#but i think since main characters are mostly designed for us to like them

[hayaku14]

hello why is kaishin more popular than shinkai or what i mean is why bottom shinichi is like the most widely believed one? lol not really in the fandom just vaguely familiar with the anime from childhood it's just my mutuals likes this ship. i'd thought shinichi being the top would be more popular given his personality.

anon sorry for the late answer!!

imma be real honest with you, anon, i've loved the kidco dynamic since i was conan-sized but i only realized kaishin should be making out around 2021 so i don't know if i'm the best person to answer this question LOL BUT, i'll give you an answer!

tbh, i think for fandom shipping in general, the main character more often than not is the chosen bottom and whoever else is the other party is topping them. in japanese media especially, the ship names are mostly born from putting the kanji of their names together wherein the order of which indicates the seme and uke. since this happens early on, we kinda get stuck with that as the popular ship name whether you prefer the other way later on.

perhaps kaishin is more popular but not entirely by a lot compared to other ships where it's completely skewed to one side. i see a lot of shinkai too. ofc there are people who prefer one way over the other exclusively and that's completely fine!

personally, i think confining them into seme and uke or top and bottom does a great disservice to the kaishin dynamic because to me we should be looking at their sub-dom dynamic more and why they're actually peak switch sub and dom!!!!

that's fucking right kaishin is actually peak switch and i will die on this fucking hill!!!!!!!!!!

when you say shinichi would be the "obvious top," i'd like to assume in your heart you actually meant "the obvious dom" (LOL) but i think that could also apply to kaito.

i think the appeal of kaishin is the push and pull between them. the give and take. they're always trying to one-up each other. sometimes one pushes and the other gives way, sometimes it's the other way around.

i will be honest, perhaps switch pairings might just be my preference but I have never encountered a pairing that felt this completely equal in the switch department more than kaishin. like for other ships i'd sometimes be like, "yeah they switch but A is 70% more dom than B." But for kaishin I'm like, "oKAY THEY'RE 50/50 THEY'RE EQUALS THEY'RE PERFECT HALVES RAAAAAHHHH"

now how does this answer your question? well, i have no proof and im going off of vibes and like i said im no veteran in this ship fandom but, i think a lot of people do enjoy the other way around as you think it would've been. it's just that...it's something that can just be filed under the kaishin tag too. because it's basically the same sometimes. the only different thing is who's topping and bottoming. like sometimes i'm scrolling through twitter and i'd see art that's giving shinkai but it's tagged as kaishin and vice versa lol.

also personally i prefer calling them kaishin because i love the letter k and i associate the name shinkai more with makoto shinkai so every time i see people refer to kaishin as shinkai, my mind just conjures up an image of kaito, shinichi, and makoto shinkai together and i know that's fucking hilariously weird but it sometimes happens!!!! LMAO so even if i'm thinking about shinkai stuff, i still prefer using the name kaishin lol.

(but having the kaishin/shinkai distinction is definitely still useful especially for people who want to filter through one way or the other so fuck yeah to the ship name shinkai you're here to stay!!!)

anyway in conclusion, top shinichi is popular too dw lol, or maybe i should say bottom kaito is popular too lol i see yalls

also sorry that this answer is not only late but also a whole essay that doesn't even straightforwardly answer your question lol my bad anon

[arolesbianism]

Finally got around to looking at some french butterfly names for new game+ purposes and I thinkkkk I've narrowed down some options for most of the party. We'll see if I fully switch over to calling them their butterfly nicknames once it's set in stone but otherwise I'll probably just use them for dialogue and stuff if I ever write them more

[die-auster]

Some "if Yue is alive and went travelling with the Gaang" designs

With a ton of text about cultural inspiration.

The main book 2 look

I wanted to show cultural differences between the tribes, so Yue's look is sort of Mongolian. There were Mongolian-styled hats in the Northern tribe, and Yue's dress under the coat looked like a Mongolian deel (thanks @atlaculture for all these posts about clothes and everything else!), so it's not much against the canon information.

So she's wearing a deel again with a second layer - there are chinese actors on photos as far as I know; I hope it's okay. One-shoulder silhouette refers to later Aang's clothes because Yue is still kind of a spiritual person (she wasn't a fighter, so I want her to have some other useful talent – not a bender or healer like Katara or a non-bender warrior like Suki). Violet, pink and white were originally her colors, no changes here. Three blue characters would be too much for a group of five, and total white is not practical at all. I like to think that violet color shows high rank in the Avatar universe; in the original series it was only worn by princess Yue, Kanna, the chief Hakoda's mother, and by king Bumi.

Yue's boots here are mongolian gutals/gutuls (the collage is already big, but I used them again for one of Book 3-looks).

Her hair become simpler – just two braids and a hairpiece, to match her previous decorated hairdo. I guess if she's travelling with the Gaang she's not that much of a Moon Spirit anymore (maybe she returned the part of the moon spirit that saved her and was healed other way?), so I decided to forego the moon-referring part. Also it will be easier to do by herself since she has no servants now... The headdress I took from modern Mongolian dancers; the front part is crescent-moon-shaped.

The Ba Sing Se dress

I fell in love with this Ao Dai dress, it's simple, long and elegant. But... it's mostly Vietnamese… and I'm afraid that it's modern and not historically accurate. Also it does not really go together with other Ba Sing Se dresses :( because I did not want to just copy-paste some background look. But there is at least one dress with a tail, thigh high slits and a standing collar on the dress underneath, so... I guess my choice is not that bad? The tail makes her look more royal. The fan is the same which Toph and Katara had. For the palette I chose Yue's white color with EK greens and warm yellow/ochre to match Katara and Toph. The hairdo is copied from the series; I chose one with the tassel on the right, to refer the NWT/Korean accessories.

The Fire Nation disguise

A confession – I don't like FN clothes. I wasn't sure if I would be able to do it properly, so I almost copied that attire (left one) – asymmetry, as a Thai touch, which again matches Aang's Invasion Buddhist-like clothes. The palette keeps Yue's signature white, with some pink of a warmer shade, as they wear it in the Fire Nation. And the "royal" long skirt, 'cause she's still not a fighter. The look is simplified so I could not keep zigzag ornament on her longyi skirt, therefore I moved it onto the top part.

I used Thai dancers jewelry and... flip flops? idk how they are called in Southeast Asia (don't like Sokka and Katara's FN shoes at all, why the design is so complicated?).

For covering her hair I used a turban, inspired by Myanmar turbans; a white one, so if some hair will show, it won't be too noticeable. Also Yue could still be easily recognised on screen/page by her white head. The long end of the fabric on her right resembles burmese hairstyle silhouette.

The Invasion-and-till-finale look

For her dress I used a deel (again); the sleeveless jacket is an hommage to her original design and has some Korean vibes, like Toph's Ba Sing Se dress (at least I hope so). Katara and Sokka's season 1 looks have Korean influence, so I guess it's okay. Gutals are from her Book 2 main look. I have a soft spot for them.

My favorite thing is her hair :)))) It's a mix of Inuit/Mongolian braids and a hairpiece, also from the Book 2 look. This time there will be more braids. Two on the front – I wanted to keep them from her original hairdo, but now they are braided together (I saw this on the Alaskan Inuit/Eskimo women photos). On the back there are five, inspired by a Mongolian hairdo for young unmarried girls, who wore multiple braids. I decided to make five, because Alaskian Inuit language uses this amount for counting and with two front braids it'll make seven, which is a lucky Mongolian number. And in theory a limited number should be easier to animate.

The post-canon noble look

After the final battle I thought Yue will come back to Agna Qel'a and become a more active political figure. I chose a white kuspuk (blue color is still for Katara and Sokka), showing that she is ready to lead her tribe after this journey, not the passive perfect princess she was before. "She is associated in canon with the masculine yang of the yin and yang and the moon which, in most Inuit and Eskimo cultures, is considered masculine as well. While white kuspuks are associated with men and specifically family patriarchs, a feminine kuspuk in white makes plenty of sense for Yue's character" – @mostly-mundane-atla helped me a lot with the cultural meaning of the clothes (I am so grateful!). Also it's an hommage to her total-white Moon Spirit look. And I changed her hair again to Greenland updo with two tied braids on the front – more complicated than the simple braids she wore during the journey. It looks formal.

NWT is less Inuit-inspired and has a strong Mongolian touch (to make them look more "modern"? dunno) but I guess the formal wear for the spiritual princess could refer to older traditions. Which should be the same with SWT, 'cause SWT was originally a part of NWT – or so I heard. For example, Kuruk, the NWT Avatar who lived about 400 years ago, has nothing Mongolian in his look.

All the looks are simplified to match the style of the original cartoon. I know there should be more details and embroidery, but my goal here was to draw something (at least theoretically) applicable for animation. And no Hahn's betrothal necklace of course.

Also I want to mention here other great Yue designs, since they are the inspiration behind the overall idea of the post – the moon looks and "Yue joins the Gaang" outfits by amazingly talented @chiptrillino.

P.S.: an important note

This is my first attempt ever to design outfits that could fit the world of A:tLA. I am not Asian or ingenious, not an expert in their cultures or costume history at all, not a professional character designer. I am just a fan who tried to create designs with respect to real cultures and people. Nothing here was supposed to be offensive in any way. If something still is – please inform me so I could fix it as soon as possible.

I hope, as a fan, I have the right to draw fanarts looking for an inspiration in the cultures that inspired the original cartoon.

If you see mistakes in my post, be it in drawings or a text, also feel free to tell me. I will deeply appreciate it.

[knight-a3]

The Carmines

Design notes under the cut, plus human designs!

These ones were a little tough because there's not really a canon time period they're from, as far as I'm aware. I ended up running with 1940s, because I needed to commit to something, and I guess the 40s was it.

--Carmilla--

Design:

--Color pallette- I wanted to use a steely cold grayscale, but include an accent color. I stuck with this for all three of them.

--hands- I didn't like how bulky canon made her arms, so I just altered them to be more aesthetically pleasing to me. It balances with the rest of her design better, imo. The main idea is that she was an arms dealer, so her arms were enlarged.

--hair- I did not like the horn styled hair. Her daughters have actual horns, so I wanted Carmilla to have real horns too. Her hair is now in a bun because it feels like a more businesswoman look, as well as being reminiscent of a typical ballerina hairstyle.

--outfit- the shapes on the canon dress is just a tad too complicated for my liking. So I wanted to simplify them a bit. So I tried a few different things. I tried things more similar to the stereotypical tutu, but it didn't feel right. So I eventually found a blazer that felt right. It had just enough of a 1940s powersuit vibe while resembling her canon look and hinting at a skirt.

--ballet- she clearly has a strong ballet theme. I spent far too much time trying to understand how the leg wraps work. But I got it mostly worked out.

--ice skates-One thing that I do not understand about canon, is that they gave this character plot relevant bladed feet, but didn't make them ice skates. Ice skates are literally blades strapped to feet, and can be deadly.

Many figure skaters will have a ballet background, because the skills translate decently well. So I am making her an ice skater too.

--Background--

Life: She was an ice skater and ballet teacher, and two of her students were Odette and Clara. Their biological parents were either out of the picture or abusive, so Carmilla started treating them as if they were her own daughters. They all emotionally adopted each other.

Life got a little difficult during WWII, and Carmilla ended up taking advantage of the weapons market. Particularly the black market. Not sure how a ballet teacher ends up doing that, but whatever. She has a shady background, I guess.

She's Latina, but I don't have a specific nationality in mind.

She's in hell because she was in the weapons smuggling business. And also I think something happened to Odette and/or Clara and she killed the perpetrators in revenge.

Death: I haven't decided. Either early 1950s or mid 1960s. Cuz that's just what my instincts say. Probably died in her 40s or 50s, so she has that "mom of young adult children" vibe.

Afterlife: She made it her entire purpose to protect her "daughters". Everything she did was to make their life in hell as palatable as possible.

She got into the market of weapons manufacturing. Since hell is full of people who like using weapons, it was very profitable for her. She's only recently discovered the potential of angelic steel with the help of Odette's scientific curiosity.

--Odette and Clara--

Ballet: Both of them are ballet themed because of their relationship to Carmilla. Swan Lake specifically because it is very famous. And Odette is the name of the main character. Odette is a white swan, while Clara is a black swan. BUT, their roles do not match Swan Lake's Odette and Odile. Clara does not parallel Odile, who is the secondary antagonist in Swan Lake. (Except that maybe she is used by her father to do bad things, but idk).

All three have thematic parallels because of their familial bond, despite not actually being related. Demonic features in sinners are not hereditary. They're determined by life circumstances of the individuals, but sometimes the relationships they have will give them similar features. (Angie's family are all spiders because of the nature of their mafia involvement)

Odette and Clara turned to Carmilla as their parental role model because their actual families were awful.

Swan Lake vs Science: Odette is Swan Lake themed because of her name and ties to Carmilla. Canon minimizes the ballet theme in favor of a scientist instead. So, I feel that implies her interest lies in science. But I wanted to emphasize the ballet aspect and give her clear swan design elements. Her hair and dress is feathery, but the dress is also reminiscent of a lab coat. I removed her glasses in favor of the face mask design. Doing both was too cluttered.

Clara was harder to pin down since we don't know much about her. But I went with black swan to match with Odette. She is similarly feathered.

Life: Odette didn't really want to do ballet, she wanted to be a scientist. But her abusive parents forced her. She was a victim of forced dieting to achieve the ideal ballerina figure. Odette tolerated it because of the relationship she developed with Carmilla and Clara. She eventually went to college and majored in science. Not sure what she did to end up in hell. Maybe she killed someone, idk.

I don't have a clear idea for Clara, because I only have the swan lake motif to go off of. Not much canon info. But her family situation needs to be bad so she gets attached to Carmilla and Odette.

Death: Haven't solidly decided on anything. Probably in their 20s. There's just not much canon info for me to base anything off of. I'd have to take some pretty significant creative liberties. Even if I go a completely different direction than canon, I still like having more canon info to use as a springboard.

Human designs: I wasn't super committed, so they haven't gone through much refining. Carmilla is in her arms dealer business outfit. I gave Clara something called a "Play Suit" because her canon outfit does not fit the time period I was going for(1940s).

Afterlife: Again, not much on Clara. Odette is involved with the research and development of Carmilla's weapons manufacturing business. It was her scientific curiosity that led to the discovery of angelic steel's potential. It's still a recent development, so it hasn't been incorporated into their products yet.

I thought they introduced the angelic weapons a bit too quickly. I wish they'd let us get more familiar with what happens when characters are killed in not-permanent ways. Why do they avoid getting hurt as if it's actually a threat to them? What is regenerating like for them?

(Edit notes will go here as needed)

[heartslabyuls]

been messing with this for a while, but i think i’ll finally post the first three dorms for my swap au!!

these aren’t necessarily what i think the rsa uniforms would be in canon, just how i’d personally adapt them to the main cast in these positions. i don’t think a dorm based on the lion king would even exist at all in canon rsa.

design notes below the cut!

the pictures above the characters are the iterations/versions where i drew most inspiration for each design, both physical and writing. riddle and ace had the most inspiration taken from different places.

Heartslabyul —> Eccentryul

riddle’s design is painfully obviously ripped off of the alice in wonderland black butler ova. i spent so long sketching out ideas for him then ended up rewatching some black butler episodes and literally stole ciel’s clothes.

since eccentryul doesn’t have a dress code, all students are free to dress as they please. riddle is meant to look like an outlier among the other members of his dorm to highlight his role as the alice of the group while still looking like he belongs there. every character is wearing some kind of coat, however riddle is the only one with something overtop of it. all characters have slightly more muted colors in their clothing whereas riddle’s blues are a bit brighter.

trey and cater, as the third year pair, have flat colored hair without any change. ace and deuce as the first year pair have two colors in their hair. and riddle has no coloring to his hair at all as the only second year.

riddle’s headband is tied to resemble bunny ears! he no longer has his heart ahoge, unfortunately too much damage to his hair has made them recede back into his hair. but! his bangs have the general shape of a heart to make up for it!

deuce’s shoes were inspired by chat noir from ladybug. the paws look is adorable and i use it whenever i can. ace also has pawbs shoes, but they’re slippers! specifically the kind of slippers you could wear outside with the firm bottoms.

Savanaclaw —> Savirvana

i looked at so many possible references and did my research on kenyan clothing trends and traditional styles, but NOTHING i did came out right, so i just ended up basing it off of the outfits from leona’s hometown event. i simplified them a bit more than those, because event outfits tend to be more dramatic and detailed than the base outfits.

leona’s skin was shifted to a darker, more red tone, to match the deeper red tones of his hair. his warmer colors give off a more approachable feeling compared to the cooler, dark tones of his original design. his tattoo is a butterfly to symbolize the change simba experiences in his character arc in the movie.

ruggie is still pale, however he’s now tanned due to his constant time outside in such a hot and sunny environment. his freckles are kind of hard to see in the image quality but they’re still there! ruggie really doesn’t change much, his personality is already very firting to timon and pumba-

jack’s hair color also sees a significant change, mostly because there were too many white-haired characters LMAO. the brown colors give him a calmer look, fitting his personality more than the bright white hair and tail. unlike leona and ruggie, since jack grew up in an environment with a wider variety of temperatures and climates, he isn’t as used to the sun and thus keeps his arms covered and protected to prevent damage from too much uv light. don’t mind how the stripes of his pants look different compared to leona and ruggie’s, they were so annoying to draw and i got sick of it by the time i got to him 💀

Octavinelle —> Sidonis

i got the idea to base the uniform for the dorm of the sea off of sailor outfits/uniforms and that was my peak design moment. i will never reach that level of genius ever again.

sidonis’s uniform consists of light, flowing fabrics in order to not drag them down in water. their shoes resemble water shoes! for obvious reasons, so they aren’t ruined by salt water or just water in general.

jade and floyd still remain opposites, and i tried to portray this more with their hair. jade’s hair is neatly styled, with a black coloring to further symbolize his supposed “maturity.” floyd’s is unkempt, with the same black streak more highlighted among the white, to showcase his unpredictability.

floyd also seems to be missing a tooth. i wonder if jade knows anything about that.

azul’s housewarden uniform has a trail of tulle(? maybe chiffon?) tied into two, flowing tails to replicate ariel’s mermaid fins. he has a lot of diy and homemade jewelry to reflect her creativity and resourcefulness, including the shell necklace.

[lolbree]

returning to my roots for just one second ha. [Click "keep reading" for some design notes and lore! I gave my own interpretations of their personalities/character below. :D]

So I've been really into writing recently. For those who follow my main you would've seen me post lore dumps on my ocs! So honestly I thought it'd be fun to come up with some fanloid concepts. Itz funsiez.

Fanloids are what they sound like; a fan's interpretation of a pre-existing Vocaloid. These guys can be fucking anything. A fan's imagination has no limits. Two of the most notable versions of a fan's Miku are the "dark mikus"; Zatsune and Hagane Miku. Zatsune's the "evil" villainous version of Miku, while Hagane's kinda just a chill metalhead version. The two are like sisters and bond over their Fanloid origin, but they're completely different in personality.

Zatsune takes pride in being a Miku Fanloid. Miku is undoubtedly the most popular Vocaloid in existence, so she wears being an interpretation of the world's most famous singing robot like a badge. She's pretty full of herself, sort of envious of the popularity Miku really gets, so much so that she'll impersonate Miku (in the worst way possible) so the other Vocaloids are like "man Miku's kinda being a dick today". She's sort of the villain that acts as a complete pushover and foils their own plans every single time.

Hagane's the more laid back one. She honestly was just created to be a somewhat pessimistic metalhead version of Miku. She has no vendettas towards Miku like Zatsune does. She kinda finds Zatsune's jealousy silly considering she's not the only Fanloid of Miku out there (girl that ego is HUGE on Zatsune). Zatsune sometimes tries dragging her into the antics of bullying Miku, Rin, and Len, but is always met with Hagane not giving a shit and kinda telling her to chill out. Her persona onstage is more aggressive and eccentric, but backstage, she mostly she keeps to herself. She just likes the guitar.....and LED lights.

You might be wondering what Miku herself thinks of these two? You know what they say. Identity theft is the biggest form of flattery! ...Jk no she doesn't mind the Fanloid Mikus, but I mean how would you react seeing two dark versions of yourself at first. Naturally the other main Vocaloids were like "wtf" when they saw two other Mikus show up.

Okay now for the design notes!:

Zatsune was modeled to have more sharper edges compared to Miku's roundness. Hagane was designed to be more lanky given her more "doomer" personality.

Both Zatsune and Hagane edited their own voices so it's "rougher" since originally, as prototypes, they just had the same voice as Miku herself. ...And they didn't like that.

Zatsune's also pretty picky about singing. If it's a Disney-villain esque musical number, hell yeah! Horror music? Hell yeah! Sappy music about friendship? Hell no!

Being robots, they can paint themselves without worry. Hence the black lipstick on both of them.

Hagane's hair's a little messier due to her being a hardcore metal robot. Rocking it out on stage has gotta mess that up a little bit.

Hagane uses glitter spray in her hair. Listen even the goth-loving metalhead can like glitter.

[jess-the-vampire]

Professor Caduceia and Snakely

Checked out the storyboard for the deleted s1 episode "Homesick"

You can read it here : https://t.co/WpZJFWbR48

I just loved these cut villains, one whose design def seemed like it was given to raine when they got cut. (I wonder if the color palette was similar, but we don't have a reference to that so idk)

Thoughts on the cut episode below:

An episode where king and owlbert of all characters bond is kinda neat, especially since it provides owlbert himself a bit more character here.

The opening is def far different from any of the final ones we ever see in the series, in fact it feels like it should be taking place during the episode but it can't be given we see hooty from being sick to not being sick in pretty chronological order?

A focus on the healing coven was nice to see, especially since we never got that in the show itself, and get some idea of their powerset and what they do magic wise.

So Manny was an ambulance driver, and Camila was a nurse in this. People originally assumed camila was a nurse when the show started, and it makes me wonder if that was changed between seasons at some point cause clearly the crew decided to change her profession and it's unclear why.

you can use your palisman as a communicator? and an umbrella? I do think it's so weird that even at the very end of the show, they establish brand new rules for palisman. Like them being able to shapeshift into objects is straight up not explained and just sorta....happens in the show, like i feel like hunter would have no issue hiding flap if this is a thing. (It also kinda makes stringbean's ability slightly less unique) Like this is displayed in these boards, but they kept it even in the show itself, and i think palisman might need a proper rulebook.

On that same note, owlbert uses magic in this board, like we kinda knew palisman could do some magic without a witch, but this is the only time we've seen one use it to fight another witch that wasn't the batqueen. Like owlbert tries to full on blast people in this. I don't know if removing this episode makes this ability less canon in the world itself since they still can do magic in the show, it's just worth noting that palisman, according to this board, CAN fight back, even if they're not incredibly strong it seems. Certainly the kinda thing that makes you think on other episodes tbh.

This episode also brings up the idea that eda actually CAN and DOES bring human food to the BI, which never happens in the show, in fact luz implies she gets to eat very little options there, so this idea seems no longer canon?

The demon hunters at one point don't even seem to recognize owlbert as a palisman, which does not entirely make sense given they seem to be mostly common to the townsfolk, so I'm kinda glad for that plot hole being gone.

Caduceia makes it out like the emperor's coven forced her to teach? and she thought handing over a house demon to belos would get her out of teaching as if it were some kinda punishment or job she was made to do? I have questions

side note, house demons are called rare in this, like they're not common, not sure if this still applies in the final show, but yeah.

there's some very sweet moments in this with luz and eda especially, but also some funny moments, and some jokes that land a little less....i don't think we needed Caduceia to be kissing her snake like that from that angle, even if it was meant to be a little uncomfortable.

one reason i think this episode did get cut? we got a glyph in this

a healing glyph, which has some ties to water based on it's symbol

i'm guessing since they kept the main glyphs element based, a healing glyph would of stuck out and been a bit weird. Like it just heals people, it doesn't produce water despite looking close to the alchemy symbol for water, and well....we already got ice so this would be redundent.

so yeah, this episode introduced a new glyph that saved them in the end so it would of come back in future episodes, but to keep it simple that would mean cutting the entire episode as a whole just to keep the four.

Since they enjoyed Caduceia's design so much, they must've repurposed it for raine somewhere down the line.

very fun insight into a scrapped episode.

[kingprinceleo]

Vampire Au Master-ish Post

Summary -

Angel Island is the only life Sonic has ever known. Being trapped within the permanent barrier encasing the 8 islands isnt quite his style, so finding a way to destroy it and explore the world below has been his goal for as long as he can remember. Hes got a number of other things keeping him occupied however, trying to prevent the Robotnik family from taking over total control of the islands. 

When he isnt fighting them off, hes hanging out with his friends, living his best life being a vampire both day and night. When he wants to get everyone off his back, and feed from his favorite vampire hater, Shadow, he uses his magic staff to change his appearance into an alter ego, Hoax the "Tenrec.”

–

Vampire au is a generally slice of life episodic style au, mostly focused on being lighthearted and goofy. 

Occasionally plot driven with slightly heavier themes though. (And sometimes I hit the angst button for funsies)

Major Locations-

Angel Island- One main island and 7 smaller islands surrounding it, completely encased by an impenetrable barrier powered by the chaos emeralds. Separated into the Wild Zones and City Zones. 

City Zones are Geralds surveillance state, a massive sprawling city with high tech from Ivo. The second sector of the city, a bit farther out, is Ivos sandbox, filled with casinos and terrible attractions, and many of his bases. Both plan to expand further into the island, they beef a little over who gets what. 

Wild Zones are less developed areas further away from their reach, more community based overgrown homes. Left to nature and the recovery from old ruins. Sonic protects these areas with his life.

Sol- A pocket dimension, a society of majority vampires and mobians living peacefully together. The kingdom of Sol is a deep cave underground, with strange lush vegetation and ceiling so high it mimics the sky. There's massive tree roots buried deep in the canyon, an important food source for the vampires. 

Accessed by a closed gateway hidden deep within Angel Island. Sol is the origin of vampires.

The mainland- the rest of the world outside of Angel Island 

Characters-

Sonic- Bitten by a vampiric Chao around 5 years old, Sonic is a free spirited vampire who likes to live life a day at a time. He's thinks of himself as a smooth charmer, and he's a bit of a dater.

He loves the thrill of any sort of adventure he can dig his claws into on Angel Island, mostly stopping Eggman's onslaught of bots from trying to turn the untouched wild areas of the island into his newest casino. 

He's up both day and night, usually only crashing to take naps, or otherwise being forced to sleep by his friends. Though the sun hurts him, he finds himself always missing the days where he could soak in its rays.

Hoax, Sonics night form, is a purely cosmetic change he shifts into with his star staff, a gift from Amy. He uses it for days when he wants a break from people trying to Get Him 24/7. He used to use it to break into Eggman's bases, where a strange, but tasty artificial blood was being held. More recently it's become a way to secure drinking that blood from the host himself.

Shadow- Shadow is a paranoid mess of a man, with a deep running hatred for vampires, decked out in silver to keep them away. Though he prefers to be left alone, he will take any and all opportunities to kill a vampire if he suspects they want anything to do with him. It is often misguided. During the evening he works as a cook under Knuckles. During the night he heists the Robotniks facilities with Rouge, looking for any goods. 

Whenever he travels out to the city zones, he wears a mask and full outfit designed after a vulture to hide his identity since he's wanted by the city. 

Shadow has a special blood type, artificially made and containing black arms blood, it has strengthening and healing properties and tastes good to vampires ! Shadow tries to protect himself and his blood at all costs. Unfortunately he made a deal with Hoax to feed him. Also has no idea he has chaos control, the power is dormant in his body. Though he can manipulate the energy from Chaos Drives a little bit. He relies on guns and knifes day to day.

Amy- A half vampire seedrian witch. She's full of life and a bit quirky. She is learning to incorporate magic into all aspects of her life. A lot of attempts tend to cause chaos but she's always learning something new! She has a little bit of a crush on Sonic and has always dreamed of proposing to him with a ring that would protect him from the sun, though she isn't skilled enough to create it yet. Being a seedrian vampire means the flowers on her head need to photosynthesize under the moonlight to eat rather than drink blood. Though she does have a deep and instinctual urge to kill plants.

Tails- a lonely engineer, working on the edge of the city. New to teenagehood, he's edgy and grumpy all the time. He's very distant from his friends, incredibly insistent he's all grown up and needs no one but himself. 

Knuckles- a hard working farmer out in the wilds, using his produce to supply his pizza food truck, which recently upgraded to a brick and mortar restaurant. In his free time he goes around Angel Island to treasure hunt and learn about the history of the island, littered with many ruins of ages past. 

Rouge- a sneaky vampire who lives off the grid, completely unknown to the surveillance state of the city. Shadow lives with her in her home carved inside of a mountain to hide both of them. Huge fan of bat and blood themed decor. Shadow does Not know she's a vampire. Vampirism enhanced her bat features, incredibly good hearing to the point she needs to constantly wear noise canceling earbuds, and a massive wingspan.

She likes to rob the city, and exchange those goods for information from her shady dealers about gemstone hotspots on the island. Eventually she smooth talks her way into a position of power working under Queen Blaze of Sol to spy on Gerald.

Blaze- Queen of the pocket dimension Sol. A few gateways exist on Mobius, one residing on Angel Island, though it has been cut off for years until Rouge reactivated it. A cold but caring ruler, she controls the artificial sun in their kingdom, keeping all of her vampiric subjects safe and happy. Rarely ever makes time for herself. 

Silver- Blazes best friend who lives with her in the castle. (Need to add more for him :(). Works with Rouge and Mephiles dealing with matters on Angel Island. Eventually gets shark teeth from fusing with Mephiles too often.

Mephiles - Blazes comically evil advisor, she keeps him around because he's an old family friend, and an Ancient Vampire with vast power. Has no mouth to drink blood with, so he needs to possess the bodies of others. Silver willingly lets mephiles fuse with him, to feed, and to grant silver a power boost.

Gerald- after losing Maria he became very unwell, spending years accumulating power and taking control of the city. He's lost himself. Shadow was stolen from him years ago. He's still looking for him.

Black Doom- Doom wed that old man. Visited the day the barrier went up, now he's stuck here. Now that he's no longer able to take over the galaxy, his next evil plan was to become a landlord. Terrorizing people who live in the city. 

Maria- Died in a targeted mob attack on Angel Island, Chaos and Tikal pitied her and let her have a spot in the master emerald ghost club. 

Random lil plot stuff- 

Sonic is a regular at Knuckles pizza place, likes to be annoying. One day they Will make him a chili dog pizza. Knuckles hopes he explodes but Shadow actually wants to kill him. He's not allowed to jump Sonic on the clock or else his pay gets docked </3

Random little bits about Sonic trying to steal from the claw machine and getting stuck, and trying to get a “delivered in under 30 minutes or free” pizza from the restaurant.

Sonic started a trend of extreme gear racing in Hydro City. He can also do a bunch of little party tricks with his star staff and knows nothing useful.

Shadow has massive gaps in his memory due to repression, he barely knows anything about his life before 16 (present day he's 19).

Knuckles and Shadow are close, knuckles being the first to find him. Since Shadow can't buy anything under his own name, Knuckles got him a hover motorcycle for deliveries.

When Shadow tells Knuckles about his deal with Hoax for the first time, Knuckles punches hoax so hard it turns him back into Sonic, making Knuckles the first to learn his identity outside of Amy, who helped him create the form.

Amy likes to follow Sonic on dates sometimes and mildly inconveniences them with her magic. Sonic usually finds this game more fun than the actual date

Maria and Tikal haunt the pizza place. They can eat pizza . They crave it. They also feed it to Chaos. Maria tries to talk to Shadow but he doesn't know who she is.

When making the blood deal with Shadow, Hoax had no idea Shadow was the guy under the vulture mask. He would have thought twice if he knew. Shadow also cut Hoaxs right hand during their first fight, its a permanent scar. Shadow says hed do it again.

Hoax slowly realizes how deeply unwell this little freak is. 

Right when they kinda start getting comfortable with each other, a weird artifact that knuckles finds allows them a glimpse into the future. Sonic and Shadow are married. Hoax has to play it cool while Shadow starts loading his guns. This haunts the rest of their relationship development.

Amy delves into dark magic when she starts getting desperate about how slow she's progressing with her magic skill. It has adverse effects on beings created by her magic once she goes too far.

Mephiles lives in a comically evil wizard tower in the Sol castle. Mephiles can also shapeshift after drinking peoples blood, he can only shift as long as the blood is in his system.

Silver really wants Shadow to explode for trying to kill vampires, his friends and family.

(Things are still in rework state and also im forgetting things rn so more will probably be added)

[dreamsy990]

GOD DESIGNS TAKE 2 im much happier with these ones. also calypso and circe here now. once again gonna discuss all my ideas behind the designs and the changes i made to the old ones THIS TIME WITH PROPER GRAMMAR. you guys should consider yourself lucky. so yeah closeups and explanations under the cut

(lineup for scale btw)

So some general notes before I get into the specific designs. These guys are mostly an excuse to make designs that can be just about anything! I operate off the idea that gods can choose how they appear (within some limitations), and so they can just look however they like. The big in-universe limitation with them is that any scars or injuries they may have can't be hidden in any way. For recognizability reasons, I try to always include their main symbols or some allusion to their domain in their designs, and for personal preference, I like to give all the gods weird looking eyes.

Aeolus

My Aeolus design hasn't changed very much at all since my first sketch of them. I like the idea of Aeolus as sort of fluid in shape, mostly just looking like a bunch of clouds that reshapes itself however they like. This sort of abstract and a little cartoony aspect of them led to me giving them a silhouette like an old cartoon character! Their design honestly isn't meant for coloring in this style, but whenever I do color them, I like to make it mostly light pink and blue. Subtly trans-colored Aeolus my beloved.

Hermes

Hermes mostly just changed with coloring. I have an obsession with very limited palettes, and I feel a little bad giving one to Hermes of all characters, but honestly I'm the most proud of his design. I gave him a messenger bag in some of my earliest sketches of him and I've loved that element ever since. The biggest change here is the jacket! Not period typical at all but it's so iconic to Troy and COME ON HE NEEDED IT. I think it makes his silhouette a lot more interesting, even if I simplified the rest of his outfit to compensate. I might do another pass to try and add some color back to him, but for right now this design feels very fun.

Athena

My Athena design has stayed very consistent since I settled on committing to the bird aspect, so thank @irunaki for being an owlthena truther (SOMEONE PLEASE REMIND ME TO DRAW IRUNAKIS ATHENA BTW). Not that I color her much like an owl. This pass at Athena I mostly used to simplify the blue. I needed to include it on her design, but I've been struggling with how for a while, and adding it as just a subtle accent on a mostly grey and black design felt very fitting. Visually she might read more like a magpie than an owl, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make!

Anyway, Athena here is meant to read as very visually closed off, with her face partially obscured and her wings wrapped around herself like a cloak. I want her to have a lot of distance between herself and others at most times, and I think that does nicely. The shadow over her eye was an aspect I added before I found out she lost an eye, which is a funny coincidence. I also designed her to both parallel and contrast my Odysseus design. They both have cloaks that partially obscure them, they both have scars on their faces (although Athena is able to hide hers), but they have opposite color schemes (Athena being mostly blue black and silver while Odysseus is red white and gold). On a personal note, I like the idea of Athena resembling Poseidon. Not for any thematic reasons, I just think it's fun. So she has a grey-ish skintone like him (to a lesser extent, but still) and long black hair, too. I love designs that resemble other designs.

Apollo

I believe I actually originally took inspiration from Gigi's Hermes, But I think he's different enough by now that the resemblance doesn't really exist anymore. He was also the start of my idea to draw the gods with weird looking eyes, so I refuse to change his. I don't actually have all that much to say about him? My original notes for him were that he should be a WHORE and I hope that idea has stuck lmao. He's probably the oldest design here (minus Athena, but my early sketches of her are pretty unrecognizable) and yet I'm still very happy with him. My biggest struggle with design is that I DESPERATELY wanted to color his hair like GinjaNinja's oc Kynthia but I have NO CLUE where to start with coloring like that. So we must suffer. Thaaats all I have to say on Apollo. I think a couple people in the Epic discord really liked him lol.

Hephaestus

I FORGOT TO DRAW HEPHAESTUS THE FIRST TIME OH MY GOD. I'M SO SORRY HEPHAESTUS FANS I LITERALLY FORGOT HE EXISTED. His design gave me the MOST trouble in coloring, I had to completely redo it partway through. I'm still somewhat unhappy with him, but oh well. I like Hephaestus looking very much like a sort of intimidating father who's actually really sweet, and I think I got that look across. He's got a resting bitch face but he is so nice. I gave him glasses on impulse, and it sort of completes the dad look to me. He's got some burn scars under his gloves from working in the forge, for an extra detail. I made all the other gods scars gold, but I think burn scars work differently than normal scars? I need to do more research, sorry! I love Hephaestus though. I'll probably end up doing another take on him if I feel like drawing him again, but it's nice to have at the least something down.

I liked the initial idea behind my Aries design, but it felt very poorly executed before. I'm a bit unhappy with this take still, but I like it better than I did before! I decided to make all the gods scars gold, so his are recolored accordingly, and I made myself bring the red back into his design. Again, he's meant to have a resemblance to Athena while still contrasting her. So he's also very animalistic, with him being more of a dog of some kind (I DEFINITELY took the dog idea from someone else but I CAN'T remember who). He's got roughly the same outfit, but a scarf instead of a cloak, so he looks less controlled and closed off than she does. Anyway, I dislike this specific drawing of him, but I like the general idea of this Ares, so I'll figure it out eventually. Definitely the one I'm least happy with here. I like the drawing without his helmet, though, I think he's cute :>

Aphrodite

So my Aphrodite design initially wasn't very thought out. I originally just sort of threw something together and called it a day, and I wasn't happy with it, but I also wasn't sure which direction I'd like to go with her. This time, uh, I actually have the same problem. I ended up liking this take on her a lot more, though! She takes a lot of inspiration from Rose Quartz, which WAS on purpose actually. There's also once again a lot of inspiration taken from Gigi's Aphrodite design, specifically in the outfit. I feel like with Aphrodite there's a lot of temptation to just give her a dress, but I like her looking a little too casual for any given scenario. I like this one a lot.

Hera

THIS ISN'T MY PEAK DESIGN BUT BY GOD I'M JUST HAPPY I MADE THIS STUPID DRESS WORK. The original inspiration for this idea comes from this video by June and their design for their character Hokoto in a Miraculous au. That specific design for some reason is INGRAINED into my mind and every time I draw a character in some way inspired by peacocks, that's what comes to mind. I think this design is pretty distinct from that one. AUGH I don't have much to say on her just look at my favorite old lady I love her she's so pretty.

Poseidon

ABSOLUTE CRYPTID!!! SEA MONSTER ENERGY!!!!!!! I was like "lets make poseidon a little cunty and a little bit of a weird creature" AND IT WAS THE GREATEST DECISION I HAVE EVER MADE. Cut out the blue from his design entirely to just be grey, and I think I like that decision. I also think the Epic discord liked him because I sent my sketch of him and someone responded with "why he kinda" so I TAKE THAT AS A WIN!! Absolute bastard man I hope Odysseus stabs him more.

Zeus

HATE THIS GUY HATE THIS GUY HATE THIS GUY. Absolute freak man I hope Hera brutally murders him. Anyway, I love this design, just not this specific drawing of it lol. I wanted his hair to look like clouds originally, but wasn't sure how to do that without stepping on Aeolus' toes, until I had the sudden idea that they should be stormclouds instead! So that's pretty cool. His scarf kinda looks like lightning. Also. Bro put your tits away. That is all I have to say on Zeus.

Circe

Didn't want to copy Gigi's design here, and I think I did a pretty good job of not doing that. She had brown eyes originally, but I asked the Epic discord what they thought and they decided yellow eyes looked better on her (AND THEY WERE RIGHT). I gave her yellow roses too (not sure if they read as roses though), because 1) aromantic Circe is real and true and 2) I just liked the idea of her having the least romantic version of a flower very associated with romance as part of her design. Her ass is not into you! I hope she kills and maims! Wanted to give her a snake earring but you couldn't see her ears here so. Just assume she has one of those.

Calypso

Okay, so this Calypso design basically appeared fully formed in my sketchbook a little while ago. I've changed very little except adding red flowers. Why? NO REASON actually there is a reason. I was writing a Calypso-centric fic and I mentioned her having bright red flowers in her hair and then I just made that part of my vision of her. Gave her uh, a weird fish net thing for lack of a better word? Because it made her more interesting and gave me island vibes. Which is what Calypso should be doing! I wanted to include more red on her design so the flowers didn't feel a bit out of place, so I gave her some red on her other accessories. I THINK SHE'S CUTE AND I LIKE HER. Man these notes got less and less design-related as I went along, huh. Oh well, I'm done now. Those are my god designs +2 because I consider nymphs their own category (Is Circe a nymph? I'm pretty sure she is but I don't care enough to check)

[arolesbianism]

I need to find new eternal gales songs right now I cannot keep living with most of the playlist being shit I listened to in 2018

[calebs-anchor]

Caleb Character Analysis part 1: The Ever Experiments

(This is mostly lifted from a video I posted on tiktok, with some slight changes/clarifications)

The first and most important thing to keep in mind here is that, according to his anecdote 'Pathless Realm', Caleb has suffered from dissociative amnesia throughout his life. I'm obviously not a psychologist, but based on some light research this basically seems to mean that he has mentally blocked out a lot of the traumatic memories of what happened during the experiments, so while he is definitely aware of them he doesn't remember exactly what happened.

This isn't the same as MC, who loses all or most of her memories every time she is killed and resurrected, but it's worth noting they both have issues with their memories & remembering the details of their trauma, and neither can give us the full picture of what happened in their childhoods.

We can also make note that Caleb was recorded to be 9-10 years old while the experiments were happening. This adds an interesting layer to the fact that Caleb constantly tries to take blows for MC and endures trauma so that she doesn't have to. Throughout all of this he was barely less of a child than MC was, but because he is the slightest bit older (and also because it seems that Josephine often left her under his care growing up while she was working) he sees himself as responsible for her wellbeing. This, in some sense, causes Caleb to see himself as older and more mature than he actually is. He was forced to become a caretaker/guardian figure and take on a lot of adult responsibilities at a very young age, which is why he's also so averse to showing vulnerability like we see in 'Hidden Waves'. He feels that if he can't be the mature, unwavering "pillar of strength" that he thinks MC needs him to be, he is failing to be good enough to protect the person he loves the most.

Now let's get into the actual contents of the experiments. We already know what happened to MC from World Underneath, but for anyone needing a refresher she was used for the Aether Core in her heart and her Resonance Evol, and was repeatedly killed so that the researchers could observe her coming back to life with the intention of using her to unlock the secret to immortality. However, things aren't quite as clear cut for Caleb. The only main sources we have are from his first trailer, which says that "They are the optimal weapon for destroying one another" and a few passages from his anecdote, such as:

"He knows he's always been good at destroying delicate things. The people behind the observation window say that the test subject will become a force comparable to a black hole given time. Not even light could escape it."

From these sources we can gather that Caleb was also used for his Evol with the aim of creating black holes (something we know he is able to do as of 'Homecoming Wings') and that he and MC were made to be able to counter each other, likely as a safeguard. Since they were both extremely powerful, the idea of them being optimal for destroying each other perhaps suggests that they were designed so that if MC's power became too dangerous Caleb could be used to destroy her and vice versa.

We can also gather that Caleb was labelled/labels himself as inherently destructive and dangerous. This seems to have had a long term effect on his self image, as the line from his anecdote establishes that this is something "he knows" and believes to be true, affecting the way that he sees himself especially in comparison to MC. I have a video going slightly more into this on my tiktok page, but essentially Caleb seems to see himself as inherently destructive and bad, while MC is an embodiment of goodness and warmth: the "black hole" that even light can't escape VS the "Unicorn" that brings eternal life. This is potentially why he takes on the role of protecting MC so intensely, as he thinks he deserves the suffering more than she does and is willing to take abuse on her behalf to protect her.

It becomes even more interesting if we consider the religious themes of their storyline with all the references to Adam & Eve, paradise and sin. Caleb views himself as inherently "sinful", just like the original sin described in the Bible that all humans are born with because of Adam & Eve. The only way to cleanse oneself of original sin is to submit to God, the embodiment of goodness and purity, and so Caleb, in a way, submits himself to MC. We have seen how highly he thinks of her, as he frequently describes her as "the best of the best", says that he thinks the world doesn't deserve her, and on multiple occasions comments that he thinks that anything that stands against her shouldn't exist or should disappear.

In short Caleb doesn't just love MC, he reveres her in a way that borders on religious and is willing to devote himself entirely to her service. That's why even from a young age he has taken on the role of protecting & serving MC, giving her almost anything she asks for, doing almost anything she wants, and making sure that no matter what she always feels like she is safe and happy and that he will always be there for her. I think he feels that by doing this, he is atoning for his "original sin" of simply existing as himself. He feels that if he can adequately "serve" MC, if someone as good and pure and warm as her can love or even just approve of him, it can make up for all of his feelings of guilt and sin and destructiveness. She is his salvation.

This is already a lot on his shoulders, but if we go back to the experiments I think there is one more thing at the source of Caleb's guilt, one big example of his destructiveness that serves as the main reason he sees himself the way he does: the Chronorift Catastrophe.

As we've already established, Caleb's Evol is capable of creating black holes/wormholes, so it's not unreasonable to think that he could have been used to open the Deepspace Tunnel (intentionally or not). However this would take a lot of power, more than I think a 9 year old boy would be able to achieve, unless we consider the fact that MC may have used Resonance to boost his power to the necessary level (and likely killing herself in the process). This then is their shared sin, like the sin shared between Adam & Eve when they both bit the apple, and it's one that neither seems to remember due to their respective memory loss issues. If this is the case, it gives us yet another reason for Caleb's inherent feelings of guilt: whether he knows it or not, he was directly responsible for the event that almost destroyed humanity and caused MC, the person he cherishes most, some of her deepest lasting traumas. It's yet another thing he feels the need to make up for by protecting her.

It's also how they both manage to escape the labs before later reuniting at the shelter (although I have seen speculation that the "shelter" actually was the experiment facility and that Caleb is lying to MC about it, but I'm not sure whether I agree with this based on what we've seen). When they do reunite MC doesn't remember who Caleb is, marking just one of many times that he has to reintroduce himself to her. This is another one of the "duties" he takes on for her, promising to always be there to remind her who they both are and swearing to be by her side forever. I think this is another reason that Caleb is so obsessed with having MC by his side: not just because that's what he promised her, but because he's afraid that if he's not there to remind her who he is she might one day forget him forever.

He also chooses never to remind MC of what happened to them during the experiments, or at least what he remembers of it himself. The reasoning of this is obvious, Caleb doesn't want her to be upset or in any way traumatised by it, so if there's a way to let her forget all about it he'll let her. However, I think it's significant that from a young age he chooses to take on this burden by himself for the both of them, as this will become a running them as I cover more of his cards & storylines.

[majestick-posts-op]

My little attempt at a few characters from @where-does-the-heart-lie 's fighting game au because i seriously love it so much. Go take a look at their blog if you haven't already.

All of these being concepts I wanted to explore.

Explanations and stuff:

Went full seamonster with Shirahoshi. I think itfits her and being a little intimidating but actually a sweetheart is so her. She doesn't wear a lot of clothes in canon so I just focused on the hearts details. Her hair already looked like a heart and that's adorable but I also chaged her fish jewlery into heart jewlry to show that her love in where her people are, and she really cares about them. She's very happy to be here.

For Rebecca I completely scrapped her canon clothes and decided to blend in casual clothing (the hoodie and shoes) with her armour and some newtral elements. Making her braids into a series of hearts i think was a good idea, but i mainly added a heart on her helmet to show that her love in rational and her dmotional maturity despite her age and all the shit that goes on in her life. I think she would a model students that's considered of high potential.

For Bonney I liked that in canon she kinda has clothes that adapt to her body growing/deaging and stuff but i wanted her to be... less naked. So i added this tight suit thingy (tried to make it look modern/science like. Maybe a gift from Dr. Vp) that supposedly changes alongside her. Her heart patches on her jacket and knees rappresent her dad and her mom since those are the people she cares about the most. The bear ears on the hat i couldn't pass on.

Carrot i thought fit a more classic schoolgirl vibe, with a uniform. BUT i firmly believe she would wear a million tiny accessories like leg warmers, scruncies, pins, and other stuff. Very colorful, very kidcore. The white in her hair is for her sulong form while the hearts are in her actual ears and fur because... she's just made out of love. Silly.

Boa... another one of my favuorites.... full on ancient greek Medusa makeover. If i had paid attention in class i would flex my italian student knowledge and explain the composition of her clothes but I didn't. Lots of golden jewelry in her hair, which is the main heart since even in canon, Boa uses her love as a weapon. While the second heart is where her jolly roger is in canon because her loves also protects her people. I just think making her a snake woman was the best course of action. Screw beauty standards, embrace reptillian charm.

I wanted Pudding to look like a doll as much as possible. If you compare her to Big Mom's design below, you can see that their outfits have a lot in common like the puffy sleeves and layered skirts. And if you look at the hearts, they are mostly in her hair (the silouettes of her ponytails) and scruncies. This is because Big mom did it and she wants her kids to show love the way SHE wants. But then, if you look even more close, there is one more heart, again in her hair, but around her 3rd eye. Caused by the negative space in her bangs. This reflects the love Pudding has towards herself. Hidden, manipulated by otgers, but still in there. And she has pants below because i think she would tuck in the outer most layer of her skirts to walk around more freely. She knows what a practical fighting outfit unlike her mum...

The kids!!! They don't go to the school yet (at least not the HS section. Maybe there's an elementary/middle school one) but they defunetly want to. Went very simple for them. Tama's outfit borrows elements from Luffy (the shirt) and Ace's (the hoodie) because she looks up to them, and the gloves are practical fir her ability.

While Toko's borrows a few elements from Zoro's (the haramaki) and Sanji's (the jacket) since they are the ones she looks up to. The hearts are on her writs for a "wearing your heart on your sleeve" pun. Because even though she can't show her emotions well anymore, she still feels them nontheless.

Kidd and Killer already embodied the vube if this AU ngl. The hearts reminded me of this awesome Killer cosplay so he is showing off that pose. His hearts are on his masks because he uses his love to hide his insecurities and stuff. But Kidd's hearts are on his robotic arm since his weapons are his love. I think he wouldn't have that many on him since he isn't the most lovely dovely dude in the world so they're subtle. Very simbolic. Didn't change the outfits much, just made them more modern looking. (And yes, those are nipple piercing on kidd's tits. I have hobbies alright?) BUT. If you tool at the pants, you'll notice very clearly that they have matching heart chains of eachothers colours because THEY ARE EACHOTHER'S LOVE!!! I love these idiots.

And finally the villians. For Big Mom I went with a "evil teacher/mad queen" vibe. Not a fan of her canon hair, surprisingly, so I did a beehive that was suppossed to be heart shaped but gravity showed her true colours (bad poetic attempt.) Her hearts are very important. You know that heart tatoo she has on her shoulder in canon? Well, here its on the back on her neck! While these? Because its the only place she can't see, and others don't really either. Because her love has been hidden and forgotten by herself, instead showing off mountains of fake hearts on her clothes and jewelry. Like the fake heaven she tried to create in her country that only ended up being a real hell. And... and... and... I got carried away, sorry. Love a well written female character.

Kaidou is all dragon since i'm keeping the thene if making the zoan fruit users into antrho/hybrid desings. Added a lot of spikes. Its his thing. Made the outfit inspired by his younger age fits and nothing too special BUT i want to focus on the heart pkacement. Because if you look closely at hus arm... yep! Its all hearts, not scales! Because Kaidou's love has also been amounted to just his strenght and his potential, going as far as to do that on his dominant arm. Even the little cracks on his horns are actually heart shaped. Because his failures/weaknesses and strenghts/wins are interconnetted in a way he doesn't even realise because he's too busy locking up his son in a cave.

And lastly Blackbeard would be the final boss or smth. Cryptic life sucking creature. No hearts. I hate him. (His silouette is based after a metastastic cancer cell)

[catenary-chad]

Why Greaseball is a Really Great train villain: a looong post (4.8k words) on all the historical train context behind replica Greaseball 

For all my issues with the other main engines, I think (replica) Greaseball is FANTASTIC. He just works on so many fundamental levels and gets so much better/worse with historical context.  If we make him an EMD E9 locomotive (a common headcanon) things get even more interesting, and there’s even a convenient irl engine to base him on! 

Note: if you’re into real US trains this info probably won’t be as new to you as my Nez Cassé post, since E and F units are so well preserved and documented in English.      A lot of the topics I go on are pretty widely discussed in US railfan circles and not terribly obscure.  Also this is just about replica, Elvis-style Greaseball vs Wembleyball… her being more modern and European changes a lot and I would take a very different approach.

Also CW for non-graphic discussion of abuse in the very last section. I have a separate warning before it comes up so you can leave before then.  

DIESEL TRACTION IN THE US

First of all, to clear up a common misconception: 99% of all diesel locomotives are diesel-electric.  The diesel engine is used to generate electricity to power electric motors to turn the wheels.  This is why dual-mode engines that can switch between drawing third rail/overhead wire electricity and making their own with a diesel engine are so common.  Besides the power source, they work similarly, so it’s not hard to incorporate.  This is NOT how hybrid cars work, though diesel-electric setups have been used on very heavy trucks for purposes like mining.  Diesel-mechanical is more in line with how automobiles work but is basically unheard of outside of very small switchers in the US (mostly in museums now) and 50s-era shunters and that one weird Fell diesel in the UK. The technical reasons of why isn’t really important here, but has to do with the difficult of making an appropriate gearbox for road locomotives and appealing qualities of electric motors for train use (high starting torque). 

Internal combustion-based locomotives are actually much more recent than pure electric ones.  Electric engines achieved practical use around the 1890s and were well-established in urban and mountainous areas by the 20s-30s…. which is when diesel boxcab switchers first started production in substantial numbers and lightweight diesel trainsets like the Zephyrs, M10000, and Flying Hamburger started to pop up.  The earliest diesels were either slow (switchers) or fast but very weak (lightweight trainsets and railbusses). There were major tech limits to maximum horsepower in diesel locomotives until the second half of the 20th century, which is why several of them were often needed to replace one steam or electric engine, and why you had some weird turbine designs in the 50s-70s as an alternative. 

Early diesel locomotives in the US actually had a lot in common with their early implementation in the UK.  They’re often perceived differently because Thomas the Tank Engine had so many characters based on unsuccessful early British diesel models, while most of the failed earlier US diesels are obscure compared to the successful and widespread ones (that often have the strongest museum presence). There were some notably good early switcher models (some still being used today) that were among the first to replace steam engines because it was one of the tasks that they had the biggest advantage over them in, and limited size wasn’t an issue.  Road diesel implementation was messy and due to the early state of the technology, some railroads like the Pennsylvania Railroad had a strategy more akin to early British Rail in that they planned to just slowly phase out steam as they electrified.  Higher wages and stronger unions were also a factor in both countries dieselizing, due to the vastly lower labor needed for diesel locomotives vs steam and generally safer, more pleasant working conditions on them.  There was also a need to shed a reputation for being outdated to draw in customers again with both.  There was also a desperate early demand for diesel power that led to a lot of questionable builders and designs being picked up early on and later dumped for being nonstandard.  

The main difference is that dieselization’s serious pursuit in the US started around the Great Depression and really picked up in the late 30s, almost two decades before the Modernization Plan of 1955.  So it was a far more mature and well-established technology by the 50s and Greaseball is very much based on this dominant position vs the messy early experiments of the Thomas diesels.  

Greaseball’s helmet heavily resembles the fronts of the E and F unit carbody locomotives made by EMD from the 30s-50s.  I’ll go into those specific models later, but the manufacturer alone is really interesting and has a lot of great symbolism that works with Greaseball. 

Earlier diesel manufacturers included steam builders like Alco and Baldwin, outside companies getting into the diesel locomotive market like Fairbanks-Morse, and EMD, which started as an independent company but quickly became part of General Motors.  One of the major advantages EMD would acquire is mass-production in assembly lines, the way cars were made, as opposed to building one engine at a time like steam shops did.  So Greaseball has some quiet ties to the auto industry (and boy did GM hurt trains in other avenues).  They also used common parts between models, making them relatively easy to repair and rebuild.  You had all kind of mods and changes done to their engines over the decades, which is a fun tie-in to the bodybuilder AND greaser aspect of Greaseball.  I’ll go into how I think he’d specifically be modified/rebuilt later though.  

Another major factor of EMD is… they often weren’t the best in a lot of ways and very much an example of “survival of the good enough”.  Until very recently they all used relatively dirty and inefficient two-stroke engines and other manufacturers often had stronger or technically superior competing models… but it was the ease of working on them and relative reliability vs their competitors that contributed to their success and helped make EMD the dominant manufacturer.  

Bonus fun fact: EMD (and later General Electric) had a lot of success in the export model market due to their early reliability, especially vs British diesel engines.  One of the funnier instances being several colonial African railways holding onto steam into the 70s because they were forced to buy crappy British diesel engines otherwise, and promptly dieselizing as soon as they could buy American ones.  EMD made huge inroads into the British freight market with the Class 59 and 66 (the latter also used in continental Europe).  These came too late to have had any affect on the development of the show early on, but it’s an interesting instance of American encroachment that could be thematically relevant.  The sheer ubiquity of EMD diesels worldwide makes Greaseball weirdly relevant in a lot of countries if you basis swap him a little.  I haven’t figured out quite how I’d approach Girlball but I’d definitely make her one of these export models since it fits.  

Anyways, back to the general history timeline because it’s important for the other reason EMD was so successful.  By the late 30s, diesel switchers were widespread and road models were starting to come out in limited numbers.  Widespread dieselization would have happened nearly a decade earlier if not for World War II.  When the US entered the war, copper, oil, and diesel engines became critical to the war effort.  Coal was not and steam engines don’t use much copper, so the existing steam manufacturers were forced into building them.  EMD’s FT series had proven itself prewar and the company was among the few to be able to develop their locomotive lines during the war.  This gave the company a huge advantage post-war and their E and F units dominated the road locomotive market afterwards (switchers remained more competitive since they had more development before and during the war). 

 If you’re European and know little about American trains, you may wonder when things started getting electrified after that.  They didn’t.  Outside of one stretch of the Northeast Corridor, a recent project by Caltrain, and some isolated freight lines… the US didn’t electrify anything after WWII, and if anything de-electrified much that had existed.  The oil crises of the 70s almost led to something, but the subsequent drop in prices in the 80s made that dry up too.  Leading to the modern day status of having only 1% electrified rail mileage.  The rest is all diesel domain.  They were never a stopgap here.  Due to railroads remaining private businesses post-WWII and facing almost unwinnable economic and political conditions vs roads and air travel, the cost of electrification was out of the question and the much smaller up front cost of diesel engines made them take permanent hold over most of the country post-steam.  To this day, railroads avoid paying up front for things vs just paying more in yearly maintenance for diesel locomotives, and the price of fuel has never gotten high enough to incentivize electrification.  There’s also a whole carrot vs stick situation with state governments raising emissions standards without providing assistance to electrify that leads to a crappy state of limbo that just gives automobiles even more of an unfair advantage, but that’s another tangent that’s not relevant enough to go into.  

This is all a long way to say that Greaseball as the conservative, oppressive establishment is spot-on to the status of diesel traction in the US.  It really can’t be overstated how dominant and inescapable it is.  It’s kind of hilarious hearing people from the UK or Europe talk about how gross and stinky and backwards they are and how much more disliked they are there.  This is why the Greaseball vs Electra feud is so appealing to me- the US is one of the few places where they would be considered remotely competitive and where that matchup is politically relevant.  There’s this compelling thread of Greaseball being a “pragmatic compromise” that’s held on so long it’s become status quo, but would be viewed as a regressive relic elsewhere in the world, akin to how the US’s economic politics are seen in much of the rest of the world.  Greaseball is the majority who very much has capitalism and inertia on his side, Electra is the more qualified but long-sidelined minority who wishes things were even a little more like Europe economically and politically.  They’re so rural vs urban, right vs left wing coded it hurts. Diesel power mainly thrives where frequencies are low and distances are long and rail is a private business that often can’t afford to electrify.  Urban trains are almost exclusively electric due to their inherent frequency and pollution requirements, and are almost synonymous with being state-owned. 

Him being particularly nasty to steam engines also checks out, he’s the era of diesel locomotive that often directly replaced them and I’ve seen claims EMD did deceptive things if not outright cheated on tests vs steam engines.  At the very least they had fairly aggressive marketing.  There’s a reason why I object to the idea that Electra would cheat against a steam engine (even in the early days electric ones trounced them so thoroughly it routinely exceeded railroads’ expectations), but think Greaseball doing it makes sense.  Him playing dirty against Electra also makes sense because they’d have similar top speeds (and that’s being very conservative with Electra’s abilities and keeping them a relatively old model) but Electra benefits far more from a clean setting and would be relatively vulnerable to attack. There’s been decades of cultural downplaying of the advantages of electric vs diesel trains due to the latter’s sheer dominance in the US too. Further tying into the political aspect, electric trains are one of those things whose status only goes up the more you actually learn about them… and it really knocks combustion engines down several pegs, paralleling how right wing politicians in the US tend to be actively anti-education because they quietly rely on voters being low-information and uneducated about how negative the effects of their policies often are.  

Greaseball as a macho jock is also reflective of the perceived strength of diesel vs electric engines.  Because the US is infamous for its large heavy freight trains that are almost entirely diesel-hauled (besides a single power plant out west), electric freight is an almost alien concept and people associate electric traction with high speed trains, subways, maybe lighter, faster European freight trains at most.  People often act like they’re weak because of this.  This is patently untrue, just look at IORE or the Virginian Railway.  Also see my earlier discussion of how weak diesel engines were early on.  Electric locomotives still have vastly higher horsepower per single unit and the only reason there aren’t ones as strong as diesel engines in the US is lack of demand.  It wouldn’t be that hard to build one for that niche.  But diesel has strong associations with being the “strong and manly” blue-collar option because of its use by every large freight railroad and almost every shortline for all the tough, gritty jobs, unlike those darn city slicker commuter trains. Let’s just conveniently forget that the Milwaukee Road existed and that mines are full of weird little battery-powered “lokies”.  People will even crow about the Big Boy all day and rarely acknowledge the multiple electric engine models of that era with comparable abilities.  

EMD E and F UNITS

Finally, we can discuss Greaseball’s more specific basis.  Greaseball’s helmet doesn’t have a single explicit one like Electra’s, but its styling is very typical of 30s-50s era carbody diesel locomotives, specifically the “bulldog nose” E and F-Units.  These models were and still remain some of the most popular toy and model diesel engines, and are some of the most recognizable American trains in general.  Which they totally deserve, they came in a lot of fun colors and were VERY widely used from the 30s to early 80s irl and were still used in limited numbers for decades after that and are extremely common in museums today.  It’s probably harder to find a railroad museum in the US that doesn’t have one.  They are probably THE symbol of diesel trains in the US, especially circa the 50s.  Even highway signs for train stations resemble them.  

Carbody locomotives like these made the streamlined body a structural element of the engine to save weight and required indoor walkways for maintenance access vs being able to open external panels.  Alco and Baldwin also made far less successful carbody locomotives as competitors but they looked very different. Funny enough, a number of electric locomotives of the era also were built this way, but with cabs at both ends, some of them looking a LOT like Greaseball’s helmet.  

The E-units were EMD’s first line of road diesel locomotives, mainly designed for passenger service.  Since the 30s there were several different models of the line, the first few being built in smaller numbers, and the later ones being much more widely produced post-WWII.   They were relatively long and large for a diesel engine of the time, with atypical A1A -A1A (powered/unpowered/powered x2) wheel arrangements and two seperate prime movers (the actual diesel engine) to produce more horsepower due to the limited abilities of individual engines.  While successful compared to their competitors (which were… generally a mess) there’s a sense that they were designed for a time that would never come.  

They were very much optimized for being smooth at speed for passenger use and while not useless for freight service, weren’t ideal for it due to their limited strength and not having all powered wheels for traction.  Which was a terrible market to be in with the massive decline in passenger rail post-WWII.  The E-units still generally had long and successful lives, but were never as successful as their younger, smaller sibling, the F-unit.

F-units visually resemble shorter E-units, but with single prime movers and Bo-Bo wheel arrangements (four powered axles).  By modern standards they’re small and not terribly powerful, but for their time they were solid and VERY successful in freight service, and often took the place of E-units in passenger service since they worked for that too, and were more versatile overall.  There are a bunch of F-units running in museums because they look good and are easy to find parts for due to the sheer quantity produced (also some, but far fewer E-units). You could totally make Greaseball an F-unit and it would fit with how there’s been some infamously short Greaseball actors.  

There’s a lot of fun commonalities between both models that are relevant to Greaseball.  Both were explicitly designed to be used in multi-engine sets due to their limited individual strength, which perfectly fits Greaseball having his Gang follow him around.  Working in packs that large is a VERY midcentury diesel thing.  Both had the massive drawback of having no rear visibility and basically no ability to go backwards for switching.  That was one of the main traits that led to this style of engine falling out of favor, roadswitchers that actually had rear visibility were more versatile than having separate road and switch engines.  In a race going backwards, Rusty would clean his clock even if he was SUPER crappy and could only go walking pace, because Greaseball would be flying totally blind and crash.  It’s also a hassle to perform maintenance and get inside that body style and the noses were reportedly harder to manufacture.  

As a cursed side note, ATSF solved these problems with their old F-units by roadswitcherfying them into CF-7s.  Hey, they were old and past their prime but still useful and worked GREAT as ugly utilitarian roadswitchers and ran for decades afterwards.  There’s several of these things running in museums.  I’ve actually worked on one and I approve of roadswitcherfication because they really are way less of a pain to maintain this way.  

Speaking of rebuilds, the highest horsepower Greaseball would have as an E-unit would as-built is only 2,400 if he was an E9, but because early EMDs got modified so much and routinely re-engined, we can play around with this.  It fits the character and the Railways Series routinely did this kind of thing.  We’ll suppose Greaseball was re-engined or otherwise modified to get up to 2,700 horsepower… but then there’s the reported issue that the unpowered axles might make him too slippery to actually apply full force, so we’ll get a bit more out there and say he got more substantially rebuilt into a Co-Co (six powered axle) arrangement.  Now you have something that would be vaguely comparable with one of Amtrak’s dysfunctional SDP40F diesels of the late 70s-early 80s, if still a bit weaker but probably more physically stable.  It’s hard to avoid that Greaseball is kind of statistically wimpy no matter how you slice it.  They’d need to tweak the numbers in the song a little, but again, swapping out engines in early EMDs was super common and suits him so it’s not too much of a stretch to bump him to 3700 or something.  You still have issue that he’s not large by UP standards specifically (they are INFAMOUS for large single-unit engines) but he’d still be fairly large vs more typical passenger diesels of the time.  

Anyways, another VERY fun fact about E and F units is that they were regularly used on corporate trains after most of them were withdrawn from regular mainline service in the 70s-80s.  People often complain that Greaseball is barely relevant circa the 80s, which isn’t really true since a lot of E and F units were used on commuter lines for years afterward (if often in cab car form, which are terrifying in any talking train verse).  But there’s another huge loophole that gives a perfect excuse for his existence well into the modern day.  Union Pacific itself used a set of three E9s on their corporate specials until 2019!  They only got pulled due to wheel issues… got no lovers if you got no wheels I guess.  But now you have a perfect excuse for why Greaseball is a 50s-era engine with UP colors pulling passenger trains well after the railroad axed those services in the early 70s.  He’s a corporate pawn!  He’s one of the faces of their company, chauffeuring executives around. Which leads into another fascinating topic with him.

UNION PACIFIC, FREIGHT RAILROADS, AND PASSENGER RAIL

All of the modern big Class I railroads in the US suck in similar ways, but Union Pacific has a stronger identity and seems to have the largest cultural presence abroad, making it the most visible and appealing of them to the public.  It tends to be THE American railroad to many, which goes well with Greaseball’s basis being THE American diesel engine.  Yes, they do have some cool heritage fleet stuff and really cool heritage unit paint jobs, but you’ll never see me depict them in a terribly positive way (if at all) because they’re a PR campaign like the Budweiser Clydesdales for an infamously awful company.  Make no mistake, this is a company that’s been voted “worst place to work” on multiple occasions (and its cohorts aren’t much better).  That’s the ironic thing about Electra being made a crappy boss, Amtrak is notably much better to its workers (and steam engines are the most competitive where labor is cheapest and least organized).  The main thing is unreasonable on-call hours, lack of sick leave, vacation, and break days in general, and working conditions.  Look into the blocked 2022 railroad strike for more on this.  Greaseball could be SO nasty to the freight to reflect this if you made him a symbol of railroad leadership.  You’d have any railroaders in the audience booing him if they did this in the US, it’s a very relevant political issue.  Ironically, things weren’t nearly as bad labor-wise in the 80s, ALW just really bet on the right horse in terms of railroads to align a train villain with.  But there’s a more prominant and existing aspect of canon that also fits the crappy things UP and other class Is do.

Passenger rail has never been as profitable as freight in the US. To give a modern ballpark estimate, I’ve heard $30,000 revenue on a fully loaded longer passenger train vs $500,000 revenue on a train of oil tankers.  And that’s not even including the higher maintenance standards that passenger rail requires, which adds millions to its cost and makes it almost impossible for it to turn a profit.  There is a reason why almost all countries with widespread passenger rail today have nationalized rail systems and even US passenger service is all government-run outside Brightline and museums.  

This situation was particularly bad in the 50s-60s before Amtrak took over passenger service.  Passenger trains absolutely bled money overall, and many of them were required to keep running even at massive losses per government regulation because they were an essential service.  This contributed to the financial ruin of many railroads, and most of them dropped passenger service or sold it to the government as soon as it was offered.  UP in particular was more financially stable, but also happily got rid of their passenger trains when offered.

Since then, the giant merged Class I railroads have become almost exclusively freight-oriented and hostile towards Amtrak-run passenger services.  They’re almost all terrible, but UP is one of the more visible offenders, holding up commuter services in Chicago, and contributing to the massive delays in long-distance western trains.  “Coach sexism” in the form of widespread hostility towards passenger rail by the likes of UP is one of the few canon social metaphors that WORKS.  The other engines would not be that way considering the systems they’re aligned with, but Greaseball could be made so, so much worse.    

There is a weird element of “I hate my wife” boomer humor when people describe passenger trains.  There’s “keeping freight trains in line” schedule-wise due to their time sensitivity.  There’s being seen as needlessly spendy for PR reasons (often true in the older days) paralleling “my wife wastes money on stupid things”.  There’s being seen as more delicate and refined due to needing better track conditions and gentler handling because you know, humans have standards that grain hoppers and sand don’t.  There’s the way that passenger rail isn’t as profitable as freight and basically requires government subsidies… not unakin to caring jobs and “women’s work” in general vs blue collar industrial jobs (Caveat: passenger rail employees were almost all male until Amtrak).  In short, yeah the freight railroads’ treatment of passenger trains in the US does have parallels to sexism, if slightly different from how canon does it. Abruptly dumping them in the 70s also fits Greaseball ditching Dinah mid-show. 

Even if you go the comparatively mild route of mirroring modern railroads, you still have him treating the coaches as second class vs freight (despite them being legally prioritized).  This is a major issue and why Amtrak has so many delays on long distance trains.  To summarize a complicated issue: due to the relatively unique economics of railroads, they are incentivized to run fewer, longer, irregular freight trains that have become so large they don’t fit in sidings and can’t physically let prioritized passenger trains through.  They then get delayed for hours, especially if the freight train breaks down (bonus: freight trains have a staff of two, engineer and conductor.  The conductor may have to walk up to THREE MILES to check out a possible defect on a car, delaying even more).  The Class Is have a broadly hostile relationship with Amtrak in general for various reasons related to insurance and minimal investment in track maintenance, and it even affects non-Amtrak passenger services like steam excursions.  UP has its personal steam fleet for publicity reasons,  but all of the Class Is are various shades of hostile to running steam excursions with passengers now due to those same reasons.  Even UP barely sells public tickets for theirs.  

Bonus: the reason Mexico has basically no passenger rail now is due to the nationalized railroads being taken over by companies heavily aligned with US freight railroads and with many similar attitudes towards passenger service.  They ditched virtually all of it en masse when they took over. Turbo works perfectly as just Greaseball but in Mexico because the same thing happened there… only a few years before the Mexican Stex production happened.  Electra might be an even more pathetic and unthreatening character there though, because the single, long-delayed electrified mainline built by NdeM was ripped out after only a few years of service by the  private freight railroads.  

WARNING: Leave now if you do not want to read about how abusive Greaseball could be made based to US railroads’ treatment of passenger trains pre-70s.  It’s not graphic, but it is blunt and dark.  I put this at the end for a reason, there is nothing beyond this last section.  

Basically, canon even at its worst arguably undersells how awful Greaseball could be to Dinah and the coaches if you make them symbols of UP and other major railroads vs passenger service pre-Amtrak.  They could be even MORE toxic.  You have a situation now where he outright hates her and wants her gone for above reasons, but is forced to stay in the relationship due to outside requirements and is fundamentally built for that kind of setup as an E-unit.  Railroads forced to keep passenger services usually didn’t have mandated quality standards for them.  They just had to have something.  This led to pathetically short trains (one or two cars), understaffing, and poor maintenance because they just had to have SOME passenger train on that line.  Track conditions reached terrible standards in the 70s on railroads that were near bankruptcy and delaying maintenance.  I absolute do not blame canon for not going this dark in a kids show, but basically there is no limit to how miserable Greaseball could make her life, short of actually killing her. I can’t understate how much she symbolizes something he’d want to rid himself of at any cost but can’t and will take that out on.  It’s BLEAK.  I don’t think I’d even write them this dark myself.

Well… now you see why I do not redeem and revise Greaseball the way I do Electra.  While the latter is wrongly demonized in an impressive number of ways, Greaseball is awful for all the right ones, to extents deeper than the creators probably ever imagined.  He is so versatile and nearly timeless in his awfulness.  If Greaseball were portrayed as remotely good I’d be ripping him to greater shreds than I do Rusty, but he’s great as a hateable bad guy who’s entertaining and globally recognizable even by much of the general public.  Despite all this, I’m fine with him just being a cartoon bully because it’s more palatable and not wrong.  But you could also make him so much nastier than even the workshop if you wanted to go darker.  

[urautismdiagnosis-wistie]

THE OIL RIG Ch.1 "Octo Alert" 3/4

click for higher quality, please enjoy and feel free to comment. A description of the events and typed out dialogue will be beneath the cut. I recommend reading it for a fuller experience as it provides additional context and corrected dislogue. Apologies if they sound out of character 🙏

Dun dun dunnnn... smugglers?? NOT friendly pirates??? Everyone has concerns 😔🙏

Part1 > part 2> part 3 >part 4

Panel 1

Usually Captain Barnacles will always make sure to listen to EVERYONES thoughts, and will often ask for second opinions. Including kwazii's! Kwazii who is NOT paying attention.

Barnacles, just wanting to include Kwazii and get some insight: "Kwazii!!"

*kwazii spins around, abruptly snapped out of his own thoughts*

Barnacles: "Well? What do you think? :] "

Panel 2 and 3

Kwazii, ready to info dump harder than he ever has in his entire life, walking around the room and gesturing dramatically:

Kwazii declaring confidently and way too casually, " Ah! Well them ships yer camera caught clearly be some sneaky pirates -"

Kwazii, softly scoffing as though barely impressed, but slightly amused: "Agh, a classic common cargo ship disguise," he rolls his eyes, " Slippery knaves be hidin all sortsa arnament doohickies in plain sight."

(Non pirate translation and details: yeah so the pictures of ships the camera caught are actually just pirate ships who disguise themselves as cargo ship. Its a pretty standard practice for pirates historically and modern in this au. Also there's certain details of the ships that look abnormal to someone who doesn't know better, but these features and designs are used to hide weaponry and illegal/stolen cargo. Kwazii also noticed the strange locations, heatpaths, and traveling behaviours of these ships and it reminded him of... pirate tactic... Especially since the kinds of ships near the "oil rig" wouldn't make sense for an "oil rig". Not to mention the "oil rig" has warehouses, which is NOT normal... very very suspicious to the pirate eye, he was raised learning this stuff. And honestly he can actually kinda realize some of the purposes of the "hehe normal not pirate" tactics they're using)

Kwazii, makes a horrible realization: " It looks like they be getting ready for a long haul..." and then the details process once hes said some of it aloud... "Only place that'd make sense is...oh no- the BLACK MARKET!"

Kwazii, mumbling heartbroken and melancholy mostly to himself: " Id bet me last life AND me tail those cuttle fishies will meet a terrible fate-"

Kwazii, now determined as a pirate and an octonaut,proclaims with full gusto :

"OCTONAUTS WE MUST SAVE THE CUTTLE FISHIEEEES!!!"

Although Kwazii does have to admit albeit a bit sheepishly, " Although uh... I dunno if they be friendly enough t' not try n' send us t' Davy Jones Locker..."

Tweak interjects, "So..." she gestures pointing in a round circle, " Yer sayin them fellers are smugglers?"

Shellington turns back to the captain, starting a bit quietly, "As sad as it is," he admits, " It WOULD make sense captain!"

Barnacles: "Well,that is an excellent point Shellington-"

Shellingtons face brightens a bit, and cant help but to remark : "Owh! :3 , They might even still be okay!" Shellie quickly keeps going, a bit more excited "We- Why we could report the smugglers-"

Barnacles face falls as he avoids Shellingtons eyes: "Well ah-" *he turns to dashi almost as if silently asking for help to re explain the main barrier for any mission they want to do at the moment-*

Dashi,lightly grimacing and understanding: "Keptain, I- I dunno how to break it to you, but well,"

Inkling gasps softly, " Oh D e a r- You don't mean?"

Dashi sort of.. despondent and sort of strained in that calm way, ready to pull the bandaid on some unshared news: We can't reach out to anyone beyond the octopods radius...

Peso (on of the few that actually understood what kwazii was talking about, having listened to many of his info dumps/tales with full atttention), very validly and reasonably points out with a little tremble to his voice that, oh you know-: "K-kwazii- You uh- Did you say that they'd be willing to hurt us??"

Womp womp womp

[numberonetacostan]

i humbly ask for headcanons of the menu squad 🙏 anything for my lonely menu squadder soul

Hi Lemi!!^^ Welcome back, and thank you for sending in your request!! :] Aough I love their little remaster designs. They look so stupid <3 /aff not a braincell between them.

Ask and you shall receive, menusquad headcanons!

Taco doesn't live in the hotel because she villain'd, and OJ is full of liquid so Paper would die if he fell in. Meaning if he wants to stand on someone's head as he does in s1 ep1, Pickle is his next best option. He's taller too, so Paper gets a better view!!

Another thing mostly for Paper, but gijinka-wise it would be neat if he had a retainer or braces of some sort for his underbite, yeah? Poor Paper was born with braces on. This would follow the headcanon that they're all vaguely teenagers in season 1, so you could do a lot more for them too! Pickles are bumpy, yeah? Pickle has just so much acne. Everyone thinks Taco is like 12 which is why Pickle is so keen to help her out because she's so much younger. She's just short but she's not gonna say anything of course. OJ has a diary that he narrates his days in like he's the main character in a disney channel sitcom. He, Taco, and Paper are having the fun teenage adventure of knowing something is off about you but not knowing what (neurodivergent). Pickle is depressed and join the neurodivergent club post-s1.

Once during season 1, Paper was trying to practice his flirting (since let's all be real he was flirting with OJ since he rejoined okay? okay good glad we all agree) and was using a literal glass of orange juice to do it. He may OR MAY NOT have ended up kissing the glass of non-sentient orange juice. Lucky for him, Taco was the only one who caught him in the act, and she barely speaks so she probably won't/can't tell anyone. She doesn't, for the sake of maintaining her facade, but she does walk off into the woods so she can absolutely lose it laughing for like 10 minutes. She stares intensely at him for the next few days, because watching him squirm is also incredibly funny.

OJ tried to reach inside of Taco once, possibly having noticed her picking up some random pieces from a challenge or such and wanting to keep her from having anything dangerous (let's say a blade from 4S's death trap thingy) inside of her that could cut her up. Needless to say she bites him and even runs to hide behind Pickle for good measure.

This one's a bit more meta, but I like to think that Fan secretly mourns the loss of the menu squad. He would have a power point prepared on how and why they are the most iconic final four out of all three seasons, explaining in-depth the dynamic as well as how it was harmed by Taco's betrayal.

[quibbs126]

Yesterday I saw someone on Twitter mentioning the babyfication of Bumblebee in the fandom, and that's been somewhat of a thought in my mind before, so I figured "eh, might as well write my own thoughts on the matter myself". Though in a tumblr post, since Twitter has a character limit and I don't feel like doing a thread

So yeah, that's what this is

Why does Bumblebee get babyfied so much in the Transformers fandom?

Disclaimer though: I'm only really touching on the shows and movies and how they might contribute to the issue, and only the ones I've seen, so no Unicron Trilogy or RID 2015. And probably not much on the live action movies either since I remember them very little, just design things. I've also not read any of the comics, so they aren't weighing in either

I'm also not claiming I have the definitive answers, just some guesses based on my own understandings. I'm very socially inept, so I could be completely wrong. It's also why I'm not touching on the fandom side much

My friend told me to put a "read more" tab on this after showing her what I was doing, and yeah I probably should. Take note that this is an absolute monster of a post, this took me hours to write. So be warned

But yeah anyways, let's start this

Oh right, I should probably start with what I mean by "babyfied", so we all are on the same page here. The biggest things I think are making Bumblebee a teenager or child, whether in interpretations of canon material, AUs of official series, or people's own versions of the Transformers (though note the most damning one here is the first one, seeing a canon Bee as a kid, specifically when it is not shown that he is one. The third one is completely fine, it just is a symptom I think), and then also basically just making Bumblebee Optimus' son, or Elita's, or Megatron's, or a combination of characters; basically, just making Bumblebee someone's kid

I'll be tackling it in a general order of the shows/movies and how they contribute to the issue, starting with:

G1 cartoon

So in g1, I will admit, I think I can see Bee and Optimus having some sort of father-son relationship, at least in moments; like Attack of the Autobots which is where Optimus and Bumblebee have that iconic little hug

But I mean also, Optimus just kind of generally has paternal vibes in g1, he feels like everyone's dad. I think it might just get magnified with Bumblebee because Bumblebee is small and probably has the "cutest" personality of the Minicars, so it's just him from that group. And also, he's got a cute little Beetle car as his alt, which factors into it

He also does seem to have been written with the idea of him being younger, at least that's how the toy description feels to me

He was also Spike's best Autobot friend, and as I'm pretty sure Spike was supposed to be the young teenage human for the kids to relate to more, that probably helps with his youth factor

Though he is still functionally an adult. But I don't think the problem is as bad here, since let's be real, people mostly remember g1 for the nostalgia, iconic moments, and being the origins of the franchise; people aren't really making g1 AUs outside of that one person with the Orion Pax and Megatron knowing each other AU

So from the start, he's always had this, but I don't think we can call it an issue at this point. But it does bring in some of the main factors in the babyfication of Bee, namely:

He's small, which can give the impression of younger

He generally is one of the younger bots, even if he's still an adult

He tends to be the main friend of a human protagonist, who generally tend to be kids or teenagers

These will show up again, so keep them in mind. Now, let's move onto our next show, 23 years later

Animated

So in Animated, Bumblebee is yet again, one of the youngest members of the main cast, though this is specifically told to us, like how Sentinel, one of Optimus' contemporaries (and TFA OP is meant to be on the younger side of his variations too), was Bee's drill sergeant, as well as just Bee's general behavior

He is also the smallest member of the main cast, which can contribute to the feeling of him being younger

He is also friends with the human protagonist Sari, who is an 8-year-old at the start of the show, and the two of them tend to go along with each other's crazy schemes, rather than Bee trying to be responsible with Sari; that's more Optimus' job.

What I didn't pick up until way later than I probably should have was that Bulkhead is around the same age as Bumblebee, thus making him also one of the youngest members of the cast. Which honestly in retrospect, makes a lot of sense with how he's written, and him also being one of Sari's closest friends. I think why I didn't pick up on it while watching however comes from two things: 1, he's like the biggest member of the main cast, which doesn't immediately make me think he's one of the younger members, even though younger people being big is something they can be (I mean my brother's like 6 feet tall and he's not even 15 yet), and then 2: Transformers Prime Bulkhead, aka the one from the show that might be more popular than TFA, is very much an adult, and that was the Bulkhead I knew. So I didn't know he was supposed to be younger

We'll swing back around to Prime later, I think it's one of the main contributors to the issue, but keep in mind that interpretations from popular series tend to stay in mind and bleed over into other shows and their versions, even if that's not how they are

But back to Bumblebee, things generally aren't super different between this and g1, other than the fact that he and Optimus don't have much of a parent-child dynamic, and that this Bee definitely is on the younger side in canon, though probably still an adult? I'm not sure, but he can't mentally be more than like, very early 20s. But it happening again does reinforce these ideas of Bumblebee as a younger bot

In fanon, I don't know if the TFA side has this much of an issue, at least nowadays? I see him get shipped with Blitzwing and Prowl plenty, and I don't see him as Optimus' kid, other than like one time with the "9 months in my womb" meme, and him being an oplita kid, which might have just been for the joke and also TFA Elita was yellow, so eh. But I'm also not too big on the TFA side of the fandom anyways, so I could be wrong

So before we get to Prime, I just want to sidestep into the movies that were also coming out at the time

Bayverse/live-action movies

Now I can't say much on the writing front with Bee, since I have not seen any of these movies in a hot minute, outside of the first hour and a half of the 2007 movie. I will say though, based on what I saw of Bee there (aka mostly his car shenanigans), that is not a child, that is a sassy little bastard man. Though that could be because Bay was trying to market more to like, teenage boys and trying to make him "cooler"

But anyways, what I wanted to talk about was his design, and how it contributes to the babyfication issue

The Bay movies gave Bumblebee a redesign, looking pretty different from his original design (though that goes for pretty much everyone except Optimus)

The thing I notice most with these movie designs is how round they make him, specifically with his eyes, being so big and round, especially later. While it was probably originally just a reference to bug eyes, it makes him cuter looking, more innocent. I think by Bumblebee, they were trying to capitalize on that in the movie, making him seem cute and non-threatening in certain scenes so Charlie knows he's not a danger. Which makes sense, but it does contribute to the problem here

And in general, he's a lot rounder I think in his design. And while I'm not expert on shape language, I think I can gather that more round shapes leads to him looking more friendly and less threatening and cuter in our minds, and "cuter" leads to "younger". That's why I keep bringing up "cute" by the way, forgot to say earlier. Cuteness tends to be associated with youthfulness and thus younger characters more

And in general with Bumblebee, him being yellow, a bright color more associated with joy and optimism, and thus youth, and generally having a more optimistic and extroverted personality (though not necessarily in the Bay movies, though I can't say for sure) again leads into him being younger. Now it probably came from the fact that bees are yellow, thus he's yellow (and also black), and his personality came from that bright color. Actually the name probably also comes from the yellow color scheme, but you get it. His color scheme and personality lends Bee to being a younger character

Back to Bayverse, it did change Bumblebee's alt mode from a Beetle to a Camaro (again probably to make him "cooler"), and I think since then, Bumblebee's basically always been a sports car, outside of explicitly g1 referencing things. So it does tend to take away the "smaller" aspect of what makes him seem so young, as he's more average sized now. But the youthful connotations don't necessarily go away

This is also (I think) what started the trend of Bumblebee losing his voice, being replaced with either radio/movie clips, or just beeps that the characters can understand. Now while I'm not too sure how this affects him in Bayverse, as I haven't seen much of Bee proper in the movies in a long time (the first half of the first movie is pretty much just car Bee), and since I know he can still talk in some way, it does mean you focus less on his dialogue and how that characterizes him, and more on his appearance and actions (at least in robot mode). Or he just doesn't talk, and you can have your own interpretations of what he's saying. And as mentioned prior, his design tends to make him look cuter, adding to the issue. I'll get more into this in Prime, since I am familiar with Prime, and he doesn't talk at all there

He's also again, I'm pretty sure one of the younger bots, despite probably being an adult. We'll go over that more in Prime

I don't think I have much else to say on these movies, so to go over the general points, this seemed to cause a bit of a shift in Bumblebee's portrayals. He got a bigger alt mode, so he's not tiny anymore, but he got big round eyes that make him seem cuter, rounder features, and he lost his voice, which means you can fill in the gaps in what he's saying in your head

Now, let's get to the real meat of this, and I think the biggest cause of this all:

Prime

I hope I didn't hype this section up too much. But I think this is where all the things conglomerate into the main factors of Bee's babyfication

Bumblebee is not the smallest bot, but the smallest is the female motorcycle bot, as opposed to his sports car, so. He is the youngest Autobot, and bot in general outside of I guess the Predacons, until Smokescreen comes in in Season 2, who is also considered young. He and Optimus have a close relationship, that given their age differences, could be read as paternal. He's got the big round eyes of Bayverse and a generally round design, which we've already discussed as to how it contributes to the problem. He also does not speak at all, only using beeps that we the audience cannot understand, until the finale. His designated human friend is the youngest human companion here, and the most child of them, being only 12. All these factors combine to create the most "baby" Bumblebee so far

(I just added a picture since I felt like I needed to. But there's not much to talk about design-wise that wasn't in the Bay section)

First up, the age thing. I keep saying that Bumblebee is one of the youngest bots in the casts, even though he's technically an adult. This is true, in part because as far as we can see in canon, Transformers don't really have "child" stages, they're just born adults. And they don't really age; or well, they do, it just takes millions and millions of years to do so, so they're functionally immortal. So, they don't really age like us humans, physically and probably mentally too, given they skip the young child years. So I mean like, technically speaking, Bee's an adult, it's not really clear where that translates into our perception, so maybe he's more mentally a child? I don't think I'm making sense here, maybe ignore this section

But he is younger, and particularly in Prime, he's in a team of bots all much older than him. If I were to put them in mental human years, I'd say he and Smokescreen are probably somewhere in their early 20s, while everyone else is probably like, 35+. Bee is notably younger than his peers, and we are made aware of this fact. And this makes him appear even younger than he is

If I were to make a comparison, and maybe this is a bit random, but take Mouthwashing for example. I may never have been super knowledgeable of the fandom, but I am aware that Daisuke is like, 22, while everyone else on the Tulpar is 35+, and that makes him feel so much younger by comparison. He's only just started his adult life, compared to the far more experienced adults around him. And while I didn't see it, I do think I remember seeing people talk about how people kept portraying Daisuke as younger and more innocent than he is when he's a 22-year-old man. I also remember someone comparing the portrayals of Daisuke in the fandom with another character from another series (I think it was Omori?), who was the same age as Daisuke, but because that character is the oldest of the protagonist group, everyone else being children or teenagers, he was portrayed super differently to Daisuke. The other character had to be responsible and make mature decisions, while Daisuke is allowed to be silly and reckless. The point I'm trying to make here is that age, and how a character is portrayed and interpreted, is relative to the characters surrounding them, with the characters on the extremes sometimes getting exacerbated because of it. This is true in real life too, but for the sake of analysis

Bumblebee is the youngest member of the Autobot team (at least until Smokescreen), and thus, he feels even younger as a result. This is probably also helped by the fact that there's no Decepticons around his age either, everyone around Bumblebee is a full-grown adult by comparison. And his close relationship with Optimus, who is meant to be one of the older bots in the group, feels very paternal, which serves to make Bee feel again younger, like he's Optimus' son. Which I like here, but it furthers the issue

And on the topic of him just feeling younger, let's bring up Raf. Bumblebee is again a friend of a human protagonist, but in Prime we have 3 main humans, ranging in ages but all in grade school, and each one has an Autobot they're paired with. And Bumblebee gets Raf, the youngest member at around 12. Due to Raf's youngest member status and technically not being a teenager, he is, as I said before, the most "child" of the group, even if they're all technically children still. I thought he was 10 until I double checked and saw he was 12, and honestly, I feel like he feels younger than Sari did, who was only 8 when we met her. Probably because unlike Sari who had no human friends, Raf does, both of whom are older than him and treat him as such. It's the relative age thing again

But back to Bee, unlike with the other humans and bots, Bee doesn't act as the responsible adult, but more of a friend for Raf, though not nearly as chaotic as TFA Bee and Sari. They aren't causing trouble; they're just having fun and cute moments. There's again, the cuteness factor that probably contributes to the young feeling he brings, but it also serves to make Bumblebee not feel as much as an adult. Arcee is definitely an adult with Jack, and Bulkhead particularly gives me responsible adult vibes with Miko, at least on some occasions where they aren't indulging in fun, reckless behavior and Bulkhead has to get serious with her. They're responsible with the kids, even if they slip up at times, and help them learn things. But Bee doesn't have that with Raf, probably because Bee can't talk and give him the lesson. Raf also doesn't cause much trouble on his own and has Ratchet for that

Which segues me nicely into Bumblebee's lack of voice in this show. This was a carryover from Bayverse, since Hasbro was still trying to have synergy with the movies at that point. But instead of radio clips, he just beeps, with the other bots and Raf just being able to understand him, even though we the audience don't. And because of this, we never know what he's saying, and he also just straight up doesn't have a voice for us to gauge his age with. Thus, it's up to us the audience to fill in the blanks in our imaginations. But with all of the discussed factors of him being cute and young, we can just end up interpreting him as younger because of it. It's also again, probably because he doesn't talk. It's like R2D2 and BB-8, who only speak in beeps, but because they're cute, we see them probably as much cuter than they would be if we knew what they were actually saying (R2 especially)

To maybe go off on a weird tangent, I think child characters tend to be seen more as objects than people, or I guess objectified more, since they don't have fully developed brains and personalities and are less likely to be able to hold their own in a fight. They're things to be protected and loved and angst over, while all they need to do is be there and be cute. I think the lack of voice ties into this in a way, I just don't know how to explain it, other than like, because they took away his voice, we can see him as even cuter and child-like instead of the grown adult he is. Infantalization, that's what I'm trying to say. I think that's term for all of this, but you get what I mean by "babyfication"

Especially because at least for me, when Bumblebee did get his voice back, I started seeing him more as an adult, because he could actually talk and had an adult voice. Yes, him learning to take more of a leadership role in Predacons Rising is also a factor, but him having a voice now is part of it too. But he only got it back in the finale and the movie, so you spend pretty much the entire show with voiceless Bumblebee, and what comes with that

I think that wraps up everything about Prime Bee's portrayal, but now let me get into why I think overall, it was what really caused this baby Bee thing to stick

Like I said prior in the Animated section, the more something's repeated, the more it sticks, and these traits of Bumblebee being the youngest have been consistent throughout the series we've covered. Not to mention, I just think personality wise, this Bee feels the youngest/child-like, though again, it probably has to do with his company and lack of voice. And also, the fact that he's well-behaved, like how people want children to be

So, by this point, this interpretation of Bumblebee is stuck in our minds as how he is, younger than the rest of the team

But I think another big thing is that Transfomers Prime is probably the biggest series in the fandom, at least show-wise. G1 was influential and Animated is still popular, but no show comes close to the amount of popularity I see for Prime stuff, particularly their brand of megop or for their Decepticons in general. The only thing I've seen come close is Transformers One, which is also the newest one and what brought new people in during this wave, so who knows if it'll stick forever. I'm not sure where IDW stands though, because I know that was big too

If I had to attribute Prime's success in the fandom to things, I'd say it's because plenty of people around my age (20s-ish?), who are definitely online and on social media, grew up with Prime (though I will note that Transformers tends to have an older fandom than I'm used to), the fact that for a long time, Prime was easily accessible in its entirety on Netflix, long before the streaming wars (and this is how I watched the show), it generally has good writing and animation, it feels like it had a complete story, unlike Animated which had Season 4 cancelled, and Frank Welker and Peter Cullen were back as Megatron and Optimus, making them feel more "definitive". Among probably other things I'm missing

But the point is, Prime is big, and it'll take a lot to dethrone it, outside of possibly some TF One sequels sticking the landing after the first movie. But that's not certain at the moment

And like I said before, popular interpretations tend to bleed into other series and interpretations, even when they don't entirely fit. There's a reason when people want Knock Out in another show, they basically want more TFP Knock Out, design and character wise, or why Breakdown was in Earthspark without the other Stunticons. Or why people basically try to recreate the g1 backstory when making Skyfire and skystar for their stories, even when I'm not really sure versions of Starscreams would ever be scientists. Why Functionism will show up in fanfics despite something like TF One not really having a place for it outside of the cogless thing. Why people will instinctively ship megop across continuities despite it not working as well in some (*cough cough TFA cough*). Why Megatron and Optimus have largely had the same backstories for ~15 years, with One being probably the most different, but still the same general beats. It happens both in canon and fanon, but it definitely happens

So when Prime Bumblebee is portrayed as young, and probably intentionally, it sticks in our minds that Bumblebee is very young and usually will be. He's like Optimus' son here, especially since he explicitly is younger than him. He's cute and friendly, even if he can get into trouble sometimes. He's just a little guy

And by this point, the franchise was like, 30 years old. There's been a number of series, and a lot of the general staples of the series had been set and remain today. I'd argue Prime is the last of the "foundational" series in this franchise, at least where we are now with it; we could end up going in another direction in the future. So it's gonna be hard to just change how we see the characters here

The shows after

I won't go into each one in detail after this, because let's be real, this is long enough already. And again, I don't think at this stage, anything other than One has left as much of an impact on the fandom/series

We're skipping over RID 2015 since I haven't watched it, but I do think it's one of the shows with the least of this problem. Probably because he is at least initially surrounded by characters his age or younger, so the age relativity isn't a factor

Cyberverse actually has Bumblebee around the same age as Optimus here, not being notably younger, but that holds true for everyone in that series; basically everyone here is the same age, outside of like, Cheetor. I don't interact with the Cyberverse fandom enough to know how it fares with Bee there, but given he's a main character, probably more than Optimus, he's probably doing fine?

Though I have to admit I personally find it weird when Bee gets shipped, because surprise, I too have some amount of the babybee influence on me too. I mention it here because there's genuinely nothing wrong with shipping Bumblebee and Windblade here, if anything it makes so much sense; it's just that I can't get out of my head that Bee is supposed to be younger, and thus, shouldn't be shipped

I know nothing about the War for Cybertron trilogy

Earthspark Bumblebee is another case of being hit with the baby beam the least, which I think is attributed to his role as the Terrans' mentor. Once again, he is put as an older character instead of younger, and even more so than RID because he's the main adult teaching our young child protagonists. The age relativity is working in his favor this time. Most you're gonna get is him being called megop's child of divorce, but those two are old anyways

So far, canon wise, it doesn't seem that bad

But then we get to One, which is where I think the problem is really rearing its ugly head. See, B-127 is never said to be younger than the rest of the quartet, he's assumed to be the same age as them. Heck, you could maybe even see him as a bit older, given his odd knowledge and having been in Sublevel 50 so long. But B is constantly portrayed as younger than the rest, being the child of divorce, but actually more "child" this time, him basically being Optimus and/or Elita's son (Megatron is another parent too), despite no indication of such a bond in the movie outside of just being friends (even less so with Elita, whom he has the least screen time with of the group), or just straight up being made into a child or baby for the rest of the group to parent, despite it taking out a member of the group, especially when again, he is not said to be younger

But it keeps happening to him because it's the new popular series and some are coming in with prior expectations and knowledge of B and his relationships, that Bee must always be baby, and probably because he's very energetic and hyper and probably neurodivergent, which has a history of getting characters infantalized. Not saying everyone who sees him as younger is problematic or ableist for doing so, just that this probably contributes on some level to why it's so widespread

I think I've covered all my points at this rate. Are we finally done? Can I go do my schoolwork? Sorry, just random, I've been here for a while

So, to summarize, why does Bumblebee get babyfied so much?

Because Bee has a long history as being young, he's put around older characters who make him feel younger by comparison, he's got a design that lends him to be seen as cute and young, especially in the most well-known depictions (I mostly mean g1, Bayverse and Prime here), the fact that the show were all of these traits are at their biggest is also the most popular show, and thus influencing people's minds going forward that this is how he should be, even when it doesn't fit so well

And I don't think this mentality around Bee is going away anytime soon, and it isn't necessarily wrong to make Bee a young bot, but I think we should acknowledge that sometimes it's trying to fit a square in a round hole, it just doesn't fit as well, and we need to be mindful of that