#all those colours actually do exist in-story

[tiredspacedragon]

I know I've posted about this elsewhere, but I don't remember if I've talked about it here, so stop me if you've heard this one before.

Y'know how Zamor Spheres are all made of clear crystal, and take on the colour of their contents? Hence why the Piraka's spheres are all sickly green, because they're full of Antidermis?

Y'ever think about how, since the Toa Inika's Zamor were filled with Energized Protodermis, canonically speaking they would all be silver instead of red/yellow, blue, and green? Because I think about it a lot.

[leftneb]

There is Something Seriously Wrong with this Logo..... Chapter Two

So. Lots of you have seen this post by my dear partner ( @lailau7904 ) in which the Williams F1 design team get absolutely torn to bits. In the case you haven't read it yet I highly recommend you do because a) it's really fucking funny and b) it makes what I'm about to tell you even funnier. Though you don't have to, this post touches on entirely different things still regarding this one goddamn logo.

The original post starts like this:

Innocent enough, we made an assumption in good faith that the logo displayed on the Wikipedia page would be the same one as the official version used by Williams. Buckle the fuck up because I'm about to tell you why that was the worst mistake we could have made.

Please. Please I beg of you keep reading this took YEARS off our lifespans. Like the original post was fun and all but it was merely the top of the iceberg. If this were an hbomberguy video this would be the part where he reveals that the background was a greenscreen the whole time. More below the cut!!! :333

The Truth

Already after only a few hours after hitting "post" on the dissection, people started pointing out to us that we'd missed an absolutely crucial detail on the Wikimedia page we got the logo from, pay careful attention:

See THIS?

Yeah this means that that image is not, and never was, the official logo of Williams. All along it had been the work of a Wikipedia user by the name of Juanchocarbonero. Here you can even see the (admittedly painful) history of the file as provided by Wikimedia, this image was uploaded all the way back in 2016, it even underwent an update when the team changed their colour scheme to a lighter blue without getting fucking fixed.

But to me the absolutely most painful part about this page is the "File Usage" section. Which gives you a quick preview of just how deep the goddamn disease that is this piece of graphic design sin really spreads.

And just to clarify: the official version of the logo used by Williams on merch etc is perfectly fine. It's a nice piece of graphic design. I still quite like it. But the story doesn't end there. Not even close.

Consequences

When you look up "williams logo" on Google the image provided by Wikimedia the very first result that pops up, if you're looking for a high-quality .png of this logo that, logically, is what you'll end up using. And I mean, why wouldn't you? What reason do you have not to use it? As long as you don't look to close (oops) it's a perfectly fine, high-definition, clean and transparent image of the logo! No shit people are going to use it!

But this raises a question: Why IS it the most widespread version of the logo? That's fucking weird isn't it? Surely if the actual logo used on ex.: the official Williams F1 website (which, again, is perfectly fucking fine) was available they would've just used that, right?

Now. Small problem. If you want you can go ahead and open whatever search engine you use, if you do that I'm gonna need you to type in "Williams logo" into the search bar, and just try finding a picture that is

of the actual official logo (you can tell the bootleg from the real thing by checking if the middle segment of the W has spiky ends or flat ones. We're looking for flat ones here)

high quality (no pixels or blurring visible to the naked eye)

a transparent png (none of that chequered background bullshit)

NOT a logo with any words (such as: Williams or Racing) visible in it. those don't count.

If you didn't feel like doing any of that, I'll just tell you the answer: you fucking can't. Nothing like that EXISTS. The closest I could get are these two, both of which are mid to ass quality, so they don't count either.

No sensible individual is going to scroll google search results for 5 minutes straight just so they can use a 200x200 image, especially when they think a perfect alternative is right there.

I even found several recoloured versions of the diseased logo, including one as a sticker on Redbubble! Fuck me that's a horrible sight!

The Search

Because I wrote the previous paragrahps after we'd figured out exactly what had happened, you might be under the impression that by this point in trying to answer the question "Why the fuck is that image on Wikipedia instead of, idk, the real fucking thing?" we'd at least established the existence of said "real Williams F1 logo". You'd be wrong, because for somewhere around 24 hours after we'd made the initial, horrifying discovery of just how fucked the Wikipedia version is, we genuinely could not tell if that was the official logo or not.

The ones displayed on their website weren't at all downloadable or even copyable, a non-ass quality of the damn thing just didn't seem to exist anywhere, so we didn't dare draw any conclusions. And we were still foolishly operating on the assumption that Wikipedia wouldn't just lie to us. (this is why your teachers hate it when you use it a source btw. like this is the ONE time it's actually been reasonable)

So, in the hopes of finding the offical Williams Racing logo, the non-scuffed one because clearly it exists, somewhere, we consulted an expert on Intellectual Property: my mother!

What this "consultation" actually roughly looked like was: we went on a walk and I started rambling about the Situation from Last Night before she cut me off and pulled up the website of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, aka the place they store all the Copyright information of like, everything.

BEHOLD:

(pictured; THE ACTUAL FUCKING LOGO I CANNOT BELIEVE IT'S EXISTED THIS WHOLE TIME)

Link to the actual real official legal document because goddamn this rabbithole just kept getting deeper so I like, have that now.

For refence, here is the official copyrighted version and the Wikimedia file overlayed on top of each other. As you can tell, it's disgusting. It's a poor, eyeballed imitation at best.

The copyrighted logo is horrifically low quality because, guess what, that image also isn't downloadable or copyable from the page. I really really cannot blame Juanchocarbonero for uploading his own version to Wikimedia because there legitimately does not exist a version of this logo that is freely available to the public. Like that goddamn abomiation is all we have. It's the effort that counts I guess.

My mother suggested that a possible reason for this could be avoiding the production of knockoff merch, or at least making it recognisable in case it is sold. Think about it, when your logo Doesn't Exist online, no one can use it without a license! It's kind of genius! I'm also about 99% sure they didn't orchestrate it so, it was good luck I guess?

interlude: How the FUCK does Copyright even work

I did immediately think to myself "we should REALLY fix the wikipedia version, like, stat" because I cannot in good conscience have this information available to me and not do anything with it, for the good of the people. However, this poses an issue: was the logo really not scuffed on purpose? Could it be that that version uploaded to Wikipedia isn't a 1:1 of the official logo because of copyrighting issues? To find out I had to look deeper, by comparing the official, website-available logos of various other F1 teams I came to conclusion that: [........................]

Yeah so I wrote that paragraph before actually checking for refences, but even after probably an hour of trying very hard to make sense of the copyright documents and copyright law in general we could not make sense of any of it. According to my mother (again, the closest we have to an expert, like she actually works with copyright in the context of companies but she's not specifically an IP expert. just to clarify) it's actually a lot worse for Wikipedia to have a falsified version of the Williams logo, than it would be to use the copyrighted version. This is because they're spreading misinformation by pretending that's the actual logo. And yet.

According to the Copyright Tag (the one on the top) in the Licensing section of the Wikimedia page for the thing pretending to be the Williams F1 logo, it's fine to use it because just a bunch of shapes. The thing is however, that it says that for pretty much every F1 team's logo, most of which are sourced straight from the official website. So this doesn't really mean anything tbh. According to our local expert (still my mother) it's fucking confusing. So I've decided to leave that at that.

update October 20th: as far as the Wikimedia pages on copyrighting tell me, uploading the official logo could, potentially, get me into serious legal trouble with Williams because of copyright laws. Which is still confusing because as said, every other team's logo is sitting uncontested on their respective Wikipedia pages. So basically we still don't know.

Okay. Backtrack. We forgot to ask something very important:

HOW?

HOW does one fuck up a perfectly fine logo THAT BAD.

WHY does one make their own scuffed tracejob and HOW does it end up like THAT. Clearly something must have gone horrifically wrong for it to end up like that.

I have a theory as to what might have happened:

It was either drawn or painted by hand, for a physical paintjob it's actually sort of impressively precise, but still objectively fucked. For a while I outright refused to believe that it could have been done in a digital program with the types of mistakes that were made, but you'll see this theory (partially) disproven later on so I retract it for now.

Operating on the assumption that it wasn't done digitally, a likely theory could be one involving a picture of scan of the paintjob. If the picture was taken at an angle or the logo itself was on a curved surface that COULD potentially explain the weird sort of slide everything has to it.

From then the picture might have been inserted into a digital art program, and the area of the logo might have been automatically selected using the magic wand tool, which could explain the weird growth at the top and that odd rounded off corner.

We also drew the conclusion that the file itself had been "tampered with" (aka cropped manually) by a human, because no computer would generate a resolution of 3356x2543 (you can that this is the original resolution on the Wikimedia page)

WAIT HOLD ON IS THAT IT?

The question of how the Fuck this guy managed to mess up the logo, and even more specifically why some edges were fine and some weren't (ant colony looking thing on the top left) bothered us so much that I at one point started just looking up "WIlliams logo" with the results filtered down to pre-2017 in an attempt to find when exactly the messed up logo was created. As if that would be any help.

Now what I definitely didn't expect to find was THIS

ENHANCE

Yes, you're seeing it right, THAT is the original 'Williams logo with the fucked up arm angles and lenghts'. Which PROVES that, contrary to our previous belief, Juancocarbonero was NOT the origin of the mistakes. Instead it was [checks notes] a DeviantArt user by the name of Nerdkid56?

The original DeviantArt post, which as of 9:47pm CET on the 13th of October 2024 I am about 90% sure is the actual first appearanace of the scuffed logo, is from May of 2015, which lines up well with the original upload date of the fucked up logo onto Wikipedia (November 2016). At the time that DeviantArt post was almost the only source for the logo.

And in the case you needed any convincing that those two logos are the same, here they are overlayed. You may notice that it's one shape (excluding the rounded corner which isn't visible at this resolution.)

This discovery is essential to understanding why the current scuffed version is the way it is. You might remember our confusion about the way some edges are fine while some are attempting to leave the image, the whole thing is a weird Frankensteinian amalgamation of vectors and magic wand mistakes. With this knowledge we can now assume that the mistakes happened in 2 layers:

Nerdkid56: likely just eyeballed the proportions. I'd guess he drew one arm before the other and flipped it around without really checking the angles. Also didn't give a shit about whether the arms lined up with the base or not. Legitimately bad design made in a digital program.

Juancocarbonero: why he used the scuffed W logo instead of the normal ones that were also perfectly accessible by 1 goddamn Google search is a mistery. HOW he even got access to it is another question I do not think we'll have answers to. And I've already explained some of the things we think may be responsible for the uneveness and bumps. Point is he fucked it up even more.

My theory for why Juanchocarbonero used the scuffed version instead of any other available picture goes like this: it was the only png he could find. Practically every other search result for "Williams Logo" that predates 2017 is a jpeg or absolute ass quality (sometimes both for good measure) so, despite it's flaws, Nedkid56's trace of it could have been the best option available at the time (the quality is actually very very good since it's a vector image, and I guess our friend Juanchocarbonero doesn't have an eye for design considering he didn't notice uhm, everything that is wrong with that model.)

Conclusion

The only way to right these wrongs is to go back, to the very beggining of this saga. Wikipedia. Williams I'm so sorry for what you've had to endure. I know what I have to do now. When I eventually make a proper vector image of the official logo and upload it to Wikimedia it'll all be over. And I WILL do it (but not rn this has already robbed me of like 3 whole days of my life. soon)

All of this is, admittedly inconsequental, but also absolutely fucking hilarious. Like imagine. you. one single guy, you make ONE mistake in a silly little "tracing this logo" project because you couldn't be arsed to check the angles of a silly little W. And some other guy, who you likely don't even know, over a whole ass year later, takes your flawed piece of design, makes it even worse somehow and uploads it to a site from which your little tiny innocent mistake becomes the most widespread version of a logo used by an actual real company worth over 700 Million US Dollars. HOW. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN. WHY HAS NO ONE FIXED THIS??? IT'S BEEN 9 YEARS

Just to give you a final look on just how widespread this plague is, here are some examples of media the fucked up version of the logo is featured in:

this Mr V's Garage video (the original reason we started this conversation in the first place)

the thumbnails of these two videos by Tommo, this one by FP1Will, and this one by RicksF1Addiction

such an amount of random places. likely fanmerch and fanart, and like, pretty much any place someone wanted to use the logo. it's everywhere. if you've ever had the Williams logo displayed in anything you've made I can guarantee you 99.9% chance you used the fucked version

and late thank you to everyone ( @bumblewyn @mid-nighttiger @vro0m @lemonsgovroom @mikraas @leclerced fucking hell I kept needing to add people to this list because compiling all of this took absurdly long) who pointed out our misconception in the reblogs of the original post and contributed to us actually looking into this further. and sorry to everyone for accidentally spreading misinformation lmao (it's too funny not to have been worth it tho) (ALSO it's not really our fault is it)

and to keep the tradition of ending on a live discord reaction:

[thinemoonshine]

⋆𐙚₊ 𝓹𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝓫𝐨𝐲 ˚⊹♡

good boy!jake x bad girl!reader

content(s): angst, suggestive, jake is called as puppy, reader and jake both fall but jake falls harder, (y/n) is a bad influence but not mean, jake is horrendously down bad to a concerning point, like man’s an actual emotional manipulator too

type: oneshot

word count: 3.6k

inspired by enhypen’s track, ‘blind’

˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚ synopsis: in which jake will do whatever it takes to win her heart—even if it means ruining himself ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚

(y/n) and jake have that relationship that people don’t really see in real-life but people do write about. they’re a popular trope—though it usually falls in the taboo category. forbidden romance and whatnot.

jake, the university’s heartthrob with astounding grades and cordial personality, always open to making new friends despite his adorable bashfulness.

and then there’s (y/n), uni hottie infamous for her salacious stories on how she beds about anyone she wants both from campus and night clubs across korea, how she shows absolutely no interest in making any real personal connections and rejects all advances. she makes her own rules, carries her own beliefs and does whatever she wants. a maverick.

and yet, jake can’t help but fall for her.

true, he avoided her at first. all those rumours circulating her only scared him, pushing him further away from the girl but fate is funny—and it lead to him crashing on his butt after slipping on a sheet of ice outside the uni and (y/n) was the only one around.

“jake, you cut your palms!” she gasped while holding his hands in hers, gently caressing her thumbs around the fresh wounds.

he winced at the abrupt pain that came only after realizing the existence of the injuries and yet her touch relaxed him, even more so when she blew on them as an attempt to rid off any dust.

“you know my name,” jake murmured and she looked at him, bewildered almost, before she let out a titter.

“in this place, it’ll be weirder if i didn’t.”

and at that very moment, hearing her laugh, seeing her genuine smile, jake felt something shift within him. petals seemed to flutter around her as the air slowed, noises muffled and pink tinted his vision.

it’s love at first sight.

and it grew more and more as they exchanged greetings in the hallways until eventually, he managed to find a place beside her. she never lets him mingle with her crowd though, always keeping him at a safe distance.

but it doesn’t matter to him, not when the only one he wants and needs is her, and only her.

—

“i’m bored,” (y/n) groans as she rolls onto her back on jake’s bed, head hanging off the edge while her legs fold so knees point to the sky.

the owner of the room grins. he glances over his shoulder to look at her before focusing back on his assignment sitting on the desk. “yeah? how about you play my games? or paint your nails? i bought some new shades i think you’ll like.”

“really?? you’re so sweet, puppy!” she exclaims and lands a surprise peck on his cheek which makes his heart explode and gears malfunction—now unable to think for his work.

he watches from the corner of his eye as she takes the pretty storage box he got just for her and filled it with things catered to her liking.

“hey, how about i paint your nails?” she then, suggests and he turns his face fully towards her right as she does the same to him. “you okay with that?”

jake bobs his head, already excited, evident from the big grin on his face and shortly after, they’re both sitting across one another on the bed. a mini study table is unfolded between them with the nail polish box and his hands resting on top.

“so, what colour does my client want today?” (y/n) asks, suddenly playing as a nail artist and jake chuckles.

“what does the artist suggest?”

“hmm~ judging from your cute face and sweet personality,” she starts and throws in a wink, unaware that that one gesture sends his heart jumping. “maybe something bright but not neon! like, sunny yellow or sky blue. some sparkles maybe?”

the customer ponders over her suggestions before making a choice. “black. i’d like to have my nails painted black.”

“black?” (y/n) echoes with confusion. “that’s the complete opposite of what i told you.”

jake shows off his pearly whites cheekily. “black matches with everything.”

“alright. what the puppy wants, puppy gets,” the girl shrugs and takes out the chosen shade. a comfortable silence embraces them as he stares at her like a lovesick boy—which he is.

he loves everything about this moment, especially the part where her attention’s all on him—well, his nails but still, a part of him. he also loves how he can admire her for as long as he wants without getting scared of being caught.

seeing how her lashes flutter at the movements of her eyes, how her brows knit slightly at every mistake and how her lips pucker and roll between her teeth from concentration.

jake’s eyes linger on her lips, breathing starting to slow and deepen as he watches her tongue dart out to leave a sheen on the soft skin.

his breath hitches and faster than he can even think, he leans forward to steal a kiss. (y/n) whips her head up at him when he pulls back, surprise painted across her face before she breaks out into the loveliest smile he’s ever laid eyes on.

it’s a familiar smile, one she always wears whenever she’s pleasantly amused, which is often with jake. and yet her smile keeps getting prettier and prettier, more endearing and breathtaking than the last.

“is that payment? i haven’t even finished painting,” (y/n) comments as she finishes the last nail on his right hand and closes the polish to keep it fresh.

jake nods his head, going along with her script but instead of replying, he leans in once more, eyes flickering from hers to her rosy nubs and who’s she to deny his kisses?

he smiles against her lips and easily discards the barrier between them, sliding the small desk aside before wrapping his arms around her figure. their tongues collide and he moans quietly as his blood rushes with excitement.

he tightens the hold, effectively trapping her before gently lowering her to his mattress. he pulls away just as he moves his hands to her sides, propping himself up to hover the girl who’s pinned underneath him.

(y/n) instantly brings her hands up to his hair—combing his overgrown bangs away from his face to see him gazing down at her with pure endearment and tenderness swirling in his eyes. “your hair’s getting long, huh? gonna cut it?”

“no…” he says quietly and nuzzles into the crook of her neck, taking in that sharp yet alluring fragrance of her perfume. “i’ll keep it long so you can play with it.”

she almost snorts at his reasoning but settles with pecking his cheek. “yeah, right. like it’s not because you’re the one who actually wants me to.”

jake giggles, hot breath against her skin making her shudder and he revels in the effect he has on her.

he wants more.

licking his lips, he starts peppering wet kisses on the side of her neck before gradually traveling to the other side and lower. small breathy whimpers emit from the girl whose heartrate quickens at the abrupt shift in mood.

the tension in the room is thick. both of them tangled on the sheets, panting with desire searing through their veins like molten lava as jake continuously laps on her skin like a parched man—pressing himself against her impossibly closer, wanting to feel everything of her.

“jake…” (y/n) breathes out before gulping thickly and her fingers involuntarily curl around his dark locks when he suddenly nips at her collarbone.

a groan rumbles through his chest, eyes closing at the pleasurable sting on his scalp as he quickly swipes his tongue on the bitten spot. “i love you, (y/n). i love you so much.”

his abrupt profession instantly slaps her back to reality and she yanks his head back, eliciting a whine from him as a shiver runs down his spine. she meets his gaze that’s transfixed on her, half-lidded and dazed like he’s intoxicated as he lets out ragged breaths.

“i have to go,” she curtly says before pushing him off and he sits on his heels—following her with his eyes round and confused as she moves in his room.

“wait, (y/n). y-you haven’t finished my nails,” he tries to get her to stay as he climbs off his bed to tail after her.

she shakes her head, refusing to turn and face him. “i’ll do it some other day.”

“s-still. stay longer,” he mewls, voice airy and cracking as it dawns on him that her sudden departure is probably due to his advances.

she doesn’t want him. he knows that.

whenever they make out, it’s always her taking the lead, always her holding the rails and deciding when to start and stop. and even then, she doesn’t let anything go too far—always stopping whenever he starts to want more, leaving him craving and in need.

leaving him feeling empty when he sees her with her lips on that freaking rich boy yoon-oh who’s uselessly molded like a freaking sculpture.

pouring salt into his wounds when she starts slipping her hands below yoon-oh’s shirt and letting him do the same to her—giggling so cutely through it all.

jake can only watch from afar with fists tight and jaw clenched before he walks away with nothing but a dry feeling in his throat, chest heavy and constricted that it’s hard to even breathe.

“i’m sorry. i won’t do it again,” jake quickly apologizes, voice small as he circles around her to block the door. his hands tremble as they reach up for her shoulders but he promptly retracts them. “don’t leave just yet…please.”

(y/n) halts and finally looks at him. “jake, this was all a mistake. i have to leave.”

“mistake?” jaeyun repeats as the colours on his face drain.

“you’re not supposed to like me that way. whatever between us is meant to be casual, no strings attached. so, i’m leaving,” the other elaborates and tries to push him aside but is halted by his hand that wraps around her wrist.

it loosens just as quickly as he grips, not wanting to push any more boundaries. “…don’t. please.”

he starts off quietly, pleadingly, and chews on his bottom lip before continuing. “then, let me be the one to love you. y-you don’t have to do the same—you don’t have to be mine! just let me be…yours. yours, to you and let me love you. can i not?”

drop!

(y/n)’s eyes shift to the tear droplet on his tile, watching it glint under his fluorescent light before focusing back on his face to see streams below his eyes carrying the same gleam.

“don’t cry for me. it’s useless,” she hisses and instantly feels an agonizing tug within her, demanding her to repent day and night in every second, every breath, for hurting such a sweet soul such as jaeyun. “we never should’ve met.”

her last comment comes out as a low whisper, almost incomprehensible but the other catches it perfectly. and the pain that follows after is excruciating—tearing whatever spirit is left of him and he sobs.

choking on his own breath, he inhales and exhales heavily, chest heaving as he shakes his head side to side.

“i’ll never regret,” he claims, nothing short of conviction, although his voice shakes at every syllable and he roughly wipes his eyes with a single swipe of his sleeve. he wheezes raggedly as he swallows forcefully. “at least…tell me why. why not me? i thought—thought you liked me.”

(y/n)’s own tears threaten to burst seeing him so tattered as he struggles to speak between his violent breaths. but she needs to make this clear. final.

“you and i, we’ll never work out,” she begins and takes it a step further by grabbing his face tightly and dragging him down. her brows knit seeing him flinch at the rough motion but she doesn’t stop—only putting on her facade of indifference once more. “people like you are too…good. and i hate that. i liked you for your face, for your naive, foolish obedience but i don’t intend to keep you. i loathe people like you.”

her statement makes him gasp, eyes widening instantly as his chewed, swollen lip fall from between his teeth, finally halting himself from abusing it any further. it’s like the world has turned completely still. his ears deafened, noise in his mind silenced, his breaths hitched as all he can see and comprehend is (y/n)’s scorn and furthering figure.

by the time he’s collected himself, he’s alone in his room that feels significantly empty, tranquil, and yet…bleak.

—

“it’s her. she’s back,” one whispers.

“dang, she’s as hot as ever,” another whistles quietly.

(y/n) frowns and rolls her eyes. ‘what is this? high school?’

she just took a year off, hoping that her absence will make jake’s feelings for her to fade but she didn’t expect for people to gossip about her like she’s some new meat. she’s old news, it’s not like people don’t already know her.

“should’ve just stayed away honestly. she’s just gonna be a bad influence,” another hisses and their friend scoffs.

“look at what happened to jake.”

at this, (y/n) freezes completely and head turns to the speaker, eyes fixed solely on the pair of friends as she strides to them. “what do you mean? what happened to jake?”

and as if on cue, a door opens and students come filing out excitedly, ready for lunch and among them is a strikingly handsome man with dark hair grown to almost reach his lower neck, half of them tied up in a ponytail while bangs part in the middle and frame his face beautifully. its center part pulled to be a part of those tied back.

adorning his eyes are grey contacts and right down the center of his bottom lip rests a silver lip piercing that caters to his habit of sticking out his tongue—letting him play with it.

he’s dressed in all dark—black and dark grays—and baggy clothes that only add more appeal to his skin tone and his face is radiant.

yet at the same time, he’s unrecognizable to (y/n). his aura is vastly different although, she can’t quite tell from his appearance alone. she might just be dramatic. maybe he found a different taste in fashion?

she must’ve been staring too long, hypnotized, because jake suddenly stops in his tracks, ignoring his friend to instead turn towards her direction—eyes widening when seeing her.

and he instantly starts approaching with large, calculated strides. his gait so confident and sharp that others naturally part for him until he stands in front of the girl who almost gawks at him.

now closer, the sentiment is more vivid. the aura he emanates is…him and yet at the same time, an enigmatic undertone is present. something more…dangerous. is that the right term to call it?

“(y/n)?” he asks, eyes wandering on her face and figure as if to make sure she’s not a figment of his imagination. a sick image his brain’s pulled up just to mess him up further and deeper like it has been in the past year. but from the look of shock and perplexity on her face, he knows it’s her.

a grin of both unbridled relief and excitement stretches on his face, ear to ear before he crushes the girl in his arms.

“you’re back! you’re finally back! i knew you would…i knew it,” he whispers into her hair as his hand gently holds the back of her head while the other’s tight around her waist.

(y/n) remains frozen, a sense of nostalgia flooding within her but she quickly shoves him off just to shoot him a sharp look. others might think she’s angry, but jake knows better. she’s concerned and puzzled. “what are you even talking about? i left you!”

“yeah,” he replies chirpily, hands in his pockets as he tilts his head at the girl with a beam. him and his cute face. “and you came back. that’s all that matters. ooh! come! i have to show you something!”

she’s dragged away to an empty lecture room before she can even refuse and jake backs her against the wall before pulling down his bottom lip. her eyes widen the moment she sees her name tattooed on the red, wet tissue and she looks up at him, incredulous.

“are you insane?? why would you get that? that’s the stupidest thing i’ve ever seen, jake,” she chides, voice laced with fury as glare stares daggers yet, the other only watches her with hearts dancing in his eyes. “you’re so… ugh. you know what? it’s passed. did it hurt?”

jake nods, pouting and lowers himself so his forehead rests on her shoulder, rubbing on her. “like craaazyyy~”

(y/n) gulps, trying to restrain herself from just melting at his cute whine, knowing full well that’s exactly what he’s aiming for.

“but you know, after you left, nothing really felt like anything anymore…” he murmurs melancholically and she feels a tightness in her chest yet, she remains stoic—until she feels his teeth grazing the side of her neck before a soft nibble.

she flinches, holding his shoulders but doesn’t have the heart to push him away. “sim jaeyun! what on earth are you doing??”

“you abandoned your puppy for so long, he’s upset. he’s mad,” jake grumbles and nips at her skin, earning him a gasp and his tongue darts out to soothe the spot. but the emotions quickly flood in again, which prompts another bite and lick. and this goes on and on with his emotions in a constant tumultuous cycle.

“jake,” (y/n) feebly says as her fortitude begins to crumble and finally pushes him back to an arm’s length. she expects to see him pouting, maybe frowning in disagreement and yet, what greets her is a giggly jaeyun with a loopy grin. she breathes in, about to retort at his behavior but stops at a familiar smell. “are you drunk?”

“noooo,” he drags his word and lets out another giggle as he pecks her nose, finding her rounded eyes and lips a cute expression on her. “maybe…i had a teeny sip.”

a scoff of perplexity escapes the girl. jake’s never drank before. even when she ordered chicken and beer, he never drinks—always having a separate non-alcoholic beverage for himself. and yet now he’s drunk?? on a school day??

“this is unbelievable,” she mutters underneath her breath before holding his hand to drag him to the door. “we’re getting you sobered up. how did no one notic—”

“i’m not going,” he stubbornly says and wraps his arms around her—a secure yet most soft of holds that even his fingers occasionally hover her skin as if she’d shatter. “if i do…you’ll just leave me again.”

(y/n) frowns at his defiance. “what?”

jake’s reticence shines through, especially so with his attempt to divert her attention by brushing his lips against the side of her head but not bold enough to lay them yet. “you’ll only stay if i’m hurt. just like the first time we met and even now. you’re worried about me, afraid that i’d get in bigger trouble.”

his observation is spot on—something that even (y/n) didn’t notice beforehand—and she swallows dryly. “that doesn’t mean you can walk around campus all drunk.”

“you made me this way!” he raises his voice although it merely comes off in a choked sob. his eyes wet the fabric on her shoulder as he rests himself there. “i thought i was your puppy boy…and i always will be. look, i even grew out a leash for you… my hair will be so much easier for you to grab a-and, it will be so much better to play with.”

as he continues his excruciating desperate pleas, (y/n) can only think of three recurring thoughts.

‘he’s right.’

‘i made him this way.’

‘i…ruined him.’

and it is with these credos that she finally realizes that jake can never be restored to how he was—not without her. her one year absence have lead to vast changes already. if she is to spend longer…the thought itself frightens her.

his wispy whispers halt with an almost unheard gasp when he feels her fingers play with the hair on his nape before they travel up to gently grasp on his small ponytail.

pupils dilate instantly as they make contact with her face and the sight of her smile makes his heart race as he sees hope—rekindling his excitement for life especially now, a life with her.

“okay. be my loyal puppy, she surrenders quietly and his pearly whites appear at his beam. his face glows and arms squeeze around her shoulders as he pulls her into his chest.

“thank you, (y/n)! i’ll be your most loyal, most loving pup!” he exclaims—nuzzling his cheeks against the side of her head. “i love you so much.”

those three words that previously struck her like a knife to the chest are now bearable. desirable and sweet even, and they will her to reciprocate.

“i love you too, jake.”

her unforeseen reply brings tears to his eyes once more and he presses his lips onto her crown, a gesture that lingers and leaves a pleasantly burning warmth as he practically buzzes with relief and delight.

he's going to make sure (y/n) won't need anyone else beside him anymore. he agreed with being her pup for now but sooner or later, she'll realise how much better he is than anyone else, how strong and reliable he is. he can take care of both him and her, and he's going to convince her one day that he's not the weak-willed, goodie-two-shoes guy she thinks he is.

he’ll make sure of it.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ bambi (heeseung ver.), you, a lucid dream (jongseong ver.), skater boy (sunghoon ver.)

𝜗𝜚 disclaimer: i do not condone any reckless behaviour portrayed in this work. this is entirely fiction and does not depict the member's real personality. if you enjoyed it, don’t forget to leave a heart and reblog—they give me some motivation, ya know? but please do not spam like!! X♡X♡, romi ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

copyright © 2024 thinemoonshine

all rights reserved

[ranchstoryblog]

Ranch Story Community Q&A Volume 3: Igusa Matsuyama Returns!

Igusa Matsuyama, the legendary artist behind the Story of Seasons series since the original 1996 game has once again agreed to a Q&A featuring questions from fans from around the world! A big thank you to all the members of the community who helped make this possible.

Some aspects of the text have been altered to match localization people are familiar with. (Japanese names to English names, for example: Bokujou Monogatari (牧場物語) was formerly localized as Harvest Moon and is now localized as Story of Seasons, etc). Images were not part of the original text and have been added as a visual aid. Though we translated as many questions as we could, we did not include questions involving personal information or regarding unannounced releases. Please understand.

If you would like to read our original correspondence (in Japanese), that will be provided in a separate post.

Additional cosplay photo provided by Foxface from our community Discord.

Translations: @artycharmy (correspondence, outline) Editing and Clean-up: Jerome, @artycharmy, and @regularcelery

——— Anonymous asks: What is the relationship between Jamie and the Harvest Goddess?

Igusa Matsuyama: Jamie was treated as a fairy or spirit. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure if there's any points that link them and the Goddess.

Editor's note: the term Matsuyama uses is "妖精."

Tomato asks: I would like to ask about what their inspiration was for the outfits designs in the original release of harvest moon another wonderful life. Since I got reminded of the girl clothing brand Mezzo Piano when looking at the I love Kuma/I love bears outfit.

Igusa Matsuyama: I remember the only thing I thought of was using Spring-like colours! (All designs were made with seasonal colours In mind) When I knew that Daachan, who was planned to be used in a lot of events, wouldn't actually play a big role in the game, I put him on the T-Shirt so he could at least get some attention as a mascot-like existence.

Pansy asks: If you were able to create your own game for the Story of Seasons franchise, with no rules or limitations whatsoever, what do you think it might look like?

Igusa Mastuyama: Since I love dogs, I'd like to try making a Story of Seasons that's set in a world just full of dogs. Though that dream of mine probably won't come true.

Anonymous asks: The look of Story of Seasons has changed a lot over the years! What would you say is more challenging to create - simple designs, where you have to work with very little space, or complicated designs, where you have to consider many little details?

Igusa Matsuyama: A long time ago there were a lot of things you weren't able to replicate in video games. There were constraints for things like the number of colours and patterns for hair styles and clothes. It was difficult to work around those constraints, but at the same time a lot of fun. Nowadays, it's the complete opposite. Now we can design anything with hardly any constraints. And unlike a long time ago, now I'm asked to make more complicated designs, like patterns and decorations. However, if it's a big request, sometimes I run into quite a lot of trouble when designing. They each have had their own difficulties.

Anonymous asks: Hello, Matsuyama! Thank you for bringing the worlds of Bokujou Monogatari to life for many years. Your art has had a huge influence on me!

One of my favorite candidates is “Rock” from “A Wonderful Life.” I’d love to know any particular influences for his character design from 21 years ago, and his new design for the remake.

Igusa Matsuyama: I was told that he was a young, wannabe playboy, so I somehow ended up with that sort of design. For the remake, I made his clothes a little looser without changing his design, so he'd look even more playful. I, too, wanted to avoid changing him as much as I could as there are other people among the staff that also like the original for his “Rockness”. So, he got that makeover after everybody shared and checked their opinions with each other.

Jerome asks: On page 130 of the "Special Comic" manga there's artwork of Super Famicom characters that have never been printed anywhere else. Do you or Marvelous still have these? It would be great to see them in more detail in the future some time.

Igusa Matsuyama: They're all characters that appeared in the SNES version of "Harvest Moon." Nina's parents, Ellen's mother, Ann's father, Maria's parents (The mayor couple). I'm sorry. My SNES illustrations have gone missing...

Raven Bloom, Ryan, and Moth ask: How did you feel when your designs for the men in A Wonderful Life were repurposed to be bachelors? What do you think of the changes made to the bachelors in the remake of A Wonderful Life? I miss the “Bruce Campbell” look Matthew used to have.

Igusa Matsuyama: Matthew (マシュー) is Masshu (マッシュ) in the Japanese A Wonderful Life (Editors note: Charmy made a careless mistake when translating the questions, sorry Matsuyama san 🫣) When I first heard this name, the first thing that came to mind was Evil Dead's protagonist, Ash. You're right. I designed him after Bruce Campbell. I still love Bruce Campbell today. When Wonderful Life was under production, I had heard they weren't going to make a girl version, so I designed him not as a love interest, but as a quirky character. Knowing that he'd appear in the remake as a marriage candidate, I redesigned him as a character that would be liked by many. I hope you can enjoy the game for its nostalgia, as well as for being a shiny, brand new release.

Salmon Axe and Anonymous ask: I personally adore Doraemon x SOS game. Are you interested in working directly with or collaborating with other franchises in the future? And is there a series outside Story of Seasons you would like to work with now as a guest artist? (Could it be Pokemon?)

Igusa Matsuyama: I've loved Doraemon manga since I was a kid! Working as a guest artist? Hmm, I'm happier being the main illustrator, so nothing in particular comes to mind. I enjoy a lot of games in my free time, such as Fallout, Far Cry and Border Lands.

Anonymous asks: Even though we never see his face, was there ever a concept of how Woofio would look without his costume?

Igusa Matsuyama: I designed Woofio as the being that is Woofio, so there's no design of him without his costume.

Idris asks: Your style has upgraded a lot over the time to match the trends. Do you think you will ever go for an old school look (early HM) for a SoS game again? What do you think is the secret to your art’s charm?

Igusa Matsuyama: What I'm particular about when designing for Story of Seasons is making characters with head/body proportions and an atmosphere that go well with that release. First, I listen to the client's request then think of a design according to that. These days, game visuals have gotten fancier and fancier, so there's not many opportunities for characters with short proportions to make an appearance. To me, what's important when designing is "playfulness." More so than "pretty" or "cool" and such, I get attached to the character, have fun making the character. I find joy in character creation itself.

MacGyver asks: Yasuhiro Wada has shared some interesting stories about how chaotic the original game's development was. Is there anything interesting you remember from around that time? 

Igusa Matsuyama: Now it's a memory I can look back on and laugh about, but I'm not sure how much I can talk about it so please forgive me. If Wada hadn't been there back then, then "Harvest Moon" wouldn't have become a thing.

Toyberb and Anonymous ask: There’s a lot of different cow designs now, which is your favorite to draw?

Igusa Matsuyama: I've loved drawing animals since I was a kid, so I love all of the cows. Although the easiest one to draw is the cow with the big nose.

Anonymous asks: Were there any games where you made designs for protagonists of genders that did not end up available to play as? (Like a girl protagonist for Save the Homeland/Hero of Leaf Valley or a nonbinary protagonist for any game before A Wonderful Life)

Igusa Matsuyama: There's so many designs that got scrapped, but as far as I recall, there's not really many where that character's setting itself was scrapped. (Excluding Thumbelina, mentioned below)

Koharu asks: Were there ever any character designs made for other older SNES characters like Ellen for 64? Some magazines had Marie with blue hair, like the SNES character, so it made me wonder if she (SNES Maria) was meant to also be there at some point.

Igusa Matsuyama: I'm not in the position to make settings or scenarios where characters from other games appear, so I can't say, but I like the idea of older characters making an appearance!

Amina/k0iisu asks: Hello! I really love Hiro’s design specifically. Could you tell me a few facts about him/his design that might not be well known information? Thank you so much! I love your art :D

Igusa Matsuyama: Thank you very much! Hiro is a future doctor, so I tried to make them look as much like a doctor as I could. Also, to make him look friendlier, I designed him as your average everyday boy you'd see in the neighbourhood. He doesn't have a flashy face or hairstyle, but he's one of my favourite designs, too. I wrote this in the guidebook too, but what I like about him is the Asian flair I added to his clothes and the spot of colour around his feet.

Bunbun asks: I'm excited for the Nendoroid that was announced of Claire! I hope there will be ones of HM64 designs too. Since you have a lot of figures on your blog, how does it feel to be able to add one of your own characters to your collection? Are there any of your other characters you hope will get figures of?

Igusa Matsuyama: A nendoroid of Claire! I'm looking forward to it too, but when is it going to be released? If it's possible, I'd like one of Woofio.

Editor's note: Preorders are open for Nendoroid Claire now!

Chickee asks: A purple-haired princess character was rumored to have existed in Harvest Moon 64, but she didn't make it to the published game. Did you create a design for this character?

Igusa Matsuyama: That's probably Princess Thumbelina. Wasn't she Incredibly small? What I designed didn't end up being used. Speaking of HM64 characters, I pushed for them to include a pet turtle, but in the end it only appeared as an ornament. For A Wonderful Life, I asked for a turtle to be included again and designed a tortoise with a scarf, but it didn't make it as a pet and appeared only as a wild turtle that walks around the pond. I'm waiting for the day they finally include a pet turtle in the game.

emery flower147 asks: omg  I saw the pics where the AWL girls are in a team and Muffy has a shotgun and stuff? Do you think any other characters would work in a cool team like that?

Igusa Matsuyama: For the Friends of Mineral Town guide book, I had the five girls, Popuri, Marie, Ran, Elly and Karen work hard as Harvest Sprites. Also, for the guide books, I drew Pete (The old male protagonist), Sarah (The GB version female protagonist), and Claire doing whatever I wanted them to. I don't know if you can call it cool or not, but it was fun being in charge of that.

Ixur asks: A lot of the PoOT character designs for the regular villagers seem more popular than the marriage candidates in my region. Is that something that's been noticed by you/Marvelous in Japan? Lars, Clemens, Beth, and Misaki for example.

Igusa Matsuyama: Marvelous doesn't really talk about that sort of thing so I'm not sure if they're aware of it or not. I don't do social media so I'm also not sure which characters are popular. I'm happy as long as the characters are liked. The design on Lars’s shirt is modeled after my beloved dog, so I’d be especially happy if you like his shirt too.

Anonymous asks: What do you think about people cosplaying your designs?

Igusa Matsuyama: It makes me very happy! I'm no good at sewing, so I really admire people who can make their own clothes. It's an honour having the designs I made be made into real clothes, and I think it's great to have fun acting out the characters.

Afro Fae asks: When creating designs for characters, how do you settle on a specific color palette? Do you take color meanings into account with a character's personality or do you go purely off of feeling?

Igusa Matsuyama: I keep in mind the overall colours the client asked for while designing. Sometimes I propose a new colour when I think there's one that fits better. I'm also careful when choosing colours and everyone's traits to make sure it's easy to tell which character is which when seen from a distance. However, in the cases of families and such, I do the opposite and give them all a common colour to give them a sense of kinship.

———

From all of us at Ranch Story, we'd like to thank Matsuyama from the bottom of our hearts for answering our questions again! Whether a fan has only just discovered the series or has grown up alongside it, so many people have loved these characters and worlds that Igusa Matsuyama brings to life, so it feels truly special to be able to have this opportunity. We'll end this article with Matsuyama's own words, as well as a parting gift.

Igusa Matsuyama: I'm so glad I could answer your questions again. I'm the one that should be saying thank you. It means the world to me knowing that everyone enjoys my illustrations! I added an illustration as thanks. I'll keep up the hard work!

[ar-cadez]

Count Duckula Fan Rewrite!!

Recently I’ve been working on a Count Duckula rewrite that aims to give it a slightly more serious tone and semi-serialized story like many modern cartoons! It took some time, but I made redesigns of the main cast. I had fun making this project and I REALLY hope you do too! Because I’m extremely nervous that the small fan base Count Duckula does have will hate this

I haven’t actually finished the show btw so if there’s an antagonist or smth that shows up later I should’ve redesigned.. lmk! I’m open to suggestions I really like this show..

—————————————————

Basic Concept

Practically the same as the original show! There is a long line of reincarnations of a wicked vampire duck named Count Duckula, the most recent reincarnation went wrong and now the current Count is a vegetarian and much more interested in becoming famous than being evil.

Some major differences include the tone and story structure, being semi-serialized and having more serious arcs mixed in with the antics, along with a lot of changes in characterization. A big story change is also that Nanny was not hired until AFTER Duckula was reincarnated so Igor was the one who screwed up the ritual.

Tone wise I’d also like to slightly age up the target audience so it could get away with a bit more dark humour. My favourite part of the original show was moments that were just so morbid and completely brushed past. 13+ would be fine methinks.

Basic plot of the average episode would be about the count’s hyperfixation of the week and trying to get famous or profit from it. Not every episode would follow this structure though.

The grander themes of the series would be all about expectations from family and strangers and how those expectations can be completely false.

—————————————————

Characters

^^ Final lineup! ^^

Sketches (less interesting poses but shows off some things better)

Count Duckula!

What I wanted to change

I feel like Duckula from the original spin-off was already a really strong character! There is a lot to him and really all I would want from a more emotional reboot is to dive into what’s already there. I did kinda project on him a bit in this rewrite though… gotta write what’cha know!

I also changed his design quite a bit. I never thought the suit fit his personality and I wanted to go with something a little more bright. If I go back again I might saturate his shirt a bit more. I also wanted all the residents of castle Duckula to have purple in their designs and for duckula and Towser to share similar colour’s inversed

Character Traits

Hatred of his legacy

Duckula is the first member of his lineage to not be an evil vampire and he hates that role that is expected of him. This is partially what drives him to be the nicest duck he can be, in hopes of shaking off his legacy. This also causes him to reject anything that's “spooky” or has to do with vampires. He physically can't eat meat or blood due to his botched resurrection, but even the sight of either distresses him.

Attention Drive

Due to his infamy, all Duckula wants is to be liked by the general public. Everyone in his town is automatically scared of him and he tries really hard to change their opinions on him whether that be through attempting to bea good samaritan or by performing in town. (Both tend to end poorly for him)

ADHD and Theatre Kid Behaviour

Duckula is constantly picking up and putting down new forms of art and performance. This can be anything from oil painting to American football. He does tend to get frustrated or distracted and abandon projects or crafts entirely. His favourite artform is acting and music so as you can imagine he's very into musicals. His musical talents are decent but his acting is awful. He’s also known to loud and overly excited over his interests

Ego and Cowardice

Being given a position of power the day you came into existence does have the tendency to make you… immature to say the least. When in danger, if he even realises there is any, Duckula’s first move is to use his title as leverage. If that doesn't work, his second is to beg, grovel, and lie his way out of the situation. That, or hide behind his much more intimidating companions.

Rich Kid Syndrome

Having the majority of people you know be your house staff really messes with your sense of responsibility. Duckula can hardly do many basic life skills on his own because of this. It's not like he is completely lazy but he does have executive dysfunction and has yet to realise that fact, causing him to procrastinate on many things and completely forget or just get someone else to do it.

Not Naturally kind

Being his father’s reincarnation, it only makes sense that Duckula would inherit many traits from his past lives. Many of the other Counts were ego-driven cowards with desires for fame. They just went about it differently. Duckula actively tries to be kind and polite but a lot of passive aggression and snark slips through the cracks of that veneer. He would never want to admit that he has ANYTHING in common with his ancestors and he hates that being nice doesn't just come naturally to him. Being an immortal, Duckula also has a skewed sense of mortality and often doesn't understand the severity of certain injuries and situations.

This Duckula has ADHD and Autism in this rewrite and he struggles most with executive dysfunction, restricted interests, memory issues, atypical empathy (not specifically low or high), sensory issues (mostly with eating and some sound), and social cues. He also stims.

Towser!

What I Wanted to Change

Towser isn’t even really a character in the original. Just a running gag without a face. I wanted to balance out the main cast by adding another female character since I have feelings on Nanny as a character and i didn’t know if i would even be able to salvage that.

I really like what I came up with! She’s fun to me and I’ll probably flesh her out more later.

Character Traits

Family drive

Towser has little interest in birds that aren't close to her and it usually takes awhile for her to get used to new people. However, she’ll protect those that she does care about with her life. She is the castle’s guard dog and will do whatever’s necessary to protect it. This often comes at the cost of her sleep, because she feels like she always needs to be awake to protect them.

Tag Along

Following Duckula around like a puppy is what Towser does best! She might not fully understand his enthusiasm on certain subjects, but she's always up to backing him up on his newest fame seeking endeavours (though she herself prefers physical activity over creative works). She never expects anything to come of it, but hey, at least it's something to do. She also likes to hear Duckula rant to her about his interests.

Big Sister

Towser is of a much more stable mental state than Duckula, and as his only friend around his age, he trusts her more to be someone to talk to about his identity issues and issues in general. The two are a lot warmer towards each other than they are anyone else, and can also get away with messing with the other a lot more.

Big ol Lap dog

When in werewolf form, Towser tends to forget her size and often crushes them with her size. This usually wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that she's always a lot more cuddly and energetic in wolf form than bird form. This is because, as a werewolf, she's only in wolf form at night and being a fully nocturnal bird that should only be awake at night, this messes with her sleep rhythm a lot.

Igor!

What I wanted to Change

Personality wise Igor is already really strong and I didn’t change much of that. You’ll probably notice from the sketches that Igor has a skeleton hand, that’s because I made him undead in this version just to give a reason to how he’s been able to live this long since the original doesn’t really have one (which is fine)

Character Traits

Devotion to the role

Igor has been the Count’s butler since the first incarnation. He was assigned to keep the Duckula legacy alive by reincarnating his master every time he meets his fate and helping him readjust every time. Helping each new reincarnation bring misery and fear to the town they reside by with a smile… Until the most recent incarnation of course. He’ll stick it out though, because he still has hope for him.

Taste for the macabre

Whether it be killing innocents behind the back of his new master, decorating the castle with cobwebs and bones, or using his undead nature to scare and torture those around him, Igor certainly has an interesting idea of fun. Igor gets a sick enjoyment out of causing others distress and despises all things kind and cute, something which definitely frustrates Duckula, who's desperately trying to fix his own image.

Bitter Traditionalist

Having lived through the centuries in castle Duckula, Igor has gained an appreciation for the history of the place and the vampire ducks that have resided there over the years. He’s rather invested in the lives of his previous masters and is extremely cross with the newest incarnation for not only not caring about that past, but also completely disowning it. Igor tries desperately to get Duckula to be a normal vampire, truly believing it could work with enough effort. Less he spend the next few centuries with a vegetarian for a master… Igor would not have a problem with Duckula pursuing fame if it weren't for the fact that he thinks it's distracting him from true vampirism.

Tired old man

Igor has lived for many centuries and he does not feel as if he should have to babysit for an immature man child like Duckula. He would rather ignore or snark the young count rather than actually talk to him. When the two argue its a constant back and forth of passive aggression and personal jobs that they almost always forget what they're actually arguing over. Duckula is physically and mentally very young (17-early 20s) compared to Igor’s other masters due to the botched revival and he doesn't know how to, or want to, deal with it.

Nanny!

What I Wanted to Change

I’m sorry to any hardcore Nanny fans out there but this is practically a whole new character. I find Nanny to be frustrating and annoying in the original and who I personally feel is a very sexist and mean spirited character. There’s absolutely nothing I would want to write with a character who’s just “big stupid fat woman inconveniences everyone around her” it’s just uncomfortable after a certain point.

My idea for a new take was just an extremely kind older woman who’s a little airheaded but is a lot smarter than people give her credit for. This sets her up as a foil to Igor. She’s also the only non-monster resident of the castle in this version which I personally think is really interesting.

Character Traits

Only good influence

While Igor actively sets out to make Duckula a bad person and Towser couldn't care less about how Duckula acts, Nanny is the only direct influence in Duckula’s life who pushes him to do better. Nanny believes Duckula is a good person at heart and pushes him to take more responsibility in his life. She wants him to learn a good work ethic and is fully supportive of him trying to better himself.

Good Christian Woman

Nanny is, in fact, a christian. She is fully aware of the demonic nature of her companions but believes that everyone can better themselves no matter their circumstances and attempts to better those around her. Igor hates her for it but she’s totally ignorant to that fact.

Assertive Mother Figure

Though Nanny is a very kind woman, she is also not a pushover. She will assert authority over Duckula and anyone else if necessary, and most are compliant once she puts her foot down, if they aren't, however, Nanny does pack a punch and won't hesitate to use her strength to protect her family.

Smarter than she seems

Nanny is an airheaded optimist with a big heart and those traits make her come off a lot more clueless than she actually is. She may seem like she has no idea what’s going on but she’s actually very observant and is fantastic at assessing a situation and finding the best course of action.

Dr. Von Goosewing

What I Wanted to Change

I really liked the idea of the antagonist to Duckula was in a liniage of vampire slayers and that their ancestors have been fighting for generations. It gave me the perfect set up for a ✨SHADOW ANTAGONIST✨ I wanted to make this rewrite have the two reflect each other a lot more. To do that I wanted Goosewing to still be a really cooky guy but I didn’t want the public to know that.

Also I have no idea why he’s dressed like Sherlock Holmes in the original if he’s a Van Helsing parody and also an inventor. You could’ve leaned into either of those ideas but for some reason he’s dressed like a detective? so I tried giving him a more fitting outfit but keeping his colours for recognisablity.

Character Traits

Playing Village hero

Goosewing is considered a big deal in town because of his family of vampire hunters. He’s prepared his whole life to kill Count Duckula the moment he comes back and to protect the common folk from the paranormal. Despite this, Goosewing isn't actually particularly skilled at his job and usually ends up failing his assassinations due to his own incompetence. He feels like he has to play the role as a hero to continue his family’s legacy despite not particularly enjoying it or being good at it.

Overestimating the enemy

With how cunning and malevolent the past Duckula incarnations were, Goosewing expects the same from this one. Goosewing believes that Duckula is a dangerous and clever foe completely focused on causing others pain. In reality, Duckula is the most incompetent bird in all of Transylvania, aside fromGoosewing himself, of course. Goosewing also comes to believe that Duckula is only acting nice to later betray the public, a belief he is not quiet about and that keeps the public from trusting Duckula.

Mad Scientist

Goosewing definitely falls into the eccentric scientist trope with his innovative but scatterbrained nature. He would much rather be working on an invention than actually doing his job. The public sees him as a hero but while hunting vampires or when hes alone he comes off as more of a mad scientist than the hero character he plays. His intentions are ultimately good but are completely based on the assumption that he’s the wholly good protector of the people and that Duckula is a cunning villain who's out to get him and everyone else.

Shadow

Goosewing and Duckula reflect each other in a lot of ways. They both have a legacy they are expected to uphold despite not wanting to or even being able to, they both care deeply about the public’s opinion on them while the public has an incredibly incorrect view of the both of them, and they both have creative interests outside of the roles expected of them that they'd rather be persuing. Duckula fully rejects anything to do with his ancestry, while Goosewing is actively trying to fulfil despite not enjoying it.

The Murder Brothers!

What I Wanted to Change

Haha I called them the murder brothers bc they’re crows and criminals Im actually so funny… anyway. I don’t know if I should’ve even done these guys but I really like them as antagonists so!!

I gave the younger two names and a personality. The wiki said they didn’t have names but if they do lmk and I’ll just fix that. Other than that I didn’t change much except try to give ‘em a bit more depth and changing their physical designs a ton for fun.

Character Traits

The Murder Brothers, as a whole, are a tight knit family of con men crows who pull any grift they can to get their hands on some cash. Though they may act like their only loyalty in life is to money, they do genuinely care about each other's well being

Ruffles

Ruffles is the short tempered and eldest leader of the group. He’s constantly frustrated with his brothers’ incompetence and isn't quiet about it. He believes that if it weren't for them he'd probably be a lot further in life by now (which isn't true) and he’ll say he doesn't care about them, but he actually does.

Burt

If he didn't insist on helping his brothers, Burt would be the most likely to be living an honest life. As the second oldest sibling, Burt holds a position as right hand man. He’s a naturally kind and enthusiastic bird who, while a bit dumb, does openly express his love for his brothers. He takes on a lot of the abuse from his older brother and is often used by the group to talk to others, because he's so naturally trustworthy.

Reggie

Reggie is the second youngest of the brothers and the most relaxed out of all of them. He has an impeccable sleight of hand and is the go to for lockpicking and such. He’s a decent smooth talker and is often the one to break up fights, though he's not above getting angry at the others himself.

Leroy

Leroy is the youngest of the brothers and by far the least skilled. His speech is incomprehensible from under his mask (although he can see through it for the most part) and he’s often left with the worst jobs during their cons because of that. He’s the most timid out of all of them but I’m sure if you took that mask off of him he’d be really talkative.

—————————————————

Ending Words

Well that’s all I got! I spent way too long on this project that maybe two people will care about and one of them is me 💔 Anyway if I make anything else for this rewrite/au I’ll tag it with #wbcd . I wouldn’t count on it because I mighttt get burn out from this but im just so glad I finished it! I’ve thought about writing a pilot script just for fun but idk. I’d like to do more long format au stuff, I was going to make a YouTube video about this but I almost cried trying to record myself so I gave up 💔

[monstrousmuse]

*rubs hands together* Right. We're doing this.

or, My Very Serious Attempt At Analysing The Billentines.

"BILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME?" - Gods, he's even worse than Stan. Jack of NO Trades, Master of PUN. (Not the actual intent here, but if you add a comma, it almost sounds like someone else is asking him out. In cute-sy speak. "Bill, you go out with me?!?! Pwease?")

"I'VE GOT MY ❤️EYE❤️ ON YOU" - Aww, his eye is so expressive. Also love the way he's just... sitting on the ground like that. His base is so thin, it's no wonder why he needs to prop himself up with his little noodle leg. Like a reverse kickstand.

"YOU'RE ACUTE-Y" - Bill torments his friends with terrible, nerdy geometry puns Confirmed. Stanford Filbrick Pines PhD x 12's dream partner amiright？

"I LIKE YOU FOR SOME REASON" - *apologetically glances towards Ford* What reason, Bill? You can confide in us. Or perhaps you don't know...

"LET'S GET ILLUMINAUGHTY" - HE REMOVED HIS BOWTIE WTF-I-I didn't even think that was possible. Welp, you learn something new every day. ...And, are those his cheeks? I’ve always assumed that his whole surface changes colour whenever he is feeling a particularly strong emotion. Huh.

"I'M BROKEN. WANNA FIX ME?" - ...now you're just mocking us. If this ends up spreading to the wider fandom- Oh. Oh dear. It already has. Well played, Hirsch. In all seriousness though, this one is surprisingly introspective of Bill. Has he been doing some postmortem soul-searching? Read a few self-help books? Perhaps Frills was the one who first suggested that he write his own book as a means of reaching a state of inner catharsis...Or maybe it’s just a reference to how Stan literally shattered his face before killing him.

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE ALONE" - See my previous post. Long story short, he stopped time for a reason. But. Also. He looks depressed. No offence, of course. (Is the floor comfortable? From data gathered during the period of my life that I spent as a Weird Human Child With Weird Human Quirks, I have come to the conclusion that the floor is not, in fact, the most comfortable of places to lie down and ponder one’s existence, but you do you I guess.)

"I SECRETLY COLLECTED YOUR SWEAT IN A JAR AND ACCORDING TO EXTENSIVE LAB TESTING. WE HAVE AN 88.3% PHEROMONE COMPATIBILITY MATCH" - Bill has pheromones. 88.3%...Is there a significance to this number? Does Bill Cipher even know, or care, about basic lab safety and scientific accuracy these days? The answer is a resounding “No. Definitely not. Absolutely not.”

"THEY CALL ME...THE LOVE TRIANGLE" - How To Become Besties With Mabel Pines In One (1) Quick & Easy Step. But you better watch out Bill, the Love God will probably be filing a lawsuit against you for Stealing His Look...and a minor case of Very Intentional And Blasphemous Blasphemy.

…

Whew. Done. Overanalysis is to me what Ichor is to the Greek Gods.

[hoperays-song]

A Theory About Sing's Animal Genetics

Throughout both Sing movies, we see a lot of different animals of all shapes and sizes. From Black Widow Spiders to African Elephants, the sheer range of species is remarkable. However, one thing stands out, the genetics of it all.

Part 1: The Apparent Genetics Behind Sing

Now, that might not make sense at first, but throughout both movies and all the shorts, we see no “extreme” hybridization. Like no random horse with scales or wings, or a spider with fins, etc etc. Every animal looks realistic. There are no extreme hybrids at all (trust me, I've scanned these movies scene by scene). And yet despite this, we see all kinds of interspecies relationships ranging from a cow and giraffe to an iguana and a crocodile or a snake and bull. Which to me means that genetics can work one of two ways: random species selection or hybridization.

Now, both of these are popular kinds of genetic species determination in anthropomorphic pieces of media. But I actually want to talk about random species selection first. Namely, how this is not what we see happening in Sing.

See, basically, how random species selection works is this. If the biological parents of an offspring are different species, the child will be one of the two species, but not a hybrid of them. An either-or situation. However, while I am willing to admit we do not see many children in the series, the few we see do not come from wildly different parents, in fact they all come from same species parents or parents who are from very visibly similar species, making this seem rather unlikely.

However, that isn't the only form of random species selection. Some variations of random species selection include certain species dominance, where some species will always be more likely to appear, a kind of dominant recessive type of deal. However, this is also not what we see happening in Sing. See the issue with this type of genetic species determination can lead to the over presence of certain species in the population. But we don't see that happening. We instead see what one would expect in terms of species prevalence based on their real-world animals.

So, if those two have not a lot of evidence going for them, that just leaves hybridization. And all of you are likely going "wait, but I thought you said earlier there were no visible hybrids in the series?" And you would be partially correct. There are no visual extreme hybrids. Regular ones that we can see in real life, however? Well, that's a different story.

See, there are animals we see that are likely hybrids. Heck, even a named character is all but confirmed to be one in my opinion. But how? What are the rules? Simple, like with species prevalence, Sing based its genetics off the real world.

What exactly do I mean by that? Well, Sing appears to follow real world hybridization rules in animals. Meaning two species must be extremely closely related in order for a hybrid offspring to occur. Think of some great cats, hoofed animals, and any animal with subspecies. Things like ligers, mules, and golden-crowned manakins are real world hybrids.

So, hybrids that exist in the real world are able to exist in Sing, what's my proof? I said there were characters who appear to be hybrids after all. Which ones? Well, there's four, namely: a background equine in the first movie, a background bear from the Sing Thriller Short, Johnny, and most noticeably, Porsha Crystal.

Let's go in order of least plausible evidence to most, starting with a character that shows up for less than twenty seconds in the first movie, an equine animal I have been dubbing Jack.

I will admit that this is a bit of a stretch primarily due to the lack of screen time. However, as we see both donkeys and horses in Sing 2, Jack here seems to be a mix between the two with the ears of a donkey and the longer mane of a horse and a white muzzle that we only see on horses. They also have what I have always heard be called a “classic mule colourations” aka what a mule looks like in most art I’ve ever been around. Here’s some photos to illustrate my point here.

So yeah, Jack looks a lot like what a mix of Sing horses and donkeys would look like, though they could just be one or the other as we do not really get another look at them.

Next is our lovely bear friend from Thriller, who I've been calling Terry in my notes.

See our friend Terry here does not look like the brown bears we have seen in the series in the slightest. But! They do not look exactly like the other species of bear we have seen in the series either (polar and panda).

But what do they look like then?

This is a grolar bear. Also known as a brown bear/polar bear hybrid. And the first thing that sprang to mind when I laid eyes on Terry here. With a similar build to both polar bears and brown bears that have appeared in the series before, combined with the similar coloration to a grolar bear, Terry seems like a genuine candidate for being a hybrid species. The only reason they are not higher on my list is the existence of Syrian brown bears, which could also fit them though I do not believe to be as likely just due to the bear species distribution we have seen.

Which is also why we come with more than one example for evidence! Our next candidate is.... the world's worst rebel, Johnny!

Now, Johnny being small is a topic I've touched on before. Because well... it's really noticeable when you put him even remotely near other gorillas. Which is further compounded by the fact that Johnny is called a mountain gorilla. You know, the second largest gorilla subspecies in the world?

So, there's a chance that Johnny is so small because he's not solely mountain gorilla, and instead is part or even half western lowland gorilla or cross river gorilla. Not only has he not had proper nutrition, but genetics are at play. This would also explain the more prominent brownish hue to his hair than the hair of his father and uncles.

However, like I mentioned and posted about previously, there is also a lot of evidence that Johnny likely has stunted growth due to malnutrition as a child, which often has permanent effects. So really, Johnny could be either of the two possibilities, or even potentially both a hybrid and stunted in growth.

And last but not least, the most obvious, all but confirmed hybrid (in my opinion), Porsha Crystal.

See, everywhere I check, I see Jimmy Crystal being described as an arctic wolf. And honestly? That checks out. He has a stockier build and solid white fur, as well as a smaller head. Very arctic wolf, down to the design of his fur.

But Porsha just isn't. She has a larger head, slender build, and most noticeably, coloured fur.

Arctic wolves have to have, despite being shades of brown/grey when they are born, solid white fur. It typically turns that way within about a year, with some patches occasionally sticking around a few years longer. But nowhere near as long as Porsha has seemingly been alive. And her colourations are pretty obviously part of her natural fur pattern, not tufts of baby hair sticking through.

"So what, she has a patterned coat? We’re seen character’s use hair dye before, that can't be the only reason-" Her build does not make sense for an arctic wolf. We see one due to her father. And the other children of the series that we are 100% sure are likely not hybrids look like their parents in terms of builds (think the piglets). Porsha does not. She looks more like the wolf bodyguard in that sense than her own father. She is much willowier with a notably different face shape that aligns with a different wolf subspecies than an arctic wolf, along with the coat pattern.

But which one?

Meet the northwestern wolf. A wolf that is a bit willowier than the arctic wolf, with a larger head shape, and most times, coloured fur. And a dead ringer for Porsha.

Which would make it seem like she is just a northwestern wolf right? Well, except one thing. Porsha is the same size as her dad, and arctic wolves are smaller than northwestern wolves. Which could be evidence of the arctic wolf dna. Same with the identical ear shapes. Those things are exactly why Porsha seemingly screams hybrid in terms of design, as well as the fact that she is simply called a wolf, with no subspecies designation. Because she's more than one.

Part Two: The Conservation Posters Theory

I promised a theory at the start and a theory you shall receive.

So throughout Sing 1 and 2, there are a ton of background posters. And only a few of those are fully legible. However, two (one in each movie) really stand out.

What can we see in these posters? Well, simple. A small build, light yellowish, feline with green eyes, round ears, compact head, and a rosette spot pattern. Besides this character, are the words "Love, Respect, Protect".

And that is super interesting. Because that cat? It's surprisingly hard to identify in terms of species. Now from the rosette pattern with the spots, we can immediately assume that this cat is a jaguar along with the proportionally large ears.

What makes that assumption weird though, is the head.

Jaguars have broader heads than what we see on the poster. And notably broader heads than leopards. However, the poster cat has a narrow head. Which reads like a leopard in all but shape, with the head being slightly more round than a leopard's is, but still far too narrow to be considered a jaguar's. It looks like a mix of the two.

The leopard similarities don't just end there either, as we look at the eyes. See, jaguars don't have green eyes, but you know who do? Leopards. Notably so even, with yellow-ish green being the primary colour seen in leopard eyes. (Yes, I understand Sing does not care about eye colour genetics. It also doesn’t care about physics or proper medical treatment. I’m ignoring all those factors rn lol.)

All of this leads me to one conclusion: that cat is either a jagulep or a lepjag/leguar aka, a hybrid of a jaguar and leopard of some kind.

This animal being a hybrid makes this poster make a ton more sense than a just standard predator species. Because we don’t see any discrimination between herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. Seriously, within the cast we see, there isn’t any of the Zootopia type of discrimination at play. What we don’t see a lot of however, are likely hybrids.

If that poster is in fact about hybrids, it raises a new question about the lack of hybrids we see, which is, why don’t we?

A lot of animals can create hybrids. Any animal with a subspecies, a lot of canines, all the big cats, the list goes on. You would think that we would see way more than the four I mentioned above. And sure, we could count all the dog mixes (not really but we could try), and a lot of subspecies hybrids would look just like a regular one of that species to explain the low numbers, but the word choice of “protect” adds a weird taste to that story.

Because it implies that this is a reminder that needs to be said. A reminder to love and respect hybrids, fellow members of your community, needs to be told to the other community members. What’s more, it has to be added on that they need to be protected as well. Protected from what? By the looks of it, the community as a whole.

These posters are very similar to real world conservation and anti-bullying posters/billboards that are aimed at the general public in order to spread awareness. So, the fact that these posters are seemingly specifically about hybrids makes it clear that hybrids are likely not treated the best in the Sing universe. And while we don’t see this explicitly on screen, we can see potential effects it might have had, namely here: what an “acceptable” hybrid is.

See, the wording of the posters show that this group is discriminated against right? Well, we see Porsha and Johnny in particular not being treated differently from anyone else, so why? Well, let’s look at the hybrid on the poster.

Like I mentioned earlier, you have to look twice to realise that that cat is likely a hybrid. You have to know what you’re looking for. Same with Johnny. If he is a hybrid, it isn’t extremely noticeable besides his size, which again he can dismiss as just being small. Porsha is the only really noticeable hybrid of the three and the fact she is in the upper echelons of society should not be dismissed. She is not going to be treated the same as people not in that social class. So, her treatment in society as a whole is likely not going to be that different from a non-hybrid.

So, are they ideal hybrids? Well from what we can see in the movies and in the posters, it seems to be hybrids that are not noticeable are the least likely to face issues, hence the hybrid on the poster being legitimately the poster child for being a hybrid. In the Sing universe, hybrids are alright, but only when you don’t know they are there.

This would explain the small amount of them in the movies and shorts, not only are there not many possible ones, but the most noticeable ones would also likely be heavily discriminated against. So much so that groups are having to put up posters in order to hopefully raise awareness to stop this from happening. They are having to beg with these communities that the hybrids amongst them deserve love, respect, and safety just like everyone else. And we as viewers? Well, we don’t know if they are listening.

----------

Disclaimer: It is important to note that we do not see much of Porsha’s life or any of these character’s lives outside of a few snapshots from work. We do not see if Johnny had to deal with issues at school or if Porsha had to deal with issues online or with the media. We do not know. So they could have faced issues for potentially being hybrids that we just did not see on screen. Also, we do know species discrimination does exist, Buster and Mike in the first movie, as well as Jimmy in the second make several comments that are discriminatory. However, these do not seem to be widespread ideas in the Sing Universe, and it is nowhere near the level of predator/prey divides we see in other anthropomorphic media like Zootopia and Beastars. In fact, none of the remarks are even about a predator/prey divide at all.

[gingermintpepper]

Day 2: Hyacinthus

Interpretation notes and trivia below the cut!

Designing Hyacinthus as well as deciding on a personality for him was one of the first big problem I had to solve when the topic of a retelling came up. In most texts, he exists to be loved and then to die and even then, the focus of his death is not his own but rather on Apollo, the one who loses him. General modernised interpretations of him likewise tend to make him agreeable and inoffensive, the sort of character who is likeable and upright but never challenging or ornery. I didn't like any of those options, so I instead decided to build my Hyacinthus from the ground up - for better or for worse. His red hair is his most striking feature, it is his mother's divine hair colour and he is the only one of her children to have inherited it. Similarly, Hyacinthus is the only one of his mother's children to inherit her magic. While some of his siblings were born with a few passive gifts from their mother (Argalus' 'perfect' memory and Polyboea's affinity for mental calculations and projections, for example) Hyacinthus was born with a talent for sealing and warding magic and thusly, much of his life has been shaped by the pursuit of knowledge and his wish to use his talents to better his kingdom. Much of his good-nature and zeal for life and learning is destroyed by the circumstances of his death and entombment. When he is revived, he is angry, lost, devoid of most of his memories and desperate to fill the missing gaps of his soul. He's selfish and snappish, hurt and desperate to hurt others but, most importantly, he is searching. When he is revived, all the world has heard his story but he is not apart of it. They do not remember Hyacinthus, the mage-prince of Amyclae or Hyacinthus, the teacher of men. They do not speak of Hyacinthus, who charmed the gods for their knowledge or Hyacinthus whose beauty was bested only by his wit - they speak of Apollo and his lost love, Apollo and his grief, Hyacinthus, the lover of the Radiant. One can only hope that he will find whatever it is he is looking for on this journey.

Some fun trivia:

Youngest son in a family of seven, his magic was the catalyst for Clio revealing her true identity as a Muse to her children.

Actually prefers to be called 'Hyacinth' but has made peace with people ignoring his wishes and just calling him Hyacinthus out of habit or formality.

Has an intense resting bitch face and struggles with visibly expressing happiness or sadness. This is also a trait he shares with his mother, though his older sister Hegesandre also shares this feature. Cynortas was technically a part of the resting bitch face club but he practiced smiling and looking cheery so much as a child that now has the opposite problem where he can smile through anything, even pain or anger.

Left home when he was 10 to study at the Parnassus Institute for Gifted Children. The Institute specialises in training the children of the Muses, but occasionally it will take in normal people who show great promise. Hector, who becomes quite close to Hyacinth during their tenure together, was one of those people.

Was recognised by Apollo himself at his graduation and was gifted a laurel wreath. Apollo declared him the Shepherd Laureate which made Hyacinth the third Laureate alive at that time - a status shared only by Orpheus, the Poet Laureate and Asclepius, the Doctor Laureate.

Despite his title, is atrocious with animals and genuinely despises both sheep and goats. Has a mild phobia of goats in particular due to a traumatic incident when he was first climbing the mountain where a particular wild goat absolutely terrorised him. Along with following him for days, it would eat anything he left unattended and even bit and headbutted him numerous times when he would try to wrestle his food back from it. He was so bothered by the title in fact, that he asked Apollo if the designation was a joke at his expense. Apollo never denied that it was a joke but he never confirmed it either.

Exceptional hunter but prefers trapping to hunting by dog or arrow. Has never been one for weapons and much rather prefers to fight bare handed if the occasion arises.

Despite his laurel wreath being such a precious object, Hyacinth has never properly worn it. He wore them around his left bicep after obtaining them and when Polyboea contracted phthisis and needed comforting, he gave them to her as an object that would give her strength. Polyboea was buried with his laurels so he never got the chance to wear the wreath on his head.

His favourite colour is a dark oak brown and his favourite hobby is reading. His favourite food is fish roasted by a river and shared with people he loves. He died at 28 on the first day of Karneios.

[mirrored-movements]

Home Pt.1

(Yandere!Miguel O'Hara x F!Reader)

Synopsis: You've always had the ability to travel through universes, there was never a reason as to why and you never paused to question it. However, there was someone else who began to question it.

Warnings: Idk None?

Part 2 Here

“Stop running! It’ll make things a lot easier!”

“Well stop chasing me!”

Brightly coloured portals opened one after another, only allowing you a second to peer around the surrounding dimension before another took its place quickly after entering another portal.

Your heart thundered from within your chest; shoes skidding across the cement sidewalk of the Renaissance-type dimension you’d ended up in. The painted civilians quickly moved out of the way- now whether it was because of you or your pursuer you didn’t know.

How in the hell did you even end up in this situation you may ask?

Easily actually. (Not really though- buckle up because its a long story)

Since the day you were born and since every day after that you were blessed with an ability that nobody else seemed to have. The ability to traverse the multiverse. It was an accident at first, back when you were a teenager you’d accidentally opened up a portal; the brightly colored tunnel nearly calling to you.

And, like an idiot- you dove in. The need for an adventure nagging at the back of your mind despite not knowing what would become of it.

The multiverse was vast, full of things you’d never seen and people you’d never met.

Talking animals, flying cars, dinosaurs, and the ones that seem to enamor you the most? Superheroes. You never thought they’d actually exist however in the amount of time you’d spend traveling around you’d come across your fair share of them.

Few spared you merely a wave as though you were one of their many adoring fans while others- others weren’t as friendly as you’d hoped. It seemed like a few people were aware of the multiverse, the categories of aliens, sorcerers, and a collection of arachnid-themed heroes namely- your experiences with them remain mixed as it seemed some particularly didn’t like the thought of someone from another universe stepping into theirs.

You did, however, end up meeting a particularly friendly individual. He was hesitant at first which was a given when you appeared out of nowhere, however, he seemed to understand the multiverse more than those you’ve met previously- the reason being he himself had traveled through it.

Albeit accidentally but the man couldn’t help but mention how there was a society of others who did the same.

Spider-people is what you learned the “club” was formed up of; a general ‘I was bitten by a spider and have powers now’ group of people who each protected their fair shares of dimensions.

“What I do wonder though is how you travel around?” He couldn’t help but inquire on that, the spider-sense he possessed hadn’t quite tingled in the way it normally did around other spider-like individuals, leading him to question you. It wasn’t like you had a watch like he did either.

“Oh, I can just-” Raising a hand you waved it through the air, a brightly coloured tunnel popping up quickly before closing just as fast as it opened. “Make them appear.”

This spurred on a list of questions, all of which the man openly asked before groaning as his phone had seemingly gone off. “Sorry about that. I have to pick up Mayday from daycare.” 

Recalling how he excitedly told you about his daughter you nodded your head in understanding, hand waving. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll see you around Peter.” Upon raising your hand another portal had opened, and you jogged towards it with a smile disappearing with a flash.

You thought Peter was a good person, and thought his daughter was cute- however he on the other hand wasn’t sure what to think about you. You seemed nice, no malice could be detected however he wasn’t sure about the ability you possessed.

During his time working in the multiverse, he thought something like that was impossible for an individual to have- even more so that you could just freely move back and forth without glitching.

Did that mean anything? He wasn’t sure.

He wasn’t sure at all.

--

“She can- What?”

Absentmindedly following after his escapee of a daughter Peter spoke once again, his tone nonchalant. “Yeah, so she can just wave her hand around and open up portals to wherever- Mayday! Come back here.” The aforementioned baby had quickly begun crawling up a pillar as he tried to explain.

Rolling back his shoulders from where he stood among an elevated platform the tall man let out an exasperated breath, red and blue clad hand raising to pinch the bridge of his nose. “This doesn’t make sense, surely there was som-”

“There was no device Miguel, nothing at all. Nope, nada, zip, just a wave and boom portal. Wasn’t even like how those wizards open them either- I don’t think they can access the multiverse with those rings.”

“Sorcerers, and if there's no device then there has to be something else, a normal person can’t do that.” Miguel emphasized his words trying to show that this should be something they should worry about. Someone with the capability to jump from world to world could inevitably lead to the whole thing potentially collapsing.

And he couldn’t have that.

“Lyla,” At the mention of her name the AI quickly popped in, her hands laced behind her back awaiting what he was going to ask. “Scan for any anomalies, narrow it to ten-second intervals nothing larger than that.”

“I don’t really see a probl-” “You know what the problem is.” Cutting Peter off Miguel stared down at the man, lips pursed into a fine like before his shoulders relaxed a little and he sucked in a breath. “Better safe than sorry.”

Turning his attention back to the holographic screens before him, Miguel clenched his jaw a little at the lack of data, a short glare being sent to the floating AI who merely shrugged. “Doesn’t seem like anything showing up.”

Leaning onto the keyboard he thought for a second, eyes glancing back to Peter who had finally rangled Mayday back into her carrier. “She was in your dimension, right?” Calling out he watched the man give a nod, attention quickly moving back to Lyla. “Check anything on Earth-616B.”

“There is one signature. Looks like,” Moving her hands across the air Lyla enlarged the small red dot. “She’s on Earth-199999.” At the mention of that specific place, both men seemed to let out a groan, Miguel right away pointing a hand toward Peter. “Since you found this out you go.”

“What? But I hate that place, they’re so- Patriotic.” Receiving a quick glare his complaining stopped, hands raising in surrender. “Fine. Fine. But you’re watching Mayday.”

“I didn’t agree to tha-” “I’ll be back!”

--

Having been wandering around for a while you couldn’t help but yawn, this universe seemed to have its fair share of action however it didn’t quite strike you as interesting- maybe a little overcrowded by heroes but you digress.

With your hands laced behind your back, you followed the park's pathway only stopping as someone had run over to you, the appearance of Peter caused you to smile and it seemed as though things were getting interesting as the man quickly explained that the leader of the aforementioned spider society would like to meet with you.

Scary yet exciting, you were inclined to accept the invite wanting to know what this whole thing was about as well as craving a little more excitement.

More than just traversing dimensions.

This time around you let Peter open up a portal, the spider suit-clad man using what seemed to have been a futuristic watch in order to do so quickly motioning for you to follow.

Upon stepping foot into the HQ building, you couldn’t help but stare in awe. As briefly mentioned all types of spider-people littered the building, and by littered you meant they were everywhere; on the ceiling, walls, swinging around on webs- everything.

“Oh, before we go see Miguel I’ll just pass you this.” Digging into the pocket of his robe Peter passed you a small blue wristband, a look of ‘I know I know’ passing over his face at the questioning look you’d given him. “It’s a day pass. Usually, we use it for other reasons but in this case, it’s so everyone knows you’re a guest here.”

At the explanation, you gave him a nod slipping on the flimsy wristband, trailing alongside the brunette as he pointed here and there practically giving you a tour all the while heading towards where you’d assumed this boss was.

“Is Miguel this guys name or..” 

Noting how you trailed off he nodded right away. “Oh yeah Miguels his name, pretty scary at first but I assure you he’s just secretly a big teddy bear- kinda.”

Reassuring.

“Comforting.” Musing that out with an eye roll the two of you entered into a large room, the vast majority of it was dark in colour save for some royal blue highlights a dimly lit orange screens. Your eyes followed where Peter looked seeing a platform sitting within the center of the room, the large piece beginning to drift down. “So why am I here again.” Keeping your tone low and hoping for some light to be shed on the situation another voice other than Peters had answered.

The tone of it was gruff but clear enough to call out from the descending platform. “You’re here so we can find out if you are a threat or not.”

“A threat?” Taken aback at the implication you gestured to yourself for a moment despite the platform still lowering and despite this Miguel still making what you’d call a ‘grand appearance.’ Throughout your years of dimension jumping you had yet to actually do something illegal. “I’d like to think I’m the least threatening person you’ll meet.”

Finally, the platform had lowered enough for you to see the man standing among it. His tall stature right away shouted ‘authority’ as muscle clearly rippled beneath his neon red and dark blue suit. His face was stoic, chiseled features were framed by moderately messy brown locks all the while dark brown hues nearly stared through you, an off-red tint to the colour.

Despite how intimidating he seemed your gaze couldn’t help but drift down towards his hands seeing them holding a familiar small red-haired child like how someone would pick up a cat. The little girl's gaze lit up almost instantly upon seeing Peter, who in turn right away moved to step onto the platform once it had almost merged with the floor. Coos left the man as he right away scooped up his daughter from the other man.

“Look who it is! Look it’s your friend! Yay!” Pointing towards where you stood Peter began to rile Mayday up, the small baby giggling while they neared, her small hand inevitably reaching out to you.

Forgetting the whole purpose of the visit for a second you and Peter were only brought back when Miguel loudly cleared his throat, a disapproving look quickly crossing his face as he’d crossed his arms unamused.

Waiting for the two of you to quiet down he stepped off his platform, the souls of his suit padding against the ground as he moved to loom before you. “Back to what I was saying.” Pausing to make sure you were listening he continued. “We need to make sure you’re not an anomaly. Something that could cause a disruption in the multiverse.”

“One wrong step and you could cause it to collapse.”

Taking in what he’d said you swallowed thickly, you hadn’t really thought much of your dimension jumping, however with what he was saying you supposed they had a right to be worried.

“And how do you make sure that doesn’t happen?”

Uncrossing his arms he rested them on his hips, eyes regarding you with a mix of interest and caution. “We do some tests. Either way you’ll be here for awhile.”

This had you raising a brow in question. “What? Why?”

“Because if you decline to do some tests we’ll have to assume you are an anomaly and would have to be locked up whereas if you comply to do them we can figure out the actual answer to your…ability.” Explaining that he quirked his head to the side, gaze intently focused on you as if expecting you to decline to take the harsher route.

Glancing towards Peter as if for reassurance the man have a quick shrug followed by a short nod, his mouth forming the words ‘you’ll be fine’ as though that would persuade you.

Weighing your options your gaze moved back towards the looming man before you, lips pursed together in thought.

It wouldn’t hurt to know more about your ability…however, if it did come up that you were an ‘anomaly’ who’s to say you wouldn’t be imprisoned anyways.

“Alright,” Noting how Miguel opened his mouth to speak you cut in right away. “But I have a question.”

As if amused by your current state Miguel hummed, hand gesturing loosely in the air. “Ask away.”

“What if you do these tests and I don’t come out as an anomaly? What happens then?”

Pursing his lips at this his hands fell to his sides, mind pondering over the seemingly simple question before producing an almost equally simple answer.

“We send you home.”

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

<Unedited>

If you can't tell reader's ability is heavily inspired by America from MOM (Multiverse of Madness). Low key wondered what Miguel would think of it but also- I literally need more yandere Miguel fics like PLEASE HE HAS FANGS AND CLAWS DAMN IT

[thearchercore]

As a film major undergrad and then entertainment business major post grad. The artistic elements of the F1 movie drive me insane AND THEN THE FINANCIAL AND MARKETING ASPECTS TOO!!

Apple is pretty notorious for just blowing huge amounts of money on shows and films that no one watches. So, it’s not even the $300 million budget that surprises me . It’s how little anyone seems to understand what this film is about or who it’s even for!! AND I CANT EVEN TELL WHERE THE MONEY FOR THIS FILM HAS GONE EXCEPT ON BRAD PITTS PAYCHECK BECAUSE THE TRAILERS COLOUR GRADING IS SO BAD IT CANT POSSIBLY BE ON POST

Maybe it was just a terrible trailer but the reason films like Rush and Le Mans 66 (Ford v Ferrari in some countries) is that they had something for both racing and non racing fans. 

Both based on true stories, with a compelling emotional core, recognisable actors (appeals to non racing fans mainly). Beautiful cinematic shots of cars going fast appeal to racing fans because those are views that you don’t usually get watching an actual race. 

the fixed cam shots of the drivers in the cars do nothing!! Because non racing fans will find them boring and racing fans would just rather watch a real race. Not Brad Pitt fucking about in an F2 car (which racing fans on Twitter have picked up on already!) The jet shots in top gun maverick (same director) worked because, hey people don’t usually see that sort of stuff, especially not from a pilots POV,  but we see fixed cam POV shots from car races all the time!! AND HOW ARE YOU DOING AUDIO FOR THAT??? is just going to be Brad Pitt breathing heavily the entire time??  

The exaggerated noises and car movements are fun to watch because F1 cars don’t move like that anymore! We don’t get to hear that classic WHOOOSHHH. hell even Michael manns terrible Ferrari movie was FUN because the story was interesting and the shots of the cars driving very fast around very scenic parts of Europe is entertaining. 

F1 (2025) is not based on a true story and the trailer was way more focused on the cringe “car for combat” line rather than what might actually make for an emotionally compelling story. An old racer thrown aside by the sport being dragged back to help an up and coming racer because that’s the only way he’s able to get back in a car. For the first time in his career He’s now the number 2 driver.

But it seems like we will get none of that and if we do the writing will be…uh bad!

ALSO THE TWITTER MARKETING!!! Who is that for!!! The only people who are interacting with that are already your target audience (F1 fans) they know the movie exists, they’ve already made up their minds about whether they are going to see it or not. And if non f1 fans see it they’d just be confused about it being a real f1 team and likely just ignore it. If this is your early marketing what on earth are you going to do next!! You can’t get Brad Pitt to do stunt drives for promotions cause he’ll probably die!! You are relying on name recognition to get non f1 fans to go the theatre and sign up to Apple TV for this and you didn’t even say FROM THE DIRECTOR OF TOP GUN MAVERICK in your trailer when that was the second highest grossing film of 2022 and had pretty much universal critical acclaim!!!! 

Brad Pitts old ass was also a terrible choice for this movie. Micheal Fassbender was right there!!! He’s literally done Le Mans, had an entire Porsche YouTube doc about his training and hypercar race attempts. And at 47, is a very believable age to play “retired driver but still young enough to come back” and he’d likely have been able to a lot of drives/stunts himself. 

I also dread to think how the real drivers are being included in this. I get wanting authenticity but these boys may look like models and actors but they are not!!! If anything I feel like it’d just ruin the emersion of the film because how jarring it’ll be to see real drivers, with their real names in a fictional movie!! 

This movie makes me crazy, it’s only been 1 trailed and some BTS info and I’m already like this. Watching the actual film ( which I do encourage people to pirate btw don’t give Brad Pitt money) is going to kill me 

i will be very surprised if they do pull it off because every move they've done so far was just objectively bad. naming it f1? awful. the ip will get lost in search engine tools because Real F1 will overshadow it. the trailer? no plot. brother is building a car for combat as if the FIA would allow anything like that. the closest we got was mclaren putting spikes on their car this year.

the trailer showed us zero plot, introduced zero stakes in the story. okay you're building a car, why? why do you want to win? what is the driving force of the story? the emotional core? why do i want to root for brad pitt's character if my driver is an actual character in the story??

so far the only people excited for it are real f1 fans that are going to see it to see max verstappen walk in the background in IMAX for 4 seconds. and those people take it as a joke, a hatewatch even.

they all know the f1 drivers can't act... like this whole thing seems so insane to me i cant believe how its an actual thing that's being filmed lol

and dont get me started on how the filming is taking two years (also bc of the strikes last year). two teams have completely different name. cars look different. suits look different...... like if they're fixing all in post god bless that team bc they'll be using more VFX than marvel

[youcouldmakealife]

Stuff That Helps Me Write: Procrastination Busting (Novelty Edition)

So, last week I was talking about the interest based nervous system versus the importance based nervous system, and how people with interest based nervous systems are driven by urgency, novelty, challenge/competition, and interest, versus the more common importance based nervous system, which is driven by importance (to yourself or to others), rewards, and consequences.

I don’t know whether ADHD or autism has a larger impact on my life — they often impact different areas, and they frequently compensate for one another in the areas they do overlap, when they aren't forming an unlikely alliance hellbent on my destruction. But my writing process is 100% run by ADHD. So because these tips are the ones that work for me, and my writing process is, top to bottom, ADHD as fuck, they’re probably going to be pretty heavily slanted toward ADHD peeps, though of course YMMV.

Tackling novelty first, because, well, of course I am. This can also appear as ‘novelty/creativity’, but honestly, I think that’s a little redundant: doing, say, a creative version of a task is simply injecting novelty, and I think novelty is a much easier concept to understand for most people than creativity is. Novelty can be boiled down to single words we learn the meaning of at a young age (new! Different!), whereas creativity has fifteen different definitions, every single one of which might spark debate. So for our purposes, I’m sticking with just novelty.

Here are some ways I inject novelty into my writing process:

Roll the dice.

This doesn’t have to be dice, though the 20-sided ones are absolutely great for this. You can use decks of cards, random number generators, slips of paper, whatever — one of the best ways to make yourself do a bunch of shit you don’t actually want to is to attach those tasks to numbers (or colours, or suits, or whatever), and let fate decide. This can work in a lot of ways: you assign each task to a number, say, or you roll the dice on how long you have to work on it, or what order you’re doing them in, or whatever. I tend to be much more chill about doing a task when The Dice are the ones telling me to do it. It’s stupid. It works.

Roll the dice (pt 2)

This is also a fun way to create prompts: say each number is a character. You roll the dice: okay, I’ll write about David. Now I’ve associated the dice with a word, or a concept, or whatever. Okay, David and touch. Insta-prompt, no creative thinking required.

Prompts

Speaking of prompts and lack of creativity: I have tricked you all. Oh ho ho. You think you are getting a fill to a prompt you want to see (and, admittedly, you are, as long as I haven’t wandered off course, which cannot be guaranteed), but in return I am getting writing ideas without actually needing to have them! I don’t think I would be able to write 100+ stories a year if I had to think up every single idea myself, but if you outsource the creativity — well, win-win. Someone gets their prompt filled, and I get the spark of inspiration I need to fuel my writing.

Obviously this one needs to be adapted just a bit for other scenarios, but you can gather inspiring things (lines from books, poetry, lyrics, whatever) for future inspiration, you can look for online writing prompts or tell yourself you’ll write to fill a category (senses, say, or seasons, or elements, etc etc). Basically, if you don’t know what to do, forcing yourself to respond to a prompt, or follow a theme, often provides just enough constraints for creativity to happen.

When you’re stuck, move on to something else

It’s very common productivity advice to focus on just one thing and do it start to finish before you move on to the next. Don’t do it.* It’s a trap.

I do agree with the ‘one task only’ advice inasmuch as multi-tasking… doesn’t actually exist (if we’re talking something like ‘writing and listening to music’, or ‘doodling during a lecture’, that can go great, but that’s not really multitasking, so much as adding complementary stimulation. If you’re trying to, say, write an essay during a lecture, at least one (and probably both) of those tasks will suffer.) but beyond that, no.

It’s probably great advice if you’re neurotypical but I genuinely cannot think of a worse suggestion for anyone with low frustration tolerance and fucky dopamine. I hit an obstacle in that ‘just one thing’ I am doing? Cool, great, guess it’s time to stop doing it forever.

If you’re working on several different things (especially if those things use different skills and/or headspaces), when you get stuck on one, you can pivot to work on something else and let your subconscious do all that cool underrated stuff in the background, and maybe when you return to it you’ll have figured out a way around whatever your obstacle is. And even if you haven’t, at least your frustration tolerance will have been reset.

If the project you’re doing isn’t working for whatever reason, especially if you’re growing frustrated (nothing good ever follows after the point you snap at your blameless computer), do something else, and come back to it when you’re in a better headspace. Some things you have to muscle through for various reasons: say, you procrastinated on it and it’s due tomorrow. But most things you don’t. So don’t.

*I’ll straight up say I can ‘do just one thing’ for longer periods with less stress now that I’ve been medicated, but it was an awful, painful process when I wasn’t, so I still don’t really recommend it for those who have fucky dopamine.

Do! Multiple! Projects!

Yes, this can bring us to the ‘start 17 projects and finish none, don't you dare look at my WIP folder’ ADHD trap, but there’s a pretty good place between extremes. The main reason I work on multiple series at a time (plus outtakes!) is so that if I’m stuck on one, or it’s not inspiring me, or I’m just not in the right mood, I don’t have to stare at my blank screen feeling like a complete failure, I can just scoot on over to work on something else that's calling to me. Do I always do the most important thing? Or the one that’s due next? Or even the one I want to work on? Perhaps not, but I do spend the vast majority of my writing time actually writing, which is more than a lot of people can say.

It helps to have projects in different areas of your life and different stages of completion, for extra variety (and therefore novelty), just beware the ‘I have 5% left of this project to do, shouldn’t take more than 7 years’. When you do reach that final stage, that is when it’s a good idea to get laser focused on ‘just one thing’.**

**Big caveat with the above tips on NOT focusing on 'just one thing' is that I’m specifically referring to ‘typical’ tasks, not hyperfocus. If you’re hyperfocusing on something, and it’s not hurting you (ie keeping you from feeding yourself, basic self-care, sleeping, genuine obligations, etc), you ride that high as far as it takes you, baby. The ability get 5 days of work done in 5 laser focused hours would cost a fortune if they could replicate it, by all means use it to your advantage. But you do need to rest and recharge after: it drains the hell out of your mental resources and cannot be depended on indefinitely. It’s the very best tool in my toolbox. If I use it without allowing myself to recharge I will lose access to it indefinitely.

Change something about the process

It doesn’t need to be a big thing. I can switch from using my laptop to writing by hand. Or write in my bedroom rather than my office. A lot of my internal resistance to tasks is ‘this is boring’ — I’m lucky that doesn’t often happen with writing, because it’s inherently interesting to me, but sometimes you’re just stuck, and a change of scenery, of tools and equipment, of context (say, go write the POV of another character if you're stuck on a scene) is enough to shake the blah. I’m going to go into that in a lot more detail when I hit ‘interest’ and ‘challenge’ because those are both great things to inject when things have gone stale, but a lot of the time, it doesn’t matter what the change is: the fact there was a change is enough.

[romanceclub-confessionss]

As a Russian-speaking user, I really don't think and don't believe that most Russian-speaking people "don't like love interest lines when the partner in it has dark skin." Absolutely not. Communicating with the HUGE Russian-speaking fandom, I noticed that every fourth one chooses a "non-white" favorite. Those with whom I communicate personally are of the opinion (like me) that the love line is what attracts people to lead this love story, first of all, with its character, charisma, humor, and attitude towards the main character. Appearance only matters for the first impression.

It is very unfair to label entire audiences by communicating only to their most unpleasant side. There are intolerant people in every country and every culture, and the problem of "colored" is actually greater among English-speaking users due to historical reasons.Russian speakers treat this with a lively childlike interest; there is no "skin color protocol" in society due to the historical reasons why the problem of oppression arose in the Americas in the first place.

All the best, cookies to the admins)

first of all, while you might have a russian speaking circle that is open-minded to diversity, the broader reality within the ru fandom tells a whole different story. for instance, let's not act like the case of And The Haze Will Take Us was the very first time russian players acted this way. the ru fandom was extremely outraged over characters of colour being introduced in W: Time Catcher and 7 Brothers as well. the reactions delved into blatantly racist comments, that there are "too many" non-white love interests, and that they are "uncomfortable" with it.

second of all, as someone from eastern europe, i can say that extreme racism has always been historically embedded in russian society. and not only with people of colour, but even with other slavic groups/eastern europeans (ukranians, belarusians, etc) and other ethnicities within their borders (rroma). it basically extends to anyone perceived as "other". this isn't just a modern issue.

also, isn't it ironic that while you are complaining about the ru fandom being generalised as racist, you are doing the same exact thing to the english speaking fandom? by saying they are "more racist due to historical reasons", you are literally generalising an entire group based on language and geography, while completely ignoring the fact that bigotry exists everywhere, INCLUDING russia.

instead of deflecting and gaslighting, you should acknowledge and work on your biases within your own community.

all the best.

- mod stef

[intothedysphoria]

Steve Harrington went missing on the 17th of August, 2023. All that was left was an unfinished manuscript of his dark gay romance novel. What most people didn’t know, however, was that he’d been sucked into his own laptop.

Waking up on the cold, slightly damp ground of a battlefield, Steve found a golden skinned, golden haired man lurking over him. A man Steve already knew was called Billy and had “the most magnificent penis in the land”, in his own words.

Well that answered the question of which character he was inhabiting. Kind of.

The main character Steve had written for this particular novel was based on the West Hollywood demon twinks that frequented Steve’s local gay bars. Samuel was somehow both tiny and had a fat ass and had no body hair in sight.

Steve’s father was an Algerian Sephardic Jew and Steve had inherited both his strong nose and body hair. Looking down at the skin tone of his hands, Steve was definitely still himself. So much for dream logic.

Billy did what he’d been written to do in the narrative and hoisted Steve’s body across his chest in a bridal carry. It was even more erotic than how Steve had written it and he decided to go along with the dream/ hallucination he was clearly having.

It was only when they’d gotten back to the hut Steve had written for him and Billy just dropped him like a hot stone because he was bleeding so heavily, Steve realised that this wasn’t just going to be his narrative. Here, Billy was a real person. Steve was going to have to take care of him.

Frantically patting down his pockets, Steve came out with lint, a five dollar bill, Dustin’s inhaler and some very mild pain medication for Steve’s back. None of those seemed particularly helpful.

Relying entirely on Heather Holloway’s first aid training from that summer of being a lifeguard and his grandmothers love of herbal remedies, Steve managed to find something to stop the bleeding, created a paste to hopefully prevent infection and shakily stitch him up.

Billy wasn’t dead by the end of it, which Steve counted as a win.

In the book, Billy was just a brooding celtic warrior who was a secret sweetheart and was very good at sex. Actually being in his world had given Billy significant extra depth.

He was quite vain, constantly preening over his hair and adored the sea. His favourite colour was a deep shade of blue, he was a very competent cook and his relationship with his family, particularly his dad had made him suspicious of just about anything that Steve did.

Still, he kept Steve in his hut, fellow villagers sometimes coming in and out with questioning looks at Steve, particularly Billy’s younger sister Max. Most of them asked if Steve was a Roman. Which made sense considering Steve had set the story in Roman era rural Scotland.

Steve was not a Roman, Billy always explained defensively, as if he was scared that they were going to take Steve away from him. There was something protective in Billy’s voice which made Steve feel safe and cared for.

Really, considering that Billy was very clearly his own man, there was no reason for the romance that had started in the story to develop. Billy had free will, he was complex and really had every reason not to turn into the the man who was willing to kill to keep Steve safe.

The flowers started regardless.

Small bunches of wildflowers placed beside his bed, not pristine but glowing with affection. It was how it had started for Samuel. Steve had thought it was really so romantic when he was writing it.

Now, he was concerned.

Steve was only half convinced he was living in a very long dream at this point. If demogorgons could exist, so could alternate universes. Even if they were alternate universes Steve had created himself.

In that case, Steve had a moral dilemma on his hands. He could either just take the situation at face value and enjoy being adored by a gorgeous warrior or he could fess up and tell Billy that he’d was essentially a piece of fiction.

After a night of worrying, Steve chose the latter.

Billy, quite understandably thought he’d gone mad after Steve wove him the tale of how exactly he’d came into existence.

Steve took a moment to enjoy the cuddle and the gentle fussing that Billy was giving him.

Then he mentioned Samuel and Billy went very quiet.

He had a vague memory of his old love interest. Of being a two dimensional romantic lead. Of being eye candy on a proposed book cover. But he preferred Steve.

Billy told him about how much he loved Steve’s laugh, the way his nose crinkled when he didn’t like something, the compassion he’d shown Billy day after day.

He loved being human as well. He loved feeling and fearing and loving and hating and every emotion he was given.

Steve had given that to him.

And that was when Steve knew he definitely wasn’t in a dream.

He did maintain the title of the most magnificent penis in all the land in Steve’s opinion. And the best kisser.

But hearing the words “I love you” was the best of all of it.

This is an (early by like a day) birthday present for @shieldofiron. Saf you are one of the most intelligent, funny, creative and kind people I have ever met, a truly amazing fandom best friend and I really hope you enjoy this.

[pr-incey]

For a while—after being exposed to the antiship movement, because goodness knows I didn't care about this when I was younger—I wondered *why* fiction and reality were so different in my head. Why I could happily see things depicted in fiction that would make me sick to my stomach or upset me to tears just from thinking of it happening in real life. I couldn't come up with a reason for this for a while, which caused me distressed and made me worried that I might secretly be a terrible person after all.

But I've done some thinking and I've figured it out. Or, rather, I've returned to the mindset that came so easy to me in the past and probably did to a lot of people before the well was poisoned.

When I see a fictional character, I don't see a person. I don't see a person like *me*, anyway. I see a person within that piece of fiction's universe; a plane of existence that is wholly different from my own. Lines and colour, words on a page, virtual drawings being played sequentially at a speed that simulates movement. Sure, the written passage, 'He had eyes, ears and a mouth' is a representation of what *I* am, and what other people around me are, but it is fundamentally a plane of existence that is *alien* to me.

An alien is something that is decidedly not human. I feel empathy for other humans because I can relate to them. I have no desire to hurt them because I either know what it is like to be hurt in that way, or I can imagine what it would be like. I know the harm it would do to them, which illicits a reaction of disgust and apprehension in me. 'That's terrible,' I think, which simply kills any desire to cause any harm to a real person or do any disgusting actions.

This is why predators are such terrible people. They are fully aware of the harm their actions will cause and then go ahead with them anyway.

But with a fictional character, it's different in these ways:

1. First of all, we have to remember that they AREN'T human and so whatever I feel towards them cannot accurately mirror whatever I feel towards real flesh and blood individuals. They're projections of humanity from OTHER people in whatever medium they choose, but fictional characters are—and I cannot stress this enough—NOT HUMAN. If I pull off the head of a Barbie doll, does that mean I have the desire to behead someone in real life? Does it mean that I MUST have the urge to behead someone in real life, because a barbie doll is a 'representation' of a person? Your answer, I'm hoping, is no. Because Barbie is not human.

2. And because fictional characters are not human, I don't have empathy for them. Not REAL empathy, anyway, the type that stops the desire to cause harm. When I 'violate' a fictional character, it illicits at most only superficial disgust because I know that character will not live with the lasting consequences of my actions. They're a projection, a facsimile.

So that might bring you to another question, 'Even if they're not real, why would you WANT to do that to them, anyway?'

That I can't answer. The human brain is weird. Sometimes, people have dark urges. If a kid tosses their Barbie onto the ground and seems to take pleasure in it falling, can that accurately say they want to push a real person onto the ground? If someone seems to enjoy a violent video game like GTA where they can run people over and shoot them to their heart's content, is that a surefire way to know that they want to do those things to real people? I wouldn't say it is. Would you?

The final thing to remember is that it's not completely black and white. A serial killer might have been 'inspired' by a violent horror story, whereas the actual author of that story is a nice, well-adjusted individual. People with the desire to hurt actual humans might make do with projections, but it does not change the fact that they actually want to HARM people. The fiction didn't make them want to do that. They already did, and probably would have even if they didn't discover said fiction. And horrible people CAN make their own 'projections'.

Generally though I believe it is obvious when someone is just playing with dolls, and when someone is exhibiting an actual desire to hurt somebody.

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

i absolutely lost my mind discovering your blog this morning. i absolutely adore your style and your story/concept ideas SO MUCH. i love your love for chang and i adore how you draw him and just the love and care you have for the characters and their stories, their history-just everything. oh my god your art and animations are incredible thank you so much you made me so happy this morning 😭😭😭

Thank you very much! I just feel like the Tintin universe has a lot of potential for deep dives. Herge often drew inspiration from the real world so that naturally brings a lot of richness - I'm just lucky to have the privilege of having nearly a century of hindsight and an Internet connection for my research!

also fun fact, I draw Chang the way I do for multiple reasons. I ramble so here's a Read More:

The first is just to update how Chinese people are depicted in this style - I'm Chinese myself (British Chinese) and while I do appreciate Chang's original appearance was basically modelled off a real guy and Herge really did try his best with depicting Chinese people sensitively I wouldn't be comfortable sticking exactly to those original portrayals (tbh it’s mostly the eyes and the skin colour I have an issue with, I liked the weird rubberiness of early Herge!). I also would like to update how the Japanese characters were portrayed too as man those designs are viscerally uncomfortable (like those characters were villainous because they were doing imperialism, not because they're Japanese man come on)

The second is - Chang is a fucking shapeshifter. I swear he looks different in every appearance he makes in official materials. You're telling me these are all the same guy??

From left to right: Chang from a postage stamp that uses artwork from The Blue Lotus, the middle is from the 90s cartoon and the one on the right is from a... cheese sticker??? His nose, hair and face shapes change quite a bit

To get his design I mixed together the 90s cartoon version with the original. People have mentioned The Cheekbones Chang has in the 90s cartoon but I actually like how they give him a distinct shape, it helps differentiate his shape language from Tintin who's all round and soft.

For his young adult design I initially thought to reference Tintin in Tibet but he's so malnourished and close to death his portrayal there probably wasn't intended to represent what he's normally like. I just took my design for Chang and pushed the shapes more. I thought it would be cool for him to look pretty different when he grows up as a contrast to how static Tintin is as a character.

The third (and funniest) reason why I draw Chang the way I do is I actually look a lot like Blue Lotus Chang to a frightening degree, like to the point where it looks like my likeness was stolen 70 years before I even existed. I do not like thinking about my physical existence! I do not want to draw myself! No thank you!! my self insert is haddock if we’re being real

[bronzeageyuri]

Today marks three years of Dianthus existing! I made my first concept sketches for her on 11/20/23 💖 this also means it's been three years of Diathesterius! I sometimes use the date I uploaded Dia to toyhouse, the 21st, as the anniversary date just in case I'm late... but I managed to finish colouring this <3 I had actually wanted to do something for this earlier in the month, I even made some very elaborate plans for it... but it ended up not happening! Which is okay 💞 but I still wanted to draw a little wedding piece... so I did! I'll make something fancier when I have more time later on... 💝 I used my own handwriting here for authenticity, but at some point... I'd like to be able to rewrite in Greek for More authenticity <3 Uncropped version (and long rambling post) under the cut 💕 I get a little Vulnerable so don't read it if you're gonna be mean or else I'll like Get You or something

I've made posts in the past talking about why Theseus and Asterius mean so much to me, but I don't think I've made one on why Dianthus herself means so much to me.. so for her own third year anniversary, I'll do that here! before I begin...! the fruit in dia's hair here are from the strawberry tree, arbutus unedo. I associate the tree and its fruit with Theseus but... it's honestly been so long, I don't remember exactly why! Just that, for some reason, I imagine thathis childhood home had a tree of these fruit blossoming just outside his mother's room, and thus he has fond memories of it. Lady Dianthus... she who loves all things pink, actively hates celery, and still has a job at the library despite being so fogetful and clumsy... she who met Theseus and immediately became obsessed because it was the first interesting thing to happen to her- not a parent or someone she's close to, but herself! her first time feeling as if she had a true purpose. She who didn't understand Theseus' obsession with Asterius until meeting he Minotaur, and promptly decided "he's not scary? he's not scary at all! he's just a cow!" I've made sona and the likes before Dia of course, but she was the first in a long time who was truly meant to resemble me in all ways (except for the setting, of course...). I made her design simple so I would easily be able to redraw her, and gave her one of my favourite palettes pink and green and cream and gold. At first I really didn't expect to get that attached to her... I went months without drawing her after her initial creation. but the more I drew her the more I realized how much fun I was having with her...! It's funny looking back on it... originally I had a much more comedic idea for her story, and di not intend to ship her with Theseus in any serious way. It was going to be a completely one-sided love (with Dianthus taking the role of "crazed fangirl" - which she still is, in a way). I'm sure it isn't a surprise but it didn't take me long at all to start drawing ship art of them, creating artworks and writing of Theseus and Asterius was a self indulgent joy for me, so why not selfship art too? I ended up invested, of course. Using Dia I put a lot of my own feelings into a story; a sense of otherness, her loneliness, feeling lost and out of place. I had removed it later on because I felt uneasy with how vulnerable it was, but at one put I had placed one of the most traumatic events of my life into Dia's story- sometimes I think about adding it back, because I know giving her an oppurtunity to open up about it with her beloveds would be something beneficial to Me irl(!). But that's besides the point here... she's a stubborn girl, sweet but arrogant is my usual go-to descriptor for her; that's how I think of myself too, just based on what I've been told (I have a hard time thinking of myself as nice, though others always say so to me...). That may be part of why I tend to look for those features in (fictional!) lovers... something feels good to me about being able to butt heads due to this shared traits, but still coming together and making amends despite it. I do think it's a little funny that the sonas I've gotten the most attached to so far- Dianthus, and now Nerine- have some sort of theme of death with them. Dianthus is literally a ghost, and Nerine is metaphorically one (and maybe liteally, if I ever make up my mind...). Maybe that's just fitting for me, though... hmm... I'm not sure what else I want to say here... I think of Dianthus as "Me but in Hades Game / Ancient Greek context." Of course some events that happen in her life didn't happen to me, or, sometimes, I dramatize it (Dia's mother leaving her and her father to become the wife of a god was inspired by the fact that for the first few yers of my life, my parents were separated... but they always had a positive relationship with one another! Unlike Dia's parents), but she's become a big par

t of me all the same. Just as I am happy and hoping to spend many more years with Theseus and Asterius, I hope to spend many more years with her as well. i think that's all I'll write for now <3 if you read this thank you for being curious enough about me to be interested in all this 😭

btw, here's the first ever post of her... (yes thats my priv </3 i briefly unlocked it to search for this... don't try and follow me over there though it's crazy over there)