. I have seen a few come up on eBay but they are usually overpriced. There are a few ones that I wanted to talk about because they are unique. Like the acrylic stand of the actor who played Gyutaro in the live-action play. I thought it was really cool that they made a stand for that. Also, the one where Gyutaro is seen fighting Tengen, it's hard to see in the photo but it has a lot of components to it that make it look 3D!

𝐊𝐞𝐲𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬

I love love love the Gytutaro keychains! There's a lot here so I won't ramble too much about them. My favorites are the kitty one on the top row, and the 2nd and 3rd one on the bottom row. Like look how cute he looks on his stomach like that, I swear that's the cutest pose I've seen them make for him. The kitty Gyu keychain was actually the first Gyutaro item I've ever bought! You might be able to find some of these on Mercari or on eBay.

And here are the Daki/Ume ones!

𝐏𝐢𝐧𝐬

I used to have an ita bag that I would fill with these pins! But it got really dirty, so if you have any you can recommend let me know 👀 Anyway here are the enamel pins. The only one that is still available is the large FiGPiN one. It's limited edition and they only made 1,000 of them. It was for an event in New York I think? Anyway, here is a link to where you can purchase one on eBay.

And here are the other pins. I don't have as many of these because they stopped fitting in my ita bag, but I'd totally get more if I had a large bag to fit them in.

𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬

Ok so I had a ton of miscellaneous items, so this will be the biggest section. Some of my favorite items are here like the ring, necklace, and perfume. Apparently, the perfume is illegal to ship outside of Japan because it's flammable so I have no idea how I got it. But I got it as a gift in 2023. The ring is definitely one of my favorite items though, I've had it for a really long time now and I love the pattern on it. It's hard to see in the photo but one ring has a motif matching his spots and the other one matching his ribbons. If you want to see my full post on the ring and perfume I'll link them here. Ring & Perfume.

More miscellaneous items. The only one I'll comment on is that pink little box in the middle. It's a gachapon and it's actually functional too. It's the cutest little thing. I also really like the pens too, the little chibi drawings on the front are adorable.

These are just a bunch of random cloth items I have. My favorites are the Gyutaro tote bag and the Gyutaro underwear. Yes, I said underwear... yes it is official... I'll make a separate post about it another day 😭 On the right is some Tengen toilet paper, no that isn't official. It has a funny story behind it I promise. So one day my little brother asks me, "Which character from Demon Slayer do you want to eat shit?" I said Tengen of course, and months later he gave me this for my birthday. I freaking love my brother 😭

I had to make a separate photo for this one since it was so big. This is a towel with all of the upper moons on it. I really love the art for this and I think it's just so beautiful.

Shikishi boards! I love collecting these because they have official art of Gyutaro that we don't get to see anywhere else!

More shikishi boards! He looks so handsome, right? 🤭

Just some photos (idk why they sell these) and coasters from the Ufotable Cafe in Japan.

More miscellaneous stuff. The graded card in the middle was also a birthday present from my brother. 💚

A folder and some stickers!

Finally, these are the last things. These are large items so instead of taking photos of them I just made a collage. They are luncheon mats and mat cases from the Ufotable Cafe. There is also a double-sided pillow, I use this every day in my gaming chair to support my back!

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧!

This is my entire collection! I may have forgot about one or two items but this is the majority of it. I also have shirts but maybe I will show those another day. (Maybe in a face reveal?) I hope you enjoyed seeing how my adhd brain hoards everything with Gyutaro on it.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to provide more links for these items as most of them sold out long ago. They are focusing on making merch for the Hantengu clones now, so Gyutaro item releases have slowed down a lot.

But if/when any new items come out I will be sure to share them! If you made it all the way through my collection, you're awesome! And I'd love to hear which thing was your favorite 💚 ✧( ु•⌄• )◞◟( •⌄• ू )✧

[chronically-ghosted]

the only thing we have to fuck is fear itself

rating: 18+

pairing: max phillips x f!reader

word count: 5309

summary: You get drunk at a happy hour and tell Max to his face you don’t find him scary at all. He takes that personally.

warnings/tags: drinking, like two seconds of scary vibes, smut, (secret) established relationship, work hard, play hard, have secret sex with your coworker even harder

a/n: I’m so sorry to FDR for butchering his quote for the sake of a title, but i like to think that horny bastard would have loved my smut.

🤍AO3 Link 🤍 Masterlist 🤍 Get notified when I post new works!

Despite working at a place that was quite literally soul-sucking, your coworkers could throw one hell of a happy-hour. 

There wasn’t a bartender in a ten mile radius from the office who didn’t know you all by name, didn’t shout a greeting over the tightly-packed house the instant you walked in. Rarely was it just a single crew member at the bars – you often got accused of moving in a pack like a five-headed hydra that could drink double its own weight in liquor, beer, and frosés – and being only two-fifths human, the Monster Squad was an alcoholic force to be reckoned with.

Maybe because you actively promoted unity amongst the species, like poster children for positive and “non-toxic human-demon relationships” HR kept encouraging in their Monday-Funday email blasts, but your little group was something of a legend in the area. You thought any notoriety was more likely due more to your faces plastered all over the bars’ trivia night winner boards, but in the office, people tended to stare. Trish, a siren from Santa Barbara, loved the attention, said it was good for her skin – gave her a “dewy” look. Nita, the only other human in your group besides you, disagreed with Ken (a quarter leprechaun on his mother’s side) when Ken claimed the whispering came from the sheer volume of nonsense that started around 4PM in the office on Fridays and continued until you all left the office. Ken was of the belief that the notoriety was actually infamy – to which he was promptly booed and had to buy the next round. 

And yet, to yourself, to the quiet conversations you had in the bathroom mirror after two long island ice teas and whatever was in what the centaur bartender at Lucky’s called an “Ass Whooping”, you suspected there might be another reason the Monster Squad even had a name at all. Within your own fields, each of you were respectable – Ken and Trish were both heads of marketing and Nita oversaw a considerable team of engineers, with you of course a department leader over in legal – one member of your group was, let’s say, more well-known. 

Well-known because he was the flashiest, the loudest, and certainly the most demonic of you all: Max Phillips, VP of sales, money-maker extraordinaire, and a fan-favorite amongst your Overlords, the rest of the sales team, and anyone with working and interested sex organs in the near vicinity. 

To your complete and utter annoyance.

You don’t quite remember how you all came together, who brought who into the group, and when it was unanimously decided that you’d stop snatching up office workers like limes at $5 margarita night after Trish, but it was Max who kept you together, who set up the group chat (somehow mysteriously gathering all of your phone numbers after a very late night), who bullied anyone who responded to his weekly “winner winner liquid dinner” texts every Friday morning with a tepid maybe into coming out that night. He already seemed to know half of the bartenders in the city, all of whom were happy to send over a free round of tequila shots as a “thank you to Max’s friends”. While you’d never look a gift vampire in the mouth, you were suspicious of his influence. Was that vampire hypnosis real? Did he have a pack of lesser, baby vamps to send out to tenderize the hunting grounds?

One thing’s for sure, he definitely didn’t scare them into it. 

“Has Halloween, like, changed for anyone else?” Nita grouched over her second Sangria Spritzer two hours into another fantabulous happy hour at Heel Clicks. The four of you were huddled into your comically small booth up on the landing near the back bar – of course there were other seats available but this had the best view, the closest access to your favorite bartender, and at some point, the shoulder-to-shoulder proximity served as a way to counteract the tipsy swaying. 

Trish leaned around Ken, her beautiful blue eyes sparkling with curiosity. 

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno,” Nita shrugged hopelessly. “It used to be one of my favorite holidays when I was a kid. I loved the candy, the costumes – all of it. But I really liked being scared the most.”

Ken sorted into his old-fashioned. “Well, if you’re still scared of things you were as a kid, Nit, I think you’ve got a bigger problem than seasonal preference.”

She elbows him and he knocks into Trish.

“Not like that . . . but, like, monster movies aren’t really scary anymore? I mean, I used to watch Ginger Snaps religiously around Halloween, but, uh, now that I know an actual werewolf and he’s the nicest little old man in accounting, I dunno . . . it’s just not the same.” 

“Sorry to burst your bubble on monsters,” Ken shrugged. “But I personally cannot relate. As a member of the Free Folk, my people have always been welcomed, seen as bringers of good will towards man.”

“You know there’s eight movies where a leprechaun murders literally dozens of teenagers, right?” You turned to Ken over Nita, your entire right buttcheek hanging off the edge of the booth. 

“Oh, yeah, baby Jennifer Aniston,” Trish mused, thinking. “If that’s what your uncle looks like, Ken, then I posit Halloween is still fucking creepy.”

“Halloween is definitely creepy and it sucks.” Your ringleader has returned with electric-green jello shots. Max Phillips carried a tray with one hand, his immaculate blue jacket gone to display firm forearms underneath his white, rolled-back sleeves. “Bunch up, kiddies, Daddy’s back with treats.” 

Half the group groaned, the other squealed in delight.

Max hip-bumped you, his ravenous cologne immediately making you think unwise thoughts, as he pushed his way onto the bench absolutely not made for this many people. He looked back at you as he passed out the drinks.

“Now why are we all in agreement that Halloween is a lame holiday?” 

“Nita claims that because she personally knows a werewolf – Ned, right? – she’s not scared of monster movies anymore.”

Max scoffed. “Well, there’s your problem right there. Werewolves were never scary to begin with.”

“What monster movies have you been watching?” Nita gaped at him. “Maybe it’s bad representation, but all the movie werewolves can tear you to shreds!”

Ken nodded solemnly. “This is why affirmative action is so important.” 

Trish smacked him over the back of the head. 

“So, what?” Max continued, crunching up the jello in its plastic cup. “Now that you know me, a vampire, you think all Dracula movies give blood-suckers a bad rap?”

“No, being a human-sized mosquito with too much hair gel is doing that all on its own.” You smirked, dead-eyed, at him. Behind you, Ken and Trish snorted so hard they almost spilled their drinks. 

Max narrowed his eyes at you, in a look he only gave you when you wouldn’t let him ease around legal loopholes “for the good of the business”. Only Nita seemed to be oblivious. 

“That’s a good point, Max.” She thoughtfully stirred her jello with her pinky, unsticking it from the sides of her cup. “I mean, I guess I never watched that many vampire movies to begin with.”

Max broke his heated staring contest with you to look around at Nita, elbow pressing up into your chest as he leaned forward on the table. “I can promise you, doll face, vampires have been and always will be more terrifying and lethal than werewolves.”

“Not the argument I think you want to make, mate,” Ken murmured as you shifted yourself to face Max entirely. 

“Oh, yeah? Enlighten us all –,”

“Nope,” Trish called down the row, “we’re taking this shot before you two get into it again.”

“To Ned!” Ken yelled. 

“To Ned!” 

Plastic crunched, tongues slurped, as jello ungracefully slipped into every open mouth down the bench. You licked your lip, tip of your tongue green. Max watched the movement out of the corner of his eye. 

“So, enlighten us, Max, why should we be so afraid of you?” 

Max grinned out the side of his mouth. “One, I’ve seen more bite out of a pomeranian than one of those Tribbles. And two, whatever-wolves can only get it up once a month. I’m all monster, all the time, baby.”

At this, everyone groaned.

“Dollar to the Dick Jar!” Trish smacked her hand on the table.

“Here, here!”

Max pouted as he took a dollar out of his wallet and slammed it into the center of the table, payment towards tips or the bill or whoever suffered the most due to The Dick. 

“Face it, buzz,” you shrugged as he put his wallet away. “You’re just not scary any more, if you ever were.”

“Is that right?” 

Fuck, you were in a lot of trouble. Beneath the table, his thigh soaked yours in heat. 

“That’s right.”

“You know what is really scary?” Ken muttered, digging around in his crushed up for the last remnants of jello. “Kelpies.”

“Ah – yes! They’ve got sloppy fangs covered in algae!”

“Hey – that’s my cousin you’re talking about!”

Heel Clicks was hands down one of your favorite bars in the area. Devoted to the local music scene in the area, the vibe was a mix of old 70s rock bands, modern steel, and whatever justified lots of mounted horns and hairy cow-skin stools. The drinks were great, seasonal too, and there was always live music on the patio out back. In a twist that you found particularly cool, the old rum-runners tunnels had been converted to comfortably spacious bathrooms in the basement. Behind the solid oak door, the noises from the above bar are nearly entirely muffled, making the slow descent to the bathroom something of an out-of-body experience when you’ve had a few and the sudden silence is almost an echo. 

Plus, these fucking stairs are a death trap. 

You embarrassingly clutched at the railing, the wooden stairs at far too sharp an angle even if you were sober as a judge, much less at a Monster Squad happy hour. 

Stupid Max and his stupid drinks and his –

What was that?

You stand up right on the third to last step, listening. 

In the half darkness in front of you, there are three paths available. To the left, employee storage, the lights above the door flickering, the sign reading “do not enter” pulsating in and out of visibility. To your right, another door, maybe an exit. Always unmarked and always locked every time your drunken curiosity got the better of you. 

And across from the stairs were the bathrooms, left women, right for men.

God, what year is it? Shouldn’t it all just be gender-neutral? You think to yourself, a tad bit more aggressive than you’d usually oppose the gender binary – primarily to wash out the rising concern at the back of your neck.

You are alone down here. It’s obvious. It’s not like there’s that many places for some dastardly villain to hide. Four shut doors and three hallways. Unless some maniac was curled up under the stairs, you are the only person in the basement. 

At least, the only person you can see. 

You don’t realize how sweaty your hands are until you try to continue your way down the stairs. You take a step and nearly slip, the eyes you know are on you somehow laughing. 

One blinking light. No where for anything to hide, so why are you so nervous? You are an adult woman, for god’s sakes. You make it to the floor, the most likely candidate for your demise behind you and –

The stairs creaked. 

The empty stairs that you just walked down creaked and you nearly leap across the hallway to put space between you. Heart in your throat, you make the monumentally stupid decision and call out, “hello? Is anyone there?”

As if the serial killer was just going to announce himself, give up the whole element of surprise.

Blinking through the bleary haze of too many drinks, you take out your phone and flip on the light. A white beam chases back the encroaching darkness, a frantic worried ghost peering through the gloom. And yet, like you consciously know, there’s nothing there. But the darkness feels heavier, the eerie distant noise from the bar above so quiet and removed the sound is more of a memory – the idea of what comfort and community should sound like. But it’s not. It’s too far gone – if anything were to happen, it’d be hours before they found you. If they did at all. 

“Oh my god,” you scold yourself, squeezing your eyes shut. “Get a fucking grip and go pee and then go back up those fucking stairs and –,”

Okay, that was definitely breathing.

Breathing, right behind you. Ragged, hungry, disembodied breathing, in your ear and your heart ricochets into your chest. Your own breath turns short, choppy, panic swelling into your ears, over your fingers. You think you might drop your phone, your fingers are so numb from fear, so you clutch tighter, the trembling throwing white light across the paneled wood in a craze. 

Be rational, this is crazy, there is nothing down here! 

The stairs snarl again and you squeak, all but bolting for the women’s bathroom, desperate to put at least some space between you and those fucking stairs, put some boundaries between –

The door is locked. When the fuck is this door ever locked?

Panic recedes to overwhelming rage because fuck, fuck, fuck, now you’re trapped in here – you can’t go back to the stairs – you rattle the handle, shaking the door against its lock –

“Fucking let me in!”

The light above the exit door goes out. And then the other. You throw all of your weight against the bathroom door. You claw at the handle, begging it to give way. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck – you can hear the darkness breathing –

No, speaking – it’s saying something, chanting, mocking, calling out – calling out your name –

The door suddenly unlocks and you stumble forward – into something solid –

Its hands grab you and like a fucking fool, you played right into its trap. 

It turns you, throws you up against the tile wall, its claws around your shoulders, cold tile against your cheek and you whimper. Whimper when you feel the soft pin-prick of fangs against the back of your neck – fuck, this is how it ends?? – and –

“Got you.” 

That voice.

That condescending, snide, bratty, little –

You elbow the solid body behind you and Max lets out a puff of air, staggering back. You whip around, nearly snarling in his smirking, beautiful face. The bathroom is dark, black tiled walls and floors with a faux-wooden sink and dim lights across the top of the mirror. In the flushed orange light, his eyelashes encourage thick shadows under his eyes and in the collar of his throat. If it wasn’t for that insufferable smile, he’d look painted from thin brush strokes and heavy scarlet paint. 

Caravaggio, eat your heart out. 

“Max, what the fuck was that?” 

He rolls his eyes, rubbing the spot on his chest where you hit him, at the top of his ribcage. “Oh, c’mon, it was just some fun. Saw you sneak off after you got Nita’s drink and thought I’d mess with you just a bit.”

You sigh, willing your heart to slow down, throwing your gaze to the ceiling and dropping your head against the tile.

“God, you asshole, I thought I was gonna die.” You swallow and move your hair out of your face. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“I what?”

“You scared –,”

That smile, the crack of fangs across his mouth, widens, the bottom of his lip rolling back over the cut of his teeth, those brown eyes melting into a warm, obscene black, as he meets you hip first against the wall. 

His hands climb over your waist, as though daring you to hit him again, and your thigh muscles tighten. Your hands instinctively trace the exposed skin left by his opened collar at the dip of his throat when he comes closer, chest pressing up against yours, nose against your temple. 

Fuck, it shouldn’t be this easy for him. You sigh through your nose, eyes rolling shut, when he nips at your cheek.

“I think you were supposed to be mad at me.”

“I am,” you groan. “I’m livid. I’m enraged. I’m –,”

His thumb brushes your ribs – not tickling, not entirely touching, but just reminding. Reminding of the force behind his touch, behind his teeth. 

“Baby girl,” he chuckles softly, the sound running down your neck like rain, “you’re melting in my arms.” 

“This doesn’t mean I’m scared of you.” You focus on the softness of his hair between your fingers, the heat of the back of his neck beneath the pads of your fingertips – resolutely ignoring the radiating scent of his cologne coming from up under his collar. More than once had he come across you in his apartment bathroom, sniffing that bottle like some dopey perv looking for a quick fix. Of course, instead of admonishing you, he bent you over his sink and fucked the daylights out of you, his wrists singing with the smell of that cologne. Now he wore it to work wherever he wanted something from you, particularly to overlook some pesky lines of legalise. 

In the hallowed darkness of the bar’s bathroom, he drops a single kiss just below your jaw, inches beneath your ear. He grumbles when your pulse there quickens, and again his fangs find a curve of skin to press against – a reminder. 

Always reminding, always lurking, a threat without a promise.

And he knows exactly what that does to you. 

You release a full body shudder when his hands drop lower, guiding you back against the wall, fingers rounding around your thighs. Like interlocking pieces, your bodies slide together, your arms curling around his neck, the heat of his chest branding yours as it forces you against the wall. You’re breathing all wrong again, but for different reasons this time. You catch a flash of the ink-well darkness of his eyes when he nuzzles out of your neck to admire the mess he has made of your skirt.

“Can I fuck you in this or is this thing too tight?” He asks, like he specifically didn’t get on his hands and knees and beg you to wear that gray pencil skirt only twelve hours earlier. 

You lean up, snagging his bottom lip between your teeth, kissing him roughly and showing him he’s not the only one with a little bite. He groans softly, one hand curling into your hair at the base of your skull, and he licks you, from the front of your lips up to the valley of your mouth. He tastes like the sweetness of his whiskey n’ coke, his tongue rubbing the flexing muscle of yours, the sharpness of your molars. You could spend hours just sucking on his plush mouth. 

Maybe he did scare you. Maybe he should have scared you more, the threat of anyone discovering your relationship a real danger to both of your careers. Maybe it should have scared you, how little you cared about any of that when he palmed your breast over your shirt. 

You inhaled over his mouth, popping off his lips with a moan, his hand cupping you roughly as he dove in to suck marks on your neck. Every moment that passes, you feel your skin ratcheting up with heat, blood almost hot. He thumbs your perk nipple through your shirt and you arch your chest, his massive palm nearly cupping your ribs to your spine.

“Max, either you figure out how to fuck me in this skirt or you owe me a new one.”

“You want me to rip it off you?” He slurs, eyelids heavy, his thigh slides in between your knees, the fabric preventing him from going higher, to the place where you both need him. You groan in frustration and his hands squeeze your hips at the sound. “Tell me fast, baby, because I can’t–,”

“For the love of – just fucking lift it up–,” His hands fumble over yours as your fingers curl under the hem, his own want making that brilliant mind for numbers almost stupid. His warm fingers overwhelm your own as they push your skirt up your waist, and then dig around the line of your pantyhose. 

“Jesus Christ, are you trying to Fort Knox me out of your pussy? Why are there so many layers?” 

You hiss at him as you slide out of your heels and shove your nylons to the ground, hopping on one leg to take them off your feet. “It’s like you’ve never undressed me before.” 

Freed of the chaos of your underthings, Max’s hands rush to his belt, the clinking of the metal sending shivers down your back and straight up your cunt. He doesn’t notice because he’s obsessively watching your thighs. “I’ve never undressed you with our coworkers a floor above us and probably becoming increasingly suspicious about where the fuck we are–,” 

You take him by the back of the neck, hand clenching around the starch white of his shoulder. He comes to you, zipper digging into your hip bone as he pulls you up off your feet. For once that chatty mouth is quiet, open and wet with desire as he takes in your flushed face, the blood pumping under your tits. Max is nothing if not almost supernaturally consumed by the look, feel, texture, and taste of your tits. 

The look on his face is one of those reasons you tend to throw caution to the wind, why your heart almost feels too big for your chest, whenever he’s around. 

He hooks an arm around your low back, tilting your hips forward. You feel the heat of his cock somewhere below you and it takes all of your strength not to grind down. 

“Max –,” he’s not even inside of you and you’re already begging. You bite down on his ear to stifle whatever was rising up your throat. 

“Hang on, baby, I gotta make sure you . . .”

Using your shoulders as counterbalance, he holds himself up against the wet warmth of your cunt, breath stuttering as he rubs the head of his cock against your slick folds. That bratty aloofness is gone; he wants to sink so, so deep into you.

“Fuck, baby, I didn’t even get you ready – but you’re already so wet –,”

You don’t resist grinding down now and he knocks his shoulders forward, needing movement, but fighting against the urge to buck up into you, gasping from the feeling of your cunt. 

“Please, Max, just –,”

“Yeah, I know, baby, okay, just, I gotta . . .” 

He angles himself and you arch your back, unable to watch with the mess of your skirt around your waist, but he finds it, finds your opening, the place he loves to mark, and without any warning, thrusts his length up into you. 

The stretch, the surprise, the ear-ringing split between being empty and then stuffed so full – you can’t help but moan so loudly, you sing to the ceiling. For a moment, your bodies hum with the stillness, the blood in your cunt pulsating around him, you claw at his broad shoulders, need him closer, needing that smell of him that haunts your empty bed as far inside of you as his cock is. His hips stutter and he presses one hand against the tile by your ribs, teeth clenched against the sensation. 

“When I fuck you, every time feels like the first time. Every goddamn time.” 

It’s not particularly the confession it could be, but you shake your head, clearing it of anything stupid like feelings for Max Phillips, your chin brushing his jaw, his nose against your ear. 

“Then do it,” you whine. “Just fuck me, Max.”

With a groan that could be mistaken for a snarl, he lifts you both up right, pushing your hips down and spreading yourself over him. You lock your ankles around his back a second before he pulls out halfway, then to jerk back in with such force and precision your eyes roll to the back of your head. He sets a pace that has pleasure weaving a tight drum just under your stomach. Each sweaty thrust fires sparks up your spine. He really is so fucking good at this. 

This is the release you need, you both need. Sure, it’s an after-effect of having a high-powered job, but it’s also more than that. Max fucking you is unfortunately very often the highlight of your day. He knows what you need, how you need it – how hard to drive his cock into you, it makes you tongue-tied and dizzy. The fast pump of his cock, how it feels to split you apart over and over again, the back zipper of your skirt digging into your back – it’s too fucking good.

“Don’t know where you get off giving me orders,” he grunts, the pounding of his hips into yours rapidly shoving you up your ascension. The slapping, wet noise in the empty room is obscene. “I’m a fucking VP, little girl, and I–,”

You tense your muscles around his cock and he fumbles, his knees buckling momentarily. 

“Do not fucking bring up the org chart right now,” you hiss, your own edge yanked away when he stills. “I’m almost there–,” 

Quicker than he’s been all night, Max lunges forward, mouth open and teeth bare. He bites your neck and then he bites you. 

Fangs puncture your skin, not deep, but enough that your body is thrown into a messy coil of nerves and adrenaline. It knows you could die like this, even if you’ve only ever called the vampire a mosquito to his face, and triggering a self-preservation instinct, your body trembles from the sudden blast of sensation.

Your pupils dilate further than they were, your skin becomes overly aware of every drop of sweat, every flutter of hair, every rub of flesh – and your fucking nerve-endings feel like static, as if brushed by lightning. 

Pleasure so-white hot it almost burns roars up your spine, slick coating his cock inside you, and you cry out. Wail in his ear. Begging him to make it better. To give you your release. The feel of his cock pounding up inside your now-overly ripe cunt brings tears to your eyes.

“Oh, fuck – fuck, fuck, fuck – Max, p-please –,”

“Can you handle it if I touch you?”

You shake your head. “Yes, yes, please, touch me.” 

“You can’t keep screaming like that,” he scolds you breathlessly, the punch of his hips bouncing you against his cheek. For all his vampire stamina, the flush of exertion across his cheeks is truly staggering and a triumph for your ego. Flecks of blood dot his mouth. “Someone’s going to come looking.” 

“I don’t care,” you groan, angling your hips to take more of him. His hand not on your back cups under your knee, tugging it higher up his torso. His pace is relentless, overwhelming – with his weight on top of you, and his cock up under you, inside you, you’re consumed by Max Phillips. “Whatever you do, d-don’t stop. Don’t stop.” 

“You scared I’m gonna?”

“Yes,” you whine. You can feel your heart pounding out its shape into your ribs. 

“Good girl. And good girls get to fucking come.”

Balancing your increasingly limp body, he holds you up right, his hand snaking beneath your skirt, between the sweat of your thighs and his torso, and –

He thumbs that buzzing bundle of nerves, “come for me, baby”, and you do. You come screaming, the tension snapping, vision sparkling with stars, and you are shoved over the edge. You don’t know you’re wailing his name until he comes too, all concern for getting caught seemingly gone as he begs you to continue as he fills you up with his pearly, gooey cum:

“That’s right, say my name. Say my fucking name, sweetheart.” 

His hips thrust weakly, some instinct choking him until he makes sure every drop of him stays in you. You’re going to be dripping for hours. 

His skin is fire-hot beneath his starched white shirt. You’ll be thinking about that for days afterward when you see him in the hallways of the office. 

This is what scares you the most. When you realize it's over and neither one of you want it to be. 

Shaking from exertion, Max slowly sets you down, unwinding your legs from his waist, your ankles trembling against the cold tile. You couldn’t imagine putting your nylons back on, the thought of that pressure against the curve of your lower stomach while you are so full of his cum practically unbearable. 

He lifts his head from your neck, eyes intentionally avoiding you as he inspects where he bit you, breath coming in ragged, long gasps. Sweat darkens the hair at his temple and that post-fuck blush is staggeringly gorgeous on him. He pricks his thumb on the sharp edge of his fangs and with a scarlet bead balanced on his thumb, he smears his blood against the puncture wounds, like someone would wipe dirt away from a loved one’s skin. 

It doesn’t really hurt, but the effects leave your neck tingling. You’d never say this out loud, but you fucking loved when he did that. 

He steps away without looking at you, giving you time to adjust your skirt, your hair in the mirror. You help him straighten his collar because it’s not like he can use the mirror to check himself.

He grins, the flush fading far too rapidly from his cheeks. 

“What are you going to tell them?” You nod to the stairs on the other side of the wall. “This can’t look good for us.” 

“You got attacked by a werewolf on the way to the bathroom. I saved you.” 

“Thought you said werewolves weren’t scary.”

He shakes his head, smirking, then presses a kiss to your temple. “Just said I was the bigger monster between the two of us.” 

“My hero.” You turn your head until his lips drink in yours. 

It is dangerous, your feelings for him. 

He taps you on the butt, pulling away. The lines around his eyes do an excellent job of masking the hurt in the brownness of his eyes. 

“Gimme five, then you come up. Can’t have you looking so completely debauched.”

He kisses you again, betraying whatever amounted to “cool and collected” he attempted for, and without another word, he slides out the door. 

His smell lingers in the air long after he does. The throbbing of your cunt also serves as a fantastically bitter reminder.

You go back to the mirror because yes, you could not have been more obvious if you were wearing a sign that said, “hi, yes, I did just get my back blown out.” You try to fold your hair around your ears at least a dozen times before pulling it back in what you hope to be a casual pony-tail. You toss your nylons into the trash can, pleading that the “oh, I tore them in the bathroom” excuse might hold an ounce of water. 

You think about what’s waiting for you a floor up and your stomach clenches. 

Fucking Max could upset the dynamics of your little group, your little Monster Squad. Whatever the stupid office bylines were, your happy-hour social group is one of the bright spots in your life, especially while working at a place run by those bastard Overlords. 

And Max knew that. He didn’t want to risk your long-term happiness for his short-term. 

Max didn’t scare you because he was a monster.

He scared you precisely because he wasn’t.

You open the bathroom door and return to the world. 

[sekahni]

To All the Fandoms I've Loved Before

Throughout my life, I've regularly participated in fandom—from enjoying art and AMVs/edits to writing fanfiction for Naruto, Supernatural, One Piece, and more. So, it's safe to say that I have a lot of experience watching the highs and lows of different fandoms.

And, trust me, I know the sting of finishing a series and learning that a ship I've loved for years hasn't been made canon. The frustration when a character I love dies. How a story deviated from what I hoped. It sucks! However, I also remember the hysteria too. Happening again and again. The malicious attacks and inappropriate conduct. Over and over.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here are some examples:

SasuSaku blogs were flooded with threatening messages after Sasuke and Sakura were confirmed to be a couple

Kikyo stans were harassed out of forums, YT comment sections, etc., simply because they might've preferred her character over Kagome's

Genevieve Padalecki and Danneel Ackles endured a barrage of online attacks, bullying, and threats because they married Jared Padalecki (Sam Winchester) and Jensen Ackles (Dean Winchester)

Amanda Abbington, Martin Freeman's ex-wife, faced similar attacks after she was cast as Mary Morstan in BBC's Sherlock—simply because some fans believed she was "getting in the way" of Johnlock

Prior to the Vox Machina animated series, when the campaign was still streaming, many people within the Criticial Role fandom villified Marisha Ray for her relationship with Matthew Mercer, wherein she became the victim of excessive online harassment and bullying

Laura Bailey portrayed Abby Anderson in the Last of Us II, a character who is highly controversial amongst fans. As such, Laura was subjected to mass online harassment and death threats. It was so bad, ign reported that HBO has increased security around Abby's live-action actress, Kaitlyn Dever.

Some Klance and Allurance stans routinely trolled and harassed each other—inciting such extreme inter-fandom conflict online that their "war" spilled into non-ship related content, discouraging others from interacting with the Voltron fandom entirely

Matt Smith faced unfair online criticism at the time of his casting, simply because he was the follow-up act to David Tennant's iconic Tenth Doctor—only for Matt Smith's iteration to be one of the most beloved incarnations ever

The frequent and ongoing racism POC cosplayers face every fucking day—slurs, threats, and more

The Cassandra Clare fandom came for the throats of anyone who had fair and justified criticism of both CC and her work—particularly around copyright infringement

The same thing can be said about the Sarah J. Maas fandom

2010s Tumblr blogs falsely accused John Green of pedophilia because he wrote contemporary romance YA—harassing him for months on Tumblr, and practically driving him off the platform

Marvel fans spread rumors about Brie Larson, accusing her of being an "arrogant racist" because they didn't like her or the MCU's depiction of Carol Danvers

Legend of Korra stans are still targets of misogynistic and racist rhetoric online—both here on Tumblr and on TikTok

The Durarara!! discourse of the 2010s was so fucked up, so vile, people disengaged from the series and the fandom entirely. This affected sales and the second season, which never really gained the traction it deserved because of how insufferable and toxic Durarara!! fans proved to be during the original run of the first season—I mean, people were harassing cosplayers at events! That's how bad it was

I could go on—and on, and on, until this post is nothing but a harrowing list of how people can't seem to behave themselves.

And, these behaviours need to fucking stop.

So, to reiterate what I've said on another post, but targeted towards a wider audience:

Your feelings of disappointment do not give you the right to harass others online

Your feelings of frustration do not give you the right to harass and bully actors, creators, and writers ever—online or otherwise

Your ugly biases will never justify viciously attacking women, POC, queer people, disabled people, and fat people in fandom spaces

You're entitled to feel your feelings and have your opinions. You're allowed to express your disappointment online and within your own community. But don't go around attacking others because of said feelings—this concept really isn't that hard to grasp. And in the same vein, don't incite conflict with fans who are disappointed to gloat about your "victories." Neither of these actions are productive and simply contribute to the growing toxicity in fandom spaces.

The only exception to this, of course, is if you're racist, ableist, fatphobic, homophobic, transphobic, etc. Cause if you're any of those things, you're disgusting and block me right the fuck now. This blog is NOT a safe space for you.

Sincerely,

A jaded fan, sick of the toxicity

[prikarin]

Regarding Killer Trait Updates

Hello, everyone!

It's been a good minute since my last Killer Trait update, hasn't it?

A lot of people have been asking me about Killer Trait updates and when the full-game will be released so, after a lot of thought, I decided to make this post.

Here's the thing: my Patreon hasn't been doing well. It hasn't been doing well for several months now. While the decline started after Where Winter Crows Go's release in November of last year, it's gotten progressively worse from February 2024 onwards. And because of this I'm going to have to pause my billing for my current patrons from August onwards—at least until I have something new to post.

It'd be a lie if I said this didn't affect me, I'm only human after all, but I'm also well aware that Patreon is a tough thing to maintain in a way that's consistent and interesting.

Unfortunately, since I live in Argentina, my only real way to get funds for my games is through Patreon, donations on Ko-Fi and sales and donations on Itchio. While it definitely helps that I hire some people from Argentina for certain art related things (so I pay them in Argentine Pesos), most of the people I commission are from overseas, so it's always a must to be able to pay them in USD.

And that's the issue: since I don't have that much money anymore and I can't commission people as often... this inevitably delays my progress on both Killer Trait and Potion Pleasing (DEMO out now!) indefinitely. It's sucks for me too, but it's the reality: making games costs money.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Killer Trait will have re-designs for most of the characters (not counting Carl because his design was originally my own) since the ones in the DEMO were stock sprites I bought from an artist, not my own designs. And I want these characters to be 100% my own, which is why I decided to have them re-designed. I've talked about this in the past in more detail when I decided to have Crowe re-designed, you can find that post HERE.

Of course, for these new character sheets (with the exception of Oz's, which has already been finished) and the new sprites, I need game funds in order to commission the artist. Even after the sprites are done, there are a couple of backgrounds—the characters' rooms—that I'd like to have originally made (especially since the ones I bought from Minikle are very limiting and don't really fit with the characters' personalities). And this doesn't even account for CGs, which I'll probably have to postpone for a while because the sprites and the backgrounds are way more important.

Some might be thinking "What about Where Winter Crows Go?". While I was lucky that WWCG's first demo was so well received, I still spent a whole lot of money from my own pocket to make it. I bought a lot of assets and, when I got a few donations, I commissioned a few artists to help me. WWCG was NEVER a game made with only free resources.

Making the art book for WWCG was a way I found to get a little of that investment back, but I'm well aware that I'll never get all the money that I spent back. And that's okay! To this day, I don't regret having invested my money to make WWCG because it gave me a lot of experience, perspective and made me learn a lot.

Be that as it may, however, I can't realistically make the rest of my games free. As I mentioned before, game development is expensive in both money AND time. Without funds, it's a given that things are going to be delayed.

So... where does that leave things?

Well, after pondering on it for a while, I came to the conclusion that I'm not really ready for a crowdfunding campaign right now. Those are extremely hard and ALSO cost money to advertise well and make sure everything's in order. So... the temporary solution I arrived at is setting goals on Ko-Fi! 

How would this work? Basically, I would set a monetary goal of the amount of money needed for a certain asset in a certain game that needs to be made. For example: sprites & character sheets in Killer Trait. Once that goal is met, I'll commission the person in question so they can start working on it! After that, I'll set the next goal and so on 💪

I'm thinking of setting the first Ko-Fi goal once August starts. And from there... I'll see how it goes! If things don't go well, I'm also considering making Where Winter Crows Go paid for a while—don't worry, I would make an announcement first—because I honestly have no more ways of getting game funds for Killer Trait and Potion Pleasing and, as mentioned before, making games is really expensive (and I'm only one person).

Thank you so much for reading until the end and I hope you have an amazing day!

[maggiemacabre]

SiIvaGunner SmashUp! Behind the scenes and post-mortem

Hello folks and welcome to my new Tumblr blog. I don't know how much I'm going to actually use this thing in the future but I figure if I need it, it's here. As you can probably tell by the title, today's subject will be none other than my most recent "work", the SiIvaGunner SmashUp!

The idea of a SiIvaGunner take on the concept of "Royal Rumble but full of stupid contestants" was in my head for a while, but the motivation to do it wasn't in place until I found Dead Meat's Horror Royal Rumble in August or September of 2023. The Jerma Rumbles and Vinewrestle were definitely also influences on the idea, but the Horror Royal Rumble was the impetus, and played a part in influencing some creative choices featured in the SmashUp (more on that later).

After running the idea by the team and the rest of backroom, I picked up WWE 2K23 (which fortuitously was on sale that weekend) and got to work. Going in, I had next to no idea of the ins and outs of pro wrestling, which meant that I had to do a lot of research into things like the wrestlers themselves, moves, terminology, different match types, general historical stuff, how shows are actually presented, etc. This put me in a very, very deep rabbit hole which I have still not crawled out of. I even went to two house shows!

Making the wrestlers was the first step and by far took the longest amount of time out of anything, since this was the first show of its kind on the channel and required the creation of 34 unique wrestlers. Some of them were easier than others (lookin' at you AMUNO), but others such as Ninomae Ina'nis took days to complete due to the amount of detail they required. This also isn't including wrestlers who were made that got cut; some of these exclusions include Bottom G, who was left out because Andrew Tate sucks, Elly from Touhou Project, who was replaced by Sumireko, and Wood Man, who was left out for lore reasons and replaced with 8-Bit Beast in a somewhat 11th hour decision. Maybe next year?

The decision to make Hot Cross Buns and Raft Ride into women also spawned from this period. Hot Cross Buns was made first and was originally meant to show up in the Grand Rumble, but after some time I ended up deciding to move her to her own match, which became a Women's World Champion match because lol. I had to use mods to make the men and women able to fight each other, so theoretically Raft Ride could have been a man, but women are awesome.

Being an egotistical maniac, I also included some references to things I'd worked on in the past. Totino's Stadium, the arena where the match takes place, was first mentioned in the FUMO JAM ad from the DJ Professor K Day stream, and Nu Grandiose City is the city where Woodyana is from in Woodyana Stones: Raider Made of Lost Bark. Also I guess this is why Elvira was included? LOL. Fun fact: The footage of "Totino's Stadium" is actually of Gazprom Arena in Russia.

Since I was involved with the channel's MAGFest panel in 2024, I was able to announce the show months in advance, although I'm not sure how many people actually paid attention at the time. Getting a logo ready between finishing CCC and MAG was a bit tight, but thankfully it was able to be done on time, and on top of that I was able to make the big card poster thing on my own. I actually designed it to be printed, and I proposed making it a sold item, although that idea was rejected. I also came up with the date during this period, choosing the day right before the WWE Hall of Fame show, and while things got a bit close to the wire, it was luckily able to make the date and time without a hitch in the end.

After all the wrestlers were made, it was time to record and edit. I was a bit worried about my laptop overheating while doing so, but I was able to get good quality 60 FPS 1080p footage recorded without any hitches other than some human error on my end. While the controversial ending of the Grand Rumble wasn't what I had in mind, I ended up leaving it as-is for time reasons and also because it felt like a funny troll ending. Which it was! Editing was not quite as smooth since I had to go through all the footage and edit it together into a cohesive product. WWE games don't allow you to cut to entrances during a Royal Rumble, which meant that I had to record and edit those in myself. The method I ended up using resembled the one from the Dead Meat rumble mentioned earlier with cuts to the audience as the buzzer rings, although I'd like to believe I did a better job than they did with their 2024 entrances where they awkwardly cut around shots of the ring. This is also where the fun facts come from, as they are actually covering up the nameplates that show up as an alternative to cutting to the entrances.

After editing was done I got some other team members to do commentary. Thankfully I was able to get someone with wrestling knowledge, which definitely added a dimension of realism and legitimacy to the project. I don't know if I can say who the announcers are because of leaks, but if you haven't figured it out, Randall Shields is a Smash Bros. reference. Also it was the first contribution to SiIvaGunner that had "Randall" made in about half a decade. What a return!

The premiere of the project was electric. Seeing over 1.3K people tune in and get hype over something I made was incredible and made my week, if not month. I did feel a little bad about the reaction when Dream came in (💀), but other than that it was awesome. And don't worry, he won't return.

In the end, I had a lot of fun with the project and it was awesome seeing everything pay off. I want to thank everyone who helped, including the artists who designed the logos and the people who did commentary. It couldn't have come together without help and assistance from everyone, and I hope that this becomes the first in a series of similar videos.

[taralen]

Title: E-Mail Guy's first day lol

HEY EVERY !! ITS HIM! N0 BUDDIES FAVORITE [[E-MAIL GUY!!!]] 

Well, well, here is my first ever DELTARUNE fanart! I've loved this game since it first came out, and while on disability, I played Chapter 2 and loved it even more than Chapter 1. This guy captured my [[HeartShapeObject]] the moment he popped out of the trash. He's officially my favorite character ever made (yes, I am dead serious about this.) I REALLY like this character, so expect to see more of him from my gallery even if you don't want to!

Why did I draw him this way? Answers Below!

Spamton's back story is mysterious, and the game doesn't give us much to work with regarding his past. This drawing is based on my interpretation of him before he became the lovable trash puppet. There are a lot of fan interpretations of Spamton as an Addison, but I rarely see anyone draw him with black hair. I like his contrast with the black hair against the white skin (is he Snow White??!), but I understand why fans choose to depict him with white hair while he was still the "e-mail guy." I included a variant with the white hair for anyone who prefers that version. The white hair makes sense, but I like the idea of him having black hair as an "error" or anomaly. The gray outline is based on the sprite of both him and the Addisons. I'm a little bummed out to see most fan art does not include their cute little glow. No other NPCs have this look, so I believe it was intentional. 

My theories regarding the Addisons and Spamton are based on my experiences working in Sales and Customer Service (and yes, at some point, I was the e-mail guy lmfao.) Spamton confirmed in a Q&A that he was shorter than the others before his downfall. It's hard to tell in this picture, but he is still short, just closer to canon height, which is slightly shorter than Kris. I imagine the Addisons as being like male ballet dancers because of their attire and pointed feet. I'll probably write a speculative fanfic on this because I find how these characters work fascinating from the perspective of someone who studied advertising and sales. I also did ballet for nine years, so funny that. HAHA!

In this image, Spamton has not yet been relegated to the e-mail job just yet as they test him to see how well he performs on the floor. From my experience, if you suck at doing something upfront but your employer still likes you, they'll move you into another position. So, this is before they do that. LOL  Likewise, if you are not very good at ballet, you get sent to the back or to a spot where the audience can't see you very well. 

Anyway, I hope to do more pics of this character and his co-workers soon because I really like them, haha!

Unmarked Full resolution + processes on my Patreon if you're into that. Link: https://www.patreon.com/taralen

[pineapplefulfillseveryneed]

Sparks tour 2023 part 3: The Royal Albert Hall - show #2

Got to be honest: I was falling apart at this point during the tour. It had been another night of only managing to sleep about 2 hours at most and after a full week of sleeping 2 to 5 hours a night it unfortunately became clear my breaking point had now been reached: I was feeling so ill from sleep deprivation. In the morning I wasn't sure I'd be able to go to the show, but I could be upright when the time came so the show was on! 💕 ...even if perhaps I would have to stay seated the entire time, which felt like it would be somewhat acceptable because we were seated about as far from the stage as possible this night. I ended up not remaining seated though, we're talking Sparks here after all, but please keep in mind that there might have been more to the show than I can relay. (Also, once again, a big thank you to my tour buddies! :))

Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer

I'd gotten super hooked on his song Looking Forward To Leaving by now and I had sung it quite a bit back at the hotel now that I'd caught more of the lyrics so I was super stoked to hear it again this evening, regardless of how I was feeling 🌞 I also especially enjoyed his incorporated dance moves for this song, so at this night that was my recording choice when it came to his set. You can see and hear it below :) Mr.B had also incorporated a little sales pitch for The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte this evening which was beautiful. *big thumbs up*

Before Sparks came on we could spot @nocribdoll from where we were seated and said hello from a distance by means of banana dance which was both great and effective! We also spotted Edgar Wright in the audience which was cool - we're so lucky that he was the one to make the documentary, with him being such a big fan ^^

Sparks

Sparks entered the stage to another big and beautiful applause. There was a little mess up with the first line of So May We Start which was soon caught and rectified, and honestly there's something to be said about opening one's second Royal Albert Hall show with the line “they hope that it goes the way it's supposed to go”. I for one very much respect that, and the way Russell immediately switched to the right lyrics was so impressive that it made me question if what came before had happened at all. (I'm partially sorry to be highlighting a mess up, but I just really liked it and there is footage.)

The audience was so amazing yet again, and we again got to enjoy one of those especially grand applauses already when we were just two songs into the show 💖 and, there was a small change in the setlist: they played VERONICA LAKE! Russell gave the song a proper introduction (a little history lesson with Sparks, if you will👌🏻) The performance was intense and beautiful and I really loved when the instrumental part hit :) (Unfortunately it later turned out to have been instead of Escalator (nooo my beloved!!!), but getting to hear Veronica Lake live really was a treat!)

The only upside about my tiredness was that I sucked a little less with capturing parts of the show in a less bouncy manner, but it's still Sparks so... (who was I kidding with “maybe I'll stay seated”💖) I captured a little bit of Music That You Can Dance To because it's a song I'm so keen to remember at every show and then it was time to dance our asses off and bring the party to this balcony! (We may have been far away, but we were front row in our section, so we started the party here just as much as we'd have done anywhere else in the hall ✨) I did a little banana at the right point in the song too, which funnily enough @nocribdoll managed to spot me doing 😂 I captured bits of Beaver O'Lindy (something I hadn't been able to resist on any night anyway because it is so special live), Russell's introduction to It Doesn't Have To Be That Way (ever since first seeing the show it was clear that his introductions to it were amazing and a little different every night), and Toughest Girl In Town (because of it being one of the most special songs to @dinkydiamond, and it just being great in general obviously ^^) But I think most of all I was capturing a lot of applause between songs, because the sound of these large audiences really was something that set the Royal Albert Hall shows apart 💕

When Gee, That Was Fun started the sadness really hit - nearing not just the end of this show, but also our part of the UK tour and that would mean saying goodbye to friends. (I couldn't listen to the song for a while after shows because it made me miss everything too much.) Luckily that's of course not where the show ends, we still had more applauding to do and we had an encore left! I really treasure A Love Story live and I could not love the choice for it as part of the encore more. I had loved it so much every night so far but it was cool as hell to see it from this perspective, facing the stage straight on yet far away. Those light effects *really* hit in full force when you can see the whole of it. (Not over the voice Russell does in parts of that song btw. SO GOOD.)

Apart from Veronica Lake there had been no major changes to the show, but why change a winning game? Edgar Wright took the audience photo once more, and the audience once more swayed its torches for All That. My memory is terrible in remembering any jokes that may have been made at this show (hell, I can't even remember Balls, my dearly beloved 😭) but at the end Russell blew a kiss up to @nocribdoll which was beautiful and I had accidentally captured him doing so, which wins :) They had to leave the stage a bit more swiftly than the previous night because Russell said they had a thing in the morning, but the applause had been so amazing yet again 💖

…And so ended the adventure of Sparks at the Royal Albert Hall.

Outside of the venue conversations were flowing like usual but as anyone present will know: I really was too broken to partake at that point. I had half a mind to go say thank you to Mr.B but having taken two steps in the direction of the merch table I already turned around knowing very well I couldn't do it this night. Somehow I still had managed to bring sufficient enthusiasm and energy to the show though, which honestly was a relief! 😌✊🏻 I'm really glad the power of Sparks had simply been too strong for me to remain in my seat. (There even had been a random guy on Twitter who had sat behind us in the balcony who had given us a shout out and had posted a picture of us dancing! I'm very fond of that photo, thanks random guy!)

[blazehedgehog]

Even if there's genuine love behind this Shadow renaissance, what difference does it make? Creators and fans love all sorts of things that I think suck, but their love doesn't negate my initial negative impression. I understand how enthusiasm can make good things better, but if you're starting out with something that's bad and unenjoyable to begin with it doesn't really move the needle. I agree that Shadow is redundant and tonally wrong for the series, so why celebrate an attempt to salvage him?

Because they don't salvage anything in this franchise. Ever. Good ideas, bad ideas, it doesn't matter. There's no growth, no learning, no improving.

When something works, they copy it forward whole sale.

The final boss of Sonic Colors. The final boss of Sonic Lost World. The final boss of Sonic Forces. You could probably lump the first boss of Sonic & The Secret Rings in here, too, as the prototype for this concept.

A routine repeated until people get sick of it. When it doesn't work, they pave over it with something completely different. Which they sometimes do anyway, completely unprompted. Remember what happened with Sonic Generations? Literally one of the most celebrated 3D Sonic games ever made. What was their next step? Throw it out and give us Sonic Lost World, a game which started over from scratch conceptually and barely had anything to do with any Sonic game to come before it.

When that didn't work, they gave us Sonic Forces, the most aggressively bland, unadventurous, circumspect Sonic game ever made. Something that was only made to please the concept of a focus group.

And then that was paved over with Sonic Frontiers.

For the first ten years of 3D Sonic games, it was always really easy to see that most of them had a spark of something special. They might have been buggy or unfinished or whatever, but there was a core idea that was both highly creative and very interesting. Which is why it was so frustrating when they'd throw the baby out with the bathwater every one or two games.

Shadow Generations represents something they never do: reexamine a past failure, pick out what worked, and improve what didn't. That's growth, and this series very rarely shows growth.

Like that's part of what seemed so initially exciting about Sonic 06 all those years ago, right? They were pitching it as a soft reboot. A do-over. A chance to take the concepts of Sonic Adventure 1, and not only do them with new technology, but do them right.

Because to reiterate for my younger readers once again: Sonic's reputation was already in the pits before Sonic 06 came out. Sonic 06 was going to fix that. And, well, it was a nuclear disaster.

But the idea was sound. It's just the execution that was the problem.

Of course I am going to celebrate growth if it's so rare.

When I put "Nothing matters, Embrace Nihilism" in my Sonic Frontiers video, that was a joke.

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

KAMALA KHAN (MARVEL COMICS) (CW: Racism)

1.) One of the most prominent brown women in all of comics, beloved by the fan base. Recently killed in a PETER PARKER SPIDERMAN COMIC (despite being much closer with Miles Morales and having basically no relationship with Peter) in what’s probably the name of MCU synergy, which nobody wanted (she’ll probably be resurrected as a mutant, erasing her unique and interesting history as an Inhuman). She was using her shapeshifting powers again despite having stopped in her solo as she got more confident in her own skin and identity as a Pakistani American girl, died disguised as the very white Mary Jane as a fake out/last minute replacement for killing off MJ. I fucking hate it here. A cheap trick to drive sales. L + Misogyny + racism + are you fucking kidding me

STEPHANIE (EVERYMANHYBRID)

1.) Aw jeez. Starts out as a really interesting peripheral character with a lot of knowledge the main (male) characters don’t have and a unique voice and perspective, but almost as soon as she meets the main guys her role is reduced to Girlfriend, she gets vanishingly little screen time, and almost no attention is paid to her role in the larger plot. The story instead favors the male characters and their relationships. This is despite the fact that she’s metaphysically tied to the guys in the same way they are to each other (past life multiple reincarnations deal) - much attention is paid to the fact that the dude characters have this relationship to each other but this gets almost completely ignored for Steph! And then her boyfriend gets her pregnant (we hear nothing about it or her feelings on the situation until after her death) and THEN her boyfriend gets possessed by an evil murder entity who kills her. Also cannibalizes her infant daughter (yeah, for a misogyny bonus round, we know that the dead baby is a girl). After this, Steph disappears from the story completely - the next time she gets mentioned again is her boyfriend monologuing about how bad he feels about getting possessed and killing her. It’s a horror story, and during that point in the plot a lot of characters get killed off in grotesque and cruel ways - but it’s especially bad to the point of misogyny for Steph because 1. she’s the only woman at that point, every other female character has also been killed and 2. she gets so little focus and is not mentioned after her death except in the context of her boyfriend’s manpain. The other major character that gets murdered concurrent with this gets an eight minute video all to himself - Steph’s last appearance before she’s confirmed dead is less than a minute long and she shares the video with the death of a much more minor male character. It fucking sucks man. And we do know that her actress wanted to leave the project and had to be written out, but doing it in such a shitty, perfunctory way, having it be at the hands of her boyfriend, focusing on her baby and her boyfriend’s pain as if all that matters about women is their reproductive capacity and the fact that men have feelings about them sometimes - it’s bad! They put her in the fucking fridge dude!!! As an addendum - this one can’t be entirely blamed on the series itself because the fans came up with the nickname and the character approved it in the fiction, but still - before we knew her actual name, Steph was known as DAMSEL. christ alive.

2.) Completely Fridged. she was a promising standalone character and then the actress left the project and she went from Cool Artist with A Bone-Deep Lifelong Struggle with the paranormal to She Gave Birth And Then Died ¯(ツ)/¯ free my girl she should’ve done so much more shit

3.) She was killed by a demon possessing her boyfriend right after having their child and then both she and the child were literally never mentioned again except to underscore the boyfriend’s pain

[transienturl]

And now for something completely different: a random product review!

This is a Port Authority Xcape BG100 computer backpack, with print-on-demand customization by Spreadshirt/Spreadshop. In the US, it retails for $27+tax from Mozilla's apparently-official merch shop, which regularly has free shipping promotions.

Now, first off, and importantly when considering this an ostensible piece of branded merchandise: the Firefox Aurora logo (now Nightly, but I'm sure you can see why Aurora was the original name/branding) that I picked here is apparently a terrible choice for generic print-on-demand, since the teal color it fades to at the upper right is probably way too saturated to be printable with a lot of processes. Mozilla probably shouldn't offer this design on this product, and I can't say anything about how good Spreadshirt's print accuracy is based on this.

That being said, in this particular case I don't actually care about this at all; if you just told me the result is a random (natural-gas-flame-themed?) alternative colorway for the Firefox logo I'd believe you:

Now, on to more practical matters. This product is, for some reason, $27. The same backpack on Amazon, without customization, is... $32. The bottom-of-the-barrel Amazon Basics backpack that appears when I search "backpack" on Amazon is $24. We're not talking about some $250 LTT bullshit here; the bar is somewhere around "it doesn't suck," and it definitely doesn't suck.

Size is important. I wouldn't call this a huge bag in length and width, but the claimed 7" depth seems about right and makes for a pretty voluminous interior. The angle shown on the sale page rather undersells the depth; the manufacturer's image might oversell it a bit (that one's pretty stuffed) but I would call it a reasonable, practical size.

The laptop pocket is described as fitting "most 17" laptop computers," and I think that's about right, maybe a bit optimistic considering how huge a 17" gaming laptop is these days. A typical 16" gaming laptop should fit fine (not going to bother to borrow my friend's to try it unless someone asks). I don't put my laptop directly in my bag, though, I put it in a sleeve, and a 16" M1 Macbook Pro in a padded sleeve just fits through the side zipper, which is what I need it to do, so, hey. I would call it minimally padded; I haven't tried other tech backpacks so I don't know what the standard is here but I would not want to put my laptop in without a sleeve. The separate laptop compartment and sleeve are more than it looks like you get on a lot of cheap backpacks, though.

Besides that, there are half-height and full-height flat front pockets, one with an organizer (with a zippered mesh; manufacturer pic is a bit old), and then the one big main compartment. No comments here; that's about how I'd do it. It's not much organization, but a lot of space efficiency if you're packing e.g. clothes. The zipper for the large compartment is angled, as you can see in the pic, which I think is smart. The elastic water bottle mesh pockets on the sides seem to work (my old bag's weren't deep enough and so the bottle would fall out, making them functionally useless; they probably should have angled the ones on this bag a little less but I think they're secure enough).

Build quality seems perfectly adequate; I can find no cut corners or anything chintzy, which is saying a lot for merch. Handling it, I'd easily believe you if you told me this was $60+ (and maybe it was when it came out in, I think, 2018). Zippers are large enough and smooth (plastic coil; metal body); strap padding and ventilation are reasonable; back padding and ventilation are rather good. The plastic top handle is a nice touch. (I might avoid using it if you filled the bag with something really, really dense; because of that angled zipper the handle attach point isn't on the strongest part of the bag, but whatever).

I have the "charcoal" color, which is a subtle two-tone. I wasn't sure if the grey would be very light, which wouldn't look great IMHO; the color is actually on the darker side, certainly darker than those photos depending on light angle, and really just makes it read as a black backpack that someone put significant effort designing some visual depth into. The use of multiple material pieces and angled stitching does look quite sharp; looking at it, I'd probably believe you if you told me it was $120?

So, in conclusion, uh... I dunno. I can't immediately think of anything I would change about it, and while I haven't tried any other competing products, it seems better-designed, better-looking, and less expensive than other similar things you could buy, and I guess it's also technically Firefox (or whatever else you want if you just go on Spreadshirt) merch.

Buy used stuff, obviously, when you can, and consider more environmentally friendly fabrics or whatever. But other than that, yeah, sure, if you need a backpack go buy this. It's cheaper than the price bump for a year of ad-free Tumblr, so that's something.

[thevindicativevordan]

For all Seasons?

Overrated and like most Loeb books, primarily carried by the art.

Totally understandable given it is an absolutely gorgeous book. Rereading it took my breath away at every single spread, to the point I was sorely tempted to get the Absolute just for the art. Sale nails every single location, he can evoke Norman Rockwell with Smallville and then you turn the page and he's depicting Metropolis as the Art Deco wonderland of adventure it should be. Bjarne Hansen's coloring perfectly sets the tone for each of the seasons: bright spring, upbeat summer, melancholic fall, and then a gloomy winter that gives way to spring once more. On art, few are the names which can match these guys.

Great as the art is the writing is very basic. Clark is a good if simple lad who wants to help people because his salt of the Earth farmer folk raised him right. He reaches adulthood and realizes he doesn't want to spend his entire life in Smallville - choosing to leave after confessing his secret to Lana. After a period of adventures as Superman in Metropolis -where he earns the attraction of Lois and the enmity of Lex - someone dies while helping him save Metropolis which makes Clark depressed and pushes him to run back to Smallville. He and Lana reunite, she helps him rediscover his confidence, he saves Smallville from a flood and moves back to Metropolis. That is the entire plot and it's as barebones as the summary reads.

There's a few interesting bits that don't go anywhere: Clark remarking that Metropolis doesn't feel like home but Smallville doesn't anymore either is relatable to me. That part of growing up hits hard for anyone who has moved out of their parents' house and then returns to their childhood home for a visit. Pete chewing Clark and Lana out for getting the opportunity to leave Smallville that he always wanted, only to run back with their tails between their legs was nice. For All Seasons is my first time finding Pete interesting and I wish he had gotten his own issue where we see his perspective on Smallville. Everyone else waxes on about the town's greatness but that clearly is not how Pete feels, and a chance to see him express his view to contrast with the rest might have spiced things up. Ma and Pa offer the usual cliché cornfed wisdom if you like that sort of thing.

Characterization wise, Clark barely gets any? Since he doesn't get to narrate any sections of the book, we're stuck seeing him through other peoples eyes. He's nice, strong, principled, and has his head stuck up his ass. "Basic" is the best way to put it, he lacks the nuance or depth of other portrayals. A few good moments stand out, my favorite is when he cheekily escorts Lex's helicopter back to Lexcorp Tower after Lex has been arrested, that was funny and I wish we got more of that. It's not a terrible take, but I've read better elsewhere. Could just as easily see someone reading this and walking away thinking Superman is boring as I could see them reading this and coming away a fan. Probably the most damning thing I can say is that the "real" Clark is the most boring of the three identities. Metropolis Clark has an underrated sense of dry humor, Superman has a "friendly neighborhood hero" vibe that makes him endearing, but the "real" Clark in Smallville comes across as a dope who is always in need of simplistic advice, and walks through life with a wide-eyed puppy dog look that makes him feel stupid. Just doesn't come across as very bright in his "real" self.

Lois is... ok. Cast in the mold of the Byrne Post-Crisis model where she was sucking up to Lex Luthor until Superman came along and she switched to pursuing him. The feistiness and dedication to the story are there at least, and I do love how Sale draws her. But the only moment with Lois that I actually rate highly is the one where she's snooping through Clark's belongings, assumes the "L.L." he's talking about in a letter to his parents refers to her, and when Clark catches her she tries to gaslight him into thinking she's doing him a favor. Hilarious moment, but Lana honestly comes across more as Clark's great love here. She's the one he's thinking of even years after they last saw each other, she plays a critical part in pushing him to become Superman in the first place albeit indirectly, and she shakes him out of his funk when he's at his lowest. If this was one of the definitive works for Post-Crisis Superman, I finally kind of get why some writers preferred Lana over Lois.

Lex is lame as hell. Diet Kingpin indeed, his plan is underwhelming to put it mildly. He's not smart enough to create a virus himself so he has to hire someone else to do it for him? Not muh Lex. Knocking the entire city out just to set up one person dying on Superman's watch because that will make Superman quit is stupid not smart. Supes does recognize that Lex is probably responsible for the virus, that he doesn't immediately suspect Lex set up this woman to die just to screw with him feeds into what I said about this Supes sometimes being a dope. Pa gives him a pep talk regarding this that boils down to "sometimes you're going to fail" and yeah no shit. A grown ass man needs to hear that from his dad because Lex telling him he sucks and should quit is enough to get him to flee back home after one failure? Feud between the two of them here feels like an old man seething about the damn kid on his lawn rather than a titanic battle between Men of Tomorrow who each have their own idea of the future.

If I only got to recommend five books to win someone over to liking Superman, this wouldn't be one of them. It's fine, if you want a Superman book that makes you feel wholesome inside then go ahead. If you want to see Tim Sale absolutely knock you on your ass with great art, definitely check this out. For someone who thinks Superman is boring? I don't think this is going to convince very many otherwise.

[earthbovndmisfit]

11, 12, 19, 21, and 24!

Fandom/fanfic asks! - @icouldbemoreclever

11.- Most unique merch you have for a fandom? That would probably be my old Captain Commando figure from the MvsC series by Toy Biz. I don't know how "unique" it actually is, but I've seen it going on sale for waaayyy more than I paid for it brand new at the time, so it kinda looks like it's not too common. Plus, other than the games and the 2 volume manga, there's very few official merch of that franchise! :c

12.- Craziest thing you've ever done as part of a fandom? I've mentioned this one before, but I once attended to a Megumi Ogata (YYH's Kurama's seiyuu) concert in my country while wearing a Karasu (YYH) cosplay lol. I was also on the second row! Just about 2 meters away from her. It was quite the experience lol. It was also not that planned really! ((Story time ahead)) The concert was held inside an anime convention and which was also located in another city (around 4 hours from where I live). Said anime convention used to give free entrance to most cosplayers at the time. I went with my sister, a couple friends, and a bunch of guys we met during the trip and also met with an online friend I had at the time and her girlfriend. At the time, my sister and I were kinda broke bc we had just attended to that con the past November (this one of the concert was on February, just a couple months later), so we'd had many expenses already from then and also from buying bus tickets to get there this time, local transportation tickets (bus and subway), food, etc so any pennies we could save to buy merch would be great! I also used to cosplay every time we went to those cons, plus, I already had the Karasu cosplay ready since that was the first cosplay I ever made and I also still had my hair long by then since I was planning to cosplay as Kuronue at some point too (spoiler: The Kuronue cosplay never came to fruition :( ). I also had a hunch they would have Kurama merch on sale for that con due to Megumi Ogata's concert (YYH merch was difficult to find, and even more so Kurama's because it would be sold out before we even got there), and I was right because that's where I managed to snatch a Kurama Banpresto keychain I'd wanted for years! So it was a win/win all around with the moneys I saved from that free entrance lol

19.- Fanfic you read again and again? I don't have a specific one that comes to my mind tbh, partly bc I haven't read any fanfics in a good while and partly bc my memory is awful. I like plenty that I occasionally re-read every now and then tho! Most of them were written by HamonHugs because I really like the way they portrayed and stayed true to Jonathan and Speedwagon.

21.- Favorite fic trope? I'm a simple man who loves Friends to Lovers stuff (bonus for "Enemies to friends to lovers" which, coincidentally, pretty much fits Jonawagon lol). "Fix-it" fics where some of the characters with canon deaths survive the horrors (like the "Jonathan lives AU" stuff in Jojo for example). Romance stuff, fluff, stuff like Mutual Pining, a bit of Drama and Angst here and there (pretty sure the Hurt/Comfort thing fills this bill but idk?), bits of humor sprinkled here and there to give the story a wider range of emotions (thus making the sad and the fluff feel much more pronounced too). Some whump and violence can be good too depending on the story. AUs are also nice when done right. I like some of the "Modern AUs" I've seen for Jonawagon. Same with reincarnation stuff and so on. I suck at naming tropes tbh, so I totally missed stuff here.

24.- Funniest fandom-related story? Probably the story I mentioned earlier about the Megumi Ogata concert lol. Other than that I can't remember anything in particular, save for the times Reki Taki-sensei (one of Araki's former assistants for the manga and also part of DavidPro's art staff since Stardust Crusaders) drops some likes on some of the art I retweet or on some of the random Speedwagon posts I make on twitter. As a bit of a side note: He also sometimes likes some of my Jonawagon ship-ish posts too 😁

[randomcerealbrand]

Fast Forward sucks.

I know that's not original, but let me just dump this and run.

Sometimes, with TMNT shows, it's 7 seasons, with a "future" season that seems to be written by a fanfic writer. But even then, that would be disrespecting all the good writers.

Then the last season of that is straight shit, with a change of art style and demographic to keep the show running, but that in turn kicked out it's teen audience, which was more than 40% of the fandom at the time.

The 5 seasons we got for 2012 was perfect, but even then, the main story ended in season 4, with an extra season for fun side stories that help flesh out previous seasons. Again, the alternative future special for it came from a child's diaper. Frankly, it was very sexist, only including and having cameos for every male character and completely forgetting about April, Shinigami, Karai, and even IRMA.

HOW COULD YOU NOT INCLUDE OUR LORD AND SAVIOR IRMA?

Next, lemme talk about why the 5 seasons are the best amount and disprove another very hated series that is uhhhh live-action.

5 seasons is the perfect standard for TMNT shows, because you need to flesh out story and characters in the first season, add more plot to the second season, add in spice and some drama to the third season, and the fourth season is where the main story should end and leave everyone in a state of growth before continuing on to the fifth season, which fleshes out the story, like season one, except it answers more questions than it creates, since it's the final season.

A 6th season isn't needed unless the story begins to drag out, and a 7th season certainly isn't need if you're going to change art styles either right after it or during it.

Stick to an art style all the way through, or else it will be jarring for those who were watching and enjoying the previous seasons.

This all circles back to characters, plot, settings, and overall the best rating you can possibly get for a show.

This is why 2012 is the best TMNT show, hands down. It does have its flaws, but it's good enough to learn from its mistakes and create a nice environment for the characters. And while seasons 1-5 of 2003 are certainly better, the final two seasons diminished the reputation of the first 5. You can't judge a show by a certain few seasons and call it a day, or you won't get the full picture.

Now, on to TNM.

The Next Mutation does not help me prove my point, but that's because it's not a show. It's a marketing tool. The Next Mutation is simply there to run off the original fame of the '87 TMNT, have crossovers, and make money in the most sufficient way possible.

How do I know this, you may ask?

UHM

HAVE YOU SEEN VENUS'S DESIGN?

And the thing is that she is drastically different in terms of design. She is the main marketing tool for the show. But around 30% of TMNT fans were female, so they felt they needed to add another female character to be able to sell to these certain genders so that toy sales can go up, and the show can keep running.

Hence, the creation of Venus De Milo.

Now, don't get me wrong, she would've been a great addition to the franchise if she weren't so butchered and bland to the point of where she was never used in another show again, until Rise.

At least, almost, since they were supposed to have 2 secret siblings, one that was Big Mama's assistant, and the other was a battle Nexus champion (not including Leo.)

Then again, it's just speculation, I could only find proof for one claim by one of the writers, saying that Mama's assistant had more story to her, but I couldn't find any proof for the battle Nexus champion claim.

This stupid info dump is basically to say that Rise deserve 5 seasons, but not 7 seasons. Unless you have a show without much plot, like a slice-of-life story, then you shouldn't have more than 5 seasons, or else you'll most likely be dragging out the story so much that nobody wants to watch the show since it's so slow.

I mean, name one show that had more than 5 seasons and actually had a story.

Other than Adventure Time.

It's very hard to pull off, but not impossible.

But yeah. Season one was supposed to be filled with fun antics the characters could get into to introduce the world around them and the characters themselves. 2012 TMNT did that, and everyone loved it. People just needed to give it a chance and not judge a book by it's cover.

If you want an extra season of Rise, and we might not get it, I highly recommend looking for the Cass Apocalypse AU. It's very well made and very fun to read. (Bottom.)

And if you don't want a "future" season, be sure to look out for the fan project ROTTMNT: A New Age, which gives the fandom a great final season to hyperfixate on. (Also bottom.)

And, if you don't want a fan series to satisfy that itch you're craving, a comic is coming out for Rise soon, having all the comics, Sound Off, and an all new story that was never published, called "The Hidden City." Please go buy it, at least, once it restocks. (Again, bottom.)

Lastly, as of writing this, a Q&A between Ron Corcillo and The Cartoon Base will be happening on July 29th, 2023. Please, if you support Rise, join in on the Q&A, and ask some questions. Maybe we can get a season three if we fight hard enough, but that's only if we try. (Just go to the bottom, fool.)

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

Cass Apocalypse AU

ROTTMNT: A New Age

ROTTMNT: The Complete Adventures

Cartoon Base's Tweet

Oh, and don't get me started on the MOVI-

[theunstuffedpepper]

First of all, I’m currently sitting in a massage pedicure chair with my toes soaking. I think I finally found a good spot in our new town. Bless.

So much has been going on and honestly, all of it good.

House stuff. I mentioned it briefly, but I’m so stoked that I’ll say it again: our old house is SOLD. Off the market. We no longer own it. It’s someone else’s problem. Since getting the offer in December-ish I looked so forward to closing day and finally saying goodbye. It’s more or less sunken in now, that we no longer need to worry about the dead tree in the yard possibly falling or running back to that house 1.5 hours away because of some repair.

Financial stuff. The sale of the old house has given us such breathing room financially, I can’t even begin to explain. As the half of the marriage that does the bills, this has done wonders for my stress and mental health. What a profound relief. We’re already considering future investments and plans, but mostly I just want to enjoy this for a few months.

Work stuff. I won’t say much on it, but someone reached out to me with a potential interesting opportunity and I’ll be interviewing this week. All good vibes accepted.

Toddler stuff. Pep is growing and blooming and his vocabulary is expanding in such fun ways. The other day, he and B were heading to the park and B asked him if he wanted to give mommy a kiss goodbye. He turned around and came back for a smooch, then went to head to the car. A few steps into his walk to the car, he turned around again and said “one more.” and his little tush turned around to give me a second kiss goodbye. I mean… my heart.

Baby stuff. We had the anatomy scan (because I’m officially 20 weeks!) yesterday and B got to come along. My parents took the day off and came to watch Pep while we went to the scan together. It was so lovely, and most important, everything is looking normal and healthy. Tiny man is 14oz.. almost a pound. The kicks and flutters are more common now and I’m loving the reassurance of feeling him rolling around.

Home improvement stuff. The plan was always to finish off 1/2 of our unfinished basement area which was used for storage and use that newly finished room as my office/an extra couch-pullout bed space/workout space. B has started on that project and it’s coming along quickly (partly thanks to help from my dad). Looking forward to my new home office having a window!

While it’s not really part of my “good stuff” inventory, I’ve of course got my share of grief stuff too. My brain understands that I’m pregnant and yet I’m still pretty solidly in denial of actually raising two happy babes together because of everything we’ve been through. I can’t picture it. I want it so badly but I guess on some level I don’t want to let myself believe in it completely. Aside from that, I have gotten notably worse at reaching out to people. I also get annoyed/angry easily - there’s a lot of internal regulation that happens all day, every day. My memory still sucks, but general recall has gotten easier. I’m exhausted daily. How much of that is pregnancy vs grief vs general human stuff, who knows. I think daily about starting therapy again. I probably will soon, because I want that support in place for labor, delivery, and the postpartum journey.

Trying to focus on the good, and it’s been abundant lately.