#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]

The King yuri truthing and new game+ are both necessary evils to prevent me from talking abt the eternal gales au more. I could be constantly rambling abt how each character fits into eternal gales worldbuilding and the different timelines and the Kings (plural) dynamics with Chou and Loop but I don't <3

[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 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

Hazbin Masterpost

Heavenbound AU

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.

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?

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).

(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.

[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)

[pikachic]

Hi it's me again. TMA/POKÉMON AU??? YES HELLO PARDON ME I NEED TO THROW MYSELF AT THIS OCCULUS AU YOU'VE GOT GOING ON IF YOU DONT MIND

*BUSTS DOWN THE DOOR* I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED

I’ve had this AU simmering away for a while and but haven’t posted that much about it, so thank you for the excuse to scream about my extremely self indulgent Pokémon x The Magnus Archives AU

*ahem*

Introducing:

POKÉMON OCULUS

(Here’s an illustration I did after getting your ask - Champion Jonathan and his ace Pokémon, Vigitera!)

This AU is set in the Ervenis Region, a relatively small island region off the coast of Galar. It closed its borders two years prior to the main storyline, shortly after its Champion went missing during a series of attacks in its major cities and his predecessor was found murdered. Since then, an acting Champion has been instated and the borders have been reopened, but the Champion still has not been found. Most Ervenisans believe he is dead.

However, the Ervenis Champion isn’t as dead as everyone thinks, and his disappearance is only the first in long chain of events that will shake Ervenis to its very core, orchestrated by a man who aims to rule over a ruined world governed by nothing but his own will and the fear of people and Pokémon alike, and who will stop at nothing to bring that goal into reality.

More lore under the cut!

(Some of the AU-specific names and terms might be placeholders in that I haven’t been able to come up with anything better lmao)

(Also some of the art might be a bit old)

General Lore Stuff

Jon is the Champion who went missing, and Gertrude is his murdered predecessor.

Martin is Ervenis’ Pokémon Professor

Martin being the Professor is literally perfect.

Be. Because.

All of the Pokemon Professors (except for the newest ones) are named after trees.

And Martin’s last name is BLACKWOOD. Which is an ACTUAL TREE.

(My first rough attempt at drawing Jmart in the Pokémon art style)

Also jmart are extremely married

They’re Ervenis’ favorite power couple

(Professor Blackwood for half of the main plot: *sighs.* …I miss my husband. I miss him a lot. I’ll be back.)

Their Pokémon ship name would be Londonfogshipping

Martin has a Galvantula (most likely a regional form), a Sinistea, a Frosslass, and a Togekiss

Jon, in addition to AU-specific Fakemon, has a Gardevoir and a Luxray

Jon also has a shiny Appletun on his team and Martin has a Flapple. Make of that what you will :D

Also yes there are Fakemon in this thing

I have never designed any Fakemon before except for one thirty-minute period of time from when I was ten but I’m not going to let that stop me

(Initial Fakemon sketches! Three guesses as to which characters get Sqwyrm and Manickregus and the first two don’t count)

(Also Ervenisan Yamask has another form, which evolves into Ervenisan Cofagrigus which is inspired by the Do Not Open coffin)

(I have a whole list of Fakemon designs I want to make but 90% of them aren’t fleshed out at all)

Tim and Sasha are Professors in their own right, and also Martin’s assistants/fellow researchers

Tim has a Houndoom because I saw another TMA Pokémon AU that gave him one and I really liked the idea, he also has a Ludicolo because I lost a debate with my friend who is also into both TMA and Pokémon

Sasha has a Dartrix and a Meowstic

Most of the Avatars are gym leaders

(Yippee gym leader designs!)

(Not pictured because I ran out of steam before I could draw them: Michael and Helen, who run a double Electric-type gym; Daisy, who runs a Dragon-type gym; Karolina, who runs a Ground-type gym; and Jared, who runs a Normal-type gym)

Elias is the acting Champion in Jon’s absence and the secret leader of Team Chrysalis

The current Elite Four consists of Peter, Simon, Maxwell, and Annabelle

You might have noticed that Jon and the gym leaders are all wearing (mostly) black pendants/brooches

This is part of the Ervenis’ region’s “gimmick:”

Metafestation (which is. Almost definitely a placeholder name)

Skilled trainers can use special items called Metalenses to tap into the psyches of Pokemon and Trainer to manifest the shape of their desires and the power of their emotions in reality.

You basically give the Pokémon a JoJo Stand

Each Metalens must be specially shaped and cut to suit unique trainers and Pokémon, and since using poorly made Metalenses may have disastrous consequences on its users, only a handful of people have the qualifications and legal authorization to do so

(Gerard Keay is one of these people!)

Metalenses are usually worn as pendants or brooches so they’re close to the user’s heart

For the Metafestation power-up to be strongest, the trainer and Pokémon must have a shared goal/desire and a deep bond

(This bond does not have to be a positive one. It just needs to be strong.)

These Metafestations have their own typing system, though no one’s been able to figure out exactly what it is yet.

It’s the Fears. The Fears are the typing system.

Though most users of this system aren’t aware of it, Metafestation comes from achieving a delicate balance of both desire and fear.

When I first came up with this idea, it was JUST Fear, but I felt like that was a bit dark for frickin POKÉMON so I added the desire aspect

After all, what we fear and and what we desire often go hand in hand

You desire safety because you fear its absence, you desire light because you fear the dark, you desire freedom because you fear being confined, etc.

For example, Professor Blackwood desires companionship, and fears being forgotten. Most of the Metafestations he and his Pokémon create are foggy and cold, but in a way soothing at the same time.

Though a small handful of them are spindly and laced with puppet strings and reflect his desire to wield his cunning for good.

(However, he hasn’t been able to properly use his Metalens in years. The first and only time he tried after his husband vanished, it backfired horribly, consuming both him and his Pokémon in a chilling fog and sending them spiraling into unconsciousness. It took weeks for them to recover, and Professor Blackwood bears a physical scar of the incident in the streaks of stark white in his hair.)

Of course, most people don’t have just one desire/fear. The Metalens just channels the strongest ones, and most users don’t achieve more than three separate tertiary types of power-ups.

One of the biggest exceptions is Jon.

He desires many things: Safety, love, knowledge. He also fears many things: Being manipulated and controlled, abandonment, the unknown.

When he was a child, something happened to him that scarred his psyche in such a way that he could channel all of his desires and fears.

It’s what makes him such a potent conduit for the power-up system, and what makes him a prime target for:

Team Chrysalis

Team Chrysalis is a criminal organization/sort of cult disguised as something innocent: The Magnus Institute, the region’s main research institution that Professor Blackwood works at

The AU’s main plot gets kicked off when Professor Blackwood finds evidence that his husband, the missing Champion, is still alive

If this were a real game, the main story on the side of doing the gym challenge would be helping Professor Blackwood look for clues about Jon’s whereabouts and about The Magnus Institute’s hidden goals

Professor Blackwood also figures out that it’s very likely that Elias had a hand in Jon’s disappearance

(Professor Blackwood for the other half of the main plot: *slams down the Do Not Open coffin in front of Elias* It’s a coffin. There’s a name engraved on it. “WHORE!” IT’S EMPTY!! *grabs Elias by the collar* AND YOU’RE GOING IN IT!!!)

The Elite Four are also part of Team Chrysalis and fully on board with its plan

Though Annabelle might have her own machinations going on

Team Chrysalis plans to reshape the world as they see fit by summoning a Legendary Pokémon that’s a warped physical manifestation of the fears and desires of all living creatures, and simultaneously embodies and feeds on those fears and desires

(It’s basically all the Fears mashed into one eldritch monstrosity)

(I’m mildly worried this sounds too similar to some existing legendaries but at the same time I’m just spitballing and having fun here)

To summon this Legendary, they need a lynchpin capable of channeling all of those fears and desires

This lynchpin is Jon because of course it is.

Team Chrysalis’ whole plan actually only serves to grant Elias immortality and make him king of a ruined world but shhh none of the team members know that

I have zero idea what the Legendary would look like, I just have the fact I want it to have “Pan” in its name

The climax of the story comes when Team Chrysalis starts their ritual and the end of the world. In order to stop them, their Vessel and the Legendary must be defeated.

You are challenged by The Archivist!

The Really Self Indulgent Part

I started working on this at the same time that my friend was watching through XY for the first time

So at some point when coming up with all of the story stuff my brain went “what if I stuck Ash Ketchum into the story?”

So Ash is there now. For some reason lol

He’s 19 now and is just doing his thing and traveling the world

As usual, he takes on the player’s role, challenging gyms and helping Professor Blackwood in his investigation and eventually helping him take on Team Chrysalis

(I made this shitpost in like. Less than an hour lmao)

Ash is so done with these evil team leaders trying to destroy the world

Greninja is also there because tHIS IS MY AU AND I DO WHAT I WANT *MANIACAL LAUGHTER*

And I think that’s it for an overview of Pokémon Oculus!

I have a bunch more stuff for this AU, mostly spitballs and WIP writing snippets, and I do plan on making more art and Fakemon designs eventually (especially now that I’m getting better at emulating the Pokémon art style)

Thank you for reading this far, and feel free to ask me anything about this AU! :D

[songstruck-au]

redesigns for the main 3 have been finished!

unrendered as these are meant to be used as color reference when I make sprites. these ended up way more drastic than I thought they were gonna be, especially Sweet's! I expected Cap'n to change the most, but he's the most similar. I'll be off to try and buy Deltarune in order to play through the new chapters now! There's some explanation for the changes under the cut.

A lot of details got simplified and the color palette cut down to be more sprite-friendly. Most of the original designs had colors that were wayyy too close to each other while making the color count bigger than it should've been.

Color palettes made more distinct from each other while actually having shared colors instead of being the same hue. The original designs were color picked from a lightened version of their shop sprites, these were mostly hand-picked. I wanted to make them look more color-coded instead of all being extremely purple, while also having the cohesion from sharing colors that the Deltarune Sweet Cap'n Cakes do! You might notice that Kace is missing the shared yellows, that's intentional.

Sweet's eye now has a shadow over it like Kris! His pupil won't show up in sprites, this is just for most of my artwork. It's a pretty old idea, I just didn't have the idea to move his hat more downwards to justify it back then. Dunno how I didn't think of that.

Speaking of Sweet, his outfit should hopefully be a little more readable as cyber in addition to traditional fantasy bard than his original design.

Cap'n got the shades that I was originally going to give him when I was sketching the first takes! I'm not sure if I'll still have his shades be moved upwards in chapter 2 onwards or just have his pupils become visible, though.

A LOT changed for Kace. Mostly for making him appear more as his own character instead of a fusion of Ralsei and K_K. His outfit takes some inspiration from those anonymous musicians and DJs who wear masks over their faces. I thought it'd be neat if the Delta Rune was flipped in some way in this AU since the dark and light worlds are, making the angel into the demon or something. Since Ralsei kinda has devilish features, Kace has angelic, I guess? I'll just say his new handle is supposed to look like a stylized halo.

[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

[hbheavensent]

Eve/Charlie

The long awaited and requested Eve and Charlie post is here! HEAVY TW on the Eve side of things for: Grooming, Postpartum Depression, The Whole Cain Thing, and suicide

So lets roll into it!

So we're actually gonna start with Charlie since she's on the lighter side of things lmao For her design, I mainly wanted to make her feel more like a main character when you look at her, add some interest to her look while still keeping it simple enough so The Viewer tm can project onto her and find her approachable. I also wanted her to look a lot more like a mix of her mother and father while mostly keeping the obvious "child of the devil" thing. I took away a lot of her red in favor of a bright yellow to make her stand out against most of the Pride Ring, and I added in the goat features with a heavier hand than the show does. She also distinctly has Eve's eyes with little hearts in each of them, because that's just. Cute as fuck. And as a bonus, her Eve-Like features down to her natural optimism and sweetness is HAUNTING for Adam. A huge reason why he's so aggressive with her is the only way he deals with his issues are to forget about them or get rid of them. (Apart of why Charlie has to deal with Adam at all is that Lucifer knows that it would upset the guy.)

Then there's Charlie's Demonic Form, she adds a total of 2 inches to her height (lmao) and gets a more hellish color pallet. I wanted it to feel magical girl-esk which is something I'm drawing from her original transformation sequence in the show. Really heavily leaning into the demon thing with her horns getting longer and that streak in her hair desaturating along with her skin. I really disliked that Charlie's Big Fight outfit was so simple so I may have overcompensated but I enjoy the colors. The one arm not having armor is because I imagine her still using the shield as her main weapon. Also, a small detail is her hands are a bit bigger and more claw-like on purpose.

For her story/personality, I'm keeping her naive attitude and her nearly sickening optimism. A lot of that has to do with Lilith desperately keeping her happy as a means of distracting herself until she "disappears" and in part due to Lucifer heavily sheltering her. I've mentioned it before but it does not make sense for Charlie to be 200 years old so I'm knocking it down to 20 years. She's wildly bright eyed and bushy tailed. The reason she has the idea to redeem sinners at all is because she wants Lilith to be able to see Heaven, which because Lilith is dead missing, isn't going to happen.

But she doesn't know that! So it's fine!

She meets Vaggie much the same way, though Charlie is nice enough to know what Vaggie is- it's more of a secret to everyone else in the Hotel than herself. This is also how they come up with the idea to attack back, which Charlie is hesitant to do until it comes down to the wire. She's not a huge fan of violence, naturally.

Charlie's relationship to her father is.. strained, because the second she becomes a person- starts having her own opinions and all that, Lucifer is no longer interested. Lucifer is especially uninterested in the Hotel, he doesn't believe sinners should have the second chance even if they could have it. So Charlie's secondary motive is to prove to him that anyone can be redeemed and that they deserve it, which is something she'll have to reconsider as she gets to know her residents.

For Eve, who makes me so god damn sad, I wanted to show the light leaving her eyes Post Apple Incident. I really wanted to give her curly hair and make her just an adorable cutie patootie. In her Garden Version I gave her these sort of magical birthmarks to symbolize that she came from Adam's rib. I also gave her a tooth gap, because I think it's just plain adorable.

Then as she gains free-will and is banished to Earth she loses that bubbly personality and becomes more and more curt as she becomes a mother. The scar on her hand is from getting it caught in a thorn bush, which admittedly I don't think it looks like that but I'll go back to fix it later. I also kinda deflated the volume in her hair to make her look a touch more downtrodden.

THEN there's her Hell Version, I completely desaturated her besides the red and made her hair more sharp and contained in two short twin braids. I tried to allude to Roo's original design as much as I could by keeping her checkered shirt and the thorn motif- but I wanted to show that her and Adam have very similar tastes, with their leather and spike, punk-like outfits. I also gave her "apple bottom jeans" (they're actually bell bottoms but hush), and a moon pendant that she turned into a bracelet that she got from Lilith.

I imagine Eve has a lot of plant/thorn based powers and can meld into shadows- but I really haven't got all of that sorted.

For her story, and this is where it gets intense so this is your final warning, I wanted to really showcase how wrong Lucifer did her. Not only does she have trouble making Adam happy in the garden, which was hard with his first wife currently being lured in by The Literal Soon To Be Devil... But she also was currently being tempted. Any time her mood soured, Lucifer was there to tilt her chin up and tell her everything she wanted to hear. So of course she trusted him, he was nothing but nice! He always talked about how much he loved her, loved Lilith, loved Adam... So when she was offered The Apple, she took a bite grateful to be included. Adam was a little too late to stop anything, not that he could have but what's one more pound of salt in the wound.

In the same breath Lilith and Lucifer were cast out, Eve was to be dammed to Earth. Adam demanded to go with her, he didn't want to be alone. God, he couldn't do that. So, off they went. They quickly had a Horrible Time, but soon they had Cain. Cain was a sweet child originally, maybe a bit rough with animals and intense with his feelings but.. it really got bad when he was seven and Able was born. Able was a golden boy, no doubts about it.. And he wasn't Adams. Eve had met once again with her fallen friend, see she had just been miserable since being on Earth.. and there was one Angel she reluctantly missed. He always said the sweetest things, after all. Adam didn't notice or care, he loved his sons and was... frankly, too exhausted to notice. Eve after Able was becoming more and more withdrawn into herself, not really caring for ether kid as much as she probably should of. Falling into a deep depression and rarely even feeding herself, it was around this time that Lucifer stopped making his visits to Earth. Both due to Heaven being watchful of the new child and that he wouldn't want to "deal with all that" as he would put it.

When Cain killed Able due to his jealousy, Eve strangled her firstborn and proceeded to cry for the remaining hours of the day. Until Adam came to bury them, she didn't have the strength to do so herself and ate hemlock that same night.

She woke up in Hell, taking a lot of solace in Lilith and Lucifer's company for many years. Lilith naturally missed her and Lucifer was happy to have his "toy" back. (His words, we hate him.)

It took her awhile to adjust but as humans started flooding into hell (post Adam death and then post evolution) she found solace in taking advantage of others, it made her feel powerful. Something she never felt, in control. Yet, she still ended up visiting her favorite couple from time to time for quick kisses and any kind of social engagement. At some point she takes on the nickname of Roo (short for Root, short for Root of All Evil) and is a sort of legend among Sinners.

Later rather than sooner, one of these meeting with just Lucifer ended up with Lucifer wanting a child from her, he promised that she could try again as a mother. She agreed to have her, gave birth to her... but once she saw Charlie's face? She couldn't do it. She couldn't raise a child again even after thousands of years, so.. she left Charlie with Lilith, who never got the chance to have a child and got out of there. Lilith was happy to raise the kid, have any sort of distraction from Lucifer's gilded cage. So, Eve went into hiding in hell and is currently still avoiding Lucifer's eye. Eve only really started killing, gaining souls, and becoming prominent again after Lilith's disappearance. Enraged and ultimately scared for her situationship/best friend, thinking that Lucifer must have done something so she needs real power to question him.

Naturally since being in Hell for a long time she'd learned that he's Actually Not Good and was Just Lovebombing her, but it doesn't stop her from missing him from time to time. And her literal soulmate (Adam) is forever out of reach unless he's in Hell killing Sinners, and she's not so sure he wouldn't hurt her after years of memories distorting and emotions being built up.

Anyway that's... pretty much all I have to say. It's hard to summarize so I apologize if anything is unclear. I want to talk about Eve so much but I find myself just Making Noise instead of having comprehensive statements sometimes. There's also a lot I still have to figure out with Cain/Able and Adam so, we'll get there eventually.

Also here's the line up as per usual.

And a zoom-in on the Morningstar family (+ Eve)

[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)

[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

[mobblespsycho100]

Ivan, The Idea vs. Ivan, The Man

a totally serious Ivan Alien Stage analysis by yours truly, Sash @mobblespsycho100

-

( Quick Disclaimer that I'm mostly going to use the word "love" here in a romantic context, but trust me, I am doing an inherently aromantic/anti amatonormativity analysis/interpretation of Alien Stage by virtue of being an aro doing the essayin. )

-

The whole premise of this analysis is that in my opinion, Ivan, homotron 3000, king yaoi the 3rd, canonically does not recognize his feelings for Till as "love". And no, it's not just because the aliens don't have a concept for it or the way they were raised in Anakt Garden / by their pet owning humans (even though that's partly one of the reasons)– because we see Sua and Mizi sort of recognize that their feelings for one another are something akin to our modern definition of love – even if they don't have the words for it and even if it goes beyond that ('my god my universe')

So, why do I think this? a couple reasons! the main one being the Ivan centric comic we got after round 6, but let's start with the thesis of this analysis:

Ivan thinks his feelings are selfish, and does not consider the alternative that it might not be.

[ exhibit a: "thank you for being the victim of my shallow emotions"

but i wont get into that yet (says guy who is holding back to not talk abt it right away) ]

We're going to the very beginning to psychoanalyze king yaoi the 3rd, a little prelude if you will: ALIEN STAGE (Sweet Dream) & Black Sorrow brief discussion !

Alien stage (the video not . not the name of the series) is basically our introduction to the series and it is a banger. What's really interesting to me is that in the Ivan centric scenes it shows adult Ivan singing in alnst and smiling & staring at till with those homo eyes. The only time he's shown as a kid is in the Anakt garden singing practice group shot.

We can infer that he is a guy who I think cares abt his image or appearance, he looks like a very stereotypical image of an idol. However, his smile never really reaches his eyes. even when hes looking at Till, neither of them are smiling. Ivan only smiles on the stage, as he is performing. The careful and deliberate way he showcases himself is easy to see. He's charming, hes the thumbnail of the prologue! What's interesting to me is that there's really nothing that striking about his character design aside from the fact that his bangs are half covering his other eye (and what I mentioned abt the smile not quite reaching his eyes). There is a distance between him and the audience, the stage persona, not Ivan the man but Ivan the celebrity. Just another handsome face in the game.

Now, that initial character analysis isn't actually going to be all that relevant in this essay unfortunately (though I could definitely go into that! Maybe in an analysis comparing Ivan and Luka), but I really do like how the lyric that shows up on the [Ivantill] frame is "Live in Darkness" because it goes to my next point, Black Sorrow Ivan whos singing about himself and Till (him as the pov character and "you" as till, but I'm stating the obvious here). I'm not going over every lyric because this analysis would be way longer but basically, Black Sorrow is about the grief of never being able to reach someone who you want to be by your side forever so badly. Ivan understands that the ending of this contest is not a kind one, there is no field of flowers waiting for them after they win, only bloodshed.

"To me , you are black sorrow" says by the guy who wears all black and has eyes filled with sorrow. Alright all jokes aside though, I do enjoy the most widespread interpretation of the animation itself, that Ivan compares Till's nature to stars or a meteor shower in particular because of how that image is ingrained in his mind since childhood. I also think that Ivan associates Till with more of a candle always burning up, a star that has fallen to the dirt. A meteorite if you will, rock that made an impact and left a crater in Ivan's heart. He was always fascinated by the light in the dark sky. It represented beauty and hope to him, that maybe theres more to life than getting hurt. That there's light in the ever growing darkness as cliché as that sounds.

Till makes Ivan curious, more than anything. He enjoys aggravating him, making fun of him. Mizi is Ivan's friend , because (and I'm just guessing here mostly. i love their silly friendship shown in comics, its very important to me. ) she's fun to talk to and shes silly in a way that just makes people gravitate towards her, but Till is Ivan's friend because it is funny to piss him off. Till is interesting to Ivan because hes entertaining. Someone so talented and beloved yet easy to target. Someone who stands up for himself. Someone who is so so alive, burning up like a short quick fuse. Someone who can't and would not be kept down despite the collar on his neck. It intrigues Ivan, this guy who sings with enthusiasm and passion, not just going through the motions. Like some comet striking in the darkness. A true artist.

But in his eyes, this isn't Love. Its fascination at best, interest sure, admiration ? perhaps. What Ivan wants isn't Till's happiness, what he wants is to see him react in a funny way. Everything Ivan does is not for Till's sake, it's for his sake. His amusement. Till makes him feel alive, and hes grateful for that, he's grateful to have a companion like Till. (OR SO HE THINKS). In the end though, although he is affectionate, I don't think it registers in Ivan's mind that whatever he feels for Till is love. This is simply their dynamic of push and pull, tug and shove, tease and cry. It's something, and also nothing at all.

But then he tried to save him. He thought he could be the one to save him. And it fails– badly.

(right this is a small tangent but how exactly did he know how to open the collar mechanism? this guy's really fucking smart. did he use a pick? how did he just unclip it so easily??? is he crazy? did he observe the anakt supervisor do that? what the hell Ivan Alien Stage. maybe I'm missing an explanation here . if anyone knows please share .)

Right okay so the whole running away together , escaping the garden hand in hand, this must be when Ivan realizes he truly loves Till, enough to potentially sacrifice his life for him right? WRONG. We all know how this ended. Black sorrow, out of reach, so close and yet so far. Till going back to Anakt Garden, gazing at Ivan, looking back. Conflicted. Till was always a beacon of light. Till was always rebelling against the Anakt. He's the problem child, surely he'll go along with it? Surely he'll run away with Ivan. He's freed him! He's out of his cage now! He can do anything he wants, and they can go anywhere together!

Till went back. He couldn't bear to not see his friends again. He felt wrong for leaving everyone behind. He doesn't want to leave anakt garden, and maybe Mizi is the defining factor, but I think even if it wasn't Mizi who was left there I think he would've gone back. He looks back like Orpheus and Eurydice. He looks at Ivan and his eyes are almost an apology, he runs back. Fire burns around them. Ivan smiles.

And he goes back too.

OKAY now im just writing a whole ass fanfic. back to the damn analysis section.

Ivan's thoughts toward Mizi and Sua are so damn interesting to me, especially how he feels abt Sua. He recognizes what those two have going on as Love. He's kind of jealous of them really, he won't ever understand the feelings he harbors fully. He sees them laughing with each other, truly embracing each other's company joyfully, looking at one another like they're looking at the whole world. Part of why he doesn't think what hes got going on with Till is "love" is because its not the same, Till won't ever look at him like how he looks at Mizi or how Ivan himself looks at Till (in his eyes but lets be real I think Till pining for Mizi woulda been obvious for Ivan so he cant imagine Till enjoying his company the same way as Ivan does Till even if theyre friends but tbf I DON'T THINK IVAN WANTED SOMEONE TO MATCH HIS FREAK i think he wanted to be the only freaky one. but i digress). Right — so this is what establishes Ivan feeling like his feelings for Till are "shallow" and also what makes him laugh at Sua and call her twisted and selfish and "you'll be nothing more than a trauma to Mizi" (wtf btw) when Sua told him (presumably. honestly idk . how did he fuckin know) abt The Plan to sacrifice herself in round 1. Because to Ivan that is selfish, that is imbalanced, something that isn't right because to him Sua is only thinking of her own feelings. He laughed at her, taunted her. He felt vindicated. So yeah, you truly are twisted like I am, I thought we weren't the same, but deep down there is something deeply wrong with you too! (okay . stop that)

To Ivan thats kind of like how he feels about Till, he's not thinking about Till's feelings when he acts. He just Says shit and Does stuff and likes to bother Till because of the love of the game??? (Honestly? I can't tell. His mind is too oopy goopy for my comprehension)

And he ultimately regrets the words he said to Sua right? He said he was relieved that Sua is "also twisted" but all he did was project his own feeling of being a selfish and twisted person to Sua, who had no clue what the hell he was on about. Sua believed that she was going to save Mizi from pain, because death is pain, because she's seen that before and she would not let Mizi die in front of her. And Ivan says "hey but thats stupid , in dying yourself you're going to make her feel pain because she actually *loves* you and would not want you to die.". Which brings me to the whole point of the analysis though, because this isn't a "did Ivan love Till forreal" analysis it is a "Did Ivan realize he was experiencing love or was he fucking stupid" analysis.

and the answer is that its kind of a mix of both, but mostly hes fucking stupid (saying this with love in my heart).

Because until the end he thought he was selfish. Until the end he thought it was shallow emotion (and maybe he was being sardonic towards himself, but lets be real he understands that he was punishing himself for his feelings. He knew he felt strongly, but he didn't think what he felt for Till was love because it did not make Till happy. "I could never love him, I let him go" "I don't love him, I'd rather leave him then see him gone because he would not miss me, Im sure of it.")

Sooo what was the point of all this again? The point is that. Ivan is stupid. im joking okay the point is that maybe round 6 wasn't about the doomed tragic yaoi kiss. Maybe it was abt doomed yaoi but not about Ivan dying knowing that he loved Till. Maybe it wasn't about Ivan getting shot 3 times and dying in such a way it changed the trajectory of my life forever. Maybe it was about Till deserving better than Ivan (which is probably Ivan's thought process but lets be real did he even think abt how this would affect Till. He literally went "nah it won't" but no its not the point once again).

Round 6 was Ivan beginning to realize that maybe he's never going to get what he wants, and thats okay, because there is something selfless about dying for someone. Even if his emotions are "shallow", even if his motive was selfish, even if he looked hot during it (sorry. sorry) (he didn't i just wanted to tack on a joke), maybe in the end this was a little bit of "love" like what it looks like in Mizi and Sua. Maybe even better, because Till does not love him. Till would not feel pain if Ivan died, because he does not feel the same way (OR SO HE THOUGHT). He's only sorry to Till because this will be his last memory of Ivan now, a farewell kiss, and his cold clammy hands closing around his neck.

(Speaking of the kiss, I wonder if it's something he learned from books? or his segyein? because apparently a kiss is not a well known or even established sign of affection in alien society right (idk I'm not in the vivinos patreon i just saw this from somewhere)? and the only other person who knows the significance of a kiss as a gesture of love is Luka.)

Now back to love.

Till never realized it until it's too late. Ivan has not realized it even in the grave. Because dying for someone is a twisted thing, especially when it's someone like him who is already a twisted person doing it for Till, who is his light.

Was it a good show, Ivan? Did he look at you at the very end Ivan? did you see his expression when you fell to the cold stage, Ivan? Was it tears or was it rain that fell down as you lost your balance? Did your vision go dark before you saw that light Ivan? Did it even matter at the very end? Are you glad you made sure of your demise? Did it guarantee Till's safety?

Maybe it did. Even at the very end. You got the reaction you loved so much right? Another one to add in the ever expanding gallery, even if it was in these horrible circumstances.

Anyway, in conclusion? Ivan did not realize that his feelings for Till was love because he thought love had to be some kind of perfect thing between two people and since he was a selfish person then it could only be "shallow emotions" and Till the recipient of his "shallow emotion" could only be a victim. It never crossed his mind to even think otherwise and think about how Till might feel about all this because it's already set in his mind that he's selfish, cruel, and vain and Till deserves better. Gah.

Rest in peace king yaoi the third fly high this has been my ted talk/hot take/analysis that may not be a hot take I just don't actually engage with the fandom takes all that much . Peacing out now this guy is so fucking weird (peace and love) (Ivan stans don't go after me I am aware of his autism swag. I too am also--) 🕊️

.

.

.

Special thanks to you, the reader, if you managed to read all this :3 another special thanks to my friend group, crossover ✌️ especially E my good friend E. Alrighty idk how to end this

bye 👽🎙️