#anyway its fan art time for a special someone

[inkwell-and-dagger]

he's so babygirl I'm stealing his heart (literally)

[thankskenpenders]

IDW's Knuckles 30th Anniversary special

I'm still working on finishing Shadow Generations and writing up a big thing about it (yes, yes, it's taken me a month to finish a four hour game, I know), but in the meantime we've got another new Classic era comic out from IDW! Let's talk about that.

The last Classic era release we got was the Fang miniseries earlier this year, which I mostly enjoyed but also found a bit underwhelming. It felt like we were getting diminishing returns with the Classic comics. Ian seemed to be struggling to make the Classic era feel fresh within Sega's current restrictions for that branch of the brand, a branch that by its very nature discourages experimentation and new ideas in a way that the ever-evolving Modern era doesn't. He was mostly just playing the hits, sticking the currently permitted Classic era characters next to each other in straightforward one-off adventures and letting the art team do their thing. We were getting the Ian who was happy to simply be able to take these toys out of the toy box. Again, these comics have been fine, and the art's always a treat, but the novelty of simply seeing a comic with the old character designs was wearing off for me when the stories didn't have as much meat as Ian's (or Evan's) excellent Modern era work.

And then along comes this Knuckles 30th Anniversary special, which is by far my favorite Classic Sonic comic Ian's written for IDW.

...I can't really talk about why it's so good without getting into spoilers, though. The short version is that it's a really nice little story about Knuckles and another character from the games, who's used as a great foil for him... except the solicit didn't even say which character it is, so I'm hesitant to say here. But if you're a fan of Knuckles, you should definitely just go read this. It's great. This one's mandatory reading to me.

And with that out of the way, let's dig deeper and get into the spoilers.

The spoiler zone

After an opening that very blatantly homages Tyson Hesse's old Knuckles comic (yes, the very same one that helped inspire the name of this blog), Knuckles realizes that Angel Island has drifted near the Northstar Islands from Sonic Superstars, and decides that the Master Emerald must be giving him a mission to train the archipelago's own resident guardian.

Yes, this isn't just a Knuckles comic. It's a Knuckles and Trip comic!

I was really delighted by this. I like Trip a lot, and it's nice to get this chance to expand upon her as a character. I think this is her first speaking role, even? I'm glad to see her stick around, and I'm glad to see her appear in the comics so soon, especially since we're still waiting for the mainline comics to incorporate Sage. She's still clumsy and fairly timid, like in the game, but without the looming thread of Eggman she gets to let loose a little. She's very exuberant and expressive and playful, especially thanks to Aaron Hammerstrom's fantastic art throughout the issue (complemented with inks by Rik Mack and colors by Valentina Pinto). It makes sense why she gets along so well with Amy. I hope we get to see those two interact more in the future!

Anyway, so Knuckles shows up on the Northstar Islands after contemplating his lot in life, and realizes that he and Trip have a lot in common. She's not as strong or confident as him, but they're both the last of their kind, these lone guardians of these ancient magical gemstones. He's showing up under the pretense of training her, but you can tell it's nice for him to have a kindred spirit, someone who might be able to really get him.

And then Trip's like... wait, you think I'm the last of my kind?

Yes, the Northstar Islands have actually been inhabited by a whole civilization of sungazers like Trip the whole time! We just didn't see them in the game because, y'know. Eggman was attacking. So Trip told everyone to find shelter and hide from the Badniks. (This actually makes a lot of sense, since you pass by this very village in Speed Jungle Zone. Somebody's gotta maintain those straw roofs and light those torches, and I can't imagine Trip managing all that upkeep herself.)

This also includes a grandfather for Trip, who's been training her as the archipelago's new guardian. Naturally, this has led to some speculation from fans about the old "mandates." In the wake of the Penders lawsuits and Archie's reboot, Sega declared that the comics could no longer create comic-original relatives for the game characters. Has that changed now?

Well, I'm hesitant to read too much into this. For one, as Ian has tried to drill into peoples' heads for years now, the so-called "mandates" aren't a set of concrete commandments from Sega, they just have some general guidelines for the brand, some of which have more wiggle room than others and some of which have changed over time. There's also the simple fact that Sega is working way more closely with the team at IDW, and that people like Ian and Evan are literally on the official Sonic lore team now. Ian can presumably work with the lore team and Sega to figure out Trip's family, and then go and work what they've decided on into a comic, so it's entirely possible Trip's grandpa isn't considered a comic-original character so much as he's a character conceptualized at Sega who just happens to have appeared in an IDW comic before anything else. The lines are a lot blurrier now with all this cross-pollination, compared to the Archie days when it was a separate creative team and a separate canon.

But, again, I don't want to speculate too heavily about what goes on behind the scenes. Regardless, Ian was able to use this comic to expand upon the world of the games and the characters that inhabit it, and I love it for that. It's the first of these Classic comics that feels like truly mandatory reading for the way it builds upon the games. These days we so rarely get to see communities like this in the Sonic world with their own cultures. It's not like we know anything about "hedgehog culture" or whatever. So this is a nice change of pace. The Northstar Islands feel totally different now that I know they've actually been inhabited the whole time, and knowing that Trip is part of an active community with their own history and customs puts a whole new spin on her as a character.

It also makes her a great foil for Knuckles here. He showed up on the island thinking he'd have a lot to teach Trip as someone who's got more life experience as a lone guardian, only to realize his assumptions about her life were completely wrong. Trip brags to her grandpa that Knuckles is gonna train her, but he quickly realizes he doesn't have much to teach her. She may be kind of cowardly, but she knows her way around the island, she can think on her feet, and she can handle herself well enough in a fight, in her own slapstick way.

He doesn't say as much, but you can tell Knuckles is embarrassed about all this. This clumsy kid is showing him up, even though she won't even really listen to his advice! He's also, perhaps, a bit jealous. It's not like he had a grandfather to train him in the ways of being a guardian. (Not in this continuity, anyway.) He doesn't get a whole village of echidnas to teach him about his heritage. He doesn't get fancy ceremonial armor. It's just him, a big green rock, and his two fists. He thought he had this whole guardian thing figured out, and he'd be able to give a kindred spirit like Trip some advice, but it turns out she's lived a whole different life, making him question if he even knows what he's doing. He quickly gets fed up with both Trip and himself, blowing up at her a little.

After reflecting a bit, Knuckles goes back to Trip and comes clean. He doesn't really know how to train her, because no one ever trained him. He figured things out on his own. If he had anyone there to raise him, they've been gone since he was too young to remember. He just knows he has to protect the Master Emerald. That's it. It's a pretty vulnerable moment for Knuckles, one where his dissatisfaction with his life comes to the surface.

Still, Trip sees things differently. He may be used to the fact that he lives on a giant floating island powered by a giant magic emerald, but she thinks that's, like, the coolest thing in the world. HER islands don't fly! And while Knuckles might wish he had someone to train him, Trip thinks that Knuckles becoming such a fearsome fighter all on his own, without even armor to protect him, makes him super awesome and admirable. With both of them feeling better, Trip takes Knuckles to Golden Capital to talk about her heritage as a guardian of the Northstar Islands a bit more, and Knuckles tells her that he thinks she'll be a great guardian before he heads home, once again feeling pretty good about himself.

While this is a pretty straightforward little story about how the grass is always greener on the other side, it's a very effective and sweet one that I enjoyed reading a ton. Aside from the fun of learning more about Trip and the Northstar Islands, it's just a great showcase for Knuckles. (It's definitely a way better showcase for him than his Paramount+ show, as much as I took sick pleasure in that show's baffling creative decisions.) There are also some fun details about his life in here, such as the fact that Sonic, Tails, and Amy have taken camping trips to hang out with him on Angel Island, and the fact that he trained Amy in using her hammer better.

It's just real good, and it feels like the most meaningful addition to The Canon out of any of these Classic era comics Ian's written. We're still gonna be getting more in the future, so hopefully this is a sign that Ian and the lore team have found that happy middle ground where they can keep the Classic comics familiar and nostalgic while also being able to branch out and expand upon things.

Speaking of future comics!

Coming attractions

The end of this issue confirms some things that are in the works for IDW Sonic. For one, we're getting a Chaotix 30th Anniversary special next year. Neat! They also mention some kind of Shadow one-shot dropping following the movie, however fans seem split on whether this is referring to a new story or just the "Best of Shadow" compilation one-shot that's coming out next month. So don't get your hopes up about that in case it's the latter, I guess.

And while we're still waiting for issue #75 of the main series, the IDW team is already thinking all the way ahead to #100, which should drop sometime during the 35th anniversary of the franchise in 2026. Clearly the team's still confident about the longevity of IDW Sonic and excited for the future. And I am, too! Bring on #75!

[heartfullofleeches]

ITS MY BIRTHDAY TODAY🎉🎉🎉🎉 I was wondering how my favorites would wish me a happy birthday, Tobi, the cafe, host, static, the supernatural harem and the fast food, if that’s too many you can shorten it but I really wanted to have some of my favorite characters from my favorite writer congratulate me on my special day! BTW I’m the one who sent the Prince leash ask, I don’t know if you got it but I accidentally did it anonymously

(The Cafe was a bit too much for me to get this out to you the same day, but I hope you like this regardless! On the bright side, I did get your Prince ask and am working on that too. Happy birthday, chief!)

Tobi:

Has never had a birthday himself, but they know what they are and their significance to humans other regular people. Tobi's the kind of guy to surprise you with presents year round, but as your birthday rolls around they keep items you've had your eye on in their back pocket to gift you on your big day.

Its too embarrassing for them to give you in person, but Tobi creates a collage of all their favorite pictures of you to put up somewhere in your bedroom. Tobi loves baking and cooking so a homemade breakfast, dinner, and your treat of choice would be on the top of their list of surprises for you.

Host:

"Looks like it's a special someone's birthday- Those only come around once a year, you know? If - that's how you want it, anyway."

That time already? Time is a tricky thing for Host to wrap his head around. He could've sworn the last one was just yesterday. It hardly matters. Everyday could be your birthday- Contenstants come and go, but you'll always be his star.

That would, of course, wear the novelty of it all thin. Host is more than happy saving the pinnacle of his gratitude for you as his co-host for that one day. That day's contestants better be too if they want to leave with all the parts they came with intact.

Which is his funny way of saying they won't get any cake.

Static:

"Happy birthday to you.... Happy birthday to you...."

Hunts for every variety of birthday song they can find to serenade you with the second daylight bleeds into your room. Static's disappears predating your birthday can swiftly be explained by the trinkets they bring you, majority centered around the shows and movies you've watched together it knows you adore most.

They'd attempt to rope you into another movie night with you in full control of the remote since it's their favorite way to bond with you - and it's optimal cuddle time.

Supernatural Harem:

"Baron, must you make everything a challenge?"

"Piss off! I left enough room for you two to put your names on the cake.... Maddox more importantly than you, but still."

"We appreciate the consideration, but... Where are we supposed to write "happy birthday"?"

Nothing like waking up on your big day to your Demon husband roommate swearing today will be the day he slaughters your Angel husband roommate. Luckily, your Grim Reaper spouse roommate has the expertise to ķeep you soothed until things cool over long enough for all of them to prepare breakfast for you.

Baron stalks you around to shower you with mandatory birthday kisses- only to get pouty when he's done before noon and continues well past the age you're turning. You'll be older than all three of them by the time he's through.

Maddox, as usual, fills their journal with sketches of you to unveil at the end of the day. Their art skills is the only thing they're proud of in themselves and monetary possessions don't hit quite the mark they're trying to reach when it comes to presents they like to give. If you're a gamer/a fan of stuffed animals they'll pick up a couple so they can use them when you're away and they miss you.

The first birthday you celebrate with Alasdair has to be one to remember. He's watched you from the sidelines for years and now it's finally his chance to do what he's always wanted. It may be a tad selfish of him in hindsight, but he'll pull you aside the day before or after to enjoy a relaxing evening with just the two of you.

Fast Food:

"Code C! I repeat, Coqde C - The clown is loose!"

Birthday? Well you can't expect to have a celebration without the designated party planner, can you? As everyone closes up the restaurant early to commemorate your big day, Twister hoovers over the crew to insure everything goes swimming. The Janitor follows behind it with their trusty spray bottle to keep the clown in check - its the only excuse they have not to give their present to you by hand because they're too embarrassed.

The bathroom Succubus would insist on you opening her gifts to you first - if a certain goat wouldn't pout over it all day as a result. The ballpit hands shower you with all the shiny items lost in their depths. The Storyteller reads you the tale of someone who's birthday happens to fall on the same day - where nothing bad occurs and the universe smiles kindly in their favor.

The ice cream machine ghost whispers in the ears of customers they'd better wish you a happy birthday or be prepared to have dairy filled nightmares

[pixelatedraindrops]

Baby Makoto AU Doodle Dump🐣

Hiya everyone! So, I’ve been busy working on some art of this new little concept of mine. It’s been in my head for a while. Ever since I found out Makoto is in fact canonically 3 years old. And then thinking of Number One being a doting single parent to his tiny homunculus clone whom he adopts to keep safe from further experimentation and raises as his own 🥺💕

I’ve seen other people (specifically on twitter) come up with this thought as well. Makoto as a 3 year old child with Yuma as his parent. Honestly other than drawing my favorite characters being sick, drawing them as little kids also brings about a nostalgic comfort to me. Not nearly as much joy as drawing sickies brings me, but it was fun to draw the all powerful CEO as a little toddler curious about the world. He's just a little baby <3

Now I am actually a bit shy and insecure about this idea. Mainly due to people possibly confusing it with infantilization and/or age regression. This is neither of those things. It’s an AU where he just happens to be a toddler. If anything I picture little Makoto to be similar to Anya from Spy x Family. (and the fact they both share a Japanese VA makes this connection even cuter, and he's only one year younger than her x3)

Anyway, I hope you all will indulge in me as I share the art I’ve done of this tiny little homunculus. I probably won’t talk about this au or draw it often due to feeling shy about it, so I just made a full on thread of the doodles if you want to see. I keep them under a read more to prevent spam (and I know not everyone is a fan of this concept)

But if you look, I hope you enjoy!

A little reference of sorts I made of my toddler Makoto design. (though he wears different clothing in every art I do of him lol this just connects his normal purple flowery attire) He is exactly 2 feet shorter than his usual height making him pretty small for a toddler. (but yuma is pretty short too lol and I want him to be able to carry him ;w;)

He has 2 special toys that connect to his other mask designs in the concept art. The teddy bear is his very special possession that Yuma gave him as a present, and the puppet teruteru-bozu is something he made together with Yuma when crafting on a rainy day. (he is so talented preparing him for the future when he actually develops products for the company he will run) The melon ball is based on his favorite fruit, and he has socks and a fuzzy blanket with the pattern of his mask.

In this AU, Yuma retains his Number One persona. He’s not meek apologetic and unsure, he has the confidence of the ultimate detective. But is he confident as a parent? Not in the slightest. But taking care of Makoto teaches him more about being kind and empathetic towards others, and eventually over time he becomes super protective and even at times doting towards Makoto.

Making his personality a bit more bright and pleasant, much like the kind and gentle Yuma that we all know and love. Parenthood causes the serious detective to soften up a lot. And of course this causes Makoto to love and depend on Yuma in return and never want to cause him trouble. (So he puts on a tough act a lot ;w;) However, he almost never calls Yuma dad. He just calls him Yuma. Its very rare that he refers to Yuma as his dad but this is perfectly okay by Yuma. (But when Makoto does call him dad? Yuma feels such unexplainable emotional discord that he almost cries.)

Some more doodles :3

Such a silly little family. I love them so much <3

Why did I think of this AU? Because I want Makoto and pre-game Yuma to not be lonely, be happy together, and for Makoto to have a childhood. Honestly Makoto seems a bit childish and playful in canon too so...

I think I'd like him to have an actual childhood where he grows up comfortable and happy. And in the care of someone who loves him 💜

[inanimateinsanityrsau]

Ahem… Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3!!

Ok- there we go!

HELLO INTERNET! It’s Fan here- though I mean I’m sure you’ve heard of someone as- uh, as cool as me with being on the ever popular show Inanimate Insanity!

I’m here to talk to YOU guys!! It’s like, yknow, a fun little chatting place for me down in my hideout! And, well, I mean I’m sure you could ask my fellow contestants also!

I’ll catch up with you all later! But please go ahead and send any and all asks you’d like! It’s like my own special interview..!

Ok, ok, ok, bye now. Where’s the off button on this thi-

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

//Hello!! Mod Whippy Creamy here coming at you with a hit new askblog!!

I’ve had this AU idea in my head for a while, but I’m just now finally doing something with it.

It is a pretty standard roleswap AU, but just to clarify some things:

This is NOT a personality swap. Characters may differ in their personalities, but any changes to personality are done only so the character can plausibly fit the “role” they’ve been swapped into.

Only the contestants have swapped roles! Outside characters like Cobs and Meeple products such as Mephone4 and Mepad have also not changed roles.

[UPDATE: ASKS TEMPORARILY CLOSED!!] Currently, every season 1-2 contestant is open to asks! Roleswap list here

Mod information and Tagging key below the cut:

MOD WHIPPY CREAMY:

“Heya! Mod Whippy Creamy here. Once again. I’m the creator of this AU, but I have enlisted the help of my very talented friends to make this silly little askblog become a reality! I use any pronouns!!

I will do my best to include little doodles in every ask that I possibly can, at the least. If you’d like to check out my main blog, go look at @aricatastrophe! Have fun, and enjoy the ride ;)”

MOD SKETCHPAD:

“HIIIII ^_^ im mod sketchpad and youll NEVER KNOW WHO I AM HAHAHAHAHHAHAH anyway i use it/any pronounce and im here to vibe . ill probably be drawing a bit for funsies but we'll see ^_^ . peace out (⁠ ⁠╹⁠▽⁠╹⁠ ⁠)"

MOD TELESCOPE:

“HEYY IT’S ME MOD TELESCOPE!! Any/all pronouns are good for me, ill include doodles whenever i can and more high quality art for important stuff :D my main blog’s @gillionspookstrider and i shall see you on the flipside!”

MOD JOURNAL:

“hiii!!! i'm mod journal. it/it's pronouns. i'm mostly just here to have fun!! my posts will all be text posts since i cannot draw at all LMAO !!! i'm so good at introducing myself”

MOD COMPASS:

"Hi there! I'm mod Compass and I use it/its and they/them pronouns! Not much to say about me except that I am here for fun and I will absolutely draw as many of my responses as time will allow >:D"

TAGS:

#iirs - general AU tag!

#iirs fanart - FANART TAG?! if you make fanart PLEASE tag us thatd be so so cool

#mod[name] - designating which mod made the post!

#ooc - For posts not talking in character

[syndromestatic]

Something I’ve been thinking about… because of recent moominous events & also the classes I’m taking:

Queer artistry is so so special. & when a queer artist creates something, it resonates with other queer people. The art becomes inherently queer. I think it could probably be debated if all art made by a queer person is, necessarily, queer- separation of art and artist and all that- but at least I think that’s the case.

The question is: does this remain the case after the artist is gone and their art is altered? You probably see where I’m going with this. We think of these characters as inherently queer because of their long and storied history, but at the same time, we know that Moominvalley has changed these characters, too. I’m not going to definitively state that they’re made… not queer, because I don’t believe that to be fully true, but if fundamental aspects of their character and how we perceive it can be changed, can their queerness be so as well? And if the queerness is not erased, then what is it? tamped down? undermined? mishandled?

& Maybe this is the point where you go “okay static it’s not that deep” but I really do think it is! Moominvalley 2019 mishandles a lot of things, i daresay even skirts around the queerness of itself without fully leaving it out. Here is my main case: If they were going to be more explicit with Moomin and Snufkin’s queercoding, that very much should have been followed through with. & let’s speak on how much Moominvalley played around with and constantly changed the nature of Snorkmaiden and Moomin’s romantic relationship with little to no actual explanation or context? Guys I don’t know. It’s odd, it’s weird, and it certainly doesn’t sit right with me.

To me, Season 3 left off in a place where Snufkin and Moomin’s relationship was at it’s tipping point between romantic and platonic- the season literally ends with them arm and arm- And that’s why season 4 falls flat in the demonstration of their relationship. I never expected season 4 to deliver on that front in the first place- by season 2 I felt that the Moomin/Snufkin moments were heavy handed and a bit too forced to be completely natural, and I knew it wasn’t about to become explicitly canon in the first place because Moomin and Snufkin never have been- but to me it’s about follow through and writing, and the fact they were dropping such obnoxious hints only for that tension to be dropped last season feels like both a cop-out, and perhaps even intentional.

The contemporary Moomin boom occurred in 2019, in the wake of the series. Shippers went wild. absolutely nuts. If Moomin has no fans, the world is dead, but this definitely contributed to a spike in viewership. and listen. Season 1 had its flaws but if every season onwards was of the same quality, and each season included the snufmin subtext only as much as season 1, I would not be upset right now. I do, in fact, believe, that the queer fanbase of this show was teased and strung along with the Moomin/Snufkin relationship. And I think the way it was handled in season 4 was due to the fact that they wouldn’t need that part of the show to, excuse my terminology, bait viewers along because it was the last season. Obviously this is all speculation, but I really don’t think it’s all that unlikely. And I’m not even saying that it’s strictly the writers’ fault, but I think there was someone in power who let the queer shit- the shit was was just obvious enough to give young queer viewers fuel- pass by for as long as it was useful, but by no means could the show surpass a certain limit.

Ahem anyways I love Moomins and I dislike Moominvalley 2019… for many reasons but also for this… sorry for incoherencies, typos, the like.

[ghostbox-nostalgia]

Old Faith courting and favour

I decided to write out some of the old faith courting rituals since I'm art blocked at the moment and I have Ideas. A lot of these will be based off of the sorta Victorian era way of flirting since I enjoy all of the little secret languages they had.

First off fan language. I like to think this predates the bishops, and they learned how to do it from their predecessors. There's a lot of issues with followers claiming favoritism and dissenting if one of the gods is seen flirting in the open, so they devised a way to communicate with their favored without judgement. i imagine this is the one that Narinder tends to favor since theres a few signals in the real life one that can convey if someone is listening in or following you, and I imagine that the practicality of it made that on more appealing, Also pretty boy with a pretty fan. obviously

Flower language. What god wouldn't give their favored a gift afterall? Flower language is the same as it is in real life, with the added layer of combining flowers to covey particular messages to the recipient. i imagine that the container in which it is given also plays a factor but not that much. i imagine to some degree all of the bishops used this way at least once, whether it was for flirting or not (death threats in the form of nightshade on your doorstep)

Gems and Jewelry. Different gems carry different meanings, the metal tells intent, and the type of jewelry shows who you received it from (so necklace for hekets cult, earrings for kallamars, etc.) Gold is usually given with the intent to marry (romance doesn't matter) and silver is given to those you consider close, whether it be family or friend. gems usually contain the qualities you admire within someone, So and example would be if you admired someone for eloquence and had intent to marry, you would give them a gold and emerald ring. Obviously Kallamar favors this method the most, and cares very little if people see that he favors someone above the rest. He typically gives pearl jewelry to people with specific colours depending the person. Also the jewelry type thing being cult related is a very loose rule, its just a fun thing the cultists decided on their own.

Fruit! its fig incident time (kinda). so you know how figs are typically associated with fertility? Well in old faith terms, offering someone a fig implied an invitation to bed and eating a fig out of someone's hand was akin to telling them to take you then and there. Hekets preferred method of courting, right up their with lavish feasts and specially cooked meals. i personally feel like shes too blunt a person for a proper courting phase so she just tends to get to the point rather quick. (theres a narilamb fig scene I have planned that I can't figure out how to explain but now yall have a basis to go off of so feel free to imagine)

Anyway thats all the ideas I had so far. Hope you guys like them! I'll always take suggestions though so don't be afraid to shoot me an ask :]

[donnerpartyofone]

This has been a really hard one to talk about. I'm always very ambivalent about mourning celebrities. I try to remember that I don't know these people, that what is really mourned by most of us is the person's ongoing work, which in the best cases has helped us understand ourselves and the world in which we live. Unavoidably, though, you can start to develop the sense that you know these people personally, which isn't true or even appropriate necessarily, I mean you have no idea whether you would even like someone you've only seen on a screen or received an autograph from; but at the same time, I don't know if you can really force yourself not to feel like the deceased celebrity is a dear friend you will never get to talk to again (the last time I tried and failed was the passing of Lux Interior). Maybe this is more forgivable, and also more inevitable, if you feel like you grew up with the person.

Of course this is all about ME now, but my mother (who also died from cancer) was an extremely hip, brilliant, funny individual who for whatever reason refused to form a relationship with me. This was pretty strange, because we liked a lot of the same things--B movies, old comics, all types of camp and kitsch--but when I liked those things, it was in poor taste and punishable by exile, whereas when she liked those things, it was evidence of her cultural genius. Before I make anybody too mad I should say that I'm being a little bit unfairly reductive just so I can get to the point, which is that one of the few things we could share was Pee-Wee's Playhouse. I didn't know anything about the show's more adult origins or the fact that Paul Reubens was sort of a performance artist, but I didn't have to. Pee-Wee's Playhouse was a feast for any child's senses: stylish, hilarious, and on some subliminal level, really sophisticated. I was clued into some of what was going on just because I watched it with my mom, who always laughed at Pee-Wee's winks and nudges to the hep parents in the audience. The show might have been my first encounter with the kind of anthropological humor favored by people like David Byrne and Laurie Anderson, artists who engage subversively with cliches, stereotypes, and other memetic parts of popular culture. In Pee-Wee's Playhouse, with its sharp, edgy cast and crew, kids like me were getting into fine art without even knowing it--which is possibly the best way to learn about art anyway.

In fact, on the other side of our house, I became obsessed with Gary Panter's incredible punk opus Jimbo In Paradise, a Dantesque comic book about an innocent young guy living in a dystopian future, where he is occasionally joined by guest stars such as Nancy and Hedorah. I was about 7 when I started reading Jimbo over and over again even though I could barely understand it, and I had no idea that Gary had pretty much designed Pee-Wee's Playhouse. I'm speaking about him so familiarly because I got to know him a little bit as a grownup. I remember Gary talking about how private Paul Reubens could be. He used to do this thing where he would accept a dinner invitation from anybody who asked, as sort of a stunt, but he had to stop doing it because people became so intrusive and entitled with him. Gary said that they'd be walking around in New York and when they saw an obvious Pee-Wee fan gearing up for an offensive, Paul Reubens would sort of transform into this totally different person, putting out an aura that let you know not to fuck with him. It's crazy-making to think that someone who was so protective of the boundary between his private and public selves had to suffer that ridiculous arrest, but it's heartening that most of society eventually grew the fuck up and forgot about it. It's also helpful to remember when he turned up later on the MTV Music Video Awards and started off by asking the audience, "HEARD ANY GOOD JOKES LATELY??"

I'm glad we got one more Pee-Wee special in the past several years, but I always wished that we would see Paul Reubens in more movies. He was such a cool actor, funny, convincing, and naturally charismatic. While people are cycling through their favorite roles of his, I want to point out that he had a great role on a recent HBO miniseries called Mosaic, an intense, engrossing crime drama that I definitely recommend if you have access. Maybe I'll rewatch it, too. In closing, here's a great story that I grabbed from Facebook that should warm everybody's heart, along with the heartbreaking statement (inappropriately cropped by Instagram of course) released upon the death of the very private Pee-Wee Herman. It makes you wish you could thank him in person, for everything. The best we can do is just remember him.

[naviaknell777]

Loved your little sister fic.!! So adorable!!! ❤️ Its so cute for a little sibling reader lmao.Anyways. I saw requests open, and I had to request. Little sister turtle reader x The rottmmt bros-

Hear me out. Reader is like a HUGE fan of food, and has a "burrito blanket" and constantly bickers her brothers to let her spin on a pole above fire like a rotisserie chicken. She just wants to feel like food lmao 😭 Poor 10 year old turtle girl, She's just a pure innocent sunshine.

Reader is hungry 24/7 and loves mikey's cooking sm. Like this girl full on makes Donnie store some snacks made from mikey into his battle shell for her when traveling or leaving the lair lmao. You know what animal crossing villagers do when food is placed in front of them?? Yeah. Reader does that.

Bonus : Reader is really good at martial arts and fighting, and beats the shit out of a really tough villain. And when she's done, shes just innocent and is like "Can we have tacos for dinner??" While her brothers are just like.. "wtf just happened."

Ooh I love this request so much! I love the idea of a little sister who’s chaotic about food. Also reminder [n/n] = nickname

Rottmnt x little sister! Reader “Food Lover”

Y/N is 10 years old, the youngest of the siblings, and LOVES food

And I mean LOVES food more than anything.

Like it might honestly be her special interest at this point. Loves trying new foods, love learning about foods, and loves cooking when she can (which is rarely because one time she didn’t have older brother supervision around the stove… that ended up being a chaotic day)

She even owns different food related things, like blankets, plushies, etc

Likes to get the food experience as well. As in, will sit by fires wrapped up in her tortilla blanket to pretend shes cooking (even though the fire tends to dry out her skin as being a type of sea turtle)

Has also asked to be wrapped in tinfoil by or above the fire (to which, her brothers completely don’t support… not only will she dry out heavily but also it’s just not healthy and they’re afraid she’ll actually be cooked alive)

But to make her feel better about not being able to pretend to be food being cooked, Leo will team up with Donnie to make a huge strainer for Y/N to fit in and put her underneath a hose and pretend to wash her like fruits and veggies

She will also absolutely devour any food in sight, including eating everything that Mikey makes… even if it’s six servings, for each sibling plus Splinter

Whenever she eats someone else’s food (usually because she has a big appetite, occasionally to get back at her brothers for pulling a prank on her or something… looking at you Leo) and that brother will stare at her and she’ll just be like “what…?”

Man just let her eat the dang food!!

But even if she eats everyone’s dinner, especially if it’s Mikey making it, she’ll usually ask for more because she loves the taste so much

When she occasionally joins missions, she’ll sometimes make Donnie whip out a snack for her mid-battle. Doesn’t matter if he’s charging at someone or what, he’ll use one of his metal claw hang thingies to take a snack for her and toss it at her

They let her come along sometimes if they know it’s a pretty low stakes mission so she can watch them fight to learn how battles go and to learn moves from her brothers

She also trains outside of battles, and loves it, and because she’s doing all this exercise it just makes her more hungry, which is why she’s pretty much constantly eating

That and she expends a lot of energy being a chaotic little sister in general lol

But one night the brothers decided that Y/N could go on this mission with them that they thought would be pretty low stakes, just a classic foot clan plan that needs to be stopped as per usual

Except… they decided to bring a different partner along the normal two that they fight

A new recruit I guess??

But yeah the brothers didn’t predict this

(Well, Donnie probably did, let’s be honest)

Anyway. He should’ve told someone that he predicted this cause the new guy was pretty buff, like someone who does hardcore military training as a hobby

How the guy got recruited as a low rank with the other two foot weirdos is nobody’s guess

But regardless, Y/N was brought to the battle, and with this new, super buff guy they got their hands full

So Y/N, observing from afar at first, ultimately decided to help her brothers

“No one kicks my brothers like that but me!!” She yelled when the buff guy kicked Raph in the stomach

So she, being the weird brave girl she is, sprung into action! And… she actually landed hits on the guy?!

Needless to say her brothers were impressed

She managed to hit the guy a lot and with her quick agility she was able to dodge his attacks like nothing (practice from when her brothers try to hold her back from eating all the pizza… she just slithers her way out of their hold and climbs over them)

But anyway she’s actually doing really well in the battle?! She focused more on dodging in the first half to psych him out, but landed punches and kicks like nobody’s business!

(She might’ve also kicked him in the balls at one point lmao)

But yeah, in the end, she managed to dodge his head butt last minute, making him smash his head into a wall. Y/N dusted off her hands on her shorts, her mask tails dramatically flowing a bit in the non-existent wind, proud of her victory

(And the brothers managed to take down the other two foot freaks quickly per usual)

But when they were done they just stared at her and her ability to hit hard and dodge when needed. When he finally knocked himself out, she smiled and watched the buff guy fall to the ground when he became unconscious

She then turned to her brothers, who were standing next to each other. She ran to them “I’m hungry! Can we make tacos for dinner?!” She said excitedly, shaking her hands side to side at the thought of eating

“Uh, yeah, sure…” Leo said, still a bit in disbelief

“Aww baby sister you deserve all the tacos in the world!” Mikey said, making Y/N squeal a bit

“But.. where’s you learn all those moves, [n/n]?l” Raph asked, still a bit amazed at her combat power and fighting style being so developed at a young age.

“The beans must be spilled” Donnie whispered to himself dramatically.

Y/N just smiled, climbing onto Donnie’s battle shell to open it and grab a snack. She opened a bag of chips, and before stuffing her face she said

“Well I’ve watched you all fight so many times… so I guess I learned from the best!”

——

Thanks for sending in your request and reading!

All Rights Reserved ©️NaviaKnell777 2023

[200070063]

Sure! Let’s hear it!

putting it under a cut because itll probably be long (context is p0psugar asked what couldve triggered pillows personality change. the art that goes with it is gorgeous btw go look NOW)

okay so first off. from a writing standpoint! ive noticed tpot has picked up a lot of seemingly forgotten early bfb gags and brought them back. especially for the characters that didn't get a lot of time to shine. theres a lot more emphasis on basketballs robotics knowledge, nickels strange speech patterns, yellow faces ads (not necessarily forgotten, but it was pretty much gone in bfb from what i remember), clocks love for loser lore (for better or for worse...). hell even the death pact itself, something that was just mentioned every now and again, has a lot more emphasis put on it! its the cause of a team-wide conflict!

thats basically what happened with pillow! she didn't have much personality outside of researching, so they seem to have took the silly "did someone say killing?" line and... well..... y'know........

it became this!

i dont know how most people feel about it and i might be biased because tpot made me a big fan of her but i like this approach. a lot. i may not like all of the changes it caused (that is NOT clock four replaced him with a clone i swear to god) but i appreciate how much life it gave to the less...... characterized contestants.

as for in universe, thats a bit harder for me to answer. i could argue that its just because shes not in the pact anymore but,

its clear that didnt matter, cause she was like this anyway! but even then its clear she did Try to prevent death (not getting screenshots right now but im specifically talking about the fork thing in todays very special episode and her trying to muffle fours screech in getting teardrop to tall), and as much as i want to chalk that up to the writers still getting a grasp of her character, thats just. not how i operate LOL im an overanalyzer at heart

so there's a few things that could be going on here:

1, there wasnt a personality shift at all, most of her moments like this were just offscreen.

2, the whole "death=good luck" thing didnt come to mind until after her time in death pact. or was maybe even a result of it. they didnt really prevent much death in bfb, so its still possible despite the teams immunity streak, something that was brought into question after she first brought it up. (←my petsonal theory)

3, the belief DID exist back then, she just either pushed it aside for the sake of the team or it wasnt as strong.

or maybe even something else! idk! i actually think about it quite a lot its nice to put my thoughts together like this. i heart pillow they could never make me hate her

[konohamaru-sensei]

hello again!! thank you so much for gathering the iketeru illustrations for me (and translating them too, which i greatly appreciated), cause your post really made my day :')

it's funny that the author's got a whole book of fanservice for us lmao, but i love it! do you have a #1 favorite illustration (of anyone) from the whole book? (sorry if this sent twice btw, crap was glitching lol)

lovely anon, I must tell you that I once again went absolutely over the line with pictures I took. There are so many good ones!! I knew a few illustrations from sensei's twitter and knew how well it worked for me so I ordered this book from japan and yes, that is why I can never pick favourites I just like all of them (exception is the series in which the characters are teachers and you are supposed to be their student, not a big fan of those lol). Once again I put them under cut together with my chitter chatter about them asdhjflas

anyway im glad i made your day!

yes its amazing that this fanservice exist. In the interview at the end of the book sensei says they often drew their characters as practise (without lines) and then uploaded them to twitter to find out the people responded so well!! so they continued with it! More snippets from the interview:

they consider this a kind of alternative world that has no space in the manga (since its a gag manga).

they claim they didnt try to make the characters hot on purpose, it just turned out this way. in their head usao and kumao always had old people voices. but now they are glad the characters are hot because of the voice actors choosen.

they come up with a line and then assign it to a character, rarely the other way around.

Every one of their characters has one thing they think is special, something they like to show off when they draw them. for Uramichi its the chest, for Iketeru the slender neck, for Usahara the shoulders and Kumatani the arms!

and shockingly to me: since this manga is running 10 years now they said when they started they felt like Uramichi is so old, but now they are the same age! I cant believe how someone in their twenties wrote such an accurate manga about being in ones thirties.

gosh anon i wish this was more popular, i only have one friend to talk to about this story and i have so much in my soul dhkasdflsd so please come back if you feel like it!

ok so some of my faves under cut from here

first of: my favourite has always been ushara. he is cringe fail and i love cringe fail so much. but that also means he has almost no COOL lines because he is kind of an idiot (lovingly said) tho all his illustrations are so cute. so he wont show up here much tho i love everything about his arts of course!!

now you asked me for my favourite and ive known this one for a while, but I think my unbeaten favourites of everyone are the love confessions:

I love the different way they all do it. Uramichi pretty much goes "I love....you" (cries), Iketeru of course quotes it, Usahara just YELLS at you "HEY I LOVE YOU" and kumatani is like ".............. iloveyou" haskdlfh

generally kumatani has so many cool lines because he is so stone cold. this is also specifically heart wrecking for me because his voice actor Nakamura Yuuchi is my favourite thing since strawberries so if I imagine him doing the voice I want to die.

Three times Kumatani is an absolute tsundere about white day:

"you are chattering so much... well, tell me what you want now. I'll get you anything."

"What do you want? Tell me clearly"

"I told you to get over here"

another white day illustration i love is this one from usahara

he says "the present is me, hippety hop", which i find ultra cute with the little bunny and the hairclip!! but my friend said it sounds like he forgot white day and just brought the first thing he could find, which would be in character (adding this picture was a nightmare tumblr did NOT want me to upload it?? you hate cute boys? tumblr you hate cute boys??)

uramichi's face when he realises you april fooled him is so funny to me somehow

" You say "Im sorry".. that is also a lie, is it not?"

ok from now on the pictures will be low quality because tumblr wont let me upload the photos direclty anymore i need to screenshot them first. rip im sorry

ok there are a few here of uramichi saying somehow sexy things (to me at least) and it makes me go hrgnlkhdflk

""Good big brother (onisan)" you said. Who do you mean?" idk why that gets me so hard but why you asking .. wha...what you mean

"... Isn't it ok? You don't have to go home yet." (this is from the stayin the night portion)

"A promise from big brother. I will protect you well" T_T

this thing which can only be described as ship art:

is this bickering idiots to lovers sensei? is that what you mean to tell me sensei?

this usahara from the staying the night section

"Come play with me today!" (............ h.......how...)

this image if kumatani because of THE LOOK? um HELLO

unfortuantely the translation is kinda tricky because i cant read most the kanji and google lense is like?? but its something like "Do you think you have the guts to betray me?" or something like "Do you think I have the guts to betray you?" idk he looks good so its fine

almost done i swear!! there are a few kuma usa double pages i love

Kuma: "Don't look. Its hot." (sidenote, he is shirtless a lot. not that I complain or whatever)

Usa: "Where would you like to go? The ocean? My house?"

sorry i tried to keep my fingers out of all pictures but clearly failed xD

Kuma: "Shut up. Shut up and look at me."

Usa: "I understaaaand. Get over here." (crying, i want to)

this is a part of the book extras. I showed it to you with Iketeru already. I think the meaning is sort of the moment they realised their carreers are over, sadface

Kuma: "I never really liked it. I thought I would just throw it away. Damn it, I lost."

Usa: "The wind suddenly stopped. Ah, thats how it is. Its over"

of course there are a lot more other characters shown in the book, but much rarer and since they dont interest me too much they dont have my favourite lines asdhfklasdhf anyway anon I hope you liked this

[lolotheparagon]

Rating Every TNBA Redesign Cos Why Not

The New Batman Adventures was the last season of the infamous Batman the Animated Series, although it moved to another less strict network. Because the producers wanted to do crossovers with the Superman animated series, they gave the series and its characters a more streamlined style to it. Now I dont wanna blame Bruce Timm entirely since there were many artists on staff back then who did the redesigns but because I hate this coomer, Im going to anyway. In BTAS, you can tell each character apart and they have their own unique outfits and looks to them. But here, these are some of the most unimaginative superhero/villain designs Ive ever seen. Although some did surprise me and were not that bad. So, for a bit of fun, here's my look at each Batman character's redesign in the final (and worst) season of the show.

(Not counting Robin cos he's a different character to Dick Grayson or characters that had very little changes like Clayface or Harley Quinn)

Batman

The big emo rodent himself. For his redesign, I like the more sleek look to Batman's cape...thats it. His original design is really hard to perfect. Its got everything. Why tamper with perfection?

Batgirl

I actually kinda like Batgirl's redesign. The yellow gloves and boots really help her stand out and its the one of the few times the darker toned outfits actually accentuate a design rather than ruin it. Too bad Bruce Timm couldn't stop salivating over her and the rest of the women in this show. So next time you see someone consider Bruce Timm this legendary storyteller of Batman, give them a healthy reminder that he shipped this college girl character with her mentor/surrogate uncle figure FOR YEARS.

Alfred

Its like they sucked away all of Alfred's snark and replaced it with a cardboard cutout. Literally, he looks so sterile and empty. Who had the idea of making Alfred look more bored and done with everything? Also whats wrong with his chin??

Commissioner Gordon

Good ole Commissioner Pringle got off pretty much unscathed but I think they made him a touch too old considering they gave him a more lanky body, which makes him look more feeble and weak. Dude looks old enough to be Babs' grandad

Joker

Ohhhhh boy. So Joker's redesign is infamously considered by fans as one of the show's worst redesigns, to a point even the showrunners were like yeahh. And thats not unwarranted. He looks like an inverted Dr Draken and im so glad they redesigned him again for Batman Beyond and onward.

Seriously he's A CLOWN WHERES THE MAKE UP?!!

Two-Face

I know Two Face is just a redrawn version of the original design with the TNBA streamlined art style but I want to draw special attention to the monster side of Dent's face. Notice in the original it looks more manic and feral? Heavily contrasted with the conflicted, guilty look on Dent's normal side? But here, in the redesign the monster side is less scary and Dent looks way too bored and angry. The overuse of black lines doesnt help.

Catwoman

She looks like Harley Quinn or Barbara wearing a catsuit. Starting to see a pattern here?

Baby Doll

Its a tough call cos they both look very good but Im gonna lean towards the redesign cos shes got that creepy doll look down to a T (Annabelle would be proud) whereas her original design looked more like a Tiny Toons character.

Scarface and the Ventriloquist

I like the redesign cos of the exaggerated style of the rest of the show perfectly captures Scarface since he's, yknow, a puppet and having the Ventriloquist be shown to be scared and submissive really does show how the puppet is ironically the puppetmaster.

Penguin

Actually I like both of them. They both give off that sophisticated element Penguin is known for and after so many reiterations of him being this crass Scouse-talking crime boss, its nice to see versions of him going back to his rich asshole roots.

Bane

In the original, he has a luchador-style mask and wrestling suit fitting his Spanish roots. Here, he straight up looks like a gimp. Its really bad. Embrace your heritage, Bane!

Riddler

They went from Frank Gorshin to Jim Carrey for Riddler (fitting cos Batman Forever came during TNBA's development) and I love that. So I love both of them. Nice to see a villain with some fucking colour in TNBA cos im tired of seeing all this black outfits. Also his cane being an extended question mark instead of a question mark on top of a regular cane is genius.

Mad Hatter

Both of them fit Hatter's deranged stalker vibes perfectly, but I wish they kept the colour scheme for the redesign cos Hatter's new colour scheme looks too rounded and doesnt stand out.

Poison Ivy

Killer Croc

Finally, now he looks like an actual crocodile instead of whatever the hell he was supposed to be!

Scarecrow

Okay, who the fuck decided to make Scarecrow look like the Babadook? Cos I want to give them a raise. Holy mother of piss, that is terrifying. That shit belongs in the Arkham games. I still prefer the old design cos it has that perfect blend of goofy and gothic. He looks like a Cacturne now that I think about it.

Mr Freeze

HONEY WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU?!! WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE A FUCKING FUTURAMA HEAD?!! WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?! YOU HURT MY HUSBAND, TIMM, NOW ITS PERSONAL

[nanjokei]

same anon here, incredibly interested in the history from someone who lived through it

ok!

here's my own rundown on why the vocaloid bubble burst in the mid 2010s!

almost irreversibly! (don't worry— this story has a happy ending)

if anyone is wondering, yes, you can reblog this! i only say this because this took a lot of work to write so if anyone feels compelled, yes, stroke my ego a bit, i allow such a thing. now, i might get snippy here and there, but i'm not serious at all. my sense of humor is pretty tsukkomi-ish and it shows up in how i describe things. <-disclaimer for if this post breaks containment because i know fandom types don't like my sense of humor if they're not given the context that i LOVE what i'm talking about and rib on it out of utmost adoration

as a disclaimer, i do lightly look things up to check on stuff timeline wise and its validity, but this is from my own point of view and memory and a personal retelling, so if you have a different take on it then i'm sure our viewpoints can co-exist. also, i speak about utaite from the point of view of someone who respects their existence but does not participate. so if a few facts are off... i am speaking only from the aspect of what relates to what i'm talking about. also if there are any typos i stopped being thorough with my checking and editing like 4k words in since i am not being paid to write this, it is just for fun. anyways~

so where we wanna start here is before the big bubble era. i think most people would agree that it was in full swing around mid 2012, but i'll set the date at september 23, 2011. the posting of the song kagerou daze (by the way, as a testament to how much of a boomer i am, despite being an kagepro fan from the start i find myself still using the "kagerou days" romanization by accident every time). by the way, senbonzakura, one of the biggest vocaloid songs ever for the longest time, was posted only a few days earlier. just to paint a picture. but that's not the only thing... i think what we want to look at especially is the end of the vocaloid2 era and what was going on during and before. the final vocaloid2 product, vy2, was released on april 25th, 2011. in this timeline, there are a few angles i wanna focus on. the state of the culture, its spread, utaite and producers. by the way, if i had to date when i met vocaloid, it was around 2008. right before gakupo came out, maybe.

around this time, the culture of vocaloid-ke (vocaloid family) type secondary works were falling out of fashion. 2010 and before, i feel that vocaloid had a strong image of nico nico douga especially— not that it didn't during the bubble era. but i mean the people participating. when miku came out, people viewed her as a novelty while still thinking to themselves they had stumbled across something special. there was no subculture like that before, and the closest counterpart to this was idolmaster. now, many know this is the origin of the -P suffix came from. it's a tossed around factoid now but people should know that it was certainly a phenomena back then. and a LOT of early miku adopters (like 80% were either already in the doujin music scene, the DTM (desktop music) scene, trained musicians or even some industry pros. and a lot of these people were nerdy and geeky and loved anime and games and manga so of course their first point of reference for building vocaloid's identity was idolmaster. touhou, idolmaster's next door neighbor, also had a lot of influence given many of the music people in its scene dabbled in vocaloid early on. so naturally the fans that were attracted to vocaloid were also nerds. at first there were only cryptonloids, but gakupo quickly followed (and continuing in the trend of heavy nnd association— kentaro miura (RIP), a big fan of nnd and especially idolmaster— designed and drew his art 100% pro bono out of love for the site and its culture). luka came out... i think gumi was the first shift. gumi just felt, different. i personally owe it to her being modeled after ranka lee, the iconic role of her voice provider, megumi nakajima— ranka lee was the underdog character in her source macross frontier's love triangle. so i feel like that image somewhat imprinted itself on gumi. gumi was not popular at first at all. her release came and went with not much fanfare. ironically the aspect of rivalry would come back under stuff like the miku vs gumi debate. this is probably the first real demonstration of "it doesn't matter how good the voice is, it matters who uses it and how that propagates the voice".

and so i arrive at the producers of the time, maybe late 2008 early to mid 2009, the newcomers. the ones that weren't necessarily otaku through and through, but more on the "teenagers who like vocaloid and/or don't have a singer to sing for them, and want to make music". i will be specific and say it is people like wowaka (RIP), deco*27 and hachi/kenshi yonezu specifically. wowaka for example had a very fresh take— his pvs deemphasized the vocaloid, but it also inspired many fan pvs because of it. i will not go into how it became ironic that he quit due to the attribution to the voice. but his moody lyrics captured a lot of hearts and his style carried a youth to it. hachi did a lot of his own artsy pvs. deco*27 was very unpolished and amateur but his music was VERY of the times. the synths, the guitar, very youthful. aside from wowaka, whose comeup immediately led to him getting signed quickly (and the guy himself just walked and i don't blame him) i think what made these guys (deco and hachi) stand out from the rest in the end is one thing: they picked up gumi. and this set them apart from the old and dusted otaku who didn't pick gumi up, or those who picked her up thinking of her only as ranka lee. mozaik role (still deco's most viewed song on nnd btw, with no sign of stopping. and he is clearly PISSED about it). matryoshka. all that kibs of noise. by the way, matryoshka's stint in the vocaloid rankings went unchallenged until it was finally killed by senbonzakura. that's a good two years of dominance!! a lot of the breakout stars or people who got more popular during 2010 used gumi, i'm talking your 40mPs, your sasakure.UKs, your buzzGs. incidentally, a lot of these people got signed... most for their vocaloid stuff. 40mP, sasakure, deco, kous and others were signed under label split-offs like U/M/A/A. wowaka and hachi... were signed for themselves. specifically, wowaka and his band hitorie, and hachi as himself kenshi yonezu.

but producers were not the only ones being signed. utaite, who had been a thing before even vocaloid was a thing, found themselves growing rapidly due to them increasingly participating in the culture as both fans and beneficiaries. personally, i split off utaites eras as "before piko and akiakane" and "after piko and akiakane". the before era included people who either started very early on when vocaloid became a thing on nnd, or started before it (participating in chorus medleys or posting utattemita videos of anison for example, like gero). it was all amateur and everyone was doing it for fun... but the record companies doth lurk around the vocaloid scene at this rate. akiakane and piko i pick specifically because they were the first utaite who were very publically signed. piko was signed under sony's ki/oon records! akiakane had two or three big albums under the subsidary of VAP, toy's factory (if you wanna have fun take a look at the list of talent they rep). piko is especially important— as he had a vocaloid made of him. this marked first big interest of corporations and large record companies to actually enter the vocaloid space— in the most direct way possible. btw, the reason piko the vocaloid is dead is because piko the person is no longer signed under sony. it's not outright confirmed, but piko the guy stopped tweeting about utatane piko the second he transferred labels. he is stuck in a weird catch 22 he probably will never be free of, though yamaha is doing some insane moves lately, i wonder if they'd ever try to buy the character out and revive him as a stunt. (they are doing many funny stunts lately. but a subject for another time.)

finally, my last point in this preamble is the interest in telling stories through vocaloid had only continued to grow. i think the two biggest early examples were the prisoner series by shujinP and the ever so infamous evillious chronicles by mothy. their explosive popularity is wholeheartedly owed to rin and len— ok this is a tangent but this is the genius of the rin and len package, that to this day was never replicated, they come together as you know and since they are male and female with no set setting, they are an easy buy and you can make a story because you can do two points of view across several songs... like literally. its paperplane vs prisoner. daughter of evil vs servant of evil. and their fans were and continue to be super passionate. it's great, we would be missing a huge chunk of what makes vocaloid subculture what it is without them. of course, shujinP's series (plural because they had several) is less known these days but it was probably the first series to get plays and novels and all that. quickly followed by EC. later came series like sasakure's doomsday series, stuck in a limbo between old and new era (most of the songs released in the old era but the novelization and such came out during the new), and a few "outsider" series like numtack05/putinP's series (the reasons this never got popular is because it was absurdist and shitpost-y and involved too much political imagery, not only that but also because putinP used a lot of copyright samples (most famously ronald mcdonald and sazae-san clips)— the freely distributed album vers omit these samples entirely and i can confirm the songs are worse for it)

so to give a summary of the above section

the tastes of fans were maturing

there was a shift in how vocaloid was perceived

the growing influence of utaite

the growing interest of big corpos in the scene

the growing interest in storytelling using vocaloid as a medium

anyway, here comes the real deal. and... it's gonna be a mess. just like the era itself was. i hope you're ready, at least.

even the very first echo of vocaloid3 felt kinda corpo-y. it wasn't, but.. looking back. it kind of felt like it. the first time we ever found out about v3 was through a leak of seeU's demo— but it was a work in progress leak, so it had the voice of her provider dahee kim singing along. people had no idea so they assumed this was the capability of the software. it was exciting! kpop was just starting to get popular, and we were getting a new vocaloid software, with korean capability!!!

anyway. we're not talking about the can of worms that was seeU.

not just because of dahee kim. but because it's not related beyond this. also the fact that korean fans were heavily and horribly mistreated by the majority japanese fandom for obvious reasons. i do not have the depths to speak on that stuff, but it says a lot that the software's first big swing ended up like that.

but i wanted to illustrate the mood of the fans going into this era. it was full of hopes and dreams. now, i don't want any wannabe know-it-alls wagging their fingers at me and checking the wikia going "b-but cullen, mew also came out!! at the same time!!" the seeU leak came out first. i remember there were fights over whether or not that demo was real. it was a cultural shift like no other. who the fuck cares about mew? literally her only legacy is one really amazing ezfg song. i will not debate anyone on this btw. i try to be objective but i'm allowed to inject a bit of my own opinion here too. you know who were also full of hopes and dreams? the companies. not your internetcos and your ahsofts, no, i'm talking publicly traded shits and record companies. look... i'm coming off harsh. i actually don't hold that much animosity, but you're gonna see why this was the first huge misstep of the era.

nice picture, right? this was the kind of optimism we started off this era on. but, i'll break down the picture for you in a way that helps illustrate a point somewhat:

your girlies from V2 like gumi (who was this era's it girl), lily, galaco (even if her shitty V2 version is contest only)

your earnest newcomers mew (look, even yamaha girlies count), cul, aoki lapis, seeU (one could argue.), IA (one could argue...)

tone rion of dear stage (who represented dempagumi inc., the group her voice provider came from, though this was a myth for years until it was proven... also it was clear they wanted to make the rest of dempagumi into vocaloids but rion flopped at the time. there was even a picture of her friends floating around. astoundingly embarrassing confidence. one billion dead vocaloids.)

akikoloid-chan of lawsons (yes, the convenience store! she is a vocaloidification of their mascot and i would argue the poster child of the modern brand private vocaloid. she was retired in uh.. 2019 i wanna say? though she was dormant for a long time anyway)

ring suzune, the aborted failure of minna no vocalo keikaku (everyone's vocalo-project)... this one involves a lot of otona no jijou AKA adult circumstances (japanese corpo's favorite excuse. you will now notice this phrase every time you hear it oooo). just unfortunate all around

yuzuki yukari of vocalomakets, i put her in a separate category because she really is a girlie of her own. a vocal born from producers being dissatisfied that their wants weren't being answered and no company was taking them up, they just went "fuck it" and produced yukari on their own. a huge outlier in this era of vanity projects and companies using the scene for their own crap.

not pictured, but i have to mention her due to her complicated position in this era, but mayu of exit tunes. exit tunes is a record label that heavily supported vocaloid and utaite during this era, signing both producers and utaite, and making compilation cds of popular vocaloid hits. and probably saw to it that due to their dominance in the area of compilation cds (and they still dominate, even if their releases are sparse these days their cds still top oricon without effort), them sneaking mayu into the tracklists would work... my thoughts on this? my position has softened a lot over the years. and i've always thought "they gave up right before she organically caught on, they should have kept pushing. so what a shame".

now you may notice i bolded a few of these and made special mention of the companies behind them. you probably already figured it out, but this era had heavy investment from parties who had only to gain from a rapidly growing niche subculture. see, unlike the other two of nnd's big three idolmaster and touhou, who are IPs where you need some kind of cooperation to officially get in on, vocaloid... is incredibly free, so laissez faire in comparison. you buy a 9,000 dollar dev kit and get to work making your mascot. it was... so easy. so free. so sweet. but real life is not so easy, or free, or sweet. you actually had to be accepted by the fans, and like i said before... the voice does not matter. what matters is who uses it, and how that propagate the voice. this is true time and time again. it is the ultimate "how many times do i have to teach you this lesson, old man?!" of the scene from a commercial standpoint. no matter how many years pass. ergo, one billion dead vocaloids. corpo vocaloids were releasing and they flopped immediately. earnest products from newcomers were dropping and struggling, though def doing better than the corpo ones (like lapis, lapis did ok). existing "in crowd" companies were vomiting out new vocals and not even promoting them. it was a disgusting era of excess and death and bile and plague and war and and and. it's astounding that it is hard carried by the art that came out of it. because if you only look at the commercial side of things, it is fucking disgusting.

now, onto the fan aspect. remember when i said this era truly kicked off when kagerou daze came out? yup. here it comes. so, anyone lived through this era remembers the cambrian explosion of original projects that did not make use of vocaloid mascots— arguably the final death knell of vocaloid-ke secondary works being the mainstream.

now, i'm planting my flag in the ground here very firmly— i do not ride the bandwagon of the people who erroneously attribute the near death of the scene to kagepro. it's just not true. personally i have a very complicated (bordering on near sort of but not quite negative, depending on how nostalgic i feel that day) relationship with the series, but to blame it is incredibly narrowminded and ignorant of the actual reasons the bubble burst, and not to mention unfair. if you find it annoying, fine. but just say you don't like the series and move on. and really, for better or for worse, mekakucity days and mekakucity records are unironically god tier vocaloid albums that will be remembered for years to come. i just have to say this because i see a lot of people blame jin for very flimsy reasons... SHUT UP!!! anyway.

i think one of the issues with the whole project culture that flourished during this era was simply the fact that since they were multimedia projects (whether by accident like kagepro or intentionally from the get), fans were coming from all angles, and even those who got into it through vocaloid eventually became super mega invested in them as separate IPs. which is... unfortunately an issue. so when these properties eventually spun off into manga, light novels, covers with real seiyuu, merch and ultimately some even netting anime projects... once those projects either abruptly ended (lol, lmao, this will come back later) or reached their natural conclusion, inevitably a lot of those fans either leave with it or found themselves burned out on vocaloid itself, or perhaps even think they've outgrown it.

next, utaite. now i mentioned a bit earlier about how the first batch of utaite were amateurs who didn't expect anything out of it and did it just cause, and how exit tunes signed a lot of them in this era. now, comes the time i speak about utaite "after piko and akiakane". i believe due to a generational gap and subconsciously perhaps due to the signing of a few utaite from the old guard at this point, the nu utaite of the 2010s had a sort of individuality to them... this isn't an insult, and a large part of their popularity actually came from them always collaborating and a lot of them ending up befriending each other. again, i'm an outsider, but i understand this much. but this era for utaite was the beginning of the idea that an utaite can become a superstar. in the end, very few of them did become superstars.

a lot of them naturally returned to a normal level of popularity after the bubble. there aren't a lot of your AtRs or your amatsukis and such. the smart ones became vtubers before being a vtuber was cool. to give an example: un:c and hashiyan who are arguably oldheads more than nu era became anjo and kosaka of monsterz mate. this isn't a doxx btw, this is publically available information, and un:c often credits himself as a mixer under projects he does as anjo. also, a certain duo of female utaite whose names i will not mention went on to form the super popular vtuber duo himehima. there are other early adopters like kano and god knows who else that i don't feel like mentioning. anyway, if your utaite did it after 2018 and under their own identity it is a desperate plea for attention. sorry but it's just the objective truth. tangent over... did you think i wasn't gonna shoehorn vtubers into this somehow?! anyway.

even sutopuri who got mega popular, only really formed after the vocaloid bubble burst, perhaps even as a result of it. utaite had a positive effect on the vocaloid scene and still do. but at the time, i think it was at its strongest. utaite NEEDED vocaloid, and vocaloid benefitted greatly from their continued patronage and love for it. i for one will not be caught slandering utaite and their relationship with vocaloid even if i will always prefer the vocaloid versions. the issue here comes from the fact that way too many were signed without much star factor (i'm not disparaging them, i'm just saying they did not hold their audience across the mediums), and even at that their fans splintered off into many tribes and many weren't really into vocaloid in the first place and were more into the livestreams and twitter banter. that's just how things shook out. you even have your reols and such, as reol was the face but in a sense her, gigaP and okiku were a set and gigaP left the scene to focus on commercial work with those two. too many of them got signed and splintered off into their own little fandoms before THOSE fandoms kind of died out. so this is another part where fans disappear and lose interest. you're starting to see the pattern here, right?

there's so much stuff i thought i would touch on, like how gumi was the undisputed it girl of the scene at this time, and how kagepro rose IA to prominence (all because jin wanted to buy gumi but didn't find her in the store) and how IA's people 1st place locked certain producers in their basement (like jin, yasuhiro, ishifuro etc) and... now this is a conspiracy on my part but prevented them from working on anything else, so that drew more talent away from the scene... but i realized it's tangential and belongs to other parts in this conversation. i want to reiterate here though before we go on to the biggest elephant in the room of all which would be the point of no return... there is more to the vocaloid bubble era of 2012-2015 than projects, than corpo and record company bullshit, than utaite fans. and there is more to the era before that than the top brass producers i mentioned earlier. i really... really lament how so much of early vocaloid reuploads are gone from youtube. there's a whole world just gone. so, anyway, are you ready?

the final block in this weird jenga of a story.

the producer, suzumu, and his unfortunate associates.

i will cut to the chase because it's easier to explain who was involved once i say what happened. to put it shortly... suzumu "stole" his songs. this is weird and vague and i always hated the way people used polite euphemisms to explain it because it made the situation way more confusing than it had to be— he used his producer friends as ghostwriters to compose songs for him, basically. and was very not nice about it according to one of the people involved. now i will probably adopt a somewhat sympathetic angle that people who have previously heard of this case may have not encountered before. not because i feel bad for that fuck, but because it seems like at least one of the people impacted has forgiven him, and others have moved on in less obvious ways. he's also professionally making music in the industry now. as much as i want to keep up the act of disliking him, i don't care anymore. i still dislike what he did immensely because it impacts producers i love to this day. but the man came forth about it himself and those involved forgave him. it's been almost a decade now... man!

suzumu, before getting into posting songs (who knows how many were actually his and which were ghostwritten), was a prolific lyric writer who worked with some of the trendiest vocaloid producers around. i'll cross gigaP out, since he was not involved in the incident, but almost every single person involved in this had worked with him in a lyric or story writing capacity (for 150P and komine specifically). here are the involved parties as i recall, bolded are people who he "stole" from

mafumafu, the person who spoke the most about it post suzumu's confession and the most vocal, and likely the person who was used as a ghostwriter the most (i don't recall if he actually alludes to this or not but people commonly think this). mafumafu had a series of vocaloid songs that told a story, but stopped using vocaloid after the incident for a while and songs that were going to get pvs from his first vocaloid album were not posted. he contributed a song called machigai sagashi for the vocaloid flavored moba #compass in 2015, but it seems like that song was probably in the works since before the incident for reasons i will highlight in a moment. suzumu wrote the lyrics for only one of the songs. iirc, mafumafu's song berserk is about suzumu. don't remember if this is confirmed or not. btw, the album of those songs, meikyou shisui, is really underrated and you should check it out. im not a mafu guy but that album is great

kemu, the person who is arguably closest to suzumu and the one who most publicly supported suzumu (albeit wordlessly) in later years by working with him professionally. when i mention someone forgiving suzumu, i mean him. suzumu wrote the lyrics for most of his kemu voxx songs, a famous multimedia project kemu was on the helm of along with hatsuko as the main illustrator. since kemu no longer had a lyricist, the project stalled for years until he posted a song suddenly in 2017 (with self written lyrics). it seems like the series is continuing still, but with a different direction

150P, who worked with suzumu heavily for his shuuen no shiori (bookmark of demise) project, a project that was conceived from the start to be a story. this part makes me really mad, guys!! i'll try to keep calm about it. 150P wrote over 50 songs (idk if this is an actual number but he wrote a lot. at least 40.) for the series, with suzumu writing the story and lyrics. the character designs were done by saine (who dodged a bullet all things considered.) and the art was done by komine. 150P was already doing crazy things before shuuenpro, his most popular song is still his insane 12-len classical metal chorus song lost destination. now shuuenpro caught on slower than its peers and was an underdog. i LOVE shuuenpro to this day. you know what? right when it was finally getting its first W, when the album that had seiyuu covers at come out on oricon in third place, suzumu dropped his confession. what a slap to the fucking face!! the manga of the series hastily wrapped up after that. 150P and komine disappeared and no longer did stuff ever. 150P recently appeared for a mafumafu anniversary thing so i'm glad he's still alive. but, komine...

komine, the only non-producer, an artist with the worst luck. she was slowly rising to prominence doing pv art for a lot of popular producers, and was the main artist of shuuenpro most prominently. during the initial release of the first few shuuenpro songs, she was accused of tracing, and the art of the pv of sarumane isutori game had to be done by someone else. komine stopped using social media at that point, but continued to make art for the project quietly and quite prolifically. so she was already on some kind of fraught standing even though the tracing allegations were disproven. fast forward to the suzumu blowup, komine packed up her bags and disappeared forever. if she had become disillusioned, i do not blame her. her final public contribution was the design of jeanne d'arc from #compass, the character who was paired with the mafumafu song. all subsequent artworks of jeanne were done by different artists. i suspect the reason the vocaloid version of machigai sagashi did not have a proper pv was due to komine quitting. i can only imagine what that pv looked like! if you're wondering why i mention a pv, it's cuz compass fans got mad at mafu for having a fancy pv for his self cover but not for the original. but otona no jijou, you know? and where is that energy for eve who still hasn't released a pv for mistletoe publicly and only put it on his kuso app and with 0 compass association? who let that wishy washy fuck do an anniversary song? ...im not gonna go on a compass tangent. anyway.

so... why does this matter?

it matters because people became disillusioned due to this drama. it matters because suzumu took out some very popular and prolific people from the scene during what one could argue was a transitional phase. the fans of all those people, including suzumu's... gone. if you weren't there, you may not understand the cult of personality suzumu had. he had his name on everything and was friends with all the right people. when i heard about this incident... i just closed my eyes and sighed lol. it hurt and it hit when the scene was at its weakest. and was the final blow, almost. and it impacted the way people saw and talked about vocaloid for years. miku became "owakon" for a time. people thought kizuna ai was gonna replace her as a cultural touchstone (lol, lmao, it is proven time and time again that the big three cannot die). kenshi yonezu, in all his detached glory, came down from his jeweled encrusted throne to compose a song for miku's 10th birthday that he smugly thought was the death knell of nico nico douga.... which even at the time of its release was contested by even people who were on the same miku anniversary project and, whether you wanna acknowledge it or not, is still mocked to this day by several producers. magical mirai's theme this year even does it. there is no respect for sand planet or anything kenshi yonezu stood for in that song. what an asshole move no matter how you see it. argue with the wall if you don't agree, i don't want to hear it. the scene survived because there were producers and artists and fans who still loved it. not because of some sardonic fuckoff song by a guy so detached he'd write a funeral march for a birthday.

these days, i feel like the community is incredibly conscious of what happened. there are wanton community led events that encourage not only the creation of songs, covers, art and secondary creations but also the discovery of new producers— the biggest of which being vocaloid collection, which happens three times a year and has many categories, but most importantly the top ranking (producers active for 3+ years) and the rookie ranking. i once read a japanese article that said proseka brought new fans hungry for something beyond the music presented in the game, and vocacolle and other community led events and song posting festivals supplied the works. the average age of the new vocaloid producer is— and this is my own estimate based on how many heart attacks i've been given the past 3 or 4 years— 17~19 years old. they say things like "i know of kagepro but i wasn't there"!! should i get my cane out!! who's driving me to the retirement home?!

even companies involved in the product end are more savvy these days.... (holding my tongue about a certain company of a popular synth software and its ceo because i have nothing nice to say). i think they realized that you can't clap with one hand and that appealing to the end user and fans is a necessity. honestly, i can only be excited for what comes next. we're never going back to that dark age, i can say this with utmost confidence. do i miss the past of the times before the bubble, back when vocaloid was a smidge more geeky? sure. but we can only really move forward, so why not enjoy it

[imaginesandbandfiction]

Story of Our Life

A Harry Styles Imagine

Pairing: Harry Styles x Reader

Word Count: 4.1k

Warnings: None

A/N: This is something a little different that was inspired by a dream I had where I was singing Story of My Life with 1D in a car... Also, I made some cover art on procreate plz don't judge my mediocre art skills lmao. Hope you like it!!!!!

Masterlist

Excerpts from

STORY OF OUR LIFE

by 

Y/N Styles

To Louis, the best chauffeur I’ve ever had.

To Liam, who keeps us all sane. Steady on, mate.

To Zayn, who always offers a shoulder to cry on (and a cigarette).

To Niall, the king of late-night chats (and snacks).

To Harry, for everything, forever.

Introduction by Harry Styles

Before she was my wife, Y/N Styles was Y/N Y/L/N. We met in 2011, six months before we would be setting out on the Up All Night tour. Even though I had been on TV, in recording studios, and performed live on the X Factor Live Tour 2011, I was still just a shy kid from Holmes Chapel who couldn’t quite believe his luck. I think I spent that whole year in a state of disbelief, afraid that at any moment, someone would tell me that it was all a joke and I wasn’t very good at singing, actually. Every time I took a shower, I half-expected Ashton Kutcher to jump out at me from behind the shower curtain. Y/N, on the other hand, walked into the conference room at Columbia Records, sat down at the head of the table, folded her arms across her chest, and asked us each, individually, if we had read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and, if so, how did we feel about it? Immediately, I knew that this girl was going to be someone special.

Her dad, Greg Y/L/N, was going to be our tour manager. When it was time for the label to put a team together, he was at the top of the list: a goofy dad with a daughter around our age who had toured with some of the biggest musicians of the 90s. He was the perfect choice for a bunch of kids who didn’t really know what they were doing: industry experience to make sure the day-to-day operations went smoothly, and the paternal instinct to protect us as best he could (we called him Papa Bear, which he pretended to hate, but we all knew he secretly loved it). 

We grew up together, spent months on end traveling the world, learning algebra on private planes and sneaking out of hotel rooms to wander foreign cities in the middle of the night. Fast forward to today. While Y/N was pregnant with Willa, our second child, she spent the whole third trimester on bed rest. Eventually, she got so bored that she scrolled all the way back on iCloud. Our older daughter, Hazel, was fascinated by the pictures of me and the band, and Y/N spent hours recounting our days on tour. I told her that she should write a book, but she refused at first. We have enough money, she said. People will think I’m making a cash grab. I told her that was bollocks, but if she really felt that way, she could donate all the profits to charity. It’s perfect, really, I said. The 20-year anniversary of One Direction is coming up, and it would be cool to give the fans a peek behind the scenes. Really, there’s no one better than you, darling, because you know the real us. She agreed, but only if all five of us were okay with it, and if all of the proceeds could go to The Trevor Project. So really, it’s actually me you should be thanking for convincing her to do this in the first place.

Anyways, here it is. The Story of Our Life: Growing Up With the World’s Biggest Boy Band, written by my amazing wife, Y/N Styles. 

Chapter 5

Out of all the One Direction boys, Louis was the first one to get his driver's license in America. He spent the few months leading up to the Where We Are tour with his girlfriend in California, and wanted to buy a fancy car to drive her around in. Hence, the license. So, when the tour made its way to North America, he somehow managed to convince my dad and the security team to let him drive us from the hotel to the venue a few times. Of course, the windows were tinted (and we were not allowed to open them), we were surrounded by a security detail, and there was always a bodyguard in the backseat, but it didn’t matter. 

On the night of the second show in Detroit, we all piled into a tricked-out Toyota Sienna, the best minivan on the market in 2011. Louis and Liam sat up front, I was squished between Harry and Niall in the middle, and Zayn and the bodyguard sat in the way back. We had the radio blasting and were singing along to some absolute bangers, like Party Rock Anthem and Super Bass, when the first few notes of Story of My Life started playing. Louis groaned and reached over to change the station, but I leaned forwards and slapped his hand out of the way before he could, turning the volume up a few notches. 

“Written in these walls are the stories that I can’t explain,” I sang along with Harry’s voice, turning to look at him with a mischievous smirk. He was mouthing along but bit his lip as soon as I caught him. Liam piped up with his part and I shook my head, laughing. 

“Do you guys seriously only ever sing your parts?” I asked. Next to me, I felt Niall shrug. 

“Feels wrong to sing someone else’s, even off stage,” he said, before chiming in on the background vocals as Zayn jumped in on his part. 

“Well, you should do it anyway, just for fun.” Liam turns around and lifts his eyebrows in a silent challenge. Harry and Niall jumped in, and soon we were all belting out the words to every part.

When the final chorus came up, I turned to rest my head on Harry’s shoulder, singing his part back to him. He was usually the shameless one, but his cheeks were tinted pink and he stopped singing for a few seconds. His green eyes were wide, but they never once left my own. I felt his chest rise and fall in a deep, steadying breath before he began singing again. 

From that moment on, Story of My Life was our song. Every time they performed it, he turned towards the side of the stage during the last chorus, where I sang along. On the rare occasions that I sat in the audience, his eyes always managed to find mine. We sang lines to each other all the time. Our favorite thing to do, much to everyone else’s dismay, was yell Zayn’s pre-chorus to each other from across a room. 

“And I’ll be gone, gone, tonight,” one of us would start. 

“The ground beneath my feet is open wide,” the other would respond. 

“The way that I’ve been holding on too tight,” the first person would say, before we both shouted, “With nothing in betweeeeeeeen!” That line was always the loudest, and we always dragged out the last syllable until we couldn’t breathe anymore. 

Chapter 9

When Harry’s solo album dropped, I was in class, taking my Algebra 101 final. My test-taking nerves were multiplied tenfold by the fact that I knew people were listening to it right now, and I wasn’t. We had kept in touch after One Direction broke up, mostly over text but occasionally, when he was in LA, he came to my house to have dinner with me and my Grandma (and Dad, if he was home).

I listened to it all the way through on the drive back home to Pasadena after I finished my exam, and as soon as I pulled into the driveway, I texted him. 

I signed up for a presale code, and refreshed my laptop continuously for five straight minutes in order to get tickets for his LA show. Harry was furious with me. When I texted him that I was officially coming to the show, he called me in the middle of a meeting with his tour team to yell at me. Something along the lines of, “I put you on the VIP list, you dumbass! And invites to the afterparty were just sent out yesterday!”

To be fair, I just wanted to support my friend, and to this day I still feel uncomfortable asking for free tickets from anyone when I have the means to pay for them. I think it’s all the guilt from five years of attending One Direction concerts for free. But anyways, that next fall, I found myself backstage at the Greek Theater with a VIP badge around my neck, feeling intense deja vu as security led me to Harry’s dressing room. 

“Y/N!” He yelled as soon as the door opened. I had no time to react; I was nearly knocked over by the force of his hug. His mom and sister were there, too, and I was passed around for more hugs before settling next to Harry on the couch. 

“So, how’s it going? How’s school?” he asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. That’s one of the things I love most about Harry; no matter how long it’s been since he’s seen someone, he always picks back up like no time has passed. He is scary good at keeping up with what everyone else is doing, even when his own life 

“Kicking my ass already and it’s only been three weeks,” I said with a chuckle. “But better than last year, that’s for sure!” Harry’s brows furrowed and he waited expectantly. “Did I not tell you that my original roommate was psycho?”

“No, I don’t think that’s come up before.” I pulled up a photo on my phone and handed it over to him without a word, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen his eyes wider than they were in that moment. 

“Holy shit,” she said.

“I wanna see!” Gemma whined, leaning across the coffee table to snatch the phone from him. “Oh my god, Mum, look!” She handed the phone to Anne, who frowned down at it. 

“This was your dorm?”

“For all of three days, yes,” you answered. “I’m not sure what creeped me out more, the life-sized cardboard cutout of Harry watching my every move, or the fact that she threatened to blackmail me if I didn’t introduce her to you.” Harry was doubled over with laughter with tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. 

“What are the chances of you, of all people, rooming with a crazy One Direction fan in college?” he asked, struggling to breathe enough to support his vocal chords. 

“The school investigated and they found an invoice for a private investigator on her computer in a folder with a bunch of my personal information and photos of me that looked like they were taken from behind bushes and trash cans. Apparently, she gave him that paparazzi photo from the week we were in London during On the Road Again and he was able to track me down.”

“He was able to figure out your identity from that photo?” I nodded, and Harry looked impressed, yet mildly disturbed. “She must’ve paid a fortune.” The photo in question features all five members of One Direction on their way into the O2 arena, and in the background, you can see the blurry back of my head as I slipped into the back door ahead of them.

When it was time for Harry to get ready, a security guard led Anne, Gemma, and I to the VIP section and we settled in for the show. He killed it on stage, and it was great to see him back in his element, joking with the fans between songs and waving to everyone he made eye contact with. He performed What Makes You Beautiful and the cheers were so loud, even in the small-theater setting, that I knew I would probably have trouble hearing tomorrow. 

“Alright, now normally I’d go straight into Kiwi, but there’s someone special in the audience today and this next song means a lot to the both of us, and she was the one who told me to sing all of the parts even though it feels weird, I hope you’ll forgive me for making you wait a few more minutes,” he said with a smirk, knowing that no one was going to complain about an extra song. My smile widened and Anne wrapped an arm around me, squeezing my shoulder, to acknowledge how special this moment was about to be. Just like old times, Harry looked straight at me as the intro music started to play. 

“Written in these walls are the stories that I can’t explain,” he began, and immediately tears started welling up behind my eyes. I joined in, leaning my head on Anne’s shoulder for support. When he got to the second pre-chorus, he yelled out “And I’ll be gone, gone, tonight!” and held out his mic for the audience to sing the next line, but I caught an almost-imperceptible wink as he smiled up at me and I knew that he could care less if anyone else chimed in.

“The fire beneath my feet is burning bright,” Anne, Gemma, and I screamed, hoping that we were loud enough for him to pick our voices out of the crowd. 

He sang the next line, and so did the audience, but I kept my mouth shut and joined in on the last line. He dragged out “between” so long that he had to jump back in on “I take her home.” I was the only one still singing along with him at that point, and the audience let out confused laughter, looking back and forth trying to figure out why he wasn’t moving on yet. 

Chapter 11

We’ve never talked about how we got together, and once the gossip magazines found out that I was the daughter of One Direction’s former tour manager, they just filled in the blanks themselves. I try not to read those things, but I do remember seeing a few headlines like ��CHILDHOOD SWEETHEARTS RECONNECTED!” over that grainy paparazzi photo of us in Holmes Chapel before the Manchester Love on Tour stops. Others spun the fact that I was doing PR on the tour into a fake “HARRY STYLES KISSES EMPLOYEE” scandal, and it just spiraled out of control from there. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

When the pandemic hit, I was at home in Pasadena with my dad and grandma. We had no other “bubble” because my grandma was immunocompromised. Needless to say, I got very bored very quickly. It got to the point that I would cycle through the contacts on my phone, Facetiming everyone in alphabetical order by last name until someone picked up. Harry was one of the only people who answered every single time. We ended up calling each other almost every day, sometimes to chat, or just to have someone there, in the background, while we went about our days. He was with his band, working on what would eventually become Harry’s House, and I spent many days listening to them work through different lyric and melody combinations while curled up in my childhood bedroom with my work laptop. He even interrupted a Zoom meeting I was in, once, excited to play part of “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” for me.

I was working remotely for a PR firm, after graduating college in 2020, my options were limited and, in the end, the place only gave me an offer because they worked with Columbia Records and knew my dad. I mostly wrote copy about movies to be put on Wikipedia or IMDB, which was super boring, so Harry seriously saved my life by letting me listen in on his studio sessions, or to the audio of whatever show he was watching and his commentary. 

By the time he was able to start prepping for Love on Tour, I was working at the firm’s office building on Sunset,  just about ready to quit my job and sell foot pics online. 

“Come on tour with me,” he said, (seemingly) impulsively, during one of our Facetime sessions in which he patiently listened to me complain about how Mark from accounting wouldn’t stop coming over to my desk to “chat” every hour on the hour. 

“What?” I answered, laughing a little. 

“Seriously, Y/N, it’ll be just like old times! We can race on the dolleys they use to bring the speakers in, and I’ll even let you win this time.” I rolled my eyes.

“It’s not really winning, then, is it?”

“Okay, fine, I won’t let you win. But I am serious, Y/N. You should join me on tour.”

“What am I supposed to do, just follow you around the world like some sad, desperate groupie?”

“I mean, you are a bit sad and desperate.” I flipped him off, to which he responded by cackling with laughter. 

“I’m sad because my job sucks, and desperate to get away from Mark, not to get into your pants.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be my mistress, you’d be doing PR for the tour, obviously.” Harry’s cheeks flushed with the slightest hint of pink, 

“Well, maybe you should have led with that!” I started laughing, too, and it took a while for either of us to be able to speak again. 

“Okay, sorry, I’ll start over.” He took a deep breath to calm his giggles, but still couldn’t manage to keep a straight face. “Y/N Y/L/N, I would like to formally request that you join me as my PR Manager for Love on Tour. My publicist is about to give birth, like, any day now so she obviously can’t go gallivanting around the world. Really, you’d be doing me a favor, and who better than someone who already has my dressing room requests memorized since half of them are actually yours.” 

“You still have the same dressing room requests?” I gave him a skeptical look. 

“Old habits die hard.” He shrugged. “And even though I don’t drink Diet Coke, having it in the fridge makes it feel like you’re there with me.” The pink was now red and I bit my lip to keep myself from smiling too wide. 

“Alright, Mr. Styles, you have a deal.”

Like he said, old habits die hard, so even though we were now adults and my dad wasn’t on tour with us, we still fell into our old routines. Back in the day, I was never allowed to be alone in a room with one of the boys, but we had our ways around it. Usually by walking through the hallways of the floor of the hotel everyone was staying on, checking in with the guards stationed at either side on every loop. So while we could have hung out in our rooms, more often than not, we walked through the hotel hallways in circles just like we used to. 

The night before the Pittsburgh show, Harry showed up at my door at 10pm with a bag of sour gummy worms. 

“It’s not Haribo, but it’s close enough,” he said with a shrug, flashing me his trademark “Harry Styles” grin. And just like that, we were off to wear a hole in the carpet, or so I thought. We hadn’t even made it through one full loop before he pulled me through a random door marked “Employees Only” and dragged me up three flights of stairs. 

“Are you taking me somewhere private so you can murder me?” I asked as we trudged through the dirty stairwell. 

“Something like that,” he answered. But when we reached the top, he opened another door and we were on the roof. 

The view was gorgeous, the moon was bright and cast a cool glow on the Pittsburgh skyline. I turned to Harry with wide eyes.

“Scoped it out earlier,” he said with a sheepish smile on his lips. “Just thought we could use a change of scenery.”

“It’s perfect,” I said, reaching out to squeeze his hand in thanks. “As much as I love hotel hallways, this is better.”

We sat on the edge of the roof, dangling our legs over the top of the building next door, and passed the bag of gummy worms back and forth as we talked. We were out there for so long that my eyelids started to get heavy and our conversation slowed down. I leaned my head on his shoulder and he wrapped his arm around me, huddling closer for warmth (or so I thought). 

“Wanna listen to some music?” He asked. I nodded and he pulled his Airpods out, sticking one in my ear and the other in his own. 

Story of My Life started playing and my heart rate sped up, pulsing adrenaline through my body. Suddenly, I was wide awake and hyper aware of every place our bodies were touching (thighs, hips, my shoulder to his chest, his shoulder to my head, his arm on my bicep). 

I lifted my head up and turned to look at him.

“Do you ever get sick of this song?” I asked. My voice was quiet because I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to know the answer. 

“No,” he replied. His voice was low and raspy and it made my stomach flutter. I felt myself leaning in, unconsciously, as he continued. “It reminds me of you, and I could never get sick of you.” 

He brought his free hand up to my face and rubbed his thumb in soft circles on my cheekbone, and his eyes flickered down to my lips. The distance between us closed as if we were replaying something that had already happened in slow motion. Eventually, I could just barely feel the soft brush of his lips against mine. My mouth fell open just a bit in anticipation of what was to come, but Harry paused. 

“It’s you, Y/N,” he whispered.”It’s always been you.”

Feel free to cross my name out and write in your own, I won’t be mad. I get it; what really happened was better than any self-insert fanfiction.

Chapter 17

I’m going to keep most of the details of our wedding private, but I will tell you about our first dance, because it ties into a lot of the other stories that I’ve written about. If you haven’t noticed by now, Story of My Life is sort of the underlying theme of this book, and that’s because it’s been the underlying theme of my life, the soundtrack to my relationship with Harry. 

After dinner, and some absolutely mental toasts, Harry and I were eager to get the party started. Even though he’s not the best dancer, I have never met anyone who dances with as much joy as Harry does, and I love getting pulled into his wild, spontaneous routines. But our first dance was different. The fairy lights surrounding the garden were twinkling in the moonlight, and Niall, Liam, Louis, and Zayn stood on the sidelines to sing, you guessed it, Story of My Life. We swayed in circles, gently, without trying to put on a show or impress anyone else. It was a beautiful, full circle moment, and the boys even dragged out “between” just a little bit to tease us. 

Life is funny. One minute, you’re sixteen and screaming “The fire beneath my feet is burning bright,” at your best friend and you think that this is it, you will be touring the world with your friends forever, and the next you’re twenty-seven and in a wedding dress, leaving mascara stains on the shoulder of his suit. But I wouldn’t change a thing, because I think it was written in the walls all along. 

[diced-sugar]

What is Sabre?

The last time I posted here was over three years ago. I suppose with this post I just wanted to give a little update on anyone that may have been interested in the Sabre game at some point, or mainly to chronicle what this blog was about for myself. I'm also not a big fan of internet mysteries left unsolved, so here's just some updates about the history of Sabre and myself.

Sabre was a game that I started to conceptualize in high school a short while after I played the original OFF. OFF is such a special game to me, very near and dear to my heart. Especially back then, it was one of my special interests and was at the forefront of my mind for years. I can't really describe what captivated me so much about it. It was the first time I had been introduced to absurdist concepts like that, if you can call it that, and its storytelling even in its simplicity captured me. I loved it so much, in fact, that I wanted more, which led me to play fangames and eventually design my own.

I started by writing out some dialogue and character concepts on a Google doc, and eventually bought RPG Maker 2003 and got to work. The main character, Mawren, which you can see in the latest screenshots of the new original build as well, was not inherently designed for Sabre, but instead just started off as a simple OFF OC for me. I designed the other characters based off of random things I saw in my life, such as a plant that was given to me for a holiday that I eventually made into to the merchant, Orpheus (the real life plant he's based off of is actually still alive! and its name is also Orpheus).

Anyway, I think barely anyone but me and a handful of others even know who the characters of Sabre are, not for any poor publicity reasons, but rather for the fact that I was very hesitant about sharing Sabre. Surprisingly, there actually is a finished build of Sabre which is still sitting on my computer. This finished build was completed sometime around very late 2019, very early 2020 as I remember rushing to finish it over my winter break for my friends to play. They were my main audience for Sabre, and while I don't talk to them anymore, I feel honored to know that someone enjoyed something I put so much care, love, and hard work into.

But anyway, this completed build was never meant to see the light of day in the OFF community. It was a first draft of sorts, a passion project which I could dump everything into without being too critical of myself. My plan all along had been to construct a version I saw would be more suited for others to play. I also felt, after playing other fangames which I really admired, that I used too many of the original assets of OFF and could have put more developed, original content into it of my own. That's only my own personal opinion in myself. I saw a version of Sabre in my mind that was some sort of improvement, though I still hold that original build near and dear to my heart. It's still a finished product after all, and anyone who works hard on a game or fangame no less should be proud of themselves, regardless of what others may say about the finished product.

But anyway, some time later after the original build, I began to work on a demo for the new Sabre. This would be available for the public to play, and I'd put it on the wiki for easy download. I don't remember exactly, but I think this demo went into about half of zone 1. By this time, my art skills had improved, but I remember I still struggled quite a bit in making my art look 'good' in the confines of the RPG Maker 2003 engine's constraints. Either way, I finished and published this demo on the OFF wiki.

What happened next is what made me give up on Sabre for a long time. I was fortunate to have someone kind in the community play my game and give me feedback on it, though to neither their fault nor mine, they encountered quite a few technical errors which I was embarrassed about. Then I received a message from another player calling me a slur and berating me on the mechanics of my game and how it paled in comparison to another fangame. It absolutely broke my heart and I didn't know what to do. After this, I deleted the demo from the wiki. When I recovered emotionally, I did work on yet another new build, which completely rehauled zone 0, the graphics, the characters, and the story, I stopped after a short while. To note, I'm not upset about that random player anymore. It was a long time ago, I'm a lot older and more emotionally mature, and from what I've heard, they're gone now. So it's all good!

Anyway, Sabre sat like that for a while. During this phase, it was still an OFF fangame. But my interest in OFF was waning as I moved onto other things. I still really adored all the characters I had made, but I began to question if I should keep it as an OFF fangame or not. I didn't want to include many, if any at all, of OFF's original characters, but I still really loved the world. This led me to making the version you'll see in the screenshots below, with Mawren in the forest. I constructed a whole different vision for Sabre, and while it still maintained some aesthetics of OFF, I feel it began to become too far removed to call it a fangame and instead just a game with OFF inspirations.

Now we are here. I haven't worked on either version of Sabre for a while, but I was thinking about it again and OFF and its fangames as a whole. So, I figured I would come back here and write this.

Where does Sabre stand now? Well, I'm not sure. There is a part of me that really adores it as an OFF fangame still. How could I not? That's where it all started, and I feel like it's still rooted in that somehow. But the other part of me desires more freedom than OFF's world, and as I said, my interest in OFF is far less than it was before. I feel that a compromise may be for me to combine the two latest builds of Sabre into one, and say that it just has OFF inspirations, or something like that. Maybe if I keep working on it, since I have gotten ideas for it since then, I'll just see where the path takes me.

But Sabre is not a main priority for me anymore. It's something I revisit every now and then. I have developed other original projects since then that incorporate more of my newer interests and those are my primary focus, since the only rules I'm constrained by are my own. Not that I think a fangame has to perfectly follow all of OFF's rules to be in its world, that's ridiculous. There's creative freedom. But you know what I mean. There will always be that part of me that might feel constrained by them.

So to sum it up, while I still will update this blog with Sabre game updates when I have them, I think they will be extremely rare. I'm 20, I'm in college now and a new semester is going to start soon enough. Drawing what I want is also more fun for me than having to make game assets all the time, and game development in general is a time-consuming process. Not that I don't enjoy it when I want to do it, but I feel like for me personally, I need to be in the right mood for it.

So, that's the deal with Sabre! Thanks for reading if you've come this far. My main goal with this post was to put this out there, mainly for myself so people weren't left hanging or wondering. Though I browse around a lot, I'm not very talkative to others on the internet because I'm quite shy and pretty low energy for socialization.

I also want to say that I think I still may be active elsewhere on Tumblr. I have an art blog, @diced-snowflake, that has been sitting empty for several years that I think I may actually start to use. My main platform for the past several years has been Instagram, but I want to see what things are like here on Tumblr too for my art. If you're interested, there may be something on there.

To everyone who is still out there developing fangames, good luck and I hope that developing them brings you just as much joy as it brought me. Create for yourself and just have fun. Only share it with friends if you want to--that doesn't mean your work is any less worthy. You're making it, you're putting your heart into it. That's what makes it worthy.

Anyway, that's all I've got. I hope everyone has a good day, if anyone else sees this! Now I feel like I can finally put this to rest.

[centrally-unplanned]

Here is my Comiket haul, for those who may care!

Arranged on the apartment chabudai for maximum weeb vibes. I won't go through all of them, just note a few to showcase the diversity of things that were on offer. If there is one someone wants a deep dive on, let me know, happy to take photos!

First up, the centerfold star - A Bocchi/Shimo-Kitazawa Fan Celebration doujin in the shape of a vinyl record:

Its extremely adorable, these guys went all in. It comes in an album case with "tracks", the vinyl-shaped doujin has an A side and a B side with totally different content when flipped, and when you are reading it the text slowly rotates page by page as if you are "playing" the disc.

Some of it is the circle's thoughts on Bocchi, but more is about their love for the part of Tokyo that Bocchi takes place in, Shimo-Kitazawa, with sections on show-accurate locations and favourite cafes and stores. They even included a map with all of the spots they recommend you visit in the area!

This one is to me the most "magic of doujin": we all have favourite parts of our cities, and if we sat down could maybe make a map like this. But why would we do that? Who would care? The joint power of a locally-set anime & Comiket, however, makes that personal map into a piece of art people want to own. This piece is pure creativity & passion, and its very special for that - a symbol of doujinshi.

Also one of their members spoke fluent English and aggressively upsold foreigners at the event ^_^ Successfully so! Good job.

For something a little less high concept, this tiny artbook of Rin from Laid-Back Camp as Ghibli characters is adorable:

A smol kiki, too cute. And look at her as Nausicaa! Full blue and ready to kick ass.

Its like 5 pages and each page is a gem, great buy.

This next one is a genre of book I really love - the photography/anime composite book focusing on scene locations, starring our girl Haruhi Suzumiya:

I appreciate how much fun this one has with its concept, lots of cute drawings on the margins; and the photographs are not all Haruhi related, instead it is just the author's own journey put through a Haruhi lens. This book is another great example of how "transformative" these works are, breaking the bounds of their source material.

"Hey, its me!"

Okay, now for some extreme Ash-brand doujin - Flowers for Yamada-san, a history doujin about Hiroyoshi Yamada, also known by the name Koji Kawamoto, a manga & magazine editor who played an instrumental part of the lolicon boom of the 1980's:

He passed away this year, and so this doujin is a memorial to him, an accounting of his influence and role in early manga, a wider discussion of the lolicon boom in general, and its own creative work; sandwiched between essays are comic depictions of moments of his career done in a mimicry the classic loli/bishoujo early 80's style:

This will of course take some time to read - I am excited to dig into it. As I have mentioned before, I am toying with the idea of a deeper research project on the "lolicon boom"; its, for understandable reasons, extremely neglected in western discourse of the history of anime & manga. But that moral aversion doesn't change how instrumental this period was, so I think a lot of good work could be done documenting and explaining its place. This book was an amazing find to stumble upon, and the creators are extremely well-researched on this period.

Anyway this is probably long enough lol. I did find some ero-doujin as well of course, though very few - as I mentioned, Comiket was a warzone, and I did not 'prep' for that side of things. I laughed at the idea of people doing days of research to prep of their porn buying adventure - I was the fool, they the wise, you absolutely need to do that if that is your goal. It wasn't really mine but I respect it now for sure - and I actually found the Comiket experience sort of liberating on that front, I "get it" now in a way I didn't before.

This is of course a tiny sliver of the book buys from Japan - hopefully I can make a few posts about the rest soon.