#i wasn’t bothered to find all the original art files in my folder so I just took them from tumblr

[1rabong]

Into the Labyrinth

Zael and Iryo - for reference

Zael

Iryo (canon)

Iryo (Labyrinth AU)

Zael/Iryo (Labyrinth AU)

[heysimhey]

Play The Sims 2 in The Sims 4!

I've been simming since 2000 beginning with The Sims 1. Of all the versions of the game, The Sims 2 version has always been my favorite mainly due to the character stories. Even when The Sims 3 came out, I still was tied to the characters and stories of version 2 and it never quite felt right. Then The Sims 4 came out and I was excited to see the Goths, but the story line was "wrong". My beloved characters were missing. I played for a few years and then went back to 2. I loved the stories of 2, but the game play and graphics of 4. What's a girl to do?

Create the Sims 2 character and stories in the Sims 4? Yeah, that actually works for me....and was a lot of work as well.

I didn't bring over the characters from every world in TS2. The reason being, I never really cared for any of the other characters from the neighborhoods like Belladonna Cove, Riverblossom Hills or Desiderata Valley. In fact, I can honestly say, I never even bothered playing Desiderata Valley. I had enough drama with the main three (Pleasantview, Strangetown and Veronaville....and Bluewater Village).

But wasn't it crazy that with every neighborhood, you got a separate and exactly the same Bluewater Village from scratch? So a different Malcom Landgraab everytime. The Malcom Landgraab from Strangetown didn't know the Pleasantview folks and vice versa. I always found that wacky, so I picked the ML from Pleasantview to play with and abandoned the other dopplegangers.

And why couldn't the Goths know the Smiths? Why couldn't the Pleasants have a barbecue with the Monty's? Why couldn't sims from one neighborhood have friendships/rivalries and romances with sims from another neighborhood? Well, now they can! Pleasantview, Strangetown (Strangerville), Veronaville and Bluewater Village are all open and connected in The Sims 4! I even threw in some goodies like the Newbies and Mashugas from The Sims 1 and that mean ole Mrs. Crumplebottom!

I tried my best to find original renditions of their homes from TS2. As you know, aspirations have changed a little bit, but I tried my darndest to stay true to their aspirations from TS2 with the help of other personality traits along the side. I have already played the neighborhoods to the point of where TS2 begins, with the proper relationships established, ghosts deceased (check out Olive Specter's lil' grim garden *shudder*) and everyone in their proper lots.

Original sims who came with TS4 are still around somewhere in the neighborhood bin. I evicted most of them to make room for my characters. Below are details for each neighborhood that I put together.

Huge shout-out to Midnite Tech for creating the package file that allows us to edit our World names.

The packs I have installed currently are: Get to Work, Get Together, City Living, Get Famous, Discover University, Strangerville, Dine Out, Movie Hangout Stuff, Vintage Glamour Stuff, Tiny Living Stuff and Holiday Celebration.

I wish I could say this is Base Game compatible, but unfortunately, you will need these packs in order to have the full experience. I will be purchasing the other packs as I choose in the future, but for right now, I'm good.

About Pleasantview (Willow Creek)

The Goths, Pleasants, Calientes, Dreamers and Brokes are here and are cued as best as possible to their TS2 initial situations. I also included Bob and Betty Newbie from TS1, whom we later found out were Brandi's parents. Their relationship is also reflected in this file. The notorious maid, Kaylynn Langerak is also residing in Pleasantview and is bound to cause some ruckus.

About Strangerville (Strangetown)

The Smiths, Grunts, Curiouses, Beakers and Specters are in full play with the appropriate ghosts haunting Olive's lot. Bella was definitely abducted by aliens (although we can't view all of their memories anymore) and dropped in Strangeville just the same as Strangetown's TS2. She has a story of her own. Thankfully, you can easily decide to reunite her with her family, or let her start a new life. Caution, the neighborhoods are connected, so she is bound to run into one of her relatives.

*For WHATEVER reason, the file would NOT let me change the name of Strangerville to Strangetown.  It may have something to do with the whole Strangerville story line.  But I have seen others edit this.  Ah well.*

About Veronaville (Windenburg)

The Capp, Monty and Summerdream families are here with the Monty/Capp feud still going strong. Romeo and Juliette are still in love. Awwwww. I almost never played this neighborhood, but it just wouldn't feel right if I didn't include them.

About Bluewater Village (Newcrest)

The Landgraab, Tinker, Ramirez, Jacquet and Delarosa characters came on over with their aspirations. J'Adore Bakery is owned by the Jacquets, but I didn't create the other businesses.

About Downtown (San Myshuno)

This is where you will find the notorious Mrs. Crumplebottom. She is content in her little house right smack dab where it is and you better stay off her lawn. I heard Malcom Landgraab III offered her a ton of money to move so he could build a new skyrise. She refused to sell and clobbered him with her purse. So he built around her. Malcom Landgraab IV is terrified of her due to the fact that he remembers the huge knot his father had to nurse all those years ago, so he continues his father's legacy of building around her. She ain't budging.

About Twikkii Springs (Oasis Springs)(Twikkii Island)

I named this Twikkii Springs instead of Twikkii Island because Oasis Springs isn't really an island, so it didn't make much sense. So I modified it to be Twikkii Springs. I used Zerbu's World Type Changes mod to make Oasis Springs a destination world. The Mashuga's currently run things here in their token pink octogon house. At least, in my head they do. You can play this however you want. You can get the mod here or don't use the mod and play it as is.

Honorable Mentions

Del Sol Valley

I left these named the same as we didn't really have a fame expansion for TS2. I was tempted to name it Studio Town like in TS1, but that just sounded too "Toon-Town"ish, so nah, pass. I like Del Sol Valley.

Magnolia Promenade

I totally tried to rename this to Uptown Bluewater, but the game said nope. So Magnolia Promenade it is. Maybe one day the powers that bEA will be nice and allow us to freely rename our worlds....or is that wishful thinking?

*************

Majority of the lots that you see here in these worlds, I downloaded from the gallery. I won't feel bad at all if you wanna change things up.

The custom maps that I used for my worlds, you will have to install them separately in order for your neighborhoods to look like my pictures above.  You can get the maps here.

*************

DID I MISS SOMETHING?? I tried my best to make this as close to the original TS2 version as possible, but the human in me probably forgot a detail or two. Let me know!

{HOW TO INSTALL}

1. Download my save file here. (SFS not working? Get it here instead.)

2. Then copy the file from your downloads folder into this path: my documents/electronic arts/the sims 4/saves | NOT your mods, tray folder or any other folder.

3. When you open the game, you should see the file The Sims 2 Reprise. :)

{TERMS OF USE}

Feel free to use this save file and have fun with your sims. If you make a video, please let me know. I totally would love to see how others play with this world. I would appreciate a shout out too!

I'm @HeySimHey on Twitter and Instagram and HeySimHey on Youtube. I'll be glad to hear from you!

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “John Wick” Part 3

Y/N left The Organization 3 years ago for the one reason strong enough to make her settle down: love. But after tragedy crushed her to pieces, she decided to leave The Joker and seek refuge with an old friend and mentor - John Wick. Needless to say The King of Gotham can’t accept his wife running away without a word, especially since he didn’t have a chance to tell her things she might want to hear.

Part 1     Part 2

The Joker listens at the bedroom’s door, impatient to have a conversation with you. It seems you are engaged into a fervent phone call with Winston and figured he shouldn’t interrupt.

“Please, anything you can discover would be a great help! U-hum… U-hum… Thank you,” and you hang up, which queues your husband to walk into the room.

You completely ignore him, scrolling through the numerous text messages you sent to your connections; several are already answering back and hopefully you can get some news soon. The more people are involved into the project, the more chances to find Kase and untangle the mystery of what happened to him after he was removed from the car.

“You left me there,” The Joker sneaks in and closes the door behind him. “Luckily we had Wick with us so he gave me a ride.”

No reaction. He takes a deep breath, trying to get your awareness.

“I didn’t sleep with Evelyn; sex wasn’t the reason why I kept visiting her. I know how that asshole made it sound and he was totally out of line!”

You quickly glance at him, busy replying to Ares since you feel you’re going to explode soon.

“The only skill I was interested in is the fact that she is an excellent painter and a popular art smuggler, OK?” J raises his voice, sort of annoyed you neglect to participate into his monologue. “I did not cheat, alright?” he approaches his wife. “First of all: I’m VERY picky! Second of all: why would I want a woman everyone else had?! I don’t like used toys. Third: nobody’s been polishing my gun as you tastefully addressed the issue! I have one Queen and I married her!!”

A little bit of doubt in your eyes and he utilizes the opportunity.

“You said you saw me going to her house? I did! The Bowery King asked if it was for the last 6 months? Yeah, I did! You know why?!”

At least now The Joker got your attention: you play it cool but he guesses you’re torn apart by his confession.

Many unfortunate events crammed in lately and hating the man you love made life infinitely more unbearable.

“Why…?” you barely muster the strength to inquire and he sees it as a possibility to mend a few broken pieces; although you can hide your emotions well, J can still read between the lines.

Maybe that’s why he answers with another question:

“Do you realize there are just three Monet paintings in circulation on the black market in the entire world? You admire his work and it took a lot of effort and a substantial fortune to acquire The Water Lily Pond painting. Evelyn Black helped with the transaction, then I had her make some modifications to the original masterpiece.”

You keep staring at The King of Gotham, uncertain about the stuff being tossed your way: is he lying or telling the truth?... In your line of work translating feelings is a huge part of the job; ultimately you had the best mentor to teach you the ropes when you started with the organization: none other than the legendary Baba Yaga. Despite his reputation and to your own amazement, John was one of the few hitmen with integrity and perfectly mastered the aptitude of not being a jerk. Such a rare gem… And blissfully unaware of it himself.

On the opposite end, The Joker is a jerk and flawlessly acquainted with his own “captivating” personality that made you fall in love with him anyway.

Also, doesn’t appear to be deceitful for the moment.

And you despise yourself even more for wanting to believe him.

“What… modifications?...” you throw him a bone and J is definitely not going to pass on the alternative of explaining his actions.

“I wanted to surprise you so I took advantage of Miss Black’s capabilities in the art field; I had her add small images to the authentic canvas: an evolution of you being pregnant, the nine frames culminating with a tenth: the new mother holding our son. Similar to a timeline,” he emphasize and you look intrigued, which might be a positive sign. “Needless to say it was tedious, difficult work, especially because she had to apply special pigments you can’t find at every corner of the street. Apparently you can’t mix old paint with contemporary shades, thus I had to order aged, special colors from Italy, Spain and France. That’s why I went to her place so often: I had to supervise the long process and make sure it turns out astonishing. Then…” and The Joker pauses,”…Kase was gone and I didn’t know what to do with my gift: bring it home or not? Would you have loved it? Would it make you sadder? I continued to drive to Evelyn’s and glare at the stupid painting for hours, undecided on what to do…”

J watches you bite on your cheek, then straightens his shoulders as you utter the words:

“… … … You ruined a genuine Monet?”

Your spouse might be a smooth talker when needed, yet he’s not wasting his versatility on this statement:

“I didn’t ruin it; I made it better!”

Silence from both parties. A good or bad omen? Hard to decipher the riddle with two individuals tangled into a relationship that somehow worked despite countless peculiarities meant to keep them apart.

“I have to talk to Jonathan,” you finally mutter and The Joker steps in front of you.

“Talk to me!”

“Unless you know the exact location of the suitcase full of gold coins he’s been safekeeping for me, I really have to speak to him. Or do you want to hammer the whole basement searching for it?”

Y/N walks out of the bedroom and J lingers inside, evesdropping on the conversation happening downstairs. He can’t understand the chat, but you are probably notifying John about the details your husband left out.

Might as well join the party, therefore The Clown pops up in the living room with a plea impossible to refuse:

“Hey Wick, can I stay here? I don’t care if you say no, I’m not going to leave.”

Your friend crosses his arms on his chest, focusing on the random topic:

“How could I deny such a polite request? Of course you can stay Mister Joker; my house is your house.”

You’re watching the free show unamused; usually it would make you smile…now you lack the depth for such connotations.

“Don’t get smart with me, Wick!” J growls and Jonathan pushes for a tiny, unnecessary quarrel.

“I’m not; although generally speaking, I fancy considering myself a smart guy.”

The Joker opens his mouth and you’re not in the mood for whatever the heck they’re initiating:

“I’m going to pump, then after you dig out the suitcase I’ll take half to the Bowery King,” you announce your plans to them.

“You can do that and rest; I’ll deliver the coins,” John immediately offers. “I can stop by Aurelio’s car shop and ask for his collaboration: he has a lot of associates, doesn’t hurt to get him involved. You have plenty of gold.”

“I have two more suitcases in the Continental’s safe and two more at The Penthouse. It doesn’t matter if it’s all gone as long as I can find my son.”

“I know gold coins are preferred; don’t forget we have a lot of money too,” J reckons with spite.

Is he reminding you or Jonathan?...

*************

Your husband spent the last hour in the garden, talking and texting with a lot of people; needless to mention he’s capitalizing on his network also. Winston disclosed Stonneberg’s contract is still opened, meaning the son of a bitch is out there; you have to scoop him before anybody else does.

“Y/N…” The Joker tiptoes in your quarters. “I thought you were taking a nap,” he huffs when he sees you at the edge of the bed.

You glare at the vial on the nightstand, sharing your idea for a future you wish will come true:

“I didn’t have my medicine in two days; I won’t take it anymore because if we get Kase back… I will nurse him. It all goes in the milk and I want to be able to feed my baby… Do you think his little heart is still beating?...” you sniffle and J is currently debating on a clever response since his mind is blank; one could deduce messing up is encoded in his DNA, but on such a huge scale… well, it gives new interpretations to the term even for him.

The grieving woman seeking reassurance for their loss is trying to make sense of the pointless occurrences that lead to Kase being an innocent victim and The Joker can’t render clarification: he has no clue why he asked her to marry him and why she said yes, it’s not that he’s husband material or a family man. Perhaps Y/N thought he could be… just enough to get by, that’s why she accepted his proposal.

Most women would have cringed at the concept. Most women. Not Y/N.

Most women would have flinched at the notion of having his baby. Most women. Not his wife.

Above all, she trusted J with their son and he treated the three weeks old like a trinket: didn’t drive him home because he had an important meeting, didn’t bother to assign escorting cars nor extra security. The King of Gotham took his child’s safety lightly and it definitely had severe consequences. Too late now to fix past mistakes... but he can attempt.

“You’ll be able to nurse him, OK?” he sits by you and hands over his cell. “Can you enter your phone number in here? Or am I not allowed to have the present digits?”

You’re hesitant and he slides the screen while you hold the gadget.

“Lemme help you,” The Joker sarcastically mumbles. “It should be the first on my list, right where the old number you canceled was.”

You exhale and fulfill his demand out of pure frustration when he squeezes in a second innocent petition.

“Chose my avatar.”

You grunt at his rubbish, scrolling through his folders for a picture anyway; J hopes the largest file will get your attention and that’s the point. How could Y/N miss it?!

Entitled “Baby”, the humongous cluster of pics contains 5,723 items. You open it quite absorbed by its size; what’s more puzzling is the collection depicting Kase’s ultrasounds, hundreds of frames with you being pregnant taken without you knowing: there’s a few when your ankles were so swollen you had to sleep with your feet up on 4 pillows, others with you munching on strange food you craved, more with you in the shower focused on your bump, a decent amount of couple selfies when you were sleeping and J had to immortalize the moment without waking you up and approximately 1,500 images of the newborn.

“You didn’t gross me out when you were pregnant,” The Joker reminds a teary Y/N. “Not sure why you would believe such aberration...” he pulls you on his knees and yanks the phone away, tossing it on the nightstand. “I would also like to underline I didn’t have an affair with Miss Black, alright?”

J lifts your chin up, forcing to look at him.

“Let’s put it this way: why would I fuck around with another woman when I have a wife at home that wants to kill me on a regular basis, hm? Where would the fun be? I mean, she didn’t pull the trigger yet but it’s exciting to hope she might. You know me: I’m a sucker for thrills!”

“Do I?”

“Huh?” J steals a kiss and you frown at his sleekness.

“Know you?”

“Yeah,” the green haired Clown acts composed while in fact his feathers are ruffled. Before you catch onto it he has to ultimately admit: “I’m sorry I didn’t drive the car… I should have…”

The Joker holds in his breath when your arms go around his neck very tight.

“I’m suffocating…” he grumbles. “I can’t tell if you’re trying to hug me or choke me to death,” J keeps on caressing your hair, prepared to block your attack in case you’re actually in killing mode.

This is the excitement he was speaking about: with you, one could never know until it’s a done deal.

“I bumped into Magnus at the Continental,” you give him a bit of space to inhale much needed air and The Joker is surprised at your revelation. “I had no idea about his scheme, otherwise I would have skinned him alive right on the hotel grounds! I wouldn’t have cared about the consequences!”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” J cuts you off and he can tell you’re getting mad; maybe you think he doesn’t give a damn but the reason is simple. “You would’ve been declared excommunicado for murder on neutral ground and I don’t want my wife to be the target of such punishment from the company she so proudly retired from. I need my partner!”

The King of Gotham touches your forehead with his as you whisper:

“I hate you!”

“Mmm, regarding this true love affirmation, I’m gonna need you to take a break from detesting me until we have Kase, then you can despise me full throttle again. Deal?” he extends the palm of his hand and you reluctantly shake it, not realizing you’re reacting to his nonsense. “Is that a smile?” J returns the favor with one of his creepy silver grins.

“No.”

“Liar,” he pecks your lips and can’t explain the weird feeling in his heart when you kiss him back.

*************

Jonathan enters the house and becomes suspicious after a few minutes: too much silence.

Omg! Did you and The Joker engaged into a brawling that ended up badly? Did you end each other?!

John frantically runs to the garage, nervous to see your car and J’s are still parked inside. Shit!

“Y/N?” he shouts, concerned about your fate; The Joker’s… irrelevant. Nobody in the garden, patio is empty also. Downstairs is deserted thus he rushes upstairs to your room. The door is not completely shut and he slowly pushes it, knocking.

“Y/N? Can I come in?”

The first thing he notices are clothes scattered on the floor, then he halts his movement at the sight of Y/N and her husband dozing off on the bed sideways: the naked bodies are covered with a blanket, but he can tell you’re snuggled in J’s arms.

Jonathan steps backwards, guilty of invading his guests’ privacy; he certainly didn’t expect to intrude in such a manner and softly closes the door, grateful it’s not what he feared.  

You and The Joker are so worn out the sound of your phones vibrating on the nightstand doesn’t wake you from the deep sleep. Your numerous contacts keep replying back to the text messages, the most important one showing up on his cell: one of the people J reached to is Evelyn Black and the two sentence conversation lights up the screen.

“Let me know if you see Stonnenberg.”

“He’s here.”

 Also read: MASTERLIST

You can follow me on Ao3 and Wattpad under the same blog name: DiYunho.

[inkslingerharry]

Yellow Days

Harry needs to touch up his tiger thigh tattoo, and he’s recommended to Y/N, a tattoo artist who just started up her own tattoo shop. Harry is nearly unable to hold himself together during consultation and while Y/N touches up his tattoo. After all, Y/N is an attractive, witty, and fiery woman who also happens to own a Britney Spears shirt.

thank you to @for-fucks-sake-h @yes-daddy-i-willl and @tandy-mikaelson for being beta readers, y’all are the best and mean so so much to me, thank you for doing this.

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**warning: there are mentions of mature content, blood, and tattoos/needles

here’s nearly 9k of sexual tension!

“Just a touch up?” She asks, slipping her glasses from her face to her hair, pushing back a few stray strands, looking across her desk that’s currently littered with papers, sketches, folders, the sort.

Harry nods, lightly tapping his knuckles against his knee, trying to maintain eye contact as best he could.

A friend had recommended Harry visit Y/N’s shop after he mentioned how faded his tiger tattoo had gotten. He played back the memory, nervous as he remembered how his friend had disclosed that the artist was fairly new, just opened up her own shop. He was surprised when he walked through the doors, taking off his sunglasses and looking around the establishment; it wasn’t like Harry to check out such a new artist. But he wanted the tattoo done. Plus, he figured, it would be cheaper.

He didn’t really have an idea of who Y/N was, other than looking through her work on Instagram and her portfolio on her website. She was a damn good artist for being so new to the game. After making a consulting appointment with a woman behind a tiny desk near the front, Harry was ready to see Y/N for himself. He had heard amazing remarks from his friend and this new woman, who had only been working for Y/N for five months.

“Do you mind if I ask why the original artist can’t do it?” Y/N questions, leaning forward and resting her arms on her desk over a red folder.

Despite being a tattoo artist, her arms were bare. Harry could spot a tiny line of ink on the inside of her arm, just above the crook of her elbow. The rest was hidden by the sleeve of her maroon button up. He wondered what else she was hiding under her clothes, where the rest of her tattoos were. Every other person he’s been with was covered in ink, yet the woman in front of him looked like an empty canvas.

As Harry glanced back up to meet her eyes, he’s taken aback. She never broke eye contact with him unless necessary, and when she was looking at him, she seemed… bored, unconcerned, restless. It was like she had better things to do.

“He’s been really busy lately. His schedule has been so full of appointments that he doesn’t time time for me,” Harry responded, bringing his hand up and scratching at the end of his nose twice, a habit he developed when he was nervous.

Y/N nodded, reaching forward, her eyes finally leaving Harry’s as she moved a few papers haphazardly. One paper fell to the floor in front of Harry, landing at his feet after fluttering back and forth a few times.

He quickly picked it up without thinking, leaning and bending forward to grasp the edge of it. When he emerged above the desk again, Y/N was looking at him, but not his eyes this time. When she saw him scan her face briefly, her eyes slightly widened and she took the paper that was being offered to her. She busied herself right away.

“Did you draw that?” Harry motioned towards the sketch he had just picked up, which was already thrown onto the desk in a disorganized manner.

“Yeah,” she answered, scattering a few more papers before finding what she was looking for: a label maker.

“It’s beautiful. What kind of flower is it?” Harry asked, hoping he wasn’t stepping over an imaginary boundary.

“A peony,” Y/N said, inclining herself forward so Harry could take the label maker from her hand. “Just type out your name.”

It was hard to read her. He wanted to find out more about her, see more of her art, know why she was a bit harsh on the outside. Harry could never really read her face which was different for him. Everyone seemed to be an open book except her.

“What if I misspell it?”

“Then I guess I’ll refer to you as Hatty Styles then,” she quipped, not wasting a breath.

He gave a quick laugh, looking down to read the letters on the tiny keyboard. He liked how quick she was, how it seemed like her humor left no survivors. She had wit, and Harry admired that.

“Alright,” he whispered loudly, handing the label maker back over the desk to her. She examined it in seconds before pressing a button and setting it to the side. The little machine started whirring.

“Have a preference in color?” She asked, scooting her chair back and opening a drawer in her filing cabinet.

“What?”

“Folder color,” she answered simply, thumbing over a few colors. “Purple, red, green, blue, black, or yellow?”

Harry shook his head, finding the entire scenario a little disorienting. “Yellow, I guess.”

“Last yellow one,” she commented, bringing herself forward again.

“I’m honored,” Harry joked, placing his hand over his chest dramatically. He was rewarded with the tiniest ghost of a smile from Y/N. His heart and pride soared.

Y/N picked up the label maker and ripped off the product, tearing apart the two pieces of paper so one was a sticker with Harry’s name on it. She carefully stuck it to the yellow folder in front of her, making sure it was fairly centered and even.

“So, I have to ask you about your medical history, just to be sure. Do you have diabetes, any allergies, on any blood thinners?”

Harry shook his head to all of them. “Great. Have you tested positive for HIV or hepatitis?”

Again, Harry shook his head.

“Okay, now I’d like to take pictures of your current tattoo so I can figure out what needs to be touched up and what still looks good. You did sign the papers in the front, right? With Fumiko, the lady at the front desk?”

Harry nodded, watching how Y/N reached for one of several cameras resting on a shelf. She gave a hum of approval before standing and strolling around her desk, stopping right in front of Harry.

“Oh, right,” Harry coughed, pulling up his shorts to showcase his faded tattoo. It looked rough.

Y/N snapped a few pictures, some with flash and some without. Some zoomed in, some zoomed out. After about four more pictures were taken, Y/N set her camera on her desk, still looking intently at Harry’s tattoo.

She reached forward, her fingers a few inches away before she glanced up at him. “Is this okay?”

Harry only nodded, not trusting his voice at the moment. Y/N slipped on her glasses before placing her hand on Harry’s thigh. She moved the skin around a bit, looking at it from different angles. She was careful with Harry’s thigh, making sure she was professional and pulling the skin just enough so she could take her notes.

“Not really my style, but it’s not bad,” she muttered, giving just enough praise to make Harry happy.

Her hands were warmer than he had thought they would be. Her nails were neat, not manicured, but she took care of them. Harry thought he could see the faintest stain of nail polish, but he wasn’t sure.

Y/N stopped, allowing her fingertip to lightly trace around the tattoo. The motion was different than before; it was soft and tender, almost as if she didn’t need to do what she was doing, but she wanted to. She glanced up at Harry, meeting his eyes with her hand still on him. After a few seconds of silence, Y/N nodded and stepped away, back to her chair around her desk. She huffed as she tried to sort a few papers.

Harry swallowed loudly, trying to hide the blush rising on his cheeks.

“You didn’t want anything added to it? No colors, no new shapes, just a touch up?”

“Yes,” Harry confirmed.

“I think I have everything,” she said, picking up a notepad and jotting down a few notes, the cap of her pen in her mouth. “We have your contact information, right?”

“Yes,” Harry repeated, pulling his shorts back down his leg, covering his thigh. Just as he was about to stand, the girl from the front desk entered Y/N’s office. Harry watched as Y/N’s shoulders deflated.

“Y/N! You wouldn’t believe it. Some guy came in and asked for a drop in and when I said-“

“Fumi, I’m consulting right now,” Y/N grated, her eyes already losing a bit of color.

Fumiko shrugged, walking in further. “Your desk is so messy,” she commented, picking up a few papers.

“I’m busy.”

Fumiko laughed, her black hair bouncing with her shoulders. She made a few more remarks, gaining a few laughs from Harry and a couple glares from Y/N.

“So, Harry Styles,” Fumiko read off of the new folder, “why come into Y/N’s shop?”

Harry was a little taken back by the forward question, but he saw Y/N’s grumpy face turn to one of curiosity.

“I need a touch up done,” he simply answered. Y/N’s face didn’t change except for her lips puckering a bit as she looked away.

“You could’ve gone anywhere for a touch up, so why here? Aren’t you a little nervous about being Y/N’s client?”

Harry shrugged, becoming a little uncomfortable under the investigation. “I mean, sure, I was a little hesitant because she, Y/N, is young and a bit new to the game, but she was recommended.”

Fumiko nodded, leaning her body against Y/N’s desk. “That’s what I’ve been saying!” She turned to Y/N. “You need to find people who support you. Be sure to find at least one person who understands and supports you… a spouse!”

Y/N shot up from her chair, her eyebrows now furrowed and her lips in a straight line. “I’ll escort you out,” she snapped, not bothering to reach for a few slips of paper that fell to the ground.

Harry quickly stood, shaking Fumiko’s hand and following Y/N to the front of the shop. He noticed how briskly she walked, her shoulders a bit tight and her legs not taking full strides. She was also at least half a foot shorter than he was, but he had a feeling she could fuck a person up if she wanted to.

“Sorry about Fumi’s unprofessionalism. I’ll call you, probably tomorrow, being as it’s just a touch up, to schedule your appointment. Make sure to have your calendar ready,” Y/N said over her shoulder as she walked. Once she arrived at the front door, she turned to face Harry.

“Yeah, of course. ‘m looking forward to it. And thank you for meeting me today,” Harry smiled and extended his hand towards her.

Y/N begrudgingly removed her own hand from the front pocket of her trousers, firmly shaking Harry’s hand. She glanced outside, surprised to see that the sun had nearly gone down, covering the parking lot in an orange glow.

“I hope you get home safe,” Harry said, pulling his keys out of his pocket.

Y/N’s eyes widened before she smirked. “That’s quite ominous of you to say. Is that a threat?”

Harry stopped with his hand on the door handle. Confusion riddled his face before he gave a small chuckle. She had already started turning away from him, throwing up a peace sign.

“Goodnight, Harry,” she finished, twisting away so she was walking down the hallway to her office.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” Harry shouted with a smile, finally feeling like he was reaching her. The last thing he heard was the door to her office shutting.

*********

“Shit,” Harry mumbled to himself, seeing a missed call from Y/N’s shop from over an hour ago. How he had missed it was a mystery, but he was kicking himself. It was already late, so he wondered if calling back would be a good idea. Before he could think too much about it, he tapped on the contact, bringing his phone up to his ear and listening to the ringing.

“Yeah?” Someone answered quickly. Harry could hear tattoo guns in the background.

“Hey, is this Y/N’s shop? I missed a call earlier so-“

“Oh, right, yeah, give me a few seconds,” the person interrupted, placing Harry on hold.

“Hi, this is Y/N,” her voice comes over the phone, expecting an answer. It’s quieter, so Harry assumes she’s in her office.

“Hey, it’s Harry. Sorry I missed your call, I was a bit busy.”

“Ah, Mr. Styles, how are you?”

Harry isn’t sure why his dick twitched in his pants when ‘Mr. Styles’ rolled off of her tongue, but he coughs quickly before answering. “I’ve been good, you?”

“Same old, same old,” she answered as if they haven’t just met for the first time the day before. “So, listen, I’m all booked this week and the next few weeks. I don’t have an opening for quite some time. If that’s a problem, I might be able to move someone back, but it’s unlikely.”

Harry grabs his laptop and flips it open, clicking on the calendar app. “I’m also quite busy. I’m not sure of a time that really works…”

He hears Y/N sigh on the other end. “I am able to keep my shop open for another hour tomorrow night if you can come in late. It would be around ten if you’re on board?”

Harry looked over his calendar, seeing nothing that could run that late. “I feel bad for making you stay open just for me, though.”

“Don’t worry about it. Fumiko gets overtime, and I’ll be here anyway.”

“Well then, if it’s good with you, I’d love to do that.”

“Cool, just want to remind you to eat beforehand, take a painkiller if you need to, but don’t come into my shop drugged up. Sound good?”

Harry nodded before remembering he was on the phone. “Yes, it sounds perfect.”

“Great, come in about fifteen minutes before ten.”

“I can’t wait to see you,” Harry replied giddily before realizing what he said. “Well, I mean-“

“Goodnight, Harry.”

*********

Harry walked into the shop once again, five minutes earlier than Y/N told him. Fumiko was behind the front desk, scrolling on the computer in front of her.

“Hey, Harry! Y/N should be finishing up with a client right now, but she said you can go to her office to wait for her,” Fumiko waved.

“Thank you, Fumiko,” he grinned, walking past her.

“Ah, just call me Fumi,” she shrugged.

Harry nodded before making his way down the short hallway, entering Y/N’s office slowly. She had clearly cleaned, for her desk was rid of most papers. Her certifications were framed on the wall behind her desk, and pictures of friends and family were taped on the wall. He noticed a table had been put up and a record player was on it. Harry slowly walked over to it, trying to read what record was currently sitting in the player.

“I think you should organize your emails, though,” Harry recognized Fumi’s voice.

“I’m busy.”

Harry quickly turned to see Y/N walk through her office doorway, rubbing her hands together. She glanced up, a bit surprised to see Harry in her office.

“You didn’t tell me Mr. Styles was here already,” she remarked, not breaking eye contact with Harry. He hoped she didn’t see him swallow hard.

“Oh, sorry about that. Also I’m leaving,” Fumi said.

Y/N finally turned to the girl next to her, a shocked expression on her face. “What? You always take overtime.”

“I have a date tonight. Maybe you should take note and-“

“Bah, leave me be,” Y/N shook her head, waving goodbye to Fumi before making her way to her desk.

Harry couldn’t help but notice how attractive Y/N was. Well, he noticed right away when he met her, but now, he was hoping he could calm down by the time she got to touching up his tattoo.

She was wearing a grey tank top tucked into olive green trousers that fit her nicely. Her pants were rolled up so her ankles and shoes were on full display. A patterned scrunchie was around her wrist and she had three earrings in her right ear and two in her left.

“Okay, I want to make this part quick because it’s boring, but also important so pay attention,” she started. “Go ahead and take a seat,” she motioned to the chair in front of her desk.

Harry sat, watching her pull her hair up into a ponytail. He quickly cleared the thoughts wreaking havoc in his brain as he sat down.

“It’s just safety procedure and aftercare and all that jazz. Here is a folder for some aftercare tips, and I know this is just a touch up and you’ve probably done this before, but it’s procedure. I even printed out an article on how to stop a tattoo from fading, so… you’re welcome.”

“Fuck off,” Harry chuckled, watching her face crack a smile. A few seconds pass before she shakes her head, completely ridding of the smile that was on her face.

“Alright, listen, no swimming. That means lakes, oceans, pools, rivers, hot tubs, bath tubs, whatever. When you shower, make sure it’s more lukewarm and preferably under ten minutes. Only use unscented lotion, and please do not pick at your tattoo. Do not use hand towels or anything harsh to clean your tattoo. Do not rub it, only pat dry.  No sun on your tattoo. If you get a sunburn on your tattoo, it’ll dry out and cause a nasty scab to form which can result in scarring and fading. Got all that?”

Harry nodded his head every few seconds, trying to remember the details of what Y/N said.

“Aye, you didn’t, so I’ve written it all down and more in your folder. Now then, could you please sign this paper here? It’s just so you can’t sue us in case anything goes wrong with your tattoo as I just described how to care for it,” she explained, handing over a contract.

Harry glanced over it briefly before signing. He noticed how small, yet bold, her own signature was on the artist line below his own line. He was just about to hand it back to her before she shook her head.

“Next page,” she pulled a towel from under her desk and dabbed at her forehead, which had a thin layer of sweat forming on it. “There are a few more minor details that you have to sign off on.”

Harry obeyed, flipping the page over and seeing another line for him to fill. Once again, he tried handing it over to Y/N. This time she took it and ripped off the carbon copy for herself, placing his copy in his yellow folder and her own copy in a separate folder.

“Shall we get to it, then?” She sighed and stood. “And sorry for it being so warm in here, the building is so old that we don’t have air conditioning.”

Harry had barely noticed how much sweat he himself had formed. He was sure that the back of his shirt had a mark, but he was hoping it wouldn’t be too noticeable.

“You don’t have air conditioning in a tattoo parlor?” Harry questions, meeting Y/N’s glare.

“I plan on fixing that within the year, not that it matters to you, Mr. Styles."

Harry couldn’t help but snicker at her comment as Y/N lead them down the hallway and into another larger room where the actual work happened. Chairs and trays were a bit scattered, but it was clean and more organized than Y/N’s office for sure.

“Feel free to sit in this chair here,” Y/N patted a chair in front of her, walking away, presumably to gather the ink and other supplies.

Harry just now noticed the faint music drifting throughout the parlor, melancholy and echoing, but still adding character to his surroundings. Just as the song changes, Harry was startled as Y/N walked in, rolling a tray that was hip height next to her. Tiny capsules of ink roll around and he could see a few pairs of latex gloves.

By the time she reached Harry, she was dabbing her towel against her forehead again. “What the fuck is up with this humidity tonight? It’s never like this.”

Harry simply shrugged, not sure how to respond.

“I guess we can get started. Do you need anything, a pillow or something to distract yourself with?” Y/N asked, taking a seat in her chair to his left. Harry shook his head.

Just as Y/N started organizing her tray, she glanced at Harry’s thigh and stopped suddenly. “Your shorts are covering part of your tattoo.”

“Oh, sorry. Should I just take them off…?” Harry suggested, his neck already warm from the heat.

Y/N thought for a second before shrugging. “Whatever you’re comfortable with. I personally suggest you do, otherwise you’re going to have to hold them up the entire time I’m tattooing, and I’m not sure how pleasant that’ll be for you.”

“O-okay,” Harry responded, removing himself from his chair and unbuttoning his jean shorts.

“Why you would wear jean shorts to get a tattoo on your thigh is beyond me,” Y/N shrugs, turning away. Harry would’ve been offended had he not seen the smirk on her face.

Y/N gave him the courtesy of looking away, pretending she was arranging her tray, but all she was doing was putting a few ink containers in order. After she saw Harry sit down again, she swiped at her forehead one last time and made sure her glasses were on how she wanted them. Y/N snapped on a pair of latex gloves, still not looking at Harry until he coughed lightly.

“If you need to take a breather, say something. If you need to grab my shoulder or arm, say something beforehand. Do you remember the pain level you had on this one?”

“I remember it being a bit rough, but I should be good now,” Harry boasted. “Is it alright to talk to you as you do this? I know some artists aren’t fond of that but…”

Y/N raised her eyebrows, shrugging. “If you want to.”

After shaving the small part of his leg, she grabbed a tattoo gun, giving Harry one more nod before leaning over and placing one gloved hand flat against his thigh. He instantly stiffened. Y/N looks up.

“You have to relax,” Y/N said softly.

“Sorry, sorry,” Harry responds, embarrassed with himself. Trying to take some of the attention away from him, he turns to look at her. “Why don’t you have a lot of tattoos?”

Y/N starts up her gun, placing the needle against his thigh. “I prefer to give them. It’s fun tattooing people, not when I’m in the chair.”

“What does your tattoo say?” Harry asks, slowly motioning towards the spot above her elbow. Now that she was in a tank top, it was easier to see.

“It’s the outline of the earth and says ‘I miss the earth so much’,” Y/N responds, leaning back and stretching out her arm for Harry to see. “Elton John,” she shrugs.

“So I take it you like Elton John?”

Y/N doesn’t respond at first, wiping away some blood that rose to the surface. “Nope, never heard of him before I got it.” She looked up to Harry’s incredulous face and gave a full smile. “I’m kidding. My parents played his stuff all the time. I grew up listening to classics and oldies, but Elton John was always a staple in our house.”

“You’re going to make me lose my mind,” Harry breathed, giving a small laugh.

There was a short silence as Y/N looked up at him. Her face was so close to his thigh, merely a few inches away. Both of her hands were resting on it, remaining still. Her big, bright eyes gazed up at him, her lashes full. Harry noticed how her lips were parted, and he couldn’t help his mind as it let him know that this would be the exact way she would look if she were on her knees in front of him, her mouth wrapped around him, bobbing her head back and forth.

Y/N instantly went back to work, choosing to position herself so the back of her shoulder faced him instead. He brought his hand up to his face, shielding his eyes in embarrassment. He gulped, feeling his heart beat in his chest. Had it not been for the tattoo gun, he was sure that she would’ve heard it.

It didn’t help that he could feel her tits against his outer thigh. She was fully pressed against him, making sure to get as close to her work as possible. Harry could practically feel her breathing.

“What does this tattoo mean to you?” She asked, surprising Harry.

“Um,” he paused, “tigers are known for being regal, powerful, and strong, you know? I’d like to think I am, too. People have to be careful around them because tigers can be unpredictable. I don’t like being so… I don’t want people to have expectations of me, and even if they do, I want them to be wrong. I guess I just want to be different, I don’t know. And they just look sick as fuck,” he finished.

Y/N smiled at his last sentence, her eyelids settling halfway over her eyes. “They do look sick as fuck.”

There’s another few minutes where nothing is said between them, and Harry is content with that. The pain really wasn’t bad. He could’ve fallen asleep with enough time, but Y/N’s hands were a bit distracting for him to do that. Eventually, he decided on watching Y/N work.

She really knew what she was doing. Harry was mesmerized at how close Y/N’s own strokes matched those of the original artist. She was really trying to make it seem like Harry wasn’t getting a touch up, as if he’s had this tattoo for years without worry of it fading.

“I’m going to move a bit further up your thigh,” she mutters, scooting herself a tiny bit closer to Harry. Her hands followed, going a bit further up.

Harry raised his right leg, bending it at the knee and mouthing ‘fuck’ as he rubs the bottom half of his face with his hand. When the needle was placed back onto his skin, he scrunched up his nose in pain.

“Thought you said you could handle the pain?” Y/N smirked over her shoulder, pausing to gauge how well Harry was doing.

Harry stares at her, a bit in disbelief. “I don’t remember it being this bad, honestly.”

Y/N laughs, shaking her head. “Relax, I’m using a different needle than what the original artist used, I assume. This one,” she holds up the still running gun, “is better for shading, which essentially is what this entire tattoo is.”

Harry felt one side of his mouth raise. “Sly minx.”

Y/N winked and gave another laugh before turning away. Harry cursed himself. He was sure Y/N could see the tenting happening in his boxers, especially since he could feel the tightness.

“Could I grab your shoulder?” He asked before realizing the words were leaving his mouth.

Y/N stopped, straightening her back which resulted in a few pops. She turned off her gun and placed it on the tray next to her. “I’ll move around to the other side of you to finish this off so you’re grabbing my left shoulder. If you move suddenly, you’ll pull on my left shoulder instead of my right, so there’s a less likely chance you’ll mess up your tattoo. But first, let’s take a break.”

Harry sat forward, instantly going to look at how fresh his tattoo was looking. “Wow, this looks great so far. I can really tell a difference.”

Y/N only hums while removing her gloves, twisting her back so it gave a few more pops. She leans forward a bit so she can inspect it, probably criticizing her own work on it. “Like I said before, not my style, but it’s not horrible.”

“Says the person with one tattoo,” Harry said, bringing his hand out and flicking her arm.

“Did you just flick me?”

“I… maybe?”

Y/N widened her eyes. “I am never opening my shop past hours again. Hooligans like you think, once ten passes, there are no rules. Besides, who said I only had one tattoo?”

Harry shrugged. “I haven’t seen anything else on you. And, I hate to be frank, but you are wearing a revealing tank top and I still don’t see anything.”

“Revealing? You’re in your underwear,” Y/N retorts, giving a flick to his knee. Harry beamed, his dimples on full display. “Wait, have you been looking at my boobs?”

Harry lost his grin then, his ears and neck darkening. “No! I haven’t, I… I just happened to notice that it’s a tank top and-“

Y/N laughed harder than any other time Harry has seen her laugh. She shook her head a few times. “I don’t give a shit.”

Harry’s heart was still racing as he leaned back, swallowing loudly. “You are seriously going to be the death of me.”

Y/N smiled and stood, pulling her tray and stool behind her and around Harry. Before too long, she was sitting on Harry’s right side and pulling on another pair of gloves.

“Um, I’m going to have to lean over you to reach the tattoo,” Y/N informed Harry, giving him a look to ask if that was alright.

“Okay,” was all he responded with. Y/N stood and leaned herself over Harry’s right thigh so she could reach his left one.

“Go ahead and grab my shoulder, or arm, or whatever,” she said, making sure she was comfortable.

Harry reached forward, deciding to wrap his fingers around her bicep. It was warm and soft, tender yet firm. She clearly had a bit of muscle there, but it wouldn’t be too obvious unless someone were like Harry, hand wrapped around her.

Y/N also noticed how soft Harry’s hands were. Despite being in pain and being offered to basically use her arm as a distraction, he didn’t squeeze too hard. It was as if the simple act of touching another person in such a way was good enough for him.

She gave no warning as she started up her tattoo gun again, picking up where she left off. That was when Harry started squeezing her arm a bit harder, even giving a grunt which Y/N had to quickly ignore or she would’ve gone outside Harry’s original tattoo tracing.

After a few moments of silence, Y/N started blowing upwards, trying to rid of her baby hairs that made themselves present and tickled her forehead. With the humidity and her position of leaning over Harry, her hair wasn’t fully cooperating with her. So, she resorted to stopping for a few seconds to push back some stray hairs only to have to repeat the action every couple of minutes.

“Here,” Harry finally interjected, removing his hand from around her and stretching out his own arm, brushing away some of the hairs behind her ear.

She hesitated to continue, instead looking at Harry in astonishment. “Um, thanks,” she finally said, looking back to her work.

It didn’t feel like too long before Y/N was finally straightening her back, groaning and examining what she had just finished.

“I think… that’s it. We’re done. Oh, wait!” She exclaimed, quickly leaning down again. Without thinking, she repositioned herself, accidentally placing her arm a little higher than she meant.

“Y/N!” Harry shot up, squeezing her arm with more strength than he had planned. Even his breathing was a bit irregular.

Y/N was shocked, unmoving. She’s never had a client yell her name before, especially when the pain level wasn’t as low as this. However, she’s also never placed her arm on her client’s semi-hard dick before either.

“Shit, I am so sorry. I, um, are you okay? Did I hurt you? God, I’m sorry, I should’ve paid more attention,” she scrambled for words, shutting off the tattoo gun and quickly removing her gloves.

Harry sat back, his body hitting the chair behind him with a loud thump. He looked up to the ceiling, not daring to look at the woman in front of him. “For the love of Christ, please, let’s just move past this.”

Y/N was still staring at him, a bit wary of her surroundings. She wasn’t trained on how to talk to a client after she touched their dick, so she was unsure of how to continue.

“Can I just… finish this little bit? It should take less than three minutes,” she mumbled, grabbing for another pair of gloves hesitantly.

Harry only nodded, still admiring the lights on the ceiling. Y/N leaned over him again, much farther down this time, and only her hands were touching his left thigh instead of her entire forearm resting against his right thigh.

“We’re done,” she quietly said, looking at Harry who finally allowed his eyes to fall on hers.

“Great,” he rasped. Y/N watched him for a few seconds before reaching to the ground to pick up Harry’s discarded shorts. She handed them to him before quickly busying herself, somewhat facing away from him.

“I’ll wrap it up in a second,” she said, throwing a few items away. “Take a look at it and make sure you like it.”

Harry did as he was told, bringing his face closer to his thigh. “It seriously does look amazing. You did a great job on it. Thanks for this.”

Y/N shrugged, “I’ll take your thanks in the form of money.”

She wrapped Harry’s fresh tattoo, explaining to him the steps to take during the aftercare. Harry nodded along, noticing how slow and gentle she was with her actions. Once she was finished wrapping him up, she walked to the front of the room, waiting for him.

“I’ll just meet you at the front desk,” she suggested, walking out of the room, leaving Harry by himself.

Once he saw she was gone, Harry sighed to himself, giving his lower half a glare before yanking on his shorts. His thigh stung a bit, which was expected. He hobbled to the front desk, already pulling out his wallet.

“Here,” Harry haphazardly grabbed a few bills and handed them to Y/N. She quickly did the math then furrowed her brows.

“There’s too much here.”

“What about tip?”

“Even with tip, this is quite a lot.”

“Just keep it.”

“Oh… okay,” she responded, surprised. She slipped her glasses off and tucked them into her hair on her head.”Would it be alright if you came in maybe a week from now just so I can check up on it?”

“I thought you were all booked up the next few weeks?”

“I figured you could come in after hours again… unless that’s a problem for you.”

Harry watched her eyes closely. She seemed back to her normal self: bored, weary, indifferent. “Yeah, that definitely works for me.”

After scheduling another smaller appointment, Y/N turned to Harry, “Well, Mr. Styles, just remember to keep those showers to less than ten minutes if you can.”

Harry wasn’t sure if he hated or loved the smirk on her face. She leaned forward, her arms crossed in front of her on the desk, leaving her cleavage out on full display. Harry glanced down, fully aware that Y/N was watching him, but he didn’t care. Based on Y/N’s actions, it’s like she wanted him to look, like she was presenting herself before him. She didn’t move as he gazed at her chest.

“I’ll try,” he quipped back, finally looking up at her and wetting his lips with his tongue. “Get home safe.”

Y/N chuckled as Harry turned away. “Goodnight, Harry.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

*********

A week had gone by, which meant it was time for Harry to enter Y/N’s shop again. He had been taking care of his tattoo just as she had instructed, careful to be precise and pointed with his aftercare. His tattoo had gone through some of the healing process nicely thanks to him obeying orders.

“Hi, Harry. Y/N said to wait in her office,” Fumi raised to point her thumb behind her towards Y/N’s office.

“You’re leaving?” Harry asked, noticing Fumi carrying her purse and the computer at the front desk turned off.

“Yup! Y/N said you’re just here for a check up so I can head home. Have fun!” Fumi waved.

Harry made his way to Y/N’s office, settling himself into his normal spot and facing Y/N’s desk. It seemed that being clean was not her strong point, as papers were scattered across the surface. A small recycling bin was full of crumpled and folded papers.

He knocked his knuckles against the arm rests of the chair, impatiently waiting for Y/N.

Since the last time he had seen Y/N, she’s all he had thought about. When his friend who recommended Y/N asked how his session went, Harry could only give positive feedback. Of course, he left out some details, specifically Y/N accidentally touching his dick and him going home and taking care of himself, watching his fresh tiger tattoo move with each stroke of his hand.

Harry immediately tried thinking of something else, but it was of no use. The feeling of Y/N feeling him up came back, and he was squirming in his chair. He was overwhelmed by her, but it still didn’t feel like enough.

Y/N sure wasn’t helping when she walked into her office, addressing him as Mr. Styles once again.

“How are you doing?” She asked once she shut her office door behind her and settled into the chair behind her desk.

“I’m good, how are you?”

“Same old, same old. How has your tattoo been treating you?” She leaned back in her chair, stretching her arms up and folding them behind her head.

Once again, Harry couldn’t help but notice how captivating Y/N was with her striking features. She wore an old, faded Britney Spears shirt and loose jeans that stopped well above her ankles. Another scrunchie adorned her left wrist.

“Doing what a tattoo should do, I guess. Do you think there’ll be less scabbing being as it was just a touch up?” He questioned, reaching up to scratch his nose twice.

“Should be less scabbing, but I’m not fully sure. It really depends on your body. Plus, touching up years after you originally got it comes into play. Why don’t I take a look at it?” She suggested as she stood up.

Harry nods, standing and unbuttoning his jean shorts for her a second time. Y/N raised her eyebrows with a skeptical glance.

“Jean shorts again? I think you’re doing it on purpose at this point.”

Harry smirked, choosing to say nothing and trying to hide his smug grin with no success. The truth was that he did do it on purpose, wanting to strip down for her if he could.

As he pulled down his shorts, hearing them give a small thump when they hit the ground, he stoically stood before Y/N, hands on his waist.

“I think someone is feeling cocky,” Y/N mutters, walking around the desk in front of Harry.

He grinned, giving a small shrug, “Just be happy that I followed your aftercare directions.”

“I’m not proud of you for doing something you should be doing,” she snapped back, giving Harry a look before kneeling in front of him but not breaking eye contact. Just the sight of her on her knees before him wiped the smirk off of his face. His hands fell from his waist to his sides.

Harry gave a shaky breath as Y/N looked away and at his thigh, lightly moving the skin around it with her hand. She said nothing as she examined it, carefully looking at it from different angles.

“It looks really good, actually. It’s healed pretty fast,” she praised as she stood.

Harry didn’t step back, and neither did she. He licked his lips before smiling.

“Can I kiss you?” He finally asked.

Y/N gave a short laugh. “I’ll have to charge you for that.”

“Anything I do is money for you, hm?”

“Gotta make a living somehow.”

Harry shook his head, breathing out a laugh. “You didn’t answer the question.”

Y/N brought her hands to her hips, giving a huff. “Yes, you can.”

Harry grinned from ear to ear, finally leaning forward so his lips met hers. He was soft and gentle, testing out the waters to see how comfortable she was. It wasn’t a few seconds later before his hand was on her cheek, trying to bring her as close as possible. Her hand was fisted in his shirt as her chest and stomach were flush against his.

The intensity of the kiss immediately skyrocketed as Harry pushed her back a few feet, stepping out of his shorts as he did so. The back of Y/N’s thighs hit her desk so she took it upon herself to prop herself up on it, her legs widening once she was situated so Harry could move between them.

“Wait, wait,” she rushed, pushing Harry away slightly so she could stand again. Harry watched as she gathered the papers she was just sitting on and placing them to the side.

“We had to stop for that?” Harry snickered, going back to his spot between Y/N’s legs when she hopped onto her desk again.

“People pay good money for custom sketches,” she quipped, out of breath.

“As they should,” Harry answered, cupping Y/N’s cheek. “They’re really fucking good.”

Y/N felt her heart beat faster as Harry complimented her art. She grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him towards her so she was kissing him again. Their lips moved in sync with each other, not missing a beat.

Harry grabbed the hem of her shirt, pulling it up so it was off of her body. Even though they were separated for a few seconds, they rushed back to each other, Harry’s hand on the back of her neck and Y/N’s hand reaching forward, ghosting over the waistband of his boxers.

Feeling bold, she palmed him over his underwear, feeling how hard he was already. He quietly moaned, breaking away from Y/N to look down to where she was touching him. Just seeing and feeling how turned on Harry was made Y/N aware of her own wetness between her thighs.

“I want these off of you,” Harry said, sticking his index finger into the waistband of her jeans.

Y/N leaned back slowly, taking her time as she laid her back on her desk. Her face remained calm as she deadpanned, “Then take them off.”

Harry breathed heavily as he unbuttoned her jeans. She lifted her hips to help him remove them. All that she was left in was her bra and underwear.

“Fuck,” Harry muttered to himself as he allowed his hands to roam her thighs. His eyes tried taking all of her in at once, wanting to memorize every curve, dimple, hair, and mark on her.

Y/N lifted her legs so they were bent at the knees above her desk. She widened them, causing Harry to look down at where he wanted to be most.

“Christ,” he breathed, lavishing in the view. A dark, wet spot on her underwear nearly made Harry combust right there.

“Is this for me?” He asked, rubbing his right hand on the inside of her thigh, slowly moving it down so it hovered over her heat.

“All for you,” she bit her bottom lip, watching as Harry’s mouth practically watered.

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back when she felt Harry start to rub her clit through her underwear. He took his time, wanting to see what she was comfortable with, but also wanting to tease her, wanting to see her squirm underneath him. He circled her clit, looking up as she released a heavy breath.

Harry needed more. He couldn’t keep this up for long. His hand left her as he removed his shirt then reached on either side of her hips, grasping her underwear and pulling the clothing off. Y/N gasped at the action, sitting up on her elbows as she looked at him.

“Condom?” She asked.

Harry nodded, turning away and bending to grab his shorts. He quickly found a condom in his wallet, pulling it out. By the time he turned back to Y/N, she had removed her bra and was massaging her breasts.

Harry was in awe of her. Everything she did seemed to radiate casual power, like she didn’t even have to try.

He tried opening the small package but his hands were shaking from nerves and excitement. Seeing Y/N open before him was nearly too much for him to handle.

“Here,” she said softly, sitting up and holding her hand out. Harry gently placed the condom in her hand as he pulled down his boxers.

Y/N ripped the package open, casually throwing the wrapping to the side. “You ready?” She asked, looking up to Harry.

He simply nodded, watching as she skillfully pulled the condom on him. Feeling her hand wrap around him made his knees weak and his mind blank for a few seconds.

She laughed, watching his eyes flutter open. “You alright?”

He grinned back at her, slightly embarrassed. “Yeah, yeah,” he responded, leaning forward and sloppily kissing her.

Y/N grabbed the back of his neck, making sure he followed her as she laid back down. She rested her legs on either side of his hips, feeling his hard length against the inside of her thigh. He broke the kiss and trailed his lips down her neck and chest, finally reaching his desired spot. As he wrapped his mouth around a pebbled nipple, he closed his eyes, relishing in the way she moaned and wriggled beneath him.

He moved to the other nipple, proceeding to give the same treatment. Y/N swiped the hair off of his forehead and out of his eyes, noticing his gaze already on her. She moaned loudly as he popped off of her, a line of saliva connected from his lips to her nipple.

Harry sat up, swiping his cock through her folds and tapping it against her clit a few times, making her sigh in pleasure. Just as he lined himself at her entrance, he stopped himself, looking at Y/N’s face.

“Do you want this?”

“Yes,” she responded quickly.

“Tell me.”

Harry heard her head thump against the desk lightly. “Fuck, I want it. I want you, I want you inside me right now.”

This was all Harry needed to hear.

“But go slow! You’re… a little on the bigger side,” Y/N quickly added.

Harry smugly grinned, promising that he would go slow. As he slid himself in, both of them moaned. Y/N reached her hand up and above her head, her fingers grasping the edge of her desk. Harry gave a few shaky breaths as he slowly thrusted himself in and out.

“Taking me so well,” Harry whispered as if he were talking to himself. “So tight wrapped around me.”

As he started thrusting faster and harder, Y/N used her free hand to hold her breasts down. She felt so full of him that it was overwhelming in a good way. Each thrust seemed to be harder than the last one, and Y/N definitely wasn’t complaining. She savored how good he felt sliding in and out, seeming to take his time but also in a hurry to make her feel good. Both of them were so focused on what they were doing that their orgasms came faster than anticipated.

“Shit, Harry, I’m… I’m gonna-“ she cut herself off with a moan.

“You gonna come on me? I wanna feel you come on me,” Harry grunted, tipping Y/N over the edge.

She whimpered loudly, a string of curse words leaving her mouth with Harry’s name mixed in a few times. Harry wasn’t far behind, calling out Y/N’s name and feeling himself still inside her, taking note how she pulsed around him.

It took a few seconds for the fog to leave both their brains, for them to notice how crooked Y/N’s desk was. They giggled at themselves, glancing at a few papers on the floor. Harry slowly pulled himself out of Y/N, relishing in the sound she let out.

“Um, I have a private bathroom, just go behind my desk and through that door back there,” Y/N commented, sitting up and covering herself as best as she could.

Harry nodded, picking up his clothing and heading to the bathroom. He cleaned himself off, getting dressed, ready to leave the bathroom. He looked in the mirror quickly, fixing his hair and checking his face for anything.

When he exited the bathroom, Y/N and her clothing were gone. Her desk was still crooked, the papers still on the floor. He carefully picked them up, smiling at a few of the custom drawings. Just as he was about to push the desk back into its original place, Y/N walked through the door, fully dressed and rubbing her hands together and smelling like lemongrass soap. She had also slipped on her glasses while Harry was in the bathroom.

He smiled at her, admiring the post-sex glow that radiated off of her. She didn’t notice his look, instead walking to the desk and chuckling to herself.

“A bit messy, huh?” She finally mentioned, looking up at Harry.

“Yeah, might want to clean this up by the morning,” he joked, earning a look from Y/N with her sticking out her tongue.

Comfortable silence settled over them as they quickly cleaned, throwing papers onto the desk and fixing the position of the desk. Y/N thanked him, looking around to make sure nothing else was destroyed in their lustful path.

“Well, I’m going to close the shop. You sure your tattoo is feeling good?” Y/N asked once again, grabbing her purse.

“I’d like to see you again… if that’s alright with you,” Harry softly said, reaching out and brushing his fingers against her arm. “Not just for a fuck, either. Don’t get me wrong, if it ends up being that, I’d be more than happy; but, maybe I can take you out for dinner or something.”

Y/N stared at him for a few seconds before Harry could see the blush on her cheeks. “Yeah, yeah. I’d really like that.”

Harry let out a breath of relief. “Great! Um, I have your shop’s number, but I think this would be easier if I got yours as well.”

Y/N huffed, rolling her eyes dramatically. “Won’t even go through the extra work for me.”

Harry chuckled, watching as she leaned over her desk to grab a notepad, scribbling down a few digits and ripping it off from the pad and handing it to him.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“I’ll take your thanks in the form of a dinner.”

Harry threw his head back, letting out a brisk laugh and crinkling his eyes. “Sounds like a deal.”

They both walked to the front of the shop, Y/N stopping every so often to make sure lights were off or trays were cleaned off. She seemed content and ushered Harry outside, shutting off the remaining lights and locking the door behind her.

Harry couldn’t keep his eyes off of Y/N. She had him completely captivated and captured despite him only knowing her for a couple weeks. She caught his eyes and gave him a puzzled look.

“What are you looking at?”

Harry coughed and shook his head, trying to hide his growing smile. “Nothing. I just really want to kiss you again.”

Y/N’s face softened. She licked her lips and shrugged. “Then do it.”

Harry didn’t need to be told twice as he leaned closer to her, brushing his lips against hers. It was a feathery kiss, tender and gentle. He wanted to kiss her lips forever. Harry wanted to remember her taste for as long as possible. When he pulled away, Y/N kept her eyes closed for a few seconds, humming.

As she opened her eyes, Harry smiled. “I already can’t wait to see you again.”

Y/N laughed, patting Harry’s arm and turning away. “Goodnight, Harry.”

[thewadapan]

I rewrote the most infamous Transformers comic of all time.

I wanna give fair warning here. See, when I started working on this comic, I wasn’t really expecting it to turn out quite as dark as it did, and I suspect neither are you. After all, this is The Beast Within, right? The story where Grimlock goes crazy and talks in Comic Sans? How bad can things get? It turns out that - with just a few decisions made in poor taste - the answer is “very”, to the point where I feel the need to stick some kinda content warning at the top of this post. Unfortunately, I also feel like I’ve got a responsibility to the story, and there’s no way for me to do so without ruining it, so this is the best you’re gonna get.

This isn’t the first time I’ve made a comic like this. All the way back in 2016, I made “its christmas... so what??”, a kinda-bad re-lettering of a four-page ‘80s Marvel comic called “The Night the Transformers Saved Christmas”. I wasn’t too happy with the result, so half a year later I tried again - producing “PASS”, a re-lettered version of an obscure six-page UK-exclusive Marvel comic originally titled “Peace”.

“The Beast Within (My Pants)” is quite a different, uh, beast.

Each of the three comics I’ve produced was intended to be the last of its kind - standalone, yet fitting into the same overarching continuity. You can read any one of them alone, or you can read all of them in the order I made them. They’re individually available as albums on Imgur at the following links:

“its christmas... so what??”

“PASS”

“The Beast Within (My Pants)”

Alternatively, you can download the whole set as .cbz files - renamed .zip archives of images which you can open with a standard comic book reader.

It’s not too late to turn back.

Still with me? All caught up? Good. You’re probably wondering what the hell I was thinking...

I. I Have Summoned You Here For A Reason

Our story begins all the way back in 2004. The UK company Metrodome, looking to spice up their DVD box-set releases of the original ‘80s The Transformers cartoon, hired some local talent in the form of Mr. Jamieson (owner of a then-notable fansite) to write up some bonus features. They also commissioned him to write a mini-comic to be packed in with the set - with art by Mr. Gibson, a self-proclaimed fan since childhood with seemingly no other ties to the franchise.

The comic wound up being published in two parts (the second being subtitled “Consequences”) across the “Season 2 Part 2″ and “Seasons 3 and 4″ box sets. As a kid, I actually owned the latter of those box sets, and would watch it almost religiously - to what I can only assume must’ve been great annoyance from my poor parents - but I have no memory of it including a comic of any kind. Maybe it did, but it got separated at some point, and is lying around in some forgotten folder. A damn shame, that is. No, seriously.

I’m sure some record of the fan response at the time exists out there, in the doldrums of one of the many hard-to-search often-defunct forums which existed back then. I can’t really be bothered looking for it, sorry. You’ll have to content yourself with this TFWiki talk page for “The Beast Within” from mid-2007, which speaks of “Consequences” in hushed tones - as though it is a fabled artifact, prophesied to bring about Armageddon.

Another record - this one from 2009 - comes in the form of an eight-page TFW2005 thread ominously titled “Anyone afraid of the Dinobot combiner?” If you’re reading this commentary, you’re already strapped in for the long run; I recommend reading the thread in full. Well, okay, I don’t: it made me wince throughout, and I’ll be explaining the salient bits here, so there’s really no point subjecting yourself to it.

User “Razorrider”, after reading the TFWiki article on the Beast, opened the thread, noting “I don’t feel afraid of him myself.” The reactions soon started to pour in - some agreeing that the design was in fact “awesome”, others describing it as “hideous”.

Just going off my own personal opinion here, I think it’s fair to say that effectively nobody on the first page of the thread had any idea what they were talking about - and the pages that follow fared little better.

I think the main issue stemmed from the fact that a lot of those users didn’t think to explain the metrics by which they judged a “good” design (or, indeed, a “bad” story). When one person says “I think Optimus Prime has a good design”, they might just mean “I think he looks cool”, or they might mean “I think his proportions and colours give him a heroic stature which reflects his personality”. In that sense, a “good design” is one that communicates aspects of a character visually, even if it’s ugly. The Beast is hideous, yes, misshapen, yes, and it looks like the result of a teleportation accident, fine - but those are all intentional design decisions that perfectly reflect the nature of the character. In the foreword to the first part, Mr. Gibson notes the following (you’ll have to imagine that it’s written in Comic Sans for yourself):

Creating ‘The Beast’ was probably the most interesting aspect of the project. I wanted him to be a grotesque, twisted character that contained the design elements of the Dinobots he is created from.

People proclaim that the Beast “should never have existed” - a line from the comic’s narration, note - but somehow fail to realise that this is the comic’s own intent.

(Compare the Beast’s design to that posted by one user on the second page of the thread, which - minus an admittedly-inspired Triceratops-fist - just looks like an upscaled version of Grimlock.)

Okay, the alarm bells should be ringing in your head now. This is all starting to sound disturbingly like I’m some sort of The Beast Within apologist, isn’t it? How slippery is the slope that leads from “the Beast is a good design” to “The Beast Within is a good comic?” Have the hours spent poring over this thing in MS Paint turned my brain to mush, capable of only vague all-caps-Comic-Sans-penned ponderings?

...Well, yes, but- look, just stick with me!

The most accurate recurring statement in the thread - though perhaps not in the way it is intended - is that The Beast Within reads like a work of “fanfiction”. See, Transformers is a franchise with an ever-growing history, and many of those who work on it now have been lifelong fans themselves. This is true of many franchises which have stumbled into the new millennium, finding themselves seemingly unable to die. We live in an age of fanfiction - yet some fanfictions are fanfiction-ier than others.

When compared to the likes of Star Wars and Star Trek and Marvel’s comics, one sees a marked difference in Transformers. Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, every story Hasbro put out seemed to fit vaguely into a single guiding narrative - each distinct strand of their multimedia barrage falling into contradiction with one another, yet still seeking to adapt some underlying premise. The 2001 series Robots in Disguise - in the West at least - saw a complete departure from that narrative. The ramifications of that strange borderline-afterthought cartoon cannot be understated, yet in retrospect feel like they’ve been a part of the franchise for as long as anyone can remember.

Almost every year since, Hasbro has effectively wiped the slate clean. Each new series tries to be its own thing. Continuity between series - if it exists - is understated, ignored, or overwritten. To date, this is still something that confuses us geeks; so used are we to the mired pits that are the canons of Star Wars and its ilk. This can be frustrating - there are only so many times one can retread the same story - but so too has this rare cycle allowed authors to really explore the concepts and themes presented by the premise of “car robots” to a level of depth which I believe is simply unattainable in franchises which adhere stringently to a single narrative.

That’s the bright side.

In practise, many Transformers stories have become increasingly myopic - existing only in service of themselves, or (more often) in service of older (better?) stories. The single most influential of these stories is almost certainly 1986′s The Transformers: The Movie, and it’s that influence which is felt most strongly in The Beast Within.

Of the countless insights offered by Terry van Feleday - if you don’t know who that is, don’t worry, I’ll explain later - I find that this one rings most true:

When Optimus Prime du jour mouths off “One shall stand, one shall fall” for the twentieth time, there is simply no longer that understanding that he will not be the one who stands.

Where so many modern Transformers stories are misguided recreations of the animated movie, The Beast Within is a reaction to it. But we’ll get to that. First, let’s talk a little about the story’s artwork.

Mr. Gibson himself, I believe, deserves almost none of the criticism he’s received over the years for his work on this comic. Though his layouts are occasionally cluttered, and he does seem to have been trying a little too hard to emulate the style of Pat Lee (the man behind Dreamwave Productions; license holder for Transformers comics at the time) in the first part, his panels have a strong sense of energy and tone.

Though he didn’t exactly get to explore a broad range of emotions over the course of the comic, he managed to keep the characters expressive - always a challenge, when dealing with visors and mouthplates - and, crucially for a cast of this size, on-model. Look at the fury on Razorclaw’s face! The way Prime’s fist flies out of the panel! Menasor, torn in two! Predaking’s sundered legs! The mishmash of heads inside the Beast! The sickly colours of the second half! While it lacks the practised ease seen from some fans-turned-creators on more recent books, it’s still impressive work.

Regardless, Mr. Gibson’s first outing with Transformers proved to be his last. He didn’t end up getting paid work from Dreamwave Productions as he’d perhaps hoped (though in retrospect, neither did most of the people who illustrated for that company, so that was probably for the best). There’s no mention of The Beast Within on his personal website, which bills him as a “children’s picture book illustrator”, amongst other things. To put it simply, the guy’s always been a talented illustrator, and his style’s come a long way since this comic - the portfolio work on his website is very impressive.

(On a whim, I went back to late 2004 on the internet archive, and did in fact find the comic’s first spread buried at the back end of his portfolio. The entire website is a product of the early-2000s - there’s a link labelled “Go to Flash site” in the sidebar, though the page it takes you to sadly seems to have been lost to time. It all seems like it was borne of another age entirely.)

Anyway, let’s get back to that TFW2005 thread. The thing that makes it particularly notable is that, on the fourth page, Mr. Jamieson himself wades in to try and set the record straight. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

For a lot of people, I think, the idea of interacting with an author might seem strange. They’re aware of J.K. Rowling’s online antics, and are becoming increasingly comfortable with celebrity interactions on Twitter, sure. But there’s a difference between those kinds of interactions and the kind that take place on forums or in chatrooms - places where everyone’s on a level playing field. I come from those corners of the internet, and am lucky enough to have had conversations with lots of people who’ve made things I like, and have seen almost the full range of approaches those people take when dealing with their audiences. It’s safe to say that Mr. Jamieson’s approach in that decade-old thread is just about the worse one there is: over the course of just five posts, he smugly lashed out at the people in the thread, whipping them into a fervour that lasted for three more pages after his departure.

Regardless of whether or not Mr. Jamieson was correct - in the attacks he levelled at the other users, in the defence he offered for his work - there can be no question that this kind of behaviour is grossly inappropriate.

(Whether it is more or less appropriate than digging up old threads and archived web pages in an attempt to justify a bastardisation of a much-maligned comic book remains to be seen, I suppose.)

The key point that Mr. Jamieson kept returning to is that he sought to avoid the dreaded “info dump” (a hallmark of early Transformers stories), and didn’t want his readers to be “spoon fed”. A recurring criticism of the story is that it seems to begin halfway through, with little explanation for what’s going on - but I, like Mr. Jamieson, don’t think that complaint holds water. The Beast Within begins “in medias res” because we already have the context: eighty issues of a comic, ninety-eight episodes of a cartoon, and - crucially - a movie. Everyone knows the story of the Transformers, because the story of the Transformers - ironically enough - never really changes. “Is it ever really over, Jetfire?”

(That’s the last line of the original version of The Beast Within, by the way. I had to add the comma in myself.)

Like the impact of Robots in Disguise, the impact of The Transformers: The Movie is kinda hard to see unless you were there at the time - and I wasn’t - but in 1986, it did something which was profoundly shocking to thousands of children: it introduced them to death.

That’s about all I’m going to say about the movie itself, because much more experienced critics than me have already mined it for every ounce of subtext. I’ve already quoted the work of Terry van Feleday, who did some excellent scene-by-scene analysis of the film in a thread all the way back in 2010 - and I’ll come back to her writings a few times in this post. This very year, sorta-famous YouTuber hbomberguy released his own long-form take on the movie - what I find interesting when comparing the two interpretations is that van Feleday struggles to find much merit in the movie outside of its opening, while hbomberguy employs a reading that allows him to be much more optimistic and charitable even towards the end of the movie.

In a way, I think Mr. Jamieson had an intuitive subconscious understanding of the subtext which both of those critics later brought to light, an understanding which directly informed the premise of The Beast Within. In the same way one can read the monster planet Unicron as a physical manifestation of death, so too can one view the Beast - and Mr. Jamieson (almost certainly unconsciously) posits that, although death does not belong in a children’s cartoon, it is an inevitability that all children must eventually face. It is the dark spectre that lurks beneath the surface of every childish thing made by an adult.

An author places some of themselves in a book - but the reader withdraws something of their own perception as well. I wondered what I might see in the book: a child believes a lie because they know no better; a grown adult sees the lie because it fails to line up with experience. In this way, a child’s story could be so many different experiences. With enough subtext, a thing made for a child becomes an entirely different world to an adult. [...] There’s no telling when subtext will defeat the facade of a thing.

(I’ll tell you what that quote’s from later.)

I wonder, perhaps, if the endless swathes of edgy reimaginings of children’s stories are something of a mass outcry from those who grew up being told - every Saturday morning - that when people got blown apart, they’d be put back together by the next week’s end. What was it like for those children, in December of ‘86, to learn that some people could never be rebuilt?

II. It Pleases Me To Be The First

It occurs to me that I never did really do a commentary on “its christmas... so what??”, although I did talk about it a little in the commentary for “PASS”. Its title is a reference to the famous (well, you know what I mean) cover of “Stargazing” (issue #145 of the original UK run), which featured a banner reading “IT’S CHRISTMAS!” over an image of Starscream, arms out, yelling “SO WHAT?”

(Side note: at first I thought that I hadn’t read that particular story, but it occurs to me that as a kid I used to borrow a lot of Titan Books’ reprints from my local library - and I do in fact have distinct memories of reading Transformers: Second Generation, which did collect “Stargazing” amongst other Christmas stories - so I guess I probably did read it, even if I don’t remember doing so.)

The Women’s Day comic is something of a curio, as explained in this excellent article (which reprints the comic - with its original text - in full). It’s basically the only US strip which was published outside of the eighty issues of the run proper. This rare, standalone nature is something I have sought across every re-lettering I’ve done - from the UK annual-exclusive not-by-the-usual-author set-in-the-future “Peace” to the UK DVD-box-set-exclusive set-in-an-ambiguous-cartoon-inspired-continuity The Beast Within. These works feel like they’ve been lost to time - and corrupting them feels like unearthing buried treasure (and smearing it in turds). But I’ll get to that.

Back to “its christmas”. As I explained last time, I just went through the comic panel-by-panel and changed stuff to whatever I thought would be funny. I didn’t edit the two-line introductory blurb (which ended up informing the backstory detailed in the new set of AtoZ profiles). I barely paid attention to established portrayals of the characters beyond Soundwave’s association with music. I had no large-scale plans.

There’s a lazy (and poorly-conceived) gag where the little girl calls Bumblebee “gay” (also note that at the time, I misinterpreted the art in the third panel of the third page - I thought it was the girl speaking, when in fact it was her mother - leading to some erroneous dialogue), which in retrospect feels like a less-drawn-out version of the excruciating opening scene from Freddery McMahon’s Combiner Wars abridged special. That spoof somehow manages to be less funny than its source material, and I sometimes think that the same holds for my own creations.

Still, that’s not to say that “its christmas” doesn’t do anything that I like. I’ll admit that lines like “lol without mustard christmas will be CANCEL suck it nerds”, “toot toot here come some flutes”, and “help me drag it to the hospital” still kinda make me laugh. I like the way Bumblebee drowns out the little girl’s insults by tooting loudly at her. The final panels - wherein the humans steal Bumblebee’s blood as the other Transformers watch impassively - have an offbeat intensity to them, and when it came to writing Bumblebee’s AtoZ profile it was those which I chose to call back to.

If I had to sum up “its christmas” in a single word, I’d pick “childish”. The jokes, the characters themselves, the entire concept behind the comic - all feel kinda immature, and that was kinda by design. Summer Meme Sundae was a terrible piece of work, but - if I had to ascribe a theme to it - that theme would be growing up; realising that you’re running out of summer holidays. “PASS” and “The Beast Within (My Pants)” kept that atmosphere, but became increasingly cynical and obscene. That was just the natural direction they had to go in.

III. Every Place Reminds You Of Some Place Else

I’ve long had an idle fascination with abridged series, and have toyed with the thought of making an abridged series of my own. Most notably, I’ve long fancied the idea of abridging Machinima’s Prime Wars Trilogy of Transformers cartoons. Here’s an extract from a message I posted in Allspark Chat (the Discord server associated with the Allspark Forums):

I'd probably try and keep Megatron mostly the same as he is in the show as it is. Optimus'd be kinda murderous - you can tell he can't wait for Rodimus and the rest of the Council to kick the bucket so he can retake unilateral control over Cybertron. I'd maybe try to go for something of a more sympathetic Starscream - he wouldn't actually have any plan, he just has Cybertron's interests at heart and ends up trying to use the Enigma solely to rid the world of Megatron and Optimus forever. Windblade'd maybe be trying to force some hero's journey stuff - picking fights with progressively bigger opponents in a misguided attempt to prove her narrative worth

As pitches go, it’s not much. It doesn’t help that, as I previously mentioned, Freddery McMahon himself - pretty much the only name in Transformers abridging - has already tackled the series; his style of parody isn’t really to my taste, but his production value is fairly impressive and would largely overshadow any improvements I made on a script level. I feel like the Prime Wars Trilogy has potential, because it’s a fascinating piece of media, but I find myself unable to answer the question of how to parody something that already feels so much like self-parody. Sound familiar?

By the time the last entry in that series - Power of the Primes - was wrapping up, I'd been posting semi-frequently in the Allspark’s threads with a borderline-apologetic tone. Takes included:

The emptiness of Cybertron lends it a Beast Machines-esque tone

The Mistress of Flame’s death is cathartic

You can see right through the script

I want to get off Machinima’s wild ride

Wow, Windblade sure screams a lot, doesn’t she

The finale of Titans Return is good, actually

Hearing Megatron say “piss me off” is an unpleasant surprise

Hey, this soundtrack’s pretty good

Wait, no it’s not, but Galvatron’s implied reversion to Megatron is

Narrative emergence gives rise to Buddhist allegories in TFTM

Grimlock acts like his cartoon self - but only around friends

Okay, for realsies, the soundtrack’s good now

They’re right to kill Sludge; he’s the least toyetic Dinobot

I’d probably describe a lot of what I saw in the Prime Wars Trilogy as a kind of narrative pareidolia - only instead of seeing faces in inanimate objects, I was seeing value and meaning in an indefensible web series.

The problem with abridged series is that they require a ridiculous amount of effort. You need to be a good writer in the traditional sense, but you need to be able to work around the visual material available - you’re gonna have to edit everything yourself, you’re probably gonna need to do custom animation, and you’re certainly gonna need to wrangle a cast of voice actors. All of that for ten minutes of animation that’s probably gonna get taken off YouTube within ten minutes of upload. It’s just not feasible - and yet there’s part of me that loves the idea: commentary and content, all rolled into one.

To pretend that it was Combiner Wars that led me to create “The Beast Within (My Pants)” is a little misleading, however. The real answer - I’m sorry to say - has more to do with ponies.

See, every now and again I get very acute nostalgia for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, which was perhaps my first brush with fandom - or at least, proper fandom. It’s heard to measure these things, y’know? Anyway, when that happens, I realise that I don’t really want to sit and watch a cartoon for little girls, so I usually just listen to some fan-made music or - as was the case last time - rewatch one of the abridged series based on the show. I use the word “series” here in plural because there were in fact two (well, two that matter): Friendship is Witchcraft and The Mentally Advanced Series. There’s long been quiet debate over which of the two is the (soundwave) superior series, and I’ve historically believed that they’re (buy some) apples and oranges. The latter is a more thoughtful parody of the source material, while the former is more polished and standalone.

However, after blitzing through Friendship is Witchcraft once more in its entirety over the course of a couple of days, something about it clicked for me - a bigger-picture thesis - and I realised that it had much more to say about its source material than I (or, well, most people) had given it credit for. It was at that moment that I felt the awful urge to create a My Little Pony fanwork of my own.

(The quote I used earlier, about subtext in children’s stories, was spoken by Princess Celestia in Rainbow Dash Presents: The Star in Yellow, a Mentally Advanced Series special inspired by a fanfiction which, fittingly enough, was written by Matt Marshall (AKA Blueshift/blue/Yartek/RockLordsRock), who was also the man behind the infamous “JaAm” relettering which effectively inspired all of these projects of mine. It’s like poetry.)

As we’ve already established, making a fancy-schmancy animation was out of the question - but a crudely-edited-in-MS-Paint comic was the next best thing, clearly. I started glancing through IDW Publishing’s official My Little Pony comics - having purchased a few in a Humble Bundle many years ago - but, aside from a couple of promising stories, quickly realised I didn’t have much hope. The comics are just, to put it frankly, not as good or as interesting as the show, and the fact that I’d need to adapt at least two issues at once (over forty pages) to tell any complete story made doing so an unappetising prospect. Furthermore, IDW’s comics are still very much in print, and (as the abridged series show) any such parody would stand on shaky legal ground.

Seeing as I wasn’t about to delve into the dark realm of prose any time soon, and the idea of messing with some other fan’s work rubbed me the wrong way, I decided to give up on my equine dreams and instead turned back to more familiar territory. I glanced over the list of old Transformers Marvel comics, but nothing like those I’d previously relettered stood out to me. I perused the short stories included in Dreamwave’s 20th Anniversary Transformers Summer Special. I even looked into some Fun Publications stuff. Nothing sparked my interest.

Perhaps my most promising lead was “An Arcee Sort of Day”, a vaguely-maligned (as in, “meh”) three-page standalone comic released mere months ago by IDW as part of an anthology - but the poor resolution of the available scan (the comic had been released in its entirety as part of the free preview for the anthology) meant that editing it would be a nightmare, and there was very little in the way of dialogue for me to mess with besides. More than that, the idea of directly mocking a comic from a compilation designed to showcase female creators (particularly one featuring Arcee, who’s been a controversial character in recent years) struck me as tasteless in the extreme. If only I had an easier target!

Oh wait, I did.

IV. Let The Slaughter Begin

If I actually ever read both parts of The Beast Within before starting work on this project, I don’t remember doing so. I do remember reading the Beast’s TFWiki page when I was much younger, and remember feeling like the wiki’s take on the concept seemed disproportionately harsh. To be honest, it was quite vindicating to read the source material and discover that I still agreed with my younger self’s assessment - the problems with the story are not on a conceptual level, but in the execution.

I barely gave myself time to digest the story before diving in and working out how exactly I could mess it up. I knew from my previous comics that the Autobots would all be unrepentant shitheads, so the natural choice was to portray the Decepticons as favourably as possible. Where the Autobots are callous, poorly-spoken, stupid, and divided, the Decepticons would be caring, articulate, intelligent, and united. In the story’s context, these traits would be weaknesses: remember, only the Beast has the killing instinct needed for decisive victory in this endless children’s story. I also knew that everybody in the story would hate Grimlock, and that - unlike with Roadbuster in “PASS” - they’d be right to do so.

That was pretty much the extent of my planning. I gathered up all the pages and started clearing out the text from the speech bubbles. Already, I had something of a problem: the use of the infamous Comic Sans MS font in the first part of The Beast Within was one of its most iconic features, and I wanted to retain that, but my own previous reletterings had canonically established Times New Roman as the “voice” of the Autobots. In fact, as far as those older comics were concerned, Times New Roman was the voice not just of the whole Cybertronian race, but also of the narrator.

The only lines which used a different font were those where I’d chosen to retain the comic’s original lettering, and with Roadbuster’s dialogue. It’s hard to articulate what exactly the joke with Roadbuster was - he seemed like the odd-one-out in the opening panels of the story, so I ran with that by having him be persistently ostracised by the other Autobots. The twist, as you find out when he finally speaks, is that he seems to be the only Autobot who’s unambiguously a good person; the rest bully him for effectively no reason.

In the commentary for “PASS” I released earlier this year, I explicitly ask:

If these are the Autobots… then what were the Decepticons like?

My own gut feeling was, I think, that they were people like Roadbuster - genuinely good individuals who never wanted a fight - and so for this comic I knew I had to give them Roadbuster’s Arial voice. I also knew that I’d have to keep the Autobots’ Times New Roman voice for the most part. The only question, then, was what to do about Grimlock, the combiners, Jetfire, and the narration.

(It’s worth noting that Soundwave and Triton were both Decepticons too, yet they both spoke in Times New Roman. The Doylist reason for this is simply that, at the time, I was happy to have everyone share a voice. In Triton’s case, the Watsonian reason is that he’s trying to mimic the Autobots’ “accent” to better fit in. If I had to make up a reason for Soundwave, I’d say that he’s only recently defected from the Autobots, as a reference to van Feleday’s insane Soundwave-as-an-ex-prisoner-of-war theory. Had Soundwave had a speaking role in the comic, I’m sure I would’ve explored that backstory in his AtoZ profile - but alas, it wasn’t to be.)

In fact, there was initially some ambiguity over who the comic’s narrator would be - if I used Times New Roman, would I have to keep the voice of the same narrator as in the previous two comics? In the end, I decided to draw from my source material: the on-panel narration would be Grimlock’s inner monologue, rendered in full Comic Sans glory, while the "Interlude” would employ a more omniscient third-person voice. That third-person voice is, I think, distinct from the narrator of the previous comics, and feels like a more solemn version of the narrator of the AtoZ profiles I released alongside the commentary for “PASS” (or, indeed, the latest batch included here). Remember, I wrote the first two comics years before all of this recent material. More on the text-only pages later.

When he speaks out loud, Grimlock uses the regular Times New Roman of the other Autobots. In fact, the only dialogue which uses Comic Sans is that of the Beast, which I view as the true externalisation of Grimlock’s feelings. You can also view it as the “real world” (as depicted in the text-only pages) leaking through into the comic’s reality, in much the same way that an aware-of-death adult perspective seeps through into a seemingly-innocent children’s cartoon. The other combiners simply use a slightly bigger font than the individual Decepticons. Oh, and all of the combiners use red text.

In the original toyline, Jetfire was something of an odd-one-out, as he was really a Macross “VF-1S Super Valkyrie” toy licensed by Hasbro from Bandai (who had in turn purchased the molds from the recently-bankrupted Takatoku toys). Both Whirl and Roadbuster have similar origins. I was under no obligation to do anything special with Jetfire’s dialogue, but because of the way he’s introduced in the comic - and as a nod to his shared real-world history with Roadbuster - it felt right to give him his own voice. Though he still uses Times New Roman, the font is scaled up and he speaks entirely in capital letters. His dialogue was a challenge to write, as most of his speech bubbles are very small, but I think this worked out in my favour: his speech often ended up butting up against the bubbles’ outlines, giving the impression that he’s always speaking just a little bit too loudly.

The lettering in the first part of the original comic - aside from being technically legible - is generally shoddy on every level. For emphasis, it alternately uses italics or inconsistent font size. Occasionally, the dialogue switches to lowercase, which kinda gives the impression that everyone’s been shouting the whole time. Most of the text is left-aligned. Some bits of text seem to have been squashed. Most of the narration boxes are parallelograms, but some are plain rectangles. Red hand-lettered text is mostly limited to the combiners’ speech, but also sees use a couple of times for Megatron and Optimus Prime. Some of the combiners’ speech just uses normal red Comic Sans MS text. Meanwhile, the second part switches entirely to black hand-lettered text - presumably from Mr. Gibson - which is a marked improvement in terms of tone and consistency, if a step down in legibility.

It��s interesting to me that, despite my version of the comic sharing the dearth of commas and full stops which plagues the original, it reads very differently. For all its stylisation, it’s my hope that each line I write for these comics comes across realistically - not in the sense that it’s something you’d hear someone say, but perhaps in the sense that it’s something you’d maybe read on the internet. More on that later - first, some miscellaneous notes on the comic’s text:

When I first wrote it, I used the style of self-censorship from “PASS” (and, by extension, the rest of Summer Meme Sundae) wherein the first letter of any curse is replaced by an asterisk. It was one of my prereaders, Tindalos, who noted that “the censoring kinda takes a bit from it”, and I decided that I agreed with him - it felt like I was holding back. You can decide for yourself; I’ve collected the pages with lines that were revised between drafts in an album.

Through pure coincidence, it’s Springer (well, Bulkhead) who gets the first line of dialogue in the comic - just like in “PASS”. In case it’s not clear, the joke is that he thinks he’s safe on the floor and berates Jazz for not doing the same thing, seconds before getting stomped by Megatron. I think this sequence perfectly encapsulates a big part of what I wanted to show about the Autobots: they all criticise one another relentlessly, despite being deeply flawed themselves. It’s a dynamic that, to me at least, actually evokes that of the Autobots in Michael Bay’s movies.

The line “thats me grimlock in the corner losing my religion” is, of course, a reference to R.E.M.’s song “Losing My Religion”, which was itself included as part of writer James Roberts’ “soundtrack” for More Than Meets The Eye. Though he did not appear in the issue for which Roberts selected the song, Grimlock was a recurring character in that series. Hopefully my depiction of the character surpasses that one - though if you ask the people I usually talk to, I wouldn’t be setting the bar particularly high with that comparison.

Optimus uses the insult “grimdick” shortly after Grimlock’s narration provides the example “grimcock”. I intended this to show that, while the dynamic between the two’s been cemented for a good while, Grimlock is always a step behind and still can’t predict Prime’s actions.

Snarl’s line was originally “hey speak for yourself swoop me and grimlock are tight as *hit”, which expresses effectively the opposite sentiment to his final line. The idea that Snarl was okay with becoming part of the Beast was intended to add a bit of brevity to the sequence - but I decided it was better to keep as much emotional impact as possible in the moment.

A more minor change a couple of pages later is Grimlock’s line “how do they do it”, which replaced “love is stupid”. I wanted to expressly draw a parallel between the Beast’s combination and Predaking’s.

The line I’m happiest with is “eat shit megatron this is what you get for being such a fucking weapon”. One of my friends occasionally cracks out the word “weapon” to describe someone - and what better application for it is there than a guy who literally turns into a gun?

Megatron’s line about the “black hole” in Optimus Prime’s spark is a twist on Megatron’s own canonical link to a black hole - an aspect of his original bio which was revisited by Roberts.

I struggled to think of Menasor’s final words. The longer I stared at the panel where he gets torn in half - from which I’d already cleared the speech bubble - the more I was struck by the emptiness of the scene. If one considers Menasor to be a symbol for the Decepticons as a whole, then his silence in that panel is my way of showing that - from this point forth - the Decepticons no longer have a voice; the second part of the comic shows naught but their corpses. Death exists, and nothing is good any more.

None of the text on the final page of the first half remained unchanged between drafts. I wan’t happy with Optimus Prime’s original line at all, and the internal monologue “don’t you deserve happiness” felt a little too serious. The phrase “no u” is the archetypical low-effort comeback, and seemed like the perfect beat to end the first part with.

Prime’s line “gotta jettison some dead weight” is a nod to Astrotrain’s iconic line in The Transformers: The Movie: “Jettison some weight, or I’ll never make it to Cybertron.” I had to check for the exact quote just now and found “jettison transformers the movie” in my search history, so obviously I’d done the same when writing the panel. More than just being a trite reference, I was hoping to draw an obvious parallel and to contrast the unilateral decision Optimus Prime makes on the following page against the more shall-we-call-it-democratic process the Decepticons used in the movie.

I’m probably a little too proud of “big red irredeemable fucking monster of a robot semi fuck”, which is a line that could absolutely only exist in this travesty of a comic.

Jetfire’s use of the phrase “GOTTA BLAST” is a reference to a line spoken by the titular character of the early-2000s CGI cartoon Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, one which has turned into something of a meme. When I wrote the panel, I intended to imply that Jetfire was aiming to crash into the city - but I think it ended up doubling as foreshadowing for the fact that Jetfire flies his passengers into the sun. Additionally, the meme often sees use as innuendo, which shines through in the following panel: Jetfire expels propellant into the Beast’s face while Bumblebee remarks “gah okay i did not want to see that”. The less said about the sound effect “CHOOOM!”, the better.

Remember how all the text in the first part of the original comic was left-aligned? So’s the text in my version! MS Paint simply doesn’t have the option to change the alignment of your text - I actually had to throw in extra spaces at the start of each new line, eyeballing things until I had an approximation of centre alignment. This is something I never did with “PASS”, and I found that doing so gave me more freedom to squeeze more stuff into the speech bubbles.

As immortalised by countless memes, you can’t rotate text in MS Paint either. I tried to use this to my advantage on the comic’s first page, where the steps between the words in Grimlock’s narration give them a faltering quality.

Grimlock’s narration actually ended up being one of the most challenging parts of the comic to write. I wrote a draft of the first page pretty quickly, but decided I wasn’t happy with it and that I’d have to replace it later - which I did, but only after having written pretty much every single other bit of dialogue.

I think the central conceit of “PASS” - that somebody’s farted and the Autobots are trying to find out who dealt it - didn’t solidify until I reached the second page and looked at Rodimus Prime’s body language. In much the same way, the crux of “The Beast Within (My Pants)” didn’t solidify until it came to writing Swoop’s line.

V. Me Grimlock Not Nice Dino

At some point during the creation of “The Beast Within (My Pants)”, I started thinking a lot about incels.

(To be clear, this is the part of the commentary where things get a bit weird, and I start talking about storytelling decisions which I think were made in poor taste but which I don’t think come across overtly in the comic itself. Feel free to skip ahead to the next section. Or, y’know, stop reading entirely.)

Grimlock is childish, despite his age, and is desperate to be liked - no, respected - at any cost. His only asset is his BRUTE STRENGTH. He hates Prime, but wishes he was Prime. He has trouble treating any of the other Autobots like people. He rages against an outgroup whose ideals are - at least ostensibly - rooted in empathy.

I wouldn’t say “I wrote a comic where Grimlock is an incel”, because that’d be a pretty stupid thing to write and I’d feel pretty stupid saying it.

Looking back at a lot of my previous work on this blog, some things do crop up again and again. In abstract, I’d say that the idea of a character seeking friendship and/or respect - and failing to understand why they can’t find those things - is one that I’ve revisited a couple of times. This was a strong theme in the latter half of Another Son - a story which dealt heavily in misanthropy - which featured a character inspired by Sam Witwicky from Michael Bay’s Transformers. The protagonist of Retrace Steps spent the whole story unable to even ask the question “why am I alone”. Many of the characters in Are You Happy - particularly Mr. Hernandez - deal with similar problems to varying extents.

So this makes, what, practically four stories in a row? I didn’t set out to approach things this way again with this comic, but from the moment I wrote Swoop’s line I knew I didn’t have a choice. When people talk about the Beast’s combination sequence, they talk about how violative it appears. Metal tentacles spring from Grimlock like one of Alien’s chestbursters, penetrating or melding with the other Dinobots’ bodies. After that, the resulting monstrosity ambles around, horrifically murdering its former peers. As much as I can have the characters in the story play this stuff off for laughs, I’ll never be able to erase the undercurrent.

This isn’t supposed to be a direct mapping - a perfect metaphor - and by the time this commentary’s done I hope I’ll have pointed in the direction of some alternate perspectives. It just seems important to put my cards on the table and say that, when I was working on this comic, this is the kinda thing I was thinking about. We thought children were safe with Transformers, and then a gun came and shot people they cared about, and for some reason we were surprised to see that they got upset.

With all of that in mind, I take some solace in the fact that I actually found getting into Grimlock’s head to be extremely difficult. His dialogue was a breeze to write, sure - that’s the outsider’s perspective - but actually trying to construct his thoughts in anything approximating a convincing manner was very difficult. The first draft of his narration literally included the phrase “we live in a society”.

VI. Such Heroic Nonsense

I’ve already touched on Terry van Feleday’s opus a couple of times, but I think it’s worth delving a little deeper into how exactly her analysis influenced this comic. For some reason the idea that nearly five-hundred pages of borderline-conspiracy-theorist-level ramblings about perhaps the most maligned movie franchise of the 21st century might be a tough sell is one which I can’t quite wrap my head around. I’d say that it’s because I’ve read the thing and already know that it’s good, but in truth I was pretty much sold from the moment I found out it existed.

Anyway, I frequently get into not-quite-arguments with internet strangers about Transformers, and during those discussions I frequently find myself saying “a good Transformers story should do X”, and then I have to resist the urge to add “like Michael Bay’s movies” because doing so would completely delegitimise the point I’m trying to make. The problem is that, because I’m deliberately omitting the context of my opinions, they come across as being even more bizarre.

I think that same problem exists in some capacity with this comic, where I’m drawing on sources which are intuitive to me but completely alien even to a typical Transformers fan. I’ve yet to even mention the other primary inspiration for this story, which is even more arcane.

Perhaps it’s important to stress that van Feleday doesn’t offer a typical "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron" take. Rather - and I realise I’m about to butcher this - she shows how the humans in Bay’s movies give increasing amounts of power to an alien cult leader because their only alternative is to get wiped out by an alien warlord. So in terms of this comic, “Autobots bad” is very much rooted in her reading of those movies, while “Decepticons good” is just something I thought would be funny.

Well, not exactly. I’ve already mentioned Combiner Wars; something that continues to baffle pretty much everyone who watched that show (and its sequels) is that, while it seems to have no idea what it’s doing most of the time, its portrayal of Megatron is an absolute riot. He is absolutely the protagonist of that series, the Only Sane Man in a world of bizarre psychotic caricatures. I think the same kinda holds in the continuity of my comic, only he’s had more time to bring the people he takes in around to his way of thinking.

Let’s not forget the official “good-is-bad” continuity of Shattered Glass, which - while heavily compromised - was the source of many interesting reinterpretations of popular characters. Effective reinterpretations require you to forget what you know about a character and strip them back to the core signifiers, which you can then put to different use. One of the posters in Terry van Feleday’s thread, “Lobok”, observes:

I like the idea that Bay or the writers looked at Optimus Prime and thought "What would a guy who calls himself that really act like?" Imagine you knew or heard of someone, a human, who called themselves the equivalent of "The #1 Bestest Superior" or "King Supreme Ultimate" - do you not picture either a 7-year old boy or a mentally deficient oo-rah alpha male? Maybe the two combined? Seems much more apt than a wise, noble father figure.

Of the course, I don’t for a second think that Michael Bay had any such thought - but the connection still exists for the audience to make. Therein lies one of the greatest unspoken strengths of Transformers storytelling: the sheer breadth and depth of the signifiers at play. Much of what van Feleday did in her thread was to boil down the concepts found in Transformers stories to reveal those core signifiers.

(Almost a year ago, I wrote a piece for the Refined Robot Co. blog which explored some of her findings by delving into the subtextual meanings of the countless alternate modes worn by Megatron over the years.)

By the same token, I think there’s something to be said for the way Grimlock’s alternate mode ties into his portrayal in my take on The Beast Within. He turns into a dinosaur - something which is rooted in the past, extinct, unable to develop - while most of the other Autobots turn into modern vehicles. Kids may love dinosaurs, but they’ll likely grow up to have a stronger interest in cars or tanks. Grimlock is immature almost to the point of childishness; his beast mode is the lizard king, and he doesn’t understand why you won’t bow.

(Obviously I’m making some big generalisations here for the sake of a point - the other Dinobots have their own prehistoric disguises, and kids’ interests develop in varied enough ways that perhaps this link is only noticeable to those who experienced the transition I describe. When I was much younger, I was obsessed with dinosaurs, and would consume all the dinosaur-related media I could get my hands on. Eventually, however, my crippling fear of sea monsters led me to stop reading books about them - I'd turn the page, see a full-spread painting of a pliosaur taking a bite out of a pterodactyl, and shit my pants. Okay, no, that’s a huge exaggeration: more likely it just got to the point where I knew basically all of the cool dinosaur facts already, and suddenly the deep lore of the grim darkness of the 41st millennium or whatever seemed way cooler. I just find it funnier to imagine that my prosperous future in paleontology was averted for fear that I’d discover the last living specimen of a plesiosaur.)

VII. Where’d You Learn To Talk Like That

Back in “PASS”, I think there was some question as to who exactly was the coolest dude; the biggest guy. Rodimus was in charge, but the others didn’t really respect his authority in the end. Although Triton was an underdog in that story, he wasn’t at the bottom of the pack - no, that role went to Roadbuster. Everyone seems to like Ultra Magnus, but it’s never really made clear as to why that is.

Grimlock’s personality and role within the Autobots was pretty much the first thing I solidified when it came to writing “The Beast Within (My Pants)”. I knew that he was the lowest of the low; the nail in every Autobot’s tyre. As Grimlock evolved, so too did Optimus Prime - the second-most-prominent character in the comic. "The #1 Bestest Superior" became a murderous jock, and the Autobots became his cult of personality.

Speaking of cults of personality, I’ve been posting regularly in the Homestuck Discord server since November of last year. There’s no other place like it on the internet, and - truth be told - I’m not sure any explanation of it I could provide would suffice. The server was created by some guy called Makin - at least, we're pretty sure he’s a guy - who nobody’s ever met but who seems to have an uncanny knack for managing online communities.

Major events in that server have been comprehensively catalogued since July of 2017 by long-standing moderator “Drew Linky” in his journal Several People Are Typing. Between the entries and the related materials, it’s probably around half a million words in length. There’s no other document like it on the internet.

For the first fifty or so pages, Drew had no intention of making his document public. Apparently, one of the reasons he wrote it in the first place was as a way of holding Makin accountable - the guy used to be (and sometimes still is) a bit of an ass. Now, I wasn’t around in 2017, so I can’t really comment on the accuracy of the document’s early entries - but as a newcomer I was struck by how different Drew’s depiction of the server was to my own experience there. If I had to guess, I’d say his style of prose and the cherry-picked nature of the document make it seem like a much more hostile place than it actually is.

In particular, Makin effectively starts out as journal’s main villain (alongside various problem users and Homestuck creators) - a capricious and unknowable entity with absolute power over the server - and many of the entries deal in some way with what users jokingly refer to as his “redemption arc”. Of course, in reality, he’s just some guy, and everyone knows that real people don’t have character arcs.

I still haven’t finished reading SPAT, but I was doing so around the time when I was working on the comic. At some point I started to draw parallels between my bizarro version of Optimus Prime and the journal’s bizarro version of Makin, and I decided to play them up. Much of Prime’s dialogue is inspired by Makin’s style of speech, using phrases like “shut the fuck up”, “nobody cares”, “holy shit”, “get fucked”, “lmao”, “literally”, “literally [...] who”, “guys”, “rational” and “you’re welcome”. I just checked and at the time of writing, with the exception of “literally who” and “you’re welcome”, he’s used every one of those phrases within the last week. Oh, and while the word “suckers” isn’t really a Makin quote, in Homestuck it’s associated with the not-quite-biggest-bad evil empress. It bears mentioning again that the complete lack of punctuation in the comic’s dialogue mirrors the most common style of typing I see online, where people drop their capital letters and full stops.

(In fairness, a lot of us kinda talk the same way in that server. I remember one time Makin said “I also need to worry about lmao becoming some kind of anime catchphrase for me”, which cut pretty deep as I’ve been overusing that phrase instead of “lol” or “haha” or whatever for ages. Look, it’s just a funny word to me: in my head I pronounce it “luh-mayo” instead of “el-em-ay-oh”. Like “I throw my sandwich in the air sometimes / saying aaay-oh / I ordered maaayo...”)

In the comic, the self-aggrandising Optimus Prime is hostile and dismissive to those around him. It might all be a front, but it might not. Even though Grimlock hates Optimus, the Dinobot seems to agree with him a lot of the time, and the narrative itself never really manages to conclusively condemn his actions. The name “Optimus” echoes the word “optimise”; so frequently thrown around in rationalist circles. One could even go so far as to say that Optimus Prime’s ultimate goal in the comic is to kill death-in-the-form-of-a-shitposter.

In seriousness, I’m drawing these comparisons in a pretty tongue-in-cheek way. I don’t actually think that the Homestuck Discord server is a cult of personality - even if, to check the user-contributed “SPAT Epilogues”, some of its populace seem determined to behave like it is. Even if this section of this commentary exists. At the end of the day, I’m gonna write what I know, and I like to think that I know a little about online communities and what happens when they go wrong. I wish I could say that “The Beast Within (My Pants)” is a cautionary tale to that effect, but in truth I don’t think it offers any conclusive answers in the same way that “PASS” perhaps did. “Only worry about the opinions of people who actually care about you,” maybe? “Death is an abomination and we shouldn’t let it anywhere near our kids”, perhaps? “You can’t force other people to like you”?

“You can’t force other people to like the things you made”?

VIII. Burnt-Out Toaster Ovens

In the re-released version of “PASS”, it seemed right to throw in something in the way of extra content. I had fond memories of the Seacon profiles published alongside the original “Peace”, and lifted the format to create short bios for all sixteen characters who appeared in the comic. These fitted neatly on a four-by-four spread (though I ended up merging Topspin and Twin Twist’s profiles and throwing in an extra one for Computron, who did not appear in the comic proper).

From the start, I knew I wanted to do something similar for “The Beast Within (My Pants)”. In fact, I already had two text-only pages to work with; each part of the original comic was prefaced with a prose introduction and a note from Mr. Gibson. I decided that I could rework the text-only pages and add another spread of profiles, using the freedom granted by prose to explain away many of the comic’s oddities.

It took me some time to carefully erase the existing text from the scans that I had, using nothing but the brush tool in MS Paint. It took me even more time to work out some potential approaches to take with the text itself. Eventually, I came up with the following ideas:

A flashback depicting Grimlock and Swoop’s breakup.

A conversation between Grimlock and Jazz (or, perhaps, Slash).

“How Ratchet Got His Head Back”, the interlude which I ended up using.

A synopsis of events between “its christmas... so what??” and “The Beast Within (My Pants)”, which ended up being my first stab at the introduction.

Some in-character commentary as Mr. Gibson, which I did end up including.

From the moment I conceived it, I was pretty set on “How Ratchet Got His Head Back”, and it ended up being a breeze to write. I didn’t end up getting a chance to squeeze in the title - a reference to an issue of More than Meets the Eye - as it didn’t really fit the original format of the page. The introduction, on the other hand, proved much more challenging. My main problem was that, were I to preface the story with a text page, I’d be asking them to read a bunch of probably-mostly-serious words before allowing them to read the comic proper. Not the best first impression!

Nonetheless, I gave it a go - you can read my first attempt in the album of the draft pages. It mostly served to lay out the continuity between my three comics. Rodimus Prime’s crew were abandoned on Cybertron by Optimus Prime (presumably Hot Rod changed his name in Optimus’ absence). Megatron, Optimus and their crews crash-landed on Earth, and millions of years later the events of “its christmas... so what??” occurred. Meanwhile on Cybertron, it took a few million years for the other Autobots to wipe out the remaining Decepticons, as seen in “PASS”. Humanity was wiped out by Optimus in retribution for their transgression (a nod to Mr. Gibson’s depiction of Earth as an empty wasteland), prompting the conflict seen in “The Beast Within (My Pants)”. Much of this timeline remains implicit in the final version of the comic.

When I wrote it, I was pretty happy with the way this information was conveyed in the first draft. It was the ever-ardent Gitaxian - one of my long-time prereaders - who made me realise just what a mistake I’d made:

Something was rubbing me the wrong way about that first prose page and I finally realized what it is / Expositing that Optimus is horrible right off the bat takes away a good chunk of the impact the comic had before you added it

He was right. My prereaders’ initial response to the comic was that Optimus Prime’s motivations were completely opaque, and I overcorrected, not realising that his inscrutability was one of the things that made him interesting. You kinda want him to behave like the Optimus Prime you know and love, but he keeps doing weird things and you never really find out why.

Suddenly, I was back at square one - no closer to having a clear idea of how to introduce the comic. Another of my prereaders, gearshift, had the solution:

It's Transformers or some shit. You've seen the cartoon right? The one with the tape guy? Yeah, the tape guy is barely in this one. What do you mean no sale? Look, fuck, it's got the dinosaur guy. He's right on the goddamn cover, you like the dinosaur guy right? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Bitch.

I liked her pitch because it seemed like it’d do a good job of filtering out readers who wouldn’t enjoy the comic. To quote Alexander Wales, author of Worth the Candle:

I kind of hate blurbs and taglines, especially for something so large and varied as Worth the Candle / My ideal synopsis would tell people what kind of story it was without actually telling them that much about the story; it would select for all the people who would fall in love with the story, and select against all the people who would find it a waste of time. / How to actually write that ... I've got no idea.

(Side note: I’m one of the people who fell in love with that story, to the point where I’ll use any opportunity to recommend it to others. It’s maybe my favourite thing written by anyone ever.)

A closely-related issue is that of content warnings: so far as I’ve been able to work out, there is no warning which I can give for “The Beast Within (My Pants)” which adequately selects against people who won’t like it while also preserving its conceptual twists and avoiding colouring the audience’s interpretation.

Getting back to the actual content of the introduction - I wound up writing less than I would’ve liked, leaving the page looking a little sparse, but hopefully making things easier for the reader. There’s relatively little to talk about in the way of trivia here. When I wrote the phrase “cut right to the spectacles” I was probably thinking of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Cut To The Feeling”. When I mentioned “moist towelettes” I was probably thinking of Hawthorne Wipes. The phrase “truth time” was an iconic - to me, and literally no-one else in existence - line spoken by the trolling narrator of a crack story written by a high school friend of mine, the energy of which I feel like I’ve always been channelling with these comics.

The interlude, on the other hand, is crammed full of references and was a breeze to write. It was the first piece of prose I completed for the project. In general, I was trying to write in a verbose style that would be simultaneously at odds with the bulk of the issue and reminiscent of the prose of veteran Transformers scribe Simon Furman. He was known for using certain distinctive phrases repeatedly in his writing - one such phrase being “like some vast, predatory bird”. The phrase “neither sufficient inclination nor wingspan” is supposed to subtly evoke another Furmanism: “CANNOT, WILL NOT”.

In all likelihood, the interlude would not have existed had I not noticed that Ratchet’s head was in its cartoon colours in the first part of the story, but in its Marvel colours for the second. I had the idea to explain that error away in story - tying into the general schtick of “correcting” the comic - and did so by way of a reference to Ratchet’s original toy, which had a sticker with a face on it behind the windshield rather than a proper head. I was also determined to highlight the fact that Predaking’s legs remain standing for like three pages; I think this minor detail in the artwork is pretty indicative of the fact that Mr. Gibson did a good job.

The way Swoop’s contribution to the combiner is described as “puny” ties nicely to the history established between him and Grimlock in his profile. I like the way the Beast tries to hit Optimus Prime with a “truck-sized fist”. The “antimemetic shielding” was my attempt to explain the recurring disappearances of Optimus Prime’s trailer in a novel way - I did so by namedropping the key phrase from qntm’s There Is No Antimemetics Division; the trailer’s there, you just can’t perceive it and forget that it exists. Finally, “dull surprise” refers to the vague expressions that characterised Dreamwave’s house style.

For the most part, I was able to retain the ordering of the pages as in the original comic, to keep things print-friendly. The one exception to this is the prose page for the second part, which I unfortunately had to move forward so that its cover could fall across a spread. The original comics must’ve included something in the way of backmatter - art cards, perhaps, or adverts - which made up the space.

The huge cast of The Beast Within made creating a profile for every character an impossible task (especially when so many are just crowd-fillers like some of the Technobots were in “PASS”) - but it was perfectly possible to provide one for each non-combiner character with a speaking role.

(If you’ll indulge me in one last barely-relevant tangent as we head into the final stretch of this commentary, there are some rather odd inclusions/omissions in The Beast Within. On the Autobot side, pretty much every 1984-1985 character appears, with the exceptions of Trailbreaker, Hoist, Tracks, Smokescreen, Grapple, Beachcomber, Seaspray, Perceptor and Omega Supreme. The Autobot combiner teams are absent with the odd exception of Silverbolt. Twin Twist - who had been pretty much entirely absent from the original US fiction - makes an odd appearance without his partner Topspin. Steeljaw is the only one of the four 1986 Autobot cassettes to appear. Meanwhile, on the Decepticon side, oddities include the toy-inspired versions of Viewfinder and Spectro (most of the rest of the cast use cartoon-inspired character models) and the omissions of Spyglass and Buzzsaw. Some Decepticon combiner team members - Motormaster, Wildrider, Breakdown, Blast Off and Swindle - only appear in combined form. Just two of the four 1986 triple changers - Springer and Octane - appear in the comic, looking slightly out-of-place in a cast consisting mostly of characters present in the first two seasons of the cartoon. Oh, and the Deluxe Vehicles and Deluxe Insecticons are absent, but that’s to be expected in a cartoon-inspired setting.)

Here’s the first draft of Optimus Prime’s profile:

Unpredictable. Unstoppable. Unrepentant. Many words have been used to describe OPTIMUS PRIME, yet the abrasive leader of the Autobots remains something of an enigma even amongst his followers. He has ruled Cybertron for many millenia, by dint of the fact that he's apparently the only Cybertronian with a shred of competence.

It’s a product of the time where I wanted to really flesh out Optimus Prime and communicate his thoughts clearly to the audience, and as such is pretty blunt with how it characterises him. The final version is a little more subtle, drawing in elements of the scrapped introduction. I figure I may as well go through the other profiles one-by-one to give a sense for what I was thinking:

Megatron initially had a much more personal bio - which seems to have been lost to time - but I wound up cutting much of it to make space for elements of the story’s scrapped introduction.

Starscream draws inspiration from van Feleday’s interpretation of the character - she posited that Michael Bay’s version of the character was actually the Decepticon most loyal to Megatron. The contrast between that interpretation and pretty much every other in the franchise’s history (excluding Shattered Glass Starscream, of course) is pretty funny to me. I tried to use the phrase “fools errands” in as benign a way as possible, which I felt evoked a more traditional relationship between him and Megatron. “Starscream, you fool!”

Razorclaw has little in the way of characterisation in the comic beyond “noble warrior”, and his profile is a wholesale reference to The Chronicles of Narnia: he stands in for Aslan; the rest of the Predacons for the Pevensie siblings. So yes, this version of Razorclaw is a Christ-like figure. As for the witch... maybe Blackarachnia? Eh, who cares. Oh, and the idea of combining with a dead bot was one which cropped up a few times in IDW’s comics, most notably with the Combaticons in Mairghread Scott’s Till All Are One.

Onslaught was in a similar boat to Razorclaw. I found myself drawing from Till All Are One once more, hinting at a (complicated?) romance between him and another teammate.

Blitzwing has only one speaking role in the comic - a shared line with Megatron and Starscream - but I decided to count it for the sake of having a nice set of sixteen characters once more. In Transformers Animated, Blitzwing had multiple personalities, and would change forms depending on which was in control. This interpretation of the character has seen plenty of criticism, so I deliberately tried to come up with something new. I quickly settled upon the idea of tying his vehicle forms to his mood, a metaphor which seemed to dovetail nicely with the way aerial alternate forms were treated in “PASS” and which also allowed me to cement the Decepticons’ supportiveness.

Bulkhead was borne of the realisation that Springer appears prominently in both “Peace” and The Beast Within. This inconsistency is entirely the product of my decision to place my versions of those comics in the same continuity, and I decided to correct it in the tradition of “Bluster” and “Firster Aid” by having them be two separate (but related) characters. I named the new Springer after Energon Bulkhead, who was inspired by “Generation 1″ Springer - the name’s since been used more prominently by an Animated-original character and variations thereof, and is effectively fair game for “Generation 1″ stories. His actual characterisation was inspired by Springer’s behaviour in “PASS” - I liked the idea that Bulkhead bullied Springer, and Springer bullied everyone else in turn. Oh, and I wanted to tie their helicopter modes back to Blitzwing’s profile on a thematic level.

Bumblebee is the only character from “its christmas... so what??” to recur with a speaking role in “The Beast Within (My Pants)”. After scrapping the original introduction I’d planned for the comic, I was left with a single profile to bridge the gap between the two stories. My original idea was that, for their negligence in allowing the humans to steal Bumblebee’s blood, Prowl, Tracks, and Hoist would have been executed by Optimus Prime - though I’m sure he didn’t pull the trigger himself, it’s safe to assume that he didn’t warn them before setting off the nukes.

Ratchet has a characterisation inspired by something “Jonny Angel” posted in van Feleday’s thread: “Ratchet is an ambulance who practices no medicine”.

Jazz is an extremely prominent character in the comic, despite the fact that his only line is a scream in the opening panel. The comic relies on the wider context of the brand to let the audience be invested in him, but in a vacuum it’s kinda funny to see the Autobots fret so much over an effective nobody. Pretty much the entire joke in my version is just a reference to Ryan Gosling’s misguided quest to “save jazz” in La La Land - some of his character’s lines are lifted wholesale to comprise Jazz’s profile, which takes pains to avoid using any kind of pronouns (thereby maintaining the confusion over whether or not “Jazz” refers to the character or the music genre). His profile was the first I wrote.

Ironhide has a role amongst the Autobots loosely inspired by that of Drew Linky (or at least, the version of Drew Linky presented by SPAT) in the Homestuck Discord. I thought there was some symmetry there with Ironhide’s history in IDW Publishing’s comics.

Skids was a tricky character to portray, but ultimately his profile turned out to be one of the ones I’m happiest with. It’s kind of a loose riff on his portrayal towards the back end of James Roberts’ stories, where much of his arc revolved around his relationship with Nautica. According to Word of God, he had unrequited feelings for her - I decided to amp this up by giving him unrequited feelings for everyone. To tie this back to Homestuck, think Eridan/Cronus. Oh, and in terms of the Homestuck Discord server, think your typical hornyposter (and then follow the implications through in terms of Optimus Prime/Makin). The actual name “Skids Maximus” is a play on the way the suffix “Maximus” has historically been used for some combiners, “Optimus Maximus” in particular. I’m convinced I’m not the first person to do a joke like that, but nobody I asked could think of any older examples.

Grimlock was fleshed out pretty well by the comic itself, so I took his profile as an opportunity to expand upon the history of the Dinobots. I saw them as being akin to a group of friends who stuck together throughout school, winding up as an impenetrably toxic and incestuous mess with a ton of deep lore. In a way, there was a time when I was the Grimlock of my group of friends... but we all grew up.

Swoop is Grimlock’s ex-partner, a concept inspired by the other Dinobot combiner we all wish we could forget about. I’m pretty happy with the use of the word “bottom” in this context.

Snarl is based on a combination of various people I’ve known in real life - people who are perfectly nice and reasonable but have zero patience around certain other individuals. From the outside, it’s behaviour that comes across as pretty damn harsh, but - and please note that this is not an endorsement of such behaviour - it’s usually the product of a long period of aggravations.

Jetfire was the last character introduced in the comic, so it felt fitting to save his profile until last. His biography is effectively a mashup of his portrayals in the original cartoon (where he gets frozen in the Arctic Circle) and in Revenge of the Fallen (where he was a Seeker who wound up on Earth), a combination which neatly parallels Bay’s Megatron’s origins. It also references J.J. Abram’s infamous “mystery box” storytelling device, which I intended to mirror the offbeat lack of closure in the comic itself.

The final challenge I faced - one which had hounded me throughout the development of the comic - was what exactly to title it. Titles considered included:

“The BEE” (Tindalos’ suggestion)

“The BEE Within”

“The REEEE Within”

“SHIT” (Gitaxian’s suggestion)

“IM THE BEAST”

“AWWW SHIT” (Fear or Courage’s suggestion)

“AW SHIT ITS THE BEAST”

None of these resonated. Then, almost a whole month later, out of nowhere:

This was the entirety of Daniel111111222222’s contribution to the story - and what a contribution it was.

There were several reasons why I loved his idea. Firstly, it was easy to edit: most of the other suggestions would’ve required me to move lots of letters around, while this one would simply require me to append a few. More importantly, it felt like the title of a Chuck Tingle novel.

The subtitle for the second part - “No Pants” - seemed like a natural choice after that, the idea being that it evokes Grimlock’s inhibitions falling away with his transformation into the Beast. It narrowly edged out “Pants Off”, which I managed to squeeze into the final version of the introduction.

The parentheses in the comic’s title were my own addition, and in retrospect I kinda regret them. They seemed like a good idea at the time, but I’m not sure why. I was wrong to try and improve upon perfection.

IX. Why Throw Away Your Life So Recklessly

So far, the bulk of this commentary has mostly focused on the aspects of this project which I think went pretty well. In a way, that's probably fair enough, because - on balance - I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

At the same time, I can't help feeling that “PASS” - a comic which I probably threw together in the space of one day two years ago - is both funnier and more meaningful than the one which I spent a couple of weeks on.

When I started working on “The Beast Within (My Pants)” towards the beginning of May, I expected to have the project finished and out of the door by the end of the month. If you glance at the release dates of the various things I made, you'll see that I like to put out major projects on the last day of a month - it's a way of setting myself a deadline and it lets me associate a given project with a given period of time.

My first draft of the dialogue was released to prereaders on the 11th of May; my second on the 13th. Around that point, exam season started to kick in and I decided to prioritise to other projects - the Retrace Steps commentary and the Are You Happy retrospective - which both ballooned out into much longer pieces than I'd planned. I successfully met my self-imposed deadline for those projects and pushed back the release date for the comic to the end of June. I released the first drafts of the text-only pages on the 9th, but the profiles didn't follow until the 24th. By the time you read this, I'll have been working on the project on-and-off for over three months; despite the fact that I was ostensibly on vacation for most of that time, I was somehow busier than I tend to be at university.

For context, it took me just four months to adapt Retrace Steps from a short film script to a webcomic (well, “webcomic”), and that was a process which actually required original artwork. At the time I noted that I needed to re-evaluate the way I approached commentaries, as the amount of time required to produce one of a high standard seemed only to increase - they're extremely valuable to me, and seem to be well-received by the few who read them, but are they justifiable if they take longer to create than the things they comment on?

All of this is my long-winded way of saying that I've probably spent more time thinking about The Beast Within than the vast majority of people who know about it, and that I kinda regret that. See, in the sense that The Beast Within provokes a visceral emotional reaction, it’s a “good comic” - but so too does a punch to the face. The Beast Within is not a good comic. It’s mean and deconstructive and poorly-done. My version is borne of contrarianism and hubris, and softens the blow not one bit.

At the time when I was writing Grimlock's dialogue, I found that my own typing style was becoming increasingly acidic.

The truth is that “PASS” is probably the most successful thing I have ever made, and I wanted to make a comic which would put it to shame, and I failed miserably. In fact, I feel like I’ve made something which only I could ever enjoy. It’s derivative in the extreme. As my deadline for this project drew closer, I resorted to drafting bits of the commentary on my phone in public, and at one point somebody idly asked me what I was writing, and - after failing to think of a convincing lie - I said something along the lines of “it’s kinda a long story, and I wouldn’t enjoy telling it, and you wouldn’t enjoy hearing about it”. They seemed perfectly satisfied by that answer, but I wasn’t.

Must we justify the things we create? Mr. Jamieson’s attitude seemed to be to say “screw you, I don’t have to justify myself to stupid people” (while pointing at everybody else in the room). My attitude, as evinced by this commentary, has been to justify every aspect of everything I make in excruciating detail, so that if you tell me “I don’t like X” I can say “I already explained why I thought X was a good idea” and you can say “well you were wrong” and I can say “maybe”.

You’ve probably twigged that, throughout this commentary, I’ve referred to the creators of The Beast Within only by second name. At first, perhaps, it came across as some mark of mocking respect - like citing a scientific source - but the real reason is cowardice, not confidence. Some people occasionally put their own names into Google. There’s a couple of people to whom I really don’t want to have to justify myself.

Over a decade after the release of the The Beast Within, Hasbro released a brand new set of Dinobot toys which combined to form Volcanicus. The creators of the Prime Wars Trilogy and of the Earth Wars mobile game gleefully included the new combiner in their stories, and the fandom at large embraced it wholeheartedly.

As her thread drew to a close, Terry van Feleday wrote something which I think about often:

Of course [...] let’s not forget that no matter the amount of earnest work put into something, sometimes it just turns out shit. There’s a strange perception I noticed in critical response where people seem to find it difficult to consider something both earnest or satirical and, well, not very well made. Sucker Punch can’t be an honest indictment of cinematic objectification and a somewhat poorly conceived, almost hypocritical attempt at being more clever than you should. Transformers can’t be an inversion of the traditional hero/villain narrative showcasing the effects of authoritarian propaganda and a meandering, under-focused, often poorly communicated, destructive mess. Maybe it’s a strange entertainment-version of the Just World Fallacy where lacking results must necessarily result from lacking effort, or maybe it’s modern audiences’ strange worship of subversiveness, where a work critical of old tropes must by default be better than the works it’s commenting on throwing to the dustbin of history, but either way, people are extremely resistant to the idea that films they found emotionally dissatisfying could express depth and meaning and tend to dismiss them as another ‘genre film’.

Mr. Gibson is a children’s picture book illustrator. The Beast has no place on his website.

X. Proceed On Your Way To Oblivion

TFNation - the UK’s biggest Transformers convention - has become something of an annual pilgrimage for me, and (as of the time of writing) I’ll be making that pilgrimage in a matter of days. If you see me there, feel free to come over and punch me. Or, y’know, just say hi. I’ll have some limited-edition printed copies of “PASS” to give out. For more information on that - and for infrequent Transformers-related musings and updates on future projects - wander on over to my twitter!

What are those future projects? Well, after the convention I’m planning to release an original short story. It’s not very good, but it’s got a few stylistic similarities to this comic (read: lots of swearing). I might have a little bit in the way of Transformers prose coming out down the line, but can’t really elaborate further on the form that’ll take. I’ve been planning to get back to Huskyquest for ages, and hopefully I’ll finally be able to do so once I settle back down at university. After that, I plan to focus my efforts on prose, so you may as well expect more radio silence from me.

If you’ve made it to the end of this almost-fifteen-thousand-word monstrosity, you, uhh... win all my internet points? Sorry, that’s all I have.

Remind me never to do this again.

[simsontherope]

Frequently Asked Questions

I know that my FAQ page is not accessible on the mobile app, so I created this post, for you to check before you ask something. It will be linked in the description of my blog.

I almost never see you reply to messages and asks on your blog, it’s normal?

Yep, I like to keep my blog clean, in fact. Don’t worry, I always reply (or I try !), but in private. If the same question is often asked, I add something here in my FAQ :)

What are your Terms of Use ?

If you want to edit one of my creations and share it, or convert it for another game, or if you want to use my textures or meshes, please just send me a message before. I won’t say no in most cases, I simply want to know about it if you are going to edit one of my custom content. 

If it’s a recolor, don’t include the original mesh. In any case, don’t forget to credit me and give a link to the original content ;)

And of course, don’t re-upload my content; or/and claim it as your own ! 

And if you like my creations, feel free to make a donation ! ;)

Do you take request ?

Nope. Yes. Maybe. Most of the things I created were for my personal use only at the beginning, but as it could be useful for other people, I make them available for download. You can send me request, but I will only create things that I need in my game. And only if I have time to do it.

As I no longer play with the Sims 3, I won’t create new content for this game.

How do you edit your pictures ? It looks so good !

For my lots or gameplay screens, have a look at this post !

If you want to know how I work on my more worked picture (under the Sims Art tag), you can try this tutorial.

Where can find your crations on the gallery ?

Use my Origin ID simsontherope to find my stuff. :)

Any tips to create sims like yours ?

Yep, I wrote this.

Can I download all your sims ? 

Some time ago, I put some of my sims on the gallery but decided to remove them. I explain why on this post.

I understand it can be frustrating. But I already share many things, a lot of families, clothings, haircuts, even two worlds for the Sims 3, and some objects. ;)

What custom content do you use on your sims ?

I don’t use any skin replacement for the moment, as I don’t like the way almost all of them works (as skin detail). And I like the base game one ! The only thing that bothers me are the lips, so I created a custom “lipstick” with different shades of pink, available here. And I also use my own eyes replacement obviously !

If you are looking for the face details I use, try to have a look at this post, or this one !

For the hairs, the clothes…. I only download maxis-match content. And I can’t really give you the link of all the tumblr/website where I find everything. You can send me a message, if you are looking for a specific item.

Can you share your Mods folder ? 

Nope, I won’t share my mod folder. Most of the creators’s Term of Use say that they don’t want to see their custom contents reuploaded. Mine included. When you get a CP in a mod folder, you don’t know where it comes from, If the creator need to update it, because he find out there is a problem with his creation, because a patch break it, or because he can now correct an issue he wasn’t able to correct before, you won’t be able to find out. Also, you might miss the future creations of this creator, creations that may interest you too !

Also, create clothings, hairstyles, lots, or furnitures, it takes time. Creators deserve that you have a look at their blog/website, not only for their custom content, but also for all they are sharing ;)

Can you put this lot to download ?

If it’s not already available, there is two different cases :

It was created using a lot made by someone other. I don’t feel sharing these because it would be… kind of stealing I think. I always try to give the OriginID of the original creator (when I don’t, you can be sure I searched for a long time for it on the gallery, without result), so you can find the lot and edit it like mine if you want to.

For the others, I use too many custom content on them, so it would take me too much time to make a list of everything. And I can’t take time to do this ! Yes, it may be a bit selfish, but I think I already share many things with you on my blog. You are totally free to use the pictures as reference to recreate my lots. And you are also free to ask me about where I found a specific content (but please, search by yourself first ;D), or how I made something.

I can’t see your creations in the CAS :(

Before sending me a message, please update your game to the last update ;)

But in most cases, I won’t be able to help you unfortunatly :(

Can you share Brynmar/Savidal/Brightwater CAW files ?

Unfortunately, I’ve lost all these files some month ago, so I can’t share them !

[sheepiling]

I DOWNLOADED MY FIRST MOD AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

So, I was getting really tired of how un-vibrant Sims 4 is. I didn’t really notice it/care at first, but once Sage was born I found myself constantly fighting the lighting in the game and setting up temporary lamps everywhere when I took screenshots just because of how un-flattering the Sims 4 lighting is for sims of color. (I mean I’ve had mixed race couples since gen 1 but the focus was always on the founder/heir so if their partner wasn’t as well lit up as they were I didn’t pay much attention to it, but Sage is the first heir to actually have darker skin genetics passed down to him ‘cuz apparently in sims world recessive and dominant genetic traits are reversed... or at least in this family they are rip) 

But anyways, I don’t want to spend time editing my screenshots so I just got a lighting mod for the game. OwO;; 

I just want to make a post now and tag it with wcif because I really don’t download much and if I ever do get cc in addition to this I’ll just post and wcif tag that too so anyone that’s curious can easily see what I’ve got quickly~ 

I also want to add that I’m going to go very in-depth about the installing process because I am not tech-savvy at all and it took me a whole evening to figure all of this out, so if anyone else is in the same boat as me I hope this helps! XD 

Also before I start explaining things I just want to add that before you start changing things, ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR GAME!! Make a copy of The Sims 4 folder that’s in your documents, AND the one that’s in your Origin Games folder that’s on your C drive (or wherever you installed Sims 4). 

First I downloaded NoBlu and NoGlo 

The links to the page their downloads are located along with information from the creator are right there in that title~ 

Those two mods work together, so I suggest getting them both! The NoBlu removes the blue tint that shows up at night time and indoors too I think, and if I understand things correctly the NoGlo removes that blue tint from your sims themselves so they don’t look blue-ish in contrast to the rest of the world that’s now been stripped of that blue tint. 

Like, the point of the blue tint that’s in the game is to make it so you can see things better in the dark, but from what I can tell it also makes day time seem darker too at certain times of the day. So getting rid of this will make night time darker if no lights are around, but I think it makes day time brighter and the lights at night time is brighter too and your sims just react more naturally to lighting~ 

When downloading NoBlu, just pick one of those three files that are there. I picked NoBluLightingReplacement.package 

For NoGlo, there’s two files there, and I downloaded both of them. They’re the NoGloRemover and the EyeSpecularRemover 

NoGlo and EyeSpecularRemover are applied to each sim in cas just like cc, so I’m not sure if I’ll bother using them. But I haven’t had this NoBlu lighting mod for very long so if I end up noticing my sims glowing in the dark with a blueish light then I’ll probably bother to put that on everyone. Maybe. 

These two mods are really easy to download! It’s just like downloading CC, just get the file and put it in Documents -> Electronic Arts -> The Sims 4 -> Mods 

Then I got ReShade 

This mod took me quite a while to figure out... (I’m just sort of challenged when it comes to things like this which is why I don’t use much mods/cc in the first place)  😓 

So this is a program that you can install into a lot of different games, it’s not made just for sims 4, but it works really well on sims 4! The website to download this is https://reshade.me/ 

Additionally, THIS VIDEO is the most helpful tutorial for installing it that I could find (imo). I also want to add to always read the README text files that come with mods when you download them... I’m sure you probably already do that but I’m an impatient derp that couldn’t figure out some things until I read the readme...  >.>;; 

Also, I had an issue when installing ReShade, and I’m just gonna explain everything I went through in case anyone else is having a hard time too, ‘cuz it took me quite a while to find the info. I needed. I also want to add that I use windows 8.1 (unfortunately that’s the only operating system that’s compatible with my laptop, so no windows 10 or 7 for me, I already tried, rip) so the issue I had could of been caused by 8.1′s wonkyness. But I don’t know for sure. 

After it asked me if I want to download a collection of standard effects, and I clicked yes, it said it failed. The program was properly installed into Sims 4, but I had no effects or textures (which is the whole point of getting this...) 

But! This can be fixed by downloading the effects manually and putting them into your bin folder yourself. THIS FORUM on ReShade’s website has this answer and a link to the download for the effects and textures. The very first answer under the OP’s question is the one with the download~ I’m very thankful to that helpful person. Also, I’m just linking the forum instead of the responder’s link itself b/c once you click on their link it downloads the file. It’s not a link to a file share or anything, it’s just the direct download. The ReShade website probably has these up for download on their website somewhere too... But I’m trash at navigating websites that I’m not used to so I have no idea where... But I would assume it’s there somewhere... 

After you have that file, slap it into your sims 4′s bin folder (tutorial I linked before shows where that is). Now, this alone is not all that you need to do. Now that it’s in the file, you need to go into the game and open the ReShade interface. Then you go over to settings and you need to copy paste the path for the program to find the effects and textures. There’s two separate boxes, one for effects and one for textures. 

To do this, go into the shaders folder that’s in your reshade shaders’ folder in your sims 4′s bin folder. Then in the bar at the top of your file’s window that shows all the files you’ve gone into, click on it and copy it. Then tab back to your sims 4 game and paste that info into ReShade’s effects box. Then go into your textures file and do the same things for the textures box in ReShade. 

When you paste them into the ReShade interface they should look something like this: 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 4\Game\Bin\reshade-shaders\Shaders 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 4\Game\Bin\reshade-shaders\Textures 

Of course, if you didn’t install this on your C drive it might be a bit different, but you need to find that from wherever you installed Sims 4. 

Once you’ve done all that the issue should be fixed and it’ll now load up all 60 effects and textures that you’ve downloaded every time you start up Sims 4 or tab back into your game after alt tabbing out!!!!! ................. 

So, hooray for it working properly now, BUT GOODNESS DOES THIS ANNOY ME. So like. If you’re going to download a preset from someone else (youtube tutorial I linked already shows how to do that) then I suggest keeping all the files you’ve downloaded. Especially if you’re switching between multiple presets for different occasions. There’s lots of ReShade presets all over tumblr, btw. So have fun looking them up if that’s what you want to do! 

But I’m not doing that. I don’t need all of this. It’s giving me a lag for no reason. SO I DELETED A WHOLE BUNCH OF EFFECTS ‘CUZ FUQ THIS LOADING TIME. 

Be careful not to delete anything important, though. In the shaders folder is the only folder I deleted anything inside of. Anything that was installed in the reshade-shaders folder I left alone. But inside the shaders or textures folder that’s inside of that reshade-shaders folder should be fine to delete things. BUT DON’T DELETE FILES THAT IT NEEDS TO RUN~ 

Anything that is a .fhx file you need to keep. Anything that is a .fx file is simply the effect itself and is safe to delete. I didn’t delete anything in my textures folder because when I downloaded the whole thing from the forum the textures folder didn’t have much in it. This might be different if you were able to install correctly in the first place. 

Anyways! The files I ended up keeping were all the .fhx files and the following effects: Colorfulness.fx, Vibrance.fx, and DPX.fx 

Colorfulness and Vibrance increase the saturation and vibrancy of your game and DPX is one that overall birghtens everything (I think). There’s lots of other effects that do the same things as these but those three are my favorites. Well, I don’t use DPX, it makes it a bit too bright for my eyes, but I decided to keep that one because whenever I’m able to get Seasons, if rainy/snowy days make the game seem way too dark I might want to enable DPX just for those days. 

But for normal sunny days, just checking Colorfulness and Vibrance is enough for me~ I didn’t even mess with the sliders on how much you want it to effect the game because I don’t want to deal with those kind of advanced settings. I just pushed the check mark box on those two and done! 

Now that I only have 3 effects and then the few textures that I never use but aren’t hurting anything by being there, it doesn’t even have a loading time to get ReShade to run properly when starting up my Sims 4 or tabbing back into it. ReShade is just ready to go right away! 

So if you’re wanting to brighten up your game, but have a slower computer and most lighting mods and/or ReShade being the way it normally is lags your game too much, you could consider doing what I did!  :D 

Also, with ReShade, you need to change the way you take screenshots now. Doing it with the C button just takes a picture of your naked game, not the ReShade effects. 

So, ReShade’s default hotkey for taking screenshots is Prt Scrn, so you can use that button now or you can change which button you want to take screenshots in the settings tab of ReShade’s interface. But the point is just pushing C doesn’t capture the ReShade effects so you’ll need a different button! 

Also! In ReShade’s settings tab, you need to change the screenshot format if you want to upload your ReShade screenies to tumblr! Its default is set to Bitmap, which tumblr doesn’t support, so change it so it saves as a PNG file instead!!! 

You can also change the path for where it’s going to drop your screenshots off at. The default is set to Sims 4′s bin folder, so if you want it to drop off screenshots in a different folder that’s dedicated to just screenshots and doesn’t have your game’s other important things in it, you’ll need to change the path for that (it’s the same as when you changed the path for it to find the effects and textures, just copy paste where you want it to go). 

Keep in mind that if you move the folder you told ReShade to dump its screenshots at then you’ll need to update the path in ReShade’s interface or it won’t be able to find the folder and you won’t get your screenies~ 

So yea! That’s all the info. I have!! I hope this helps someone that wants to use ReShade but has been confused about it like I was!! 😂 

Also sorry if my explaining things is long and confusing. This is just how thoughts flow in my brain so.. um... yea.  >.>; 

[laidbackmarco]

As uncomfortable as it is making art and putting yourself on display, in order to grow and improve as an artist you have to start getting familiar with that feeling. The mix of chemicals and neurons firing you experience when having awkward conversations with that girl/guy you like, before going on stage, or trying to draw something you are uncomfortable with is often described as fear or nervousness, but I’ve been trying to look at those moments when you can feel your blood pulsing through your body with a new lens. I think that feeling is actually the feeling of excitement which through social conditioning has been transformed into that of anxiousness. I think deep down people are excited to be talking to that person, performing, or learning different ways to approach art.

One thing that’s not hard for me to do,  because of my terrible self esteem, is admitting that my art is bad or needs improvement. . . actually it’s much harder for me to accept a compliment about my work then anything else. Which is also bad, because if you deny someone’s compliment it’s like telling them subconsciously that their point of view doesn’t matter, don’t devalue them just smile and say thank you. Although I do wish they would stop using the “It’s better then I could do” seriously stop saying that to your friends who do art because that doesn’t make us feel better. Back to the main point! I know I needed to improve my digital art skills, but I had no idea how to go about doing it. There are a lot of resources online that are available, but the problem was there was just so much free information out there that I had almost drowned in it. I stumbled across this website called https://www.ctrlpaint.com/ which seemed to have everything in a nice organized fashion, had a plethora of free content, and I liked the way Matt Kohr presented both his philosophy and lessons.

I began plugging my way through the lessons one step at time. Although I had taken art classes in college, I figured that like in League of Legends, Fighting Games, Basketball, and now art fundamentals are extremely important and it can never hurt to refresh and sharpen those tools. So I started from step one and worked my way through the Digital Painting 101, Traditional Drawing, And Most of the Drawing 2 segments until I reached this challenge called When In Doubt, Draw 100.  Before I watched it I thought one hundred is a pretty large number, I mean I tried to do Inktober and a thirty day original character drawing challenge and I couldn’t even manage to do those, there is no way I could manage to draw one hundred of something I’m uncomfortable illustrating.

As if the challenge itself wasn’t hard enough, I had trouble even getting started on it. What should I draw? How many drawings a day should I try to do? What medium should I use when illustrating? Were all questions were allowed me to procrastinate and satisfy the instant gratification monkey in my head with some League of Legends. It took me a couple days browsing twitter and looking at amazing art to become honest with myself and say that it doesn’t matter what I draw because I’m so bad at everything the improvement alone will be worth it. But two areas I know that every artist struggles with, even my better peers on the social networks, are hands and feet. I mean just look at some of my earlier work

The feet and legs are more like blobs and the hands are pretty much mittens, both needed to be improved, but I decided to go with drawing feet first.

And I know what you’re thinking eww feet gross, people find feet gross, and repulsive for some reason? Maybe because you walk on them all day and they are close to the ground? I  don’t know, but I’ve been looking at feet my whole life. . . my view of the world is often looking down at the ground. Most people will look at other people’s faces when communicating, which is something I’m trying to do now, but my whole life I’ve had terrible self esteem and probably some form of depression so I’ve gone through it avoiding eye contact. The easiest way to avoid eye contact and not run into everything and everything is to look down at the ground. This way you can still see where people are going and where objects are in the world. If you do make it out into a more open area looking up at the sky isn’t a bad option either, but your neck would get tired after a while of stargazing.

They say a lot of information is conveyed through the window to the soul, the beautiful eyes human beings, and that probably  is true, but for me I got my information by looking everywhere, but people’s faces. Which mostly was their feet. Which can convey feelings all by themselves. You can tell by the motions of legs and feet whether someone is excited, proud, or tired by the way they walk or tap their feet nervously during the middle of class. Even the type of shoes they wear can tell you a little about their personality. For girls you can tell who the pampered rich ones are by how often their toenails are perfectly painted or if they are chipping. I remember a  girl I was crushing on in highschool got a pair of fresh new white vans. . . still my favorite pair of shoes to this day. All the super liberal art theater kids wore toms. . . to help the world out or something. But yes feet can tell you a lot about a character, I think a big influence on me is my favorite animation studio Kyoani, where one of the animation directors Naoko Yamada uses images of feet and legs to describe human relationships and interactions on a regular basis.

Legs and feet can be cute,  should  be able to describe the whole character,  even actions and motion are able to be extrapolated by through the feet by are posed,  or be fetishised(but I mean what can’t now a days am I right?), but you have to be able to illustrate them well for that to happen. Some of my favorite illustrators and animators can draw characters performing a variety of actions and because they can draw feet well the characters appear grounded and real. Even actions such as falling and being weightless have the feet react in some way shape or form.

This drawing challenge began six months ago in march of 2017 I had begun this challenge thinking  I’ll be able to knock this out in 10 days if I draw 10 feet a day. Which doesn’t sound to hard and in a perfect world that might have happened. These are probably just excuses but it was a combination of school, waning motivation, frustration, and laziness that I hadn’t finished as fast that I had wanted to. The challenge also started out being a way for me to learn to digitally sketch better, and probably woulda paid off too if I stuck with using my wacom or my surface pen to do the drawings. One drawing was even in color, which I don’t know why I decided to draw that one in color? I think it had a pretty night background, that I couldn’t execute well because it was wet pavement and streetlights.

I used a variety of sources for the feet in this set here, some from anime still frames, twitter drawings, League of Legends fan arts, and even some pictures of real life subjects.It took another four months before I started to make more drawings towards the study, but eventually I decided to start doing them in my sketchbook, because there are so many extra steps involved when drawing in a program that my procrastinating self couldn’t be bothered to deal with. First of all as much as I love my Surface Pro, the battery life is not ideal, the pen has a battery that runs out, and I don’t think my version of the surface is powerful enough to draw at the resolutions I like to illustrate digitally at. The only program I have for illustrating on my surface is manga studio, which isn’t bad because one of my favorite artists redjuice999 uses it, but it is different than what I am used to. Also when drawing on the go, which I do a lot now, you have to create a new folder, file, choose the resolution/document size, save it then find it again. It was a hassle to say the least so with an investment of  a little under 10 dollars I saved myself all those extra steps and got a new sketchbook and some mechanical pencils because no sharpening pls. Another reason that I stopped drawing was I was just getting too frustrated with drawing things I’m not comfortable with, not getting anything out of LoL streaming, my art and music had netted nothing for all the work put in, I really was just frustrated with life and started hated everything I was and was doing.

When I picked it up again four months later I started looking at comic books I enjoyed, both american and Japanese artists I admired I looked at more closely. The two main ones being Pokan8 illustrator of the Yahari Ore No Seishun Love Come Wa Machigattiru and Hiro Illustrator of Akebi Chan’s Sailor Uniform. I did look at the illustrations of an hero I could not read being as the whole page was in Japanese, but it was a random stroke of luck that I found his image on Pinterest. An interesting thing happened to me a third of the way through the drawing challenge. At about the mid thirtyish drawing I found myself enjoying the process and having fun drawing feet. This really showed I think in the 30-40 drawings of the “Gothic Loli” shoes as they were called. I don’t know why but those ones turned out really good I think? Maybe I liked Rem more than I thought and no I’m not a Lolicon those were literally what the page called the shoes. During the later 25 Drawings I found myself frustrated again I thought it was because the overall proportion and drawings seemed to be off, but that wasn’t it. Looking at the drawings the overall shape is pretty good, but upon retrospection I had realized that I was getting angry at the smaller details of the foot that I had completely brushed off before. All the small curves and nooks of the feet were becoming something I was aware of at those moments, and because my mind couldn’t wrap my head around some of the most subtle curves I was frustrated again.

I drew some feet even without photo reference, but looking at people as they passed by downtown on the street. Something that would have been not possible for me doing this challenge I was able to take a quick glance at pedestrians walking and make a quick sketch of the shoes they were wearing. I tried to do some without any reference at all, but they turned out super bad so I stuffed that Idea real quick. My later drawings I tried to look for more challenging angles, and gave more attention to clean linework and putting down darker lines where I wanted and I think that shows. The lines are less chicken scratchy than the previous drawings. I’m glad that my final drawing in the challenge had a tiny bit of shared joy as I had a viewer on my stream while completing the final piece. Thanks Zukeyni!!

For some reason I felt when i completed this challenge I would be able to draw feet with no reference easily and that I would feel like a better artist. Like completing this would give me a noticeable stat in some sort of rpg, but sadly that didn’t happen. I think that I would still need a lot of reference to draw a foot that would count as passable to my current standards. But I did improve!! Maybe? I don’t know you be the judge. To get more value out of this drawing challenge I think next time I would include more more shots from movies, challenging obscure angles, and action poses where people are in motion. As feet change when people are doing things like in one of the drawings up there I used a drawing of Akebi’s Little sister Kao chan throwing a paper airplane, and because Hiro is a good artist he captures the excitement of a kid throwing a paper airplane all the way down to her cute sneakers with little birds on them.

What I learned: I could’ve got this done much faster, you get faster as you go, take it one step at a time, lastly I still have a long way to go!

The next challenge I will do is drawing 100 hands, but I will wait until doing some other art tutorials on CtrlPaint before doing another one of these tasking, but rewarding challenges.

  Thanks to my stream that Supports me mentally during my fiascos.

SpectralFire, Derpiestder, Lord_Vath, and DirgeofRuin,

P.S. I think They all have secret foot fetishes . . . they watched the entire time.

The Draw 100 Art Challenge Feet As uncomfortable as it is making art and putting yourself on display, in order to grow and improve as an artist you have to start getting familiar with that feeling.

[nataliehegert]

Imagine: one day in the near future, you might wake up to find that all of your Facebook friends are gone.

A little while ago, while ostensibly doing research for a review I was writing on Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch’s Regen Projects exhibition, I learned that Trecartin had essentially been “discovered” through Friendster. Curious, I went hunting for the evidence. What did Ryan Trecartin’s Friendster profile look like? Who were his friends in the early 2000s? What did they talk about? For an artist who has built an empire out of representing the self-reflexive youth culture born from the posturing and interactions of the social media age, I was interested in how he had used the nascent social platform.

I was not at all prepared for what I found.

To put it mildly, Friendster ain’t what it used to be.

Screenshot of Friendster’s Inception-esque “404 Not Found” page, which reads, “The information you’re looking for is located in a page, within a page, within a page. In other words, it doesn’t exist. Maybe in your dreams.” Retrieved January 6, 2015

The “grandfather of social networks” is now “a social gaming site based in Kuala Lumpur.” Did you know this? In May 2011, the formerly passé social network pivoted in a major way. In the face of its behemoth competitor, Facebook, Friendster threw in the towel in the social network game, and, along with it, all your old photos, messages, and connections.

What about Myspace—the other social networking casualty of Facebook? I found Trecartin’s collaborator Lizzie Fitch first, and then Trecartin’s profile, as well as other collaborators, Rhett LaRue, Kevin McGarry, and others. But Myspace’s layout has been inexorably altered. Gone is the long string of public messages and exhortations of gratitude “for the add!” As Myspace moved to become primarily a music-sharing site, it drastically changed its design, moving away from its social networking origins. It, too, threw in the towel, and, with it, all your old messages, blogs, and bulletins.

Screenshot of Ryan Trecartin’s Myspace profile. Retrieved January 17, 2015

In total, I wasn’t able to glean much information about how early social networks might have been used by the Trecartin camp, and even if I had found some way to access it, what I might have found would probably be inconsequential (Trecartin has said that he doesn’t spend time on social networks). But I did realize just how precarious this information is, seeing as how it is essentially owned by private corporations.

Is it too early to feel nostalgic for interactions on early social networks? Maybe Friendster and Myspace should have just held on a few more years until we inevitably resurrected them as “retro” stylings. But private companies like this are not beholden to us as repositories for our memories. They exist to make money. Even when that means drastically changing their identities and missions.

Screenshot of Friendster’s help screen, which tells you, “Sorry but there really is no way to retrieve your old data.” Retrieved January 6, 2015

Friendster claims to have warned its users that it was dumping all their private content in May 2011, offering them the chance to download all of their information in zip drives (I looked, but the last email I got from Friendster was in 2009; I found no word about the impending mass deletion, not that I would have noticed). Myspace didn’t even bother, and in 2013 abruptly deleted users’ photos, messages, blogs, etc., to make way for a site redesign. Angry hordes of ex-Myspacers fulminated bitterly about the loss of years of diaries, poems, and messages from now-deceased loved ones. As one commentator astutely put it: “Lesson to be learned: we don’t own our space in social media, we’re only renting. Make sure you have backups of everything important even if it means taking screengrabs. This is Facebook ten years from now.”

There will always be loss. Things slip through the cracks. An old box of photographs might disappear. A file folder with some old letters could be destroyed by a leak in the roof of your garage. A stack of old zines might get tossed by accident. An old floppy disk quietly slips into obsolescence. We can’t expect to have access to everything in perpetuity.

I’ll never be able to re-live old phone conversations, for example, so why should I expect to be able to re-visit old conversations online? Websites regularly change—links go missing, domains expire—so why should we expect our social media presence to remain accessible? This expectation is partially due to the way we approach social media: as an extension of ourselves. Friendster was probably our first foray into this practice of performing ourselves online. And Myspace promised just that: “my space.” Facebook offers us a “timeline,” and we can go back through the years, to re-experience our lives through the lens of our Facebook posts.

The internet exists in the tension between lasting memory and ephemerality; it’s simultaneously a repository and flowing digital stream. The streaming art video application riverthe.net, launched in 2010 by Trecartin, embodies this flow, while newer social media applications, most notably Snapchat, embrace the internet’s evanescence. But most digital artifacts that we upload from our maxed-out hard drives into the “cloud,” we, somewhat counter-intuitively, expect to be “safe” there, in those whispery tendrils of digital vapor. Until the cloud “crashes”...

Screenshot from riverthe.net of a video uploaded under the tags “poke” “krad.tv” and “artist.” The video shows a screencast of someone “poking” Ryan Trecartin on Facebook (circa 2010 from the looks of it) and getting the error message, “Ryan has not received your last poke. He’ll get it the next time he logs in.”

Writing about the vulnerability of digital information, Jon Ippolito notes in one of the chapters of Re-Collection: Art, New Media, and Social Media, co-authored with Richard Rinehart and recently published by MIT Press:

The popularity of participatory media has resulted in a virtual whirlwind of data that continues to swirl through a disembodied cyberspace after their creators are dead…As appealing as it may sound to live on after death as ghosts in the machine, we should remember two caveats. First, these disembodied deceased do not live on as ectoplasm but as echoes—fragments of email messages, long-gone websites still appearing in search results, photo accounts on Flickr that will never be updated or deleted because the owner has died and the password died with him. Second, these cases of computational media outliving humans are the exception rather than the rule, for their lifespans are still a fraction of their users’; think of how many mobile phones the average person goes through in a lifetime, or how much longer the average Geocities user will live than the homepages each created, which Yahoo retired at the ripe old age of fourteen.[1]

Ippolito and Rinehart’s book acknowledges that as our culture and social memory is increasingly “born digital,” we are facing a monumental task: finding a way not only to preserve and maintain these digital artifacts, but also to determine what is worth saving and how. They focus on the various, sometimes confusing and misunderstood challenges of preserving new media artworks, admitting that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to conserving art made in media that quickly obsolesce, from early net art to interactive video installations. Yet while there is an immediate and urgent need to find ways to preserve the works of art themselves, we also need to address the issue of preserving the records and documentation that surround the making, exhibition, and reception of art.

As a graduate student doing research for my thesis, I consulted MoMA's archives for information on a few artists pertinent to my study (the period in question was the 1970s–1980s in New York). Much of the material in the archives consisted of invitations to exhibitions, which had been mailed to MoMA, and then filed away in the appropriate artists' files. These announcements allowed me to piece together a chronology of exhibitions for these artists. Nowadays, however, these supplementary, ephemeral materials—exhibition announcements, installation photographs, invitations, correspondence—are increasingly born digital with no physical counterpart. And many of these are circulated primarily through proprietary social media applications like Facebook. At this moment, there is no dearth of documentation—we’re video recording, live tweeting, and Instagramming every exhibition, art fair, and event imaginable—but because of the attitude we hold towards digital media, in which we equate present access with future permanence, there is little concern directed towards safeguarding this digital ephemera for posterity or for future scholarship. Librarians are, quite evocatively, calling this phenomenon the impending “digital black hole.”

In a blog post on the New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC) website, Walter Schlect paints a very clear picture of the challenge we’re facing:

The ease with which users can navigate digital auction catalogs, catalogues raisonnés and other art resources has also made them in danger of very suddenly and irrevocably disappearing. As software changes, certain information on websites can become unreadable, and as institutions evolve, digital-born publications may be removed from the web without a second thought. Websites that use dynamic and interactive software like flash provide are remarkably difficult features to save in a stable archival format. Web archiving software has difficulty capturing videos and audio. Don’t even try to preserve mobile websites: we aren’t there yet. More and more people and institutions are publishing art resources online; very few of them save these materials in an archival format made accessible to the general public.

The web gives us the impression of a condition of total abundance, of information overload and chronic oversharing, so to talk of scarcity sounds a bit ridiculous. If I want to find out information about an exhibition or an artist, a simple Google search would probably suffice. But fast forward a few years in the future, and that information might not be so forthcoming. Case in point: trying to locate Ryan Trecartin on an obsolete social network.

This information-rich era that we inhabit has so much potential, if we have the presence of mind to preserve it in some fashion. I contacted MoMA’s archives to find out what measures they have put in place regarding the archiving of current digital ephemera, a question “very much on our minds,” according to MoMA librarian Jennifer Tobias. She directed me to a pilot web archiving project by NYARC, spearheaded by the libraries of MoMA, the Frick, and the Brooklyn Museum, and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Since 2012, the program has been creating archival copies of the websites of museums, galleries, and artists, and other art-rich media such as digital catalogues raisonées and auction catalogues, in an attempt to preserve web content that might otherwise be lost to the future researcher. This is a more than formidable task. The 2012 study that sparked the project admits, “No library entity, whether a single specialized research institute, a small consortium such as NYARC, a large state university facility, or a well-endowed Ivy League library can alone tame the onslaught of born-digital media, even when narrowed to the universe of art scholarship.”[2]

Amalia Ulman, Excellences & Perfections, 2014, Screenshot of Amalia Ulman's archived Instagram project, as captured by Rhizome’s Colloq tool. Retrieved January 17, 2015

As Rinehart observes in Re-Collection, while we might want to believe that “a brilliant scientist in a hilltop lab somewhere or some authoritative government agency must have this all under control,”[3] scientists, librarians, and archivists are still very much grappling with the problem of preserving social memory in the digital age. In 2013, the Library of Congress announced that it would be archiving all of America’s Twitter feeds, in a project of almost absurd proportions. In October, Rhizome offered a sneak peek of a revolutionary new tool they are devising to archive social media feeds, essentially freezing them for a moment in time but retaining the functionality of some of the interactive navigation. (They demonstrated this by archiving Amalia Ulman’s Instagram account, which you can browse in perpetuity here, at the moment before the “big reveal” that the account was in actuality a durational performance.) Ippolito, who advised Rhizome on the project, frames it in terms of restoring power to the users over their own data: “It puts the ability to capture data back in the hands of the individuals,” he said to the New York Times. “The user is in the driver’s seat, instead of the social network that now owns that user’s information.” The tool, called Colloq, should be released to consumers at some point in the future.

But as of yet, most social media streams—a resource that holds so much potential—remain unarchived, and largely untapped as a source of art historical evidence. It’s plausible, for instance, that future researchers might be able to piece together the emergence of new art movements based on the guest lists of Facebook event pages for obscure art shows. But who will archive these materials? What deserves to be preserved for posterity? Rinehart and Ippolito suggest that our best bet for preserving digital culture lies in the efforts of a decentralized populace, rather than relying solely on the archives of museums, libraries, and other institutions—in other words, it’s up to us to preserve our own present.

[1] Jon Ippolito, “Unreliable Archivists,” in Richard Rinehart and Jon Ippolito, Re-Collection: Art, New Media, and Social Memory(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014), 159-60.

[2] Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, “Reframing Collections for a Digital Age: A Preparatory Study for Collecting and Preserving Web-based Art Research Materials,” April 12, 2013, 4. http://www.nyarc.org//sites/default...

[3] Rinehart, “New Media and Social Memory,” in Rinehart and Ippolito, Re-Collection, 18.

(Image at top: Ryan Trecartin, I-Be Area, 2007, Video, 1hr 48 minutes; Courtesy the artist)

Essay Posted on 1/22/15