#it doesn't help that I don't know what the heck I'm doing with Nine's design

[scrunglepaws]

Tfw you're a weenie, but you want to defend your youngest sibling. And fail horribly. Poor Tails; he's too much of a dweeb to pull off the older protective brother shtick. Fiona could beat his ass with just a look, lmao.

Just in case you can't read my terrible handwriting//

Tails: Y-You better treat her right! Or else-!

Fiona: Or else what, dorkwad? How about grow a backbone, then get back to defending your sister's honor.

Tails: *can't even formulate a response and is doused in SHAME* Mm.... <:C

Fiona: That's what I thought.

((little note indicating that Fiona's dress has a bustle, despite how unclear the sketch is xD))

Later:

Nine: Please don't tease my brother; he has no self esteem.

Fiona: Ugh, but he's so pathetic...

Nine: Fiona! >:[

Fiona: Fine, fine. I'll leave him be.

[ivyruins]

Shopping with blooming panic love interests!

a/n: hello hello! gonna start writing for bp too now:D I just played it this week and IM SO IN LOVE AHHHHHH (night and xyx are my beloveds). feel free to send requests/asks! my first bp fic, them as shopping buddies <3 reader's gender is not mentioned, and goes by they/them! + lapslock c:

Nightowl

the type to wake up early (or not sleep at all, which was probably the most likely one) to wake you up for shopping

would offer to push the cart every time solely for the reason he wants to do that thing where he pushes the cart at full speed and hops on it last minute

a menace to shop with

before the trip, Nightowl would definitely wrap you in one of his hoodies (the hoodies he specifically has just so you could steal it from him). his hoodies are so big it makes you look like a blob, in which he claims it makes you "easier to find", implying he'd either leave you alone or he thought you would run off without him.

which was understandable, as some days you were more hyper than he was.

on those specific days, he would have to have you on cart duty, so you two don't have to spend time in the supermarket for too long.(but end up doing so anyway).

those are the times Nightowl feels truly responsible™ over you, grabbing all the items as you run around with the cart in his hoodie

at least he wouldn't have trouble finding someone wheeling a cart in a giant piece of clothing

"what the… how many cereal boxes do we need?" you ask, furrowing your eyebrows in confusion as Nightowl grabs another box off the shelf. he looks at you with a slightly surprised expression, as if it was common knowledge to grab more than necessary amount of cereal boxes.

"look, they come with these toys! we gotta have all the versions!" he beams, "doesn't he kind of look like Damien? I have to make sure he's in one of these!"

at the mention of Damien, your eyes widen, "do they have one that looks like Lola? you know what, grab them all!"

safe to say, you had held up the longest queue at the cashier when you were checking out.

Quest

probably the most responsible of them all

wakes up at a reasonable time, and would wake you up as well if you weren't awake already

also the most relaxing. he'd save the date he and you were off of work and set it as a reminder for your designated shopping day, and its like a little date you have.

Quest would be so patient with you. you didn't wanna go in the morning? afternoon it is. heck, even night was okay.

I feel like Quest would be the one to push the cart, but if you were adamant on doing the pushing then he wasn't going to stop you

recycle bag king be like quest and bring your own recycle bag !!

definitely has a shopping list as well, he's well prepared.

it was nine in the evening, and the cashier had announced that there was an hour left until closing. you and Quest had yet to finish the items off your list, but with the fluorescent lights glaring down on you, it was hard to stay awake.

the soft music from the speakers only accompanied your drowsiness. you were starting to get lightheaded, which was odd considering your bed time was no where close to now. it just seemed that with your position now, arms propped on the handle of the cart, walking at a slow, calm pace was rocking you to sleep.

Quest's soft humming to whatever the music was beside you was not helping either. occasionally, he would look up from the list on his phone, to calmly glance at the items as if the shop was not closing.

as if finally realizing the prolonged silence, Quest shifted his attention to you. you hear him sigh lightly.

"tired?" he asked, his hand coming up to hold the cart, offering to take your place. he didn't sound mad, instead, he sounded concerned. caring. adamant on continuing, you shake your head, shooting him a tired smile.

"nope, I'm good! maybe I'll grab another coffee real quick,"

at the mention of the caffeine, Quest shakes his head disapprovingly, guiding the cart you were lackadaisically pushing towards the only open queue left.

"nope, let's continue tomorrow then." he chuckles, pushing the cart, letting you whine, hiding your relief at his change of plans.

he always seems to get you.

NakedToaster

Toasty? going shopping?

You'd probably have to wake them on the weirdest hours just so they wouldn't straight up go gaming.

they fell asleep at 3am? shopping is at 9am, right before their energy replenishes to the max and they starts gaming again

they fell asleep at 9am? shopping's done at 1pm, for the same reason

they didn't sleep at all? (real shocker), then like Nightowl, immediately going!

honestly sleepy toasty is the best partner to shop with

their on cart duty, would just follow what you say. its like having a personal shopping assistant.

they'd give their input on meals occasionally, but overall its you who chooses the food. they don't really mind, as long as its edible.

the rare times Toast would speak, you'd be able to hear their gruff morning voice, and it really catches you off guard when they say it on the most random occasions ever.

overall, Toast is the ideal calm shopping partner.

"hey, Toasty. should we get some more fruits?" you ask, picking up and examining an apple from the fruit stand. beside you, Toast hums-his hair in a messy braid you had managed to pull for him- looking at his phone. you sigh, picking the phone out of their hand, causing them to look up at you.

"Xyx was messaging me in the server!" he says defensively, although the tone of his voice suggested something different, "here, I'll pull up vc, you can yell at him."

"Toast," you chuckle, pocketing his phone, "I know you're working on bloombot. I saw it last night on your other monitor, come on, take your mind off of it for a bit?" you ask, pleading.

Toast's expression softens. he sighs, leaning down to press a kiss on your forehead apologetically, "alright then, love. what we're you asking?"

Xyx

Shopping with Xyx

yes

shopping with Xyx just consists of countless jokes between the two of you

probably the most normal one as well

no because Xyx would be such a gentleman??

if it was allowed, he'd bring cat too. cat sits in the seat at the shopping cart and he pushes the cart too.

he'd claim that he likes pushing the cart but truthfully he just doesn't want you to do much work

he'd leave the shopping list (if you had one) to you, though.

like Toast, except Xyx is wide awake this time, you would do most of the shopping as he coos and plays with cat.

"hm, it looks like we don't have any more space. Guess someone has to move." You say, poking at the feline friend on your cart, who had decided to drop from the seat to sit at the center of your cart. cat meows and stretches, before going to (what you would assume to be) sleep.

"cat must like it there against the metal. reckon we should get it a cage?" Xyx laughs at the unresponsive pet who refused to budge, petting it's head, "then again, I doubt it'd ever leave our bed. cat likes you."

you shake your head, dismissing his words, "little rascal won't even move, I doubt it does!" you laugh, walking over to the next aisle as Xyx pushes the cart to follow you, stopping right in front of the cat food section, "now, maybe we should just skip this part. doubt we'd have any space to put it."

as if sensing your evildoings, the feline in your cart immediately gets up, curious head peeking from where it sat comfortably among the snacks and cold drinks, head laying gently on the carton of eggs. Cat meows, as if chiding you, and jumps to get off. you grin, seems like your plan had worked.

leaning down, you pet cat's head, "you evil little thing,"

"got it from me,'' Xyx says proudly, and you laugh, shaking your head.

"yeah, no shit!"

[franki-lew-yo]

The Romantic (2009, R, Gothic Fantasy/Horror), aka the most forgotten animated film in the world

What if I told you there was a movie under serious threat of becoming lost media with no clear reason as to WHY it's been lost other than no one has apparently watched it besides me and a few people on Reddit? What if I told you that movie wasn't half bad and would no doubt have some interest peeked if anyone DID know about it?

The name of that movie is The Romantic.

It was released in 2009 and it's Rated R for nudity and sex scenes [insert Robbie Rotten meme here], though none of it too graphic. It was a pet project created by animator Michael P. Heneghan, originally starting as a flash project for his animation class before he expanded it into a feature film. The film was inspired by movies such as The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, but what I see every time I look at it is a touch of Jhonen Vasquez, Tim Burton, and Roman Dirge- the guy behind Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl. It's flash animation especially remind me of the puppet-rigged toons of the 2000s (again like Salad Fingers or Lenore). It's not bad, it's just not inherently 'feature film' quality flash, nor is it exceptionally artistic like Sita Sings the Blues in it's simplicity. Like, really, if you happen to find this thing it's not the worst animated project at all it's just amateur for a professional production. I've seen worse flash movies. Heck, if The Romantic were released in separate parts on youtube or Newgrounds as a series (ala Homestuck) I'm sure it would have been really successful and totally in it's element. But it wasn't.

Because next to no one has seen it and I'm lucky to have not only ever seen it when it was available for free but have also found it recently (hush hush, I ain't telling you how) I'm going to actually give you all a plot synopsis under the cut. There will be some details I leave out and I think I've spelled some characters names wrong. It's a bit of a surrealist film as well, so you might need some things explained.

Spoilers ahead:

The Romantic is set in an autumnal, surrealist world inhabited by humans and monsters and ruled by three gods; Po the goddess of love; Pik the god of Hate; and Pjorrc the god of time though Pjorrc was made to live inside a pumpkin moon as everything he touched rabidly aged and died.

((Tapestry art featuring the main three gods of the film.))

A young man (called “Romance” or “The Romantic” by the other characters) performs a bull sacrifice in order to summon Abbledepopa, the unseen creator of the other gods and ‘storyteller’ of the world. The sacrifice does not conjure Abbledepopa but, when Romance spares a monster that was ready to eat him, the monster tells him of a profit named Patience. Patience is a foul-mouthed dwarf living alone with an army of babies who points Romance in the direction of Po.

((Romance outside of Patience's house.))

Romance wants the god’s help because he has fallen out of love with his girlfriend. Po grants him his desire and restores his love only for Romance to return home and find his girlfriend with another man. Blinded by heartache and rage, Romance kills her. He then swears vengeance on the gods for ‘making’ him do it. In the midst of this vow, a corrupt prophet called Fat Daddy kills the queen of Vauxhaul (Romance's home) and her guards, and forges a new body for his newborn son with their bodies. Fat Daddy rallies the townsfolk behind him in supposedly finding the Queen’s murder into follow a new religion called "The Poetic End".

((Romance (right) besides the monster he spared at the beginning of the movie.))

Patience accompanies Romance on his quest and tells him to take Po’s mask, which hides her true face, once he kills her. Romance buys Po’s trust by weaving her a tapestry that tells her story: in the dawn of time Po and Pjorrc were in love. However, Pjorrc gradually became distant and Po became resentful when their daughter, Love, earned Po's original title as the god of romance and love.

In the present day, Romance sleeps with Po for over a year before finally killing her and taking her mask. He and Patience return to his home of Vauxhul only to be chased out by Fat Daddy’s personal army. They flee to Marshallton, the town nearest to the god Pik.

((Romance's hometown of Vauxhul. ))

The king of Marshallton, King Crookie, tells Romance of a prophecy he, Patience, Fat Daddy and all the gods are a part of and that the world is soon to change. Romance then fights and successfully kills Pik when he shows the god of hate his reflection in a mirror King Crookie gave him, but not before losing his hand to Pik.

When Romance comes down the mountain he learns from Patience that nine years have passed since his fight with Pik began. Patience reveals to Romance what Pik saw in the mirror that allowed Romance to take the killing blow; after Love had grown up and married, Po asked Pik to tell her where her husband was always running off to. Pik reluctantly revealed Pjorrc was disguising himself as a human and married a mortal woman. Po found Pjorrc and his pregnant second wife, forcing Pjorrc to leave his human family behind, but not before asking his wife to name their son “Patience”. In retaliation for his treachery, Po proceeded to sleep with fifty men and produce the fifty bastard children in Patience’s house.

((Fat Daddy, the main villain.))

Marshallton and the entire rest of the world has fallen to the rule of Fat Daddy, who captures Romance and Patience. Fat Daddy tortures Patience into telling him how to get to Pjorrc but is unable to convince Romance to take part in his ‘new world’ or give him Po’s mask. Romance and Patience escape and leave the village to be torn apart by the fifty babies Po had, now transformed into veracious monsters after Patience didn’t feed them for the past ten years. Romance confronts Patience when he realizes the latter is Pjorrc’s son. Patience calls Romance out on his mantra of vengeance and points out that all his decisions are his own, not the gods, and instructs him to seek Love herself in Po’s basement. Patience then attempts to confront Pjorrc but is cornered and killed by Fat Daddy before he can do so.

In Po’s basement, Romance finds Love nailed to a wall, her face torn off and half eaten by her deformed husband. Love tells Romance that Po ripped off her daughter’s face in rage over Pjorrc’s infidelity and Pjorrc did not intervene fast enough. Po then threw Love into her basement, turned Love’s husband into a monster, and wore her daughter’s face as a mask - which Romance had broken into pieces moments ago after Patience had shown him his face in King Crookie’s mirror. Romance then finds Pjorrc hanging himself. As he dies, Pjorrc tells Romance to take the hand Fat Daddy had cut off and sew it onto himself, which will in turn help Romance defeat Abbledepopa.

Romance traverses the wasteland and does not find Abbledepopa, but instead a golden loom. Having seen all the destruction he and others had caused, Romance sits upon the loom and accepts his fate as the new ‘storyteller’ of the world, as he begins weaving a new one...

---

I mentioned before the animation quality of the film and why maybe that caused people to overlook it. The only other thing I could complain about on a technical level with The Romantic is it's sound design. Some of the voices and music is a little too quiet and so all these key details I had to go through the film a few times to really piece together. But that leads me to the thing I like about this movie and I'm sure others would to: the lore.

It's very hard to create a new fantasy world w it's own customs, religions, history and rules out of the blue as any YA Harry Potter/Hunger Games ripoff book could tell you. The Romantic is so unique in how it handles the pantheon and culture of these three gods and their kin; really only four or five characters throughout the entire story aren't connected to the gods or prophecy in some way, as there's the main three gods, Abbeldepappa, and the prophets Patience, Love and Fat Daddy, who make up your main cast besides Romance. There's a lot that's intentionally left unexplained and other info that must be explained, like Pjorrc and Po's marriage and Romance's feelings towards the gods, if we want to understand the former. The movie is paced pretty well and knows when to follow up on what, it's just that again some of those animation and editting shortcomings might make it hard to understand...but I don't think THAT hard. Look, if someone can enjoy Starchaser: The Legend of Orin or even better surrealist world-building films ((Fantastic Planet comes to mind)), then I say there's no reason The Romantic wouldn't have a following. There's no other way I can articulate why and what doesn't work about the story except just to recommend you watch it yourselves, but before I get into that I want to talk themes...because I love the themes and tone of The Romantic.

I revisited The Romantic a week before I made myself watch Centaurworld and The Owl House for the first time...and what a week that was~! The Romantic has the vibe of those kinds of shows along with Adventure Time and Infinity Train ((so I hear, I haven't watched the latter)). It's surreal and you'll only marvel at 'woooah wut an acid trip' for so long before you get into the vibe of the universe. It also reminded me substantially of the Broadway musical Hadestown and not just because this movie is also a self-contained, somewhat self aware fable about the relationships between humans and gods - it's very raw in how the characters talk. It's very emotional and blunt in how kind and how cruel they can be, and it doesn't make excuses or really worships any one of them. Romance himself is the world's most likable Incel: he murders a woman he thought he needed to love and blames his emotions on the gods of those passions...except the gods AREN'T the manifestations of love, time, and hate - they simply dictate and oversee it in the lives of men. It's a dynamic I really like in religious works where Gods are powerful but not all knowing or puppet masters to everyone's design- they have morality too and there is only so much you can blame and get from them.

"You made your gods into excuses and your excuses into gods!"

-Patience. This here is a cool quote. I like this quote.

No matter what, The Romantic is not gonna be a film for everyone. We all have our tastes - I think I'm drawn to it and accepting because I've come to love these kind of worlds that used to keep me up at night - these trippy 70s inspired fantasy landscapes given a whole Avatar: The Last Airbender degree of worldbuilding and character worth. It also doesn't feel exploitive in it's violence, it's sexuality, it's grimmness - it doesn't feel like it's trying to hard or going over the top because it happens to be an adult animated film, something that I love in movies like 9 or Hair High but really turns me off in stuff like Sausage Party or Wizards. Whatever go watch The Romantic...

if you can.

-----

When I first saw this film in 2016 it was actually very accessible and was even uploaded to youtube by the creator himself. I don't know WHAT happened to Michael P. Heneghan, but simply put, the man's disappeared...like...REALLY disappeared.

Lookit his IMDB. He has The Romantic and a wapping two other projects to his name. His Twitter isn't very helpful either. He last updated in early 2020 and he says next to nothing about The Romantic. It's so odd that he would one day be happy with the film enough to host it on Vimeo and Youtube but then just cop out.

According to a Reddit user: "On Valentines Day 2011, Heneghan released the film for free online through all kinds of platforms including direct download, bittorrent, Vimeo, and even directly through Archive.org. He even joked about releasing a 300 gig uncompressed version.

I know I watched it on Vimeo probably as recently as 2016. Now I can't find it anywhere. The website is dead, the Vimeo video went private, even the archive.org version has been taken down. It really looks like he wanted to wipe it off the face of the internet. His newer website mentions it, but again, the Vimeo link is dead and even that website is closed for business."

It's weeeird. What happened Michael?

And yes, obviously, other people worked on the movie.

No - I can't find out anything about them either.

I'm betting on three theories at the moment: 1) this film is an SCP or some Candle Cove weirdness with only me and a handful of people ANYWHERE remembering it, 2) something weird is going on w Michael Heneghan and it involves too something about this film. It was a scam or a scheme or a hidden agenda weirdness, 3) Heneghan's doing okay he just doesn't like this film anymore and wants it hidden while he takes a break.

Look, I get it Michael! What was once our life's worth can become cringe as you improve as an artist - you're not the person making the stuff you were ten years ago...but you should still have the film kept alive somehow. Someway.

I'm seriously the only person to have ever made fan art of this movie on the internet. That just doesn't happen, and I don't think I like being in a fandom of one. The Romantic is a testament to the power of design and storytelling > animation quality itself. Too often I see people equate good animation with smooth animation, with a budget with squash and stretch. These animations are good but art is diverse and there's so many kinds of films out there, the value of the medium can't just be in one style/form. There's a lot of honestly wonderful pieces of art out there if you know where to look and you're willing to see where it leads you.

Don't let The Romantic be the most forgotten movie of all time. Reblog this post. Show it to your friends. PM the animation community reviewer people like Saberspark and someone who isn't Saberspark and smuggle them a copy.

Keep telling the story...