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cherrycherrylady2024 · 1 month

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Christmas with the Grimes'

(Dilf! Rick Grimes x reader) Word count: 2,675

Warnings: 18+ for real. NSFW, some angst, fingering, hickeys, grinding, light choking/hair pulling? I need Rick Grimes so bad

Chapter 3: In your dreams

“So then Martian Man defeats the evil robot, except the robot was actually his half-brother the whole time, so he gets really sad at the end of issue #4. Then in #5 he-” Carl was giving you the entire lore behind his new comic book, and you put on your best listening face, while Judith tapped on her phone, having already heard this. Except you weren’t really listening whatsoever. Your mind was in a frenzy of activity. Did he see? Does he know? Who are you kidding, of course he knows. Your face was still red with embarrassment since the incident half an hour ago. If only Carl and Judith weren’t expecting you, you’d have hidden under Rick’s blanket for the rest of the day. Maybe the rest of winter break, but who’s to say?

You wanted to punch him in his stupid handsome face for making you feel like this. Either punch or kiss. Maybe both. That look Rick gave you, you couldn’t get it out of your head. It was nearly a smirk, but more subtle and prideful. Like he knew what he would catch you doing. He knew how you felt. You were petrified to see him again. “...and I haven’t read the new comic yet, but I heard it’s supposed to be pretty good! Do ya wanna borrow it when I'm done?” Carl questioned. You snapped out of your daze. “Oh! Yes, totally. Thanks,” You replied. Judith got up from Carl’s twin bed, where she lounged, “Alright Carl, it’s my turn with y/n. You read your new comic til dinner.” With the word ‘dinner’ you felt your stomach twist unpleasantly, your mind on the verge of implosion. With a whine of “Alriiight,” Carl sat down at his little desk and began poring over the pages.

Judith led you down the opposite hallway towards her bedroom. As you followed, you passed the only other bedroom in the house. The door was slightly ajar. You heard the floorboards creak underneath him as he padded around the room. Rick was putting away laundry, sloppily folding pants and shirts, and didn’t notice your quick passing. Or at least he didn’t show it. You had lingered back just slightly, but thankfully Judith didn’t notice as you caught right back up with her. “Okay, so I’m right down the hall from you if you need anything. It’ll be weird not sharing a room, right?” she said as she entered her bedroom. “Oh yeah, super weird. What am I going to do without your snoring lulling me to sleep?” you mocked. “You know you love it,” she said, plopping on her bed. Judith's room was adorned with fading pink floral wallpaper, posters, sports trophies, books, and photos. “Anyways this is my room, it clearly hasn't been updated since 2010 but it’s still a vibe,” Judith said. You picked up a photo from her bookshelf. It appeared to be from a high school dance, as Judith wore what could only be considered the ugliest, most ruffled, unflattering dress in the world, and was holding hands with a gawky teenage boy. Both Judith and the boy awkwardly smiled for the photo, turning out more like grimaces with mouths full of braces. “It is totally still a vibe,” you said turning back to her with the picture, containing your laughter. “Fuck off!” she cried, jumping up and snatching the photo from you as you burst out in giggles, “We all make mistakes, it was sophomore year for god's sake,” she said. “I am begging you. Please bring that back to the dorms with us. Please! It can be my Christmas present” you choked out in between laughter, sitting at her desk. Judith gazed at the photo, “I can’t believe I made out with him that night” she said. “Oh god, please no” you responded in horror. “I think our braces got stuck together” she pondered. “PLEASE you’re gonna make me sick” you laughed, covering your ears. Judith snorted and placed it back on the shelf, “Hold on, you’re gonna die when you see this. I think I have it in here,” she said, as she looked hurriedly through her bookshelf. She pulled out a photo album, “Here!” she exclaimed, flipping through the pages. She landed on one and handed it to you, “Talk about bad Prom pictures.”

It was another prom photo, but it appeared to be from the late 80s/early 90s. A tall thin brunette woman grinned widely, almost painfully, at the camera, her dress clearly a hand-me-down from the mid-80s. She held awkwardly at arm's length a man who looked a year or two older. He wore a suit with a ruffle on the collar, which also screamed hand-me-downs. If it weren’t for those eyes, you wouldn't have even recognized Rick Grimes. He looked much less self-assured, maybe even nervous, and probably 10 years younger than the photo you had seen of him in the hallway. “The fucking posing gets me every time, look at my mom's face” Judith laughed. Your stomach started to hurt. “That's your mom?” you questioned. “Yeah,” Judith replied, “The whole photo album’s pictures of her. We made it right after she died as like a commemorative therapy type-thing. Flip through it,” She suggested as she began unzipping her suitcase. You turned the pages slowly. Rick was in many of the photos, but most prominently featured was Mrs. Grimes. You didn’t even know her name. Judiths mom. Ricks wife. The anxious knots in your stomach seemed to tighten more and more. “I’m gonna go lay down.” You stated, hurriedly standing, leaving the photo album on the desk. Judith looked up at you from her suitcase with a hint of concern. “I’m just – tired. I’ll let you unpack,” you added. “Okay,” Judith shrugged. You began to leave, “Oh and I think dinner’s at 7!” she mentioned. Your stomach did flips, but you gritted your teeth, “Okay!”

You shut your bedroom door behind you and climbed into bed, wrapping the covers around yourself. The clock on your nightstand read 5 pm. Your mind was racing. You felt sick with anxiety. Were you a bad person? Are you imagining this all? Every look, or brush of the hands. Were you convincing yourself of something that isn't really there? He's a grown married man. What about Judith? Were you going to ruin the best friendship you’d ever had? Have you already ruined it? Rick knew. He must think you’re a freak. A nuisance. What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? You couldn’t stop the tornado of thoughts in your mind as you drifted off into a fretful slumber.

~~~

You chopped the large bar of dark chocolate into messy chunks, sneaking a few slivers into your mouth now and then. The kitchen around you was endless, spanning into a vague sea of warm glowing nothingness. In fact, there really was no kitchen at all. Just the kitchen island, where you stood, chopping the chocolate bar. Perhaps you were making cookies. Yes, that's what it was: you were chopping the chocolate bar to put into chocolate chunk cookies. You were content, humming to yourself. Maybe this is all you ever did. It was bright and beautiful and heavenly familiar. Two arms snaked their way around your waist, another familiar feeling, Rick's hips to your back as he held you tightly. You breathed deeply at the sensation, lolling your head back to rest on his chest. He stole a tiny piece of chocolate from your cutting board and slipped it into his mouth. You could feel his belt buckle pressing against your skin, leaving an indentation. His heartbeat reverberated through your body as if you were one, the warmth of his chest against your cheek. Wordlessly he dipped his head down, so close you felt his breath against your neck, you could smell the chocolate, his beard slightly scratching you. You dropped your knife and gripped the counter tightly as you felt his lips ever-so-slightly brush against your throat, neck, and ear sequentially. Almost like he was inhaling you. Searching for the right spot. He hesitated, making you wait. His hands gripped you tightly to him. Almost possessive, like you were his. One slowly traveled completely around your waist to the other side, pinning you to him while the other slid down. His palm was stretched wide, his fingertips brushing past where your thigh connects to your hips. The proximity of his hand to where you wanted so badly to be touched was enough to make you let out a little whine. His grip settles on your pelvis bone as he pulls you to him somehow even tighter. You communicated without words, begging him for more. Anything. He slowly lowered his lips to the side of your neck, leaving a feather-light kiss that sent shivers through your body. You pressed your hips back into him impatiently, needing more. He held your hips in place, his grasp verging on slightly painful. But it felt so good. He lightly kissed your neck again, near your jaw. Then, very slowly he moved near your ear, kissing you again. It was like he had all the time in the world to make you unravel.

He trailed down your neck towards your collarbone, his kisses becoming deeper, his lips parting more and more as if to taste you. You craned your head for more access. More, more, more. He groaned against your neck, grinding his hips into yours. His hands began to move over your body, groping and squeezing. One of your hands ran through his hair, pushing his head, his mouth, closer to your skin. The other hand was on top of his, leading his fingers down, down, down. A nearly pornographic sound escaped your lips when he finally cupped his warm hand in between your legs, his fingers applying just the right pressure to your clothed clit. You felt him smile against your throat, before resuming his languid assault on your neck. You moved your hips against his hand as he continued massaging your aching cunt incredibly slowly. “Please Rick” you begged. He was silent, but his fingers sped up incrementally. His other hand squeezed your breast, tracing your hardened nipple through your shirt. He hummed in your ear, clearly enjoying seeing you like this. You rutted your hips into his hand, the pleasure building in your core. Like a rubber band about to snap. He moved his other hand swiftly from your breast to your throat, slowing you down. He gripped it solidly, making you lose your breath. He turned your head to face him as his fingers sped up. You looked up at him, drunk on pleasure, and panting in his face. He smiled down at you, making eye contact that couldn’t be broken even if you tried. You were reaching your climax and he could tell. He stroked your neck, still looking down at you, then ran his fingers past the nape of your neck and through your hair. He gripped a fistful and pulled gently from the roots, forcing you to twist your head and shoulders even more towards him, cocking your head back. He gazed down at you through lidded eyes, studying your face. Your neck was now more exposed to him and he began kissing and sucking marks into your skin, his fingers never stopping, his other hand still pulling your head back. It was all too much for you. You were going to come. “R-rick-” you stuttered. He kissed a trail up your neck, reaching your mouth but keeping his centimeters apart. You breathed in each other's air and you writhed needily, wanting his lips on yours. You were moments away from coming, and let a choked moan escape. He swallowed it down when he finally connected your lips in the most filthy, needy, sloppy kiss. The rubber band snapped and you came hard. Waves of euphoric pleasure racked your body and you moaned into his mouth as he deepened the kiss even more. You could taste the hint of chocolate on his lips as you rode out your climax on his hand, your hips stuttering. He pulled away suddenly, right after your peak, and you opened your eyes in surprise.

You were met with the walls of your dark bedroom surrounding you, and Rick's blanket between your legs.

One of your hands was beneath your raised shirt, and the other was gripping Rick's blanket with an iron fist. Your legs still shook from your orgasm as you gained your bearings. It was a dream. You swore you could still taste a hint of the phantom chocolate. Even though no one had seen, you couldn’t help but feel embarrassed at your… wet dream? Sex dream? Whatever it was. Your subconscious sleeping state had been grinding against Rick Grimes’ blanket as you slept. The dream had felt so real it was unnerving, and you were having difficulty returning to reality. But you also oddly felt better. Maybe it was all out of your system now, and things could just be normal. You were refreshed. Except for the fact that you were extremely thirsty. All that sex dreaming, your brain chimed in. You reached for your phone on the nightstand, but accidentally knocked it off in the dark.

The dark.

Dinner.

What time was it? How long have you been asleep? Sex dreaming, you mentally corrected yourself. You scrabbled for your phone on the ground, flipping it over. The screen lit up, reading 2:12 AM. You had slept through dinner to dream about a fuck-fest with your best friends dad. Woof. While you were still slightly ashamed, you couldn't dispute the fact that it was fucking hot. You kept replaying the dream in your mind. It felt so real. You got out of bed, removed the bundled-up blanket from between your legs, and headed downstairs for some water. The way his lips felt on your neck. His facial hair tickling at your skin. His hands on your body. You knew it was wrong but you wished so badly it was real. Your body clearly did too, as you felt that familiar tingling sensation return in your belly. It made you want to get back in bed and touch yourself until sunrise. Get a grip. You reached the living room and began crossing through to get to the kitchen.

“Y/n?” came a dark voice from the couch.

You nearly jumped out of your skin, letting out a little gasp in surprise. You could make out a figure in the dark, now sitting up. A sliver of snowy moonlight caught his face and you recognized Rick, holding a half-drunk glass of whiskey. “You missed dinner,” he drawled with a smile, taking a sip of whiskey. You were still frozen in the doorway, unsure if this was even real or not. What was he doing awake? “I- sorry. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t mean to sleep so long…” you say. He waved his hand in dismissal, “It’s fine, I know you girls had a long day,” he said, placing his whiskey on the glass coffee table with a clink. “Plus I’ve never been much of a chef. We ended up gettin’ Chinese food,” he added. Your stomach grumbled hungrily at the mention of food, and you clapped a hand over it in embarrassment. Rick chortled, “I can heat some up for you if ‘ya like. We can’t have you starvin’ to death.” He stood, picked up his glass, and walked towards the kitchen. You trailed behind him, “It’s okay, I can do it. You don’t have to” you pestered. “I want to,” he stated, looking at you briefly as he retrieved a container from the fridge. That shut you up. You sat at the kitchen island, your mind wandering back to your dream. If you weren't definitely, totally, over him, this would be pretty nerve-wracking you thought. Good thing I'm all better now. He opened the box of fried rice and, oddly, got out a pan and put it on the stove. Was he reheating it for you on the actual stove? “I really don’t mind, you can just microwave it. I don’t want you to go to any trouble,” you offer nervously. He dumped the fried rice into the pan with a sizzle, and looked over to you with a smile,

“I want to, honey. Just let me take care of 'ya.”

...

Sooo, actually you lied. You needed this man more than ever before. Fuck it.

***

notes: tee hee hee, i was giggling and kicking my feet writing this. anyways thx for waiting the past few days I hope this is satisfactory, there's a lot more to come! Literally. PS I've never written a sexy scene before so lmk what u think <3

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conchiferrous · 3 months

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this show is about pirates right

[ID: One Piece fan art compilation. Image 1: Two sketches of Law as a woman, both drawn from the hips up. In the first she's wearing a tanktop and is looking off to the right with her sword held over her shoulder. In the second, she's wearing an open jacket leaving her side boob and happy trail exposed. she has excessive stomach hair and is holding her hands on the rim of her blue jeans. She's looking towards the viewer with an annoyed expression. Image 2: Sketch of Franky and Robin both dressed as batman, post time skip. They're looking at each other, surprised, and Robin says "Hey, so I just realized that when you said we should be Batman and Robin that you meant I was supposed to be Robin and that was the joke." Image 3: A doodle page, mostly of Luffy. In the top left is a drawing of Luffy sitting with his back against a broken brick wall, as if he had just been thrown into it mid fight. He's bleeding from multiple places with his nose blood smeared across his face. He's smiling with a crazed look in his eye while a pipe from the debris of the building drips water onto his head. On the top is a doodle of Luffy looking towards the viewer with a nervous smile, a simplistic doodle of Luffy fat, and one of him in gum gum balloon mode with "Fuck it, we ball" written above him. There's also a shoulder up doodle of him picking his nose, looking over to the right wearing a Beavis and Butthead shirt. Above him is the text: "Your experience is limited, and your world view is small." In the bottom left is Luffy as a sock puppet throwing up onto Rob Lucci's head while a laughing rage comic face says: "Sucker! Way the go Luffy!". "Gum gum I threw up" is written nearby. Underneath is another doodle of sock puppet Luffy looking towards the viewer and smiling. There's also a doodle of Sanji as a rabbit with his right ear drooping over one of his eyes to cover it. In the middle of the canvas; Nami is talking to Chopper who's behind a desk. Sanji is trapped in a cat carrier behind her, and she points back at him and says: "Can you fucking neuter this thing forever?" while Chopper looks down at Sanji. Sanji looks sad and frightened. In the followup drawing, Sanji is sitting on the ground, hands on the floor, with a cone around his neck and bandages in the shape of an X covering his crotch. He looks shaken. Image 4: Doodle of Luffy crying on the ground while Buggy shows him a balloon animal. Buggy is sitting on the ground, annoyed, his free hand covering his chin and mouth. The ponytail holder for his hair appears to be made of balloons. Luffy is looking up at the balloon animal, sobbing uncontrollably and covered in bandages while laying in a pool of his own tears. Jinbe stands next to Buggy, looking down at Luffy with a neutral expression. His kimono pattern is of multiple text acronyms (TTYL, XOXO, ROFL, ASAP, LOL, BRB, GTG, FYI, OMG, GR8, KK, MSG, TTG, BFF, and PLZ) as well as a few smiley faces. In the bottom right of the drawing it says: "Post Marineford". Image 5: Buggy, post time skip, points to a mock youtube video behind him of Luffy titled: "The nefarious truth of Monkey the Luffy" that's 5 hours, 22 minutes, and 31 seconds long. Buggy looks towards the viewer, sadly, and says: "He made fun of me for being deformed." Luffy is looking through the thumbnail like a window, and looks shocked Buggy would say this. Image 6: Usopp lays in a beach chair next to Robin, pre time skip. Robin is sitting up in her beach chair, holding a book in her hand but is looking over at Usopp, concerned. She says: "Usopp, this experience you're describing sounds like a PTSD symptom, are you sure you don't want to-" Usopp cuts her off saying: "PTS-Deez nuts." in large italic text. He's laying on his back with his hands over his chest, and looks bored, staring at nothing in particular. /END ID]

#one piece #law #franky #robin #jinbe #luffy #chopper #nami #sanji #lucci #usopp #buggy #blood #emetophobia #partial nudity #2024 #described #fonts used: Anime ace 2.0 Bahnshrift semibold condensed Billo and Stencil

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abbysanders2000 · 2 years

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I’m not sure if you write smut so if you don’t pls ignore me. Could i PLEASE get some dwayne smut there isn’t enough on this app i’m BEGGING. (but again if you don’t write smut don’t feel pressured at all i don’t wanna make u uncomfy)

-💜💚

Ooo my first Dwayne request as well as my first smut!! I hope I did it justice anon! Only warning below is smut :) Thank you for the ask!! This is my personal opinion on our loveable Dwayne I think he's a big disciplinarian. Especially when it comes to the bedroom. Like he told you not to do something and you did it anyway. Now suffer mwahah!!! Just please be nice as this is my first ever smut :)

Get over my knee (Dwayne x reader Smut!!)

'Shit shit shit shit!!!!' Y/n said in her head mentally cussing herself out as she and Dwayne rode back to her place. He had specifically told her not to go into the Frogs comic shop. Point. Blank. Period.

"Dwayne come on. Their the only place in town that'll have what I'm looking for." She explained. Dwayne shook his head. "No can do princess. Those little shits are a pain every night as it is. I don't want them harassing you." He told her with crossed arms.

Oh but she did not listen. She just had to go in the store. And of course Alan starts harrowing with a book of questions along with Edgar. She of course simply rolled her eyes and went to walk out. That was until Edgar called her and quote "a blood sucking whore" which earned him a good punch to the nose.

As quickly as she hightailed it out of there she were not fast enough to escape a pissed off Dwayne. Now as they pulled up to her place she quickly got off the back of his bike and ran into the house.

"You'd better run." Dwayne growled as he made his way into the house. "I asked you to do one simple thing. Do not go into the comic shop. And what did you do? You went your little ass into the comic shop!" He stomped up the stairs into her bedroom.

A lump was curled up under the covers. Dwayne smirked to himself as he slapped the lump square on the ass. Y/n let out a small yelp. He quickly ripped the covers off of her to find her rubbing her bum.

"Ow... babe that hurt." She whined looking up at him with the famous doe eyes. He poked out his bottom lip to mock her. "Awe I've got some news for you princess. It's about to hurt a lot worse."

She gulped. "Take off your pants and get over my knee." He said sitting on the couch at the end of the bed. Y/n groaned loudly but did as she was told. She knew if she didn't it was going to be a lot worse. She walked over to him slowly.

Dwayne rubbed the soft skin of her butt before he started. "20 and I expect you to count." Was all he said before his massive hand came down on her ass with a loud smack!

Y/n bit her lip as she held in a moan. "1...2. 3. Mhp! 4.." She counted. The slinky material of her panties was now soaked with excitement. No matter how hard she tried to hate it she always got drenched when Dwayne spanked her. And oh boy did he know it too.

"You gonna be a good girl for me or do I need to continue?" He asked when they got to 10. Y/n was stammering over her words as she tried her best to speak. "I can't hear you princess. Your gonna have to speak up."

"I-I'll be good Dwayne.." She finally managed to spit out. He chuckled deeply as he sits her up. "Jeez princess your soaking wet. I'm not even inside you yet and your already making a mess."

She let out a whimper as he placed little kisses up and down her neck. "You want me to take care of you princess? Do you think you deserve it after disobeying me like you did?" His hand slips down to rub her womanhood.

She gasped as the friction of his hand sent tingles up her spine. Her body was craving more and more with each stroke. "OH God. Dwayne please.." She begged as he slowly began pick up his pace. Slowly and surely as if he was teasing her. "I need you. I need you inside of me. I need you to fuck me." She moaned out in a half desperate beg.

"There we go baby girl. That's all you had to say." With one quick move he had her on the bed and his pants and boxers off. He stalked up to her like a lion would stalk prey.

Ever so slightly he slides smoothly into her dripping wet folds. His head dips down to kiss her neck as he begins to thrust. Y/n's eyes rolled to the back of her head as her body entered pure and utter paradise.

Dwayne moved his hips ever so slightly to keep up the rapid pace of thrusts. "Your so wet for me baby. I got you all worked up huh?" He smirked against the skin of her neck. Her hands suddenly went up to grip his shoulders. Her nails slowly slid down his back.

He let out a low hiss as nails dug into his back. "Two can play at this game princess." He said as he grazed his fangs across her skin careful not to puncture it. The sharp ends leaving scratched as they did.

She panted heavily as the bed started to shake. "Fuck babe don't break the bed." She joked. "Trust me pretty girl this bed is going to the least of your worries. By the time I'm done with you your not going to be able to walk straight." He panted.

She barley had time to react before he pushed himself deeper inside of her. She let out a scream of pleasure as he all but touched her cervix. He placed a hand over her mouth.

"Shhhhh calm down princess. We wouldn't want the neighbors calling the cops again now would we?" He as as his dick pulsated inside of her tight wet folds.

She slowly nodded her head. He removed his hand and waited for her rebutted to him. But only the sweet sounds of her moans came out. That was until she managed to squeak out. "K-k-keep going. Fuck my brains out baby."

"OH trust me princess. I fully intend to~"

This onslaught went on for over an hour maybe even more since neither one of them kept up with the time. Y/n was on the brink of exhaustion as she felt her climax or rather her 3rd climax of the evening on the horizon.

"OH God Dwayne I'm close." She moans. He grinned as he looked down at her. "Wait for me baby doll." He winked. Suddenly mixture of their combined climax hit one another causing it to ooze out onto the bed.

Out of breath he slides back out of her and flops down beside of her. He wrapped his arms around her pulling her onto his bare chest.

"Remind me to disobey you more often." Y/n panted as she struggled to catch her breath. Dwayne's dark eyes looked over at her with a glimpse of mischief.

"OH that wasn't even the half of it princess. I've still got a few more rounds in me. And we've got 5 hours before dawn."

#the lost boys 1987 #the lost boys x reader #dwayne x reader #x reader insert #request

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soyouareandrewdobson · 1 year

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The hypocrisy of the theoretical bear

Dobson was a bully.

I kinda wanted to make that statement only later in regard of another comic I am already writing about, but when you really boil it down, that is what Dobson genuinely was towards other nerds. Under all the pretense of just trying to talk about feminism and hoping that nerd culture can do better and become more progressive, he was just trying to shame people for enjoying different stuff than him, not sharing his opinions, or being overzealous in ways that were different to him.

Among other things, he would e.g. post this picture in regard of a certain fantheory when it reared its ugly head in season 3 of Miraculous Ladybug…

mocking a specific person for misinterpreting an animation smear for a genuine clue and instead of trying to politely explain it to them, instead shame then on twitter…

And eventually make THIS shitty SYAC strip, shaming the person even more, by making them specifically the butt of a non existing “joke”.

I kinda want to talk about these two instances now, why I think the comics are not funny as well hypocritical and rather dumb in hindsight. But first, the obligatory digression

I unfortunately agree with Dobson partly, that fan theorizing can at times go WAY too far. I myself have no issues with theorizing a little or playing with ideas of how a certain story could play out in the end. But I think there is a difference between looking at some little things, trends and recurring themes in a story and making a throwaway assumption like “oh yeah, that could happen down the line” and making a 40+ minute rant video on perhaps one little background thing blown out of proportion.

I also genuinely despise “review” channels such as The Roundtable or Film Theory for making clickbait videos based on dumb fan theories that they try to exploit for views, while actually not contributing anything of substance or of their own to the debate or elaborate on the craft of animation and storytelling. Being more of trend chasers than anything else.

That said, I think fans theorizing about stuff is an integral part of fan culture and can be fun. It can e.g. inspire people to create their own stories/fanwork based on such theories. Such as this actually pretty decent piece of Miraculous Ladybug fanart, that Thomas Astruc even liked and shared on twitter and blows everything Dobson did for the show out of the water.

Plus, even as Dobson kinda admits, some shows and stories are deliberately made to “reward” fans for their theories.

However, already in the way Dobson formulates that, he is making a mistake.

See, these shows aren’t “rewarding” people per se for their theories. They simply confirm that the fans may have successfully cracked completely (or at least partly) an aspect of the story’s integral mystery/plot, at times left intentionally by the show creators themselves.

Just to give an example: Hunter’s nature as a Grimwalker in the Owl House.

Hunter aka “The golden Guard” was first introduced in the last episode of the first season of the Owl House, face still completely covered. Then later episodes not only revealed his face, but also his name and that he was supposedly Belos nephew. Something that already raised a few eyebrows for people, cause Belos was not only confirmed in the show to be at least over 50 years old, but some couldn’t image that a character falling into the classical evil overlord archetype, could really have a “nephew” as young as Hunter. And then in the episode Eclipse Lake, which starts off in Belos secret lab with a shot of some items on the ground, people saw this:

A page of a book, indicating to be an instruction on how to create an artificial human, with mentioning of a creature introduced and seen earlier in the season (in the proper debut episode of the Golden Guard nonetheless) and with the human creatures eyes in the book implied to have the same color as Hunters.

As such, the theory of Hunter being an artificial human was born and later on, got properly confirmed through dialogue and other visual revelations in the story.

Sometimes, storytellers (particularly once who want to craft a decent mystery or overarching narrative) will just leave little clues in their creation, for people to theorize about and to assure they are getting further invested in the story. The reason for that ranging from the author trying to tell a decent mystery without having to pull the revelations completely out of their ass (unlike Dobson in the story with Sam and his dead sister!) or revealing too much all at once, to just having fun with fans and sometimes also simply because they want to add something to the story, even if by that point in time they may not have yet entirely in mind what that something is going to be.

Such as Rebecca Sugar actually throwing the term “Cluster” around in Steven Universe, before even having an idea what it was supposed to mean in context of the story.

So in that regard, fan theories are just attempts to explain stuff the show runners may already have in mind to be important anyway and therefore different from lets say someone obsessing over background colours being symbolic of gay relationships for example

But now back to the two comics. The first one, showing us a weird expy of Bill Cipher with a card exclaiming “Adrien is a Sentimonster”, may be kinda confusing, so here is a bit of context: Dobson tries to poke fun at the “Adrien is a Sentimonster” theory of the Ladybug fandom, by having the “subject” of another, extremely niche fan theory claim it is baseless and wild. That “subject” is Tad Strange. Now if you are only familiar with the show Gravity Falls, you would know that Tad Strange is that guy…

the most average, boring person in all of Gravity Falls, part of an almost Family Guy level cutaway gag in one episode of Gravity Falls. But supposedly (I at least never saw it), when the name was first mentioned somewhere by Hirsch long before the episode introducing Tad properly aired, people came up with the theory that “Tad Strange” may be a secondary villain akin to Bill Cipher, if not even a relative to him. And that is what Dobson tries to mock here. I say “try” cause honestly, who would even get the idea of what sort of joke Dobson tries to tell, if they aren’t familiar with the theory. A theory that was so niche, Dobson would have to explain the intention of the comic somewhere down the line even.

And to quote the Joker…

Furthermore, while the theory of “Adrien is a sentimonster” was kinda wild after only introducing the fact that even humanoid, sentient creatures could be created by the power of the Peacock Miraculous (in the episode simply called “Ladybug”) recently to that comic being made, it wasn’t really that wild when people thought about it.

After all, Ladybug at its core was still a magical girl show. And them doing twists like that (such as Chibiusa being Sailor Moon’s daughter from the future, Galaxia being the original first Sailor Senshi, Witches being corrupted Magical Girls etc) was not necessarily unheard off.

Though Dobson, when told it could still be a possibility, not only would act rather condescending, but furthermore went on to also piss against Ladybug’s leg, by stating “the show’s writing is not good enough to pull that off”. Which okay, he is right, the show is one of the dumbest written magical girl shows I have ever seen, the man behind it is essentially Dobson with a career.

But, two seasons and a few years later….

YOU ARE A SENTIMONSTER

YOU ARE SENTIMONSTERS

WE ALL ARE SENTIMONSTERS!!!!!

At least Adrien is not alone?

Yeah, Dobson can eat a dick in that regard. I mean, I think the reveal and how they played out the mystery wasn’t all that good (in my opinion, Astruc and his team winged it in) but not only was his dismissive behavior insulting to begin with, it also shows that he has very little understanding of how to utilize common tropes in fiction and cartoons in particular, despite consuming them en masse. Plus you know, kinda insulting to Thomas Astruc, who by that token proved to still be at least more succesful than Dobby-dumb-dumb bear

Also, as much as I like Gravity Falls, neither it or Steven Universe had in my opinion quite from the get go an idea where to head with their mysteries. Alex Hirsch having confirmed, that Bill Cipher becoming a character and not just a symbol, was something he came up with only halfway working through the concept phase of season 1. And the Rose is Pink reveal? My memories regarding that show are a bit rusty, but when was that actually hinted on in the show? There were massive hints that Pink Diamond didn’t get killed by the rebellion or that things were more complicated. Not that Pink pulled essentially a Darth Sidious on everyone just to live on earth and have sex with humans. Especially in season 1 to 3.

But really, the picture is just something that to me has just aged poorly.

The comic on the other hand I genuinely want to smack Dobson over the head for.

Again, I myself think that yes, people can go too far at times with looking for clues or making up their theories. But personally, I think there is a difference between making a general statement about it and giving a specific example, like Dobson does here. Sure, he may not show the username of the person who made the video or the comment, but it is still pretty condescending and a dick move, made by a guy who may be 10+ years older than whoever made the video referenced here.

Dobson essentially punches down, instead of punching up. A at the time at least 35/36 year old man acting like a mean school girl online to mock some random person, who just made a dumb theory and then moved on with its life.

Though it isn’t just that one user specifically he is essentially punching down. Here is the text by the author coming with the comic

“You guys should all take a chill pill for getting angry and upset at the creator”

No. No they kinda don’t. I mean, yeah some people can take it way too far with how invested they are in the stuff, but people have every right to also call certain plot twists hack writing, if it is so. Like how the reveal of Rose having been Pink had essentially ruined Rose Quartz and as such also put in question any of the “morals” she supposedly lived by. And considering she was something of the “moral center” for the show and many characters as well as fans, that just immediately made fans feel betrayed about having believed in her in the first place. Don’t get me even started how it essentially confirmed that Pearl is the worst gem of them all, for having always been in love with a version of Space Hitler. Furthermore, Dobson is not really someone to talk about that sort of shit like he has a higher ground, considering how he at times demands of other creators to fall in line with his ideas

If anything, it just feels similar to other comcis he made in his last years about cartoons: Him trying to defend the shitty writing and work put into stuff he likes, because a) how dare people insult something he likes and b) he thinks he and Rebecca Sugar, Thomas Astruc and Alex Hirsch are kinda brothers in arms. Meaning if you insult them, you insult him and the great art he has created and is an expression of his “talents”.

But most importantly about the comic, it is just not funny.

It is simply Dobson “lecturing” in the green void and with emerging shit in the background for which he could be copyright striked into oblivion, how he thinks “x is bad”. And you know, personally I prefer being entertained over being lectured. Or try to do both, which you know, certain people can, cause they have one thing Dobson does not: Talent.

The sad thing about it being, Dobson could have actually managed to make the subject of “overanalyzing via fan theory” funny quite easily. All he had to do was just tell a small “story” about “fan theories” as a plot element, rather than a subject for a lecture.

Here is my idea for a small comic, and if you have input to give or want to adapt it, I would be glad:

Dobson watches some show only to pause when he sees something in the background.

Next thing we know, we have Pam visit Dobson one week later to see if he is doing okay, only to find him unhinged and covering over a bill board with strings regarding his fan theory why these characters are a couple. Insert him either going completely or partly into a “Pepe Silvia” like rant

youtube

And yeha, I know the “Charlie’s string board” thing is an overused meme by now in itself, but hot dang is it still funny…

Only for Pam to say “Andy, the next episode dropped yesterday and they are not a couple” Ending the comic with her showing him the episode and Dobson be like “oh… well, at least the resolution was decent”

A comic of that kind would also have the advantage of Dobson actually doing one thing, he certainly haven’t done in years by that point: Make fun of himself too.

See, that is likely another problem with Dobson: He was so preoccupied in using SYAC as a soap box for his opinion, he was completely blind to the fact that he could avoid being conceived as one of the internets biggest douchebags, if he poked genuine fun at himself via his work once in a while. Make the Dobbear the one living by example about what Dobson talks, instead of just ranting about it, you know?

But hey, I am not Dobson.

A guy who tells people to not overanalyze everything via fantheories…

But has absolutely no problem to fawn over some dumb Zelda theory -as long as it is by him- or whine about people not liking HIS theories on Steven Universe, without actually bothering to even explain what his theory is about.

Then again, I take Dobson making dumb theories about shitty cartoons and calart lesbians over him genuinely falling for real world related conspiracy theories, like how 9/11 was staged.

Yeah, that was a thing.

#so you are a cartoonist #andrew dobson #syac #tom preston #adobsonartwork #webcomic #review #youtube #pepe silvia #miraculous ladybug #Youtube

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delilah-briarwood · 2 years

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Commissions

Dealing with complicated circumstances, so I’m opening up commissions again.

Art Commissions

Art Portfolio for reference

Faux Book Covers: £5

Custom logos and icons (i.e company logos or social media icons): £3 each, + £2 for each additional in a similar style.

Photo Manips: £5-£15 depending on the complexity.

Customised signs (i.e street signs, ‘Safe Zone’ signs etc.) £10

Character Headshots £20

Writing Commissions

100 Word Drabble: £1.50

1k Words: £10 + £5 for every additional thousand.

All commissions can be fandom related or independant. Details on what I will and won’t create under the cut. I have the right to refuse any commissions.

All payments to be made via my ko-fi

Any reblogs or promotion would be deeply appreciated <3

Art

Nothing controversial

Nothing smut related

Nothing for the purpose of bullying or humiliating real life people.

Writing

No smut

Nothing overtly offensive or controversial

Nothing mocking real life events.

Fandoms I’m willing to write for

Original Fiction

Critical Role Campaign One: Vox Machina

Critical Role Campaign Two: The Mighty Nein

The Legend of Vox Machina

Cinderbrush

Vampire the Masquerade

LA by Night

Doctor Who/Torchwood

Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

Overwatch

DC Comics

Batman/Batfamily

Marvel Comics

MCU

X-Men

Pokemon

The Magicians

Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon

Wicked

Les Miserables

Hadestown

Heathers

Life is Strange

Kingdom Hearts

The Last of Us

Star Wars

When The Night Comes

The Magnus Archives

The Mechanisms

Skulduggery Pleasant

Lockwood & Co.

Pennyworth

Lucifer

The Umbrella Academy

Sherlock

Supernatural

Stranger Things

First Kill

The Witcher

Shadow and Bone (TV)

Six of Crows

Cursed

The Midnight Club

A Series of Unfortunate Events

The Adventure Zone: Balance

The Addams Family/Wednesday

Corpse Bride

Danger Days: True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys

Deadly Class

Fullmetal Alchemist

Hades

Ghosts (BBC Series)

Heartstopper

House of Anubis

Percy Jackson & the Olympians

Heroes of Olympus

Magnus Chase & The Gods of Asgard

Newsies

Peaky Blinders

The Penumbra Podcast (Juno Steel)

Persona 5

My Hero Academia

Overwatch

Dead By Daylight

#writing #art #digital art #critical role #lord of the rings #the hobbit #hades #percy jackson #pjo #commission #commissions #star wars #the last of us #i genuinely hate doing this but do what you gotta do #behold a creation

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dogarrival · 1 year

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also something i will redo someday because i lost the original file and if i try to add skully now it'll be a slightly different style and will look weird. to me.

but whatever here's the original concept before it's lost forever:) it's like a mock comic book promo poster like the ads you see in between the cover and actual pages

creative notes: 1) i like doing this perspective it's a part of all of my warmups so i decided to do it here as a challenge to myself to actually finish rendering a full set of pieces. (-> FAILLED!!)

2) they all have monochromatic pallets (grey yellow, trip green, ember blue, skully red) so in this the canvas pallets are specifically this way so they match. so yellow has blue bg -> blue has red bg -> red has green bg -> green has yellow bg -> loop and continue ..i hope that makes sense in text i can barely explain it out loud

3) the "VGVS!" in the top corner and their names in the bottom corner are written in their actual handwriting. i spent like three days trying to get their handwriting/typing styles down bc i knew it would come up somewhere in something. tip: it did come up in something!! :D these still very much apply to the characters btw. skully was absolutely raised by ghosts.

4) the particle effects were just for fun but it made me realize how i wanted to characterize some of them and also how i want to draw grey's drawings so win win

5) do yuo understand. how hard the fire effects were on ember up there. how the fuck am i supposed to make a comic with a fire powered protagonist. that took forever what the. man.

6) that's the wrong blue for ember's hair. blowing this post up now💥💥💥💥

#vgvs #ocs #scrobbles

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charliepipedesigner · 2 years

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Primary Research in Southampton (Part 3) - Major Project

Town Quay has a vast range of shops to explore. I was interested in looking for more contemporary work since I had seen some historical art work and exhibitions. I really liked peeking through the Marvel and DC comic books because I always enjoy reading about superheroes and the illustration work that was used to visualise the stories.

Since I had done the book cover project I’m now attracted to book covers and typography. This small book in particular caught my attention because it’s named after a song by my favourite band, The Beatles. The book is a collection of comforting and inspiring quotes that are supported by a series of bright and vibrant shapes on spreads. Designing a book for my final piece would be something that I’m interested in because I enjoy the process of designing layouts and choosing visual content for a well-considered concept.

Going into IKEA was an interesting experience because it was my first time going into one of the chain’s physical shops. The different room layouts displaying a variety of products was inspiring to me because there was so much to explore within the large store. For instance, I went into a room that had a computer with a screen mock-up of Adobe Illustrator and the posters that were displayed on the wall, which were visually very pretty and well illustrated.

Additionally I was looking at some vinyl cover designs because I’m interested in focusing on a topic related to music. These retro covers present different art styles that connect to the artist and their music genre. As well music, I am passionate about film and cinema in general. The mannequins in the shelf are based on some recognisable movies characters including Captain America and a Storm Trooper from Star Wars.

In conclusion, my trip to Southampton made me realise what work I would be interested in doing, as well as work I definitely wouldn’t consider. Spectating different commercialised design work was the most inspiring aspect of this trip because I’m always intrigued by the conceptual meaning behind the choices made to promote a product or service. As a final outcome I am open to designing any type of art form or media because the most important part of this project is choosing a topic that I can define and develop my understanding on.

#AUB #VIS COM #FMP

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kaypeace21 · 3 years

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lmao-people really like to pretend we say ‘El should find herself before dating’ ...is something we pullout of thin air (And is hypocritical cause we ship byler)???

IT’S IN THE TEXT OF THE SHOW!

El went from wanting to leave the cabin in s2 to see her friends and learn about the world. And in s2 saying “friends dont’ lie”. To hey -let’s have El ignore her friends for 6 months, never leave the cabin like how she used to want to in s2 -and instead makeout with Mike there. And let’s have Lucas mention her “lying” to her friends specifically so she can ditch her friends to makeout with Mike in the cabin-instead of being in the outside world. To show with Mike-she goes against her own principles and regresses as a character. Aka -reversing all her s2 character progression we previously saw.

El (while dating Mike): How do I know what I like? (something she should know before dating) Max: Find something that feels like you -not Hopper . Not Mike. you

El: what’s that? (wonderwoman comic). Max: see this is why you shouldn’t hang with just Mike all the time

El saying to mike "what if he (hopper) is right " . (about them spending too much time together)

EVERYONE ABOUT M*lEVEN in s3: Lucas: mocking Mike “oh El, I wish we could makeout forever and never hang out with our friends.”Will to Mike : “you’re ruining our party ... to swap spit ...with some ...girl.” Dustin : “it’s bullshit” (like stancy). Hopper: “it’s unhealthy!” Max to Mike “This is exactly why she dumped your ass! she’s not yours she’s her own person.” Max to Nancy: “El has saved the world twice-and Mike still doesn’t trust her.”

El laughs and highfives Max after dumping Mike and drools over celeb boys right after dumping him. And it’s directly contrasted to Will being devastated by his fight with Mike. Flo “Only LOVE makes you crazy and that damn stupid”. El to Mike’s romantic confession in s3: “what makes you crazy?”. El and Max about Mike in s3 “ more to life than stupid boys”. convos in s3 where Max/Will complain about m*leven - have Mike and Nancy say “ El’s not stupid”. Aka she doesn’t love Mike romantically.

Us saying she needs to find herself first before dating- doesn’t have to do with her ‘tr*uma’. So it’s not hypocritical to ship byler -when Will has tr*uma too. it’s cause unlike byler- m*leven is very bad for el’s character growth and she (unlike Will) is overly reliant on Mike in an unhealthy manner. And unlike Will- El knows very little of the outside world, has little interactions with others, and doesn’t even know her own likes before dating him. AND CLEARLY DOESN’T (romantically) love Mike. They parallel her and Mike to siblings , cousins, and even parallel hopper/el to m*leven.

Mike kissed El after her literally being in the outside world for 4 days -right before the kiss she asked if he’d be her brother/ and a day before that she just learned the meaning of a " friend". But you expect the girl who just learned about the concept of friend- knows distinctions between different forms of love (since s1) ? Get real. After the kiss, then for a year, she watched toxic soap operas where she mimicked the woman in the show. It was about 2 characters named erica & Mike Roy (who had a rushed relationship - where they broke up and after the breakup 1 of them stalked the other). Sound familiar? She projected Mike roy/this romantic fantasy on to Mike W ,and then mimicking the girl in the soap, and dated Mike wheeler . It’s similar to how in s2, as El watched the tv with Mike roy... karen reads in s2/3 books with a billy look alike on the cover. It’s wasn’t love- both gals were just projecting false fictional qualities on to Mike/Billy (based on the media they consumed). M*leven were compared to cousins/siblings and knew eachother for a week -and then had a rushed kiss,after being separated they both projected this false romantic idea of the other on to eachother, and than right after reuiniting-they made out for 6months , neglected their friends, and had an unhealthy emotional relationship with no real trust/nor respecting the other’s privacy. In s1 el is said to be like mike' s sis /cousin , in s2 they parallel them to kali/el, hopper/el, and luke/ leia. And had many parallels of Hopper and mike- in regards to El in s3. That’s it.

Mike literally dressed like his parents in s3 while dating El- to show he was just emulating that romantically loveless dynamic.

I care about El so I don’t ship m*lven. it’s not me “pretending” to care about El- and "being hypocritical cause I ship byler"-rolls eyes. Also, claiming others "aren’t feminists" if we don’t ship M*lven- really?! XD

Just ship what you want-without coming in to the byler tag to accuse shippers and name call. And it’s not a “weak /weird argument” to say El should find herself before dating, it’s literally in the text in the show.

#byler #byeler #el hopper #mike wheeler #will byers

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let-them-read-fics · 3 years

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BP Headcanon / One Shot: Raising A Kid With Lisa

Requested By Anon: Lisa / Reader while they're raising a kid

Quote Requested By @ssamssamu: "I knew I did from that first moment we met. It was… not love at first sight exactly, but- familiarity. Like: oh, hello, it’s you. It’s going to be you."

Pairing: Lisa x Fem!Reader

Warnings / Misc. -- Fluff, Slight Angst, Happy Ending

Disclaimer: This writing is a work of fiction, and no disrespect is meant for those mentioned herein.

A/N: This one's kinda long, guys 😳 I hope you enjoy, though. Thank you for the requests!

PS ~ Your child is female in this

♡ Happy Reading ♡

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

Dear lord... 🛐🤰

Let's get started

First off: milf

Second off: you'd either come home to find her, your child, and your 5 cats passed out, or chaotically playing with one another

WHEN YOU'RE NEW PARENTS:

If you give birth, she's literally the most supportive wife ever

Getting you any and everything you need, no matter the time of day or night

"Lis?" You ask into the darkness, voice coming out rough as it slips past your sleepy lips. Her soft snoring is cut off in an instant as she wakes up, ready to help.

"I'm here, my love." She yawns, quickly stretching before reaching forward to take your hand into her own.

"Can you get me some ice chips?" You wince, hating to make her trek all the way down the hall when she was comfortable and sleeping so well.

"On it, baby." She stands and brushes her lips against your forehead, reassuring you that she doesn't mind the task.

"Thank you; I love you," you call after her as she walks towards the door. She turns to you just as she reaches it, pressing a kiss to her fingers before holding a finger heart up for you.

"I love you more."

----

"Here you go," she says, helping you sit up in the hospital bed. "I got you a little water with it, just like you like." She raises the cup for you, tilting it so that the cool liquid can slide towards your lips, soothing your dry mouth. The styrofoam squeaks lightly, momentarily accompanying the sound of the beeping monitor that's keeping track of your vitals.

You gently push the cup away after you're satisfied, wrapping your arms around her waist as she puts it on the bedside table. She cuddles you back, kissing the top of your head.

"Thanks again, babe. I don't know what I'd do without you." You mumble against her, still exhausted from all that you went through earlier today. She crouches down beside you, taking your hands within her own as she looks up into your eyes.

"You've made me the happiest woman in the world, Y/N/N; I have you and our cute little baby girl now. I think that's more than a fair trade for getting ice chips at 3 in the morning."

You laugh, leaning forward to rest your forehead against hers.

"We did pretty good, didn't we?" You ask after a moment, gazing over at the clear bin your daughter is laying in, resting peacefully.

"We sure did." Lisa says, feeling tears prick at her eyes. She raises a hand to your cheek, cupping the soft skin as she looks at you tenderly.

If she gives birth, you'd do everything for her as well and take good care of her as she recovers

She'd try to be a bit more independent, though, just because that's how she is

She secretly loves when you surprise her with just what she wanted, but was too shy / stubborn to ask for

You come back into the bedroom with a pint of ice cream and two spoons in hand, clad in one of her oversized shirts.

"I got your favorite," you smile, saddling up next to her on the bed. She sits up with a shy grin, feeling beyond lucky to have someone like you.

"Thank you baby," she says, taking a scoop of the sweet treat as you stick it out to her. She sighs as the flavor coats her tongue, reminding her of all the reasons it's her favorite.

"You know," she starts after a minute, grabbing your attention mid-bite. "You taste even better than this."

She smirks as you nearly choke on the ice cream, coughing a bit as it trails an icy path down your throat.

"Yah, jagi! Are you trying to kill me?"

She doesn't want to feel like a nuisance

You reassure her that she isn't at all, and eventually she listens to you

Lets you help her more and cater to her needs

Repays you in the form of cuddles and millions of sweet kisses

As soon as she can safely take care of herself, she's back to normal (aka, being a crackhead)

If you adopt or have a donor, oh boy

That child is spoiled the moment you lay eyes on it

Raising her as your own

You agree to tell her about her past when she's older, if she wants that

Constant reassurance of your love for her

Telling her how proud you are of her

---

She'd be teaching your kid dance moves before she could even walk

"Lis, baby, she literally just bent her knee."

"I don't know what you're talking about. She was definitely practicing the move I taught her last night."

Almost always making a mess when she feeds her (though that's not entirely Lisa's fault... babies are messy)

Seriously, both of them completely covered in baby food and milk when you walk in

Lisa asking if she can buy a hazmat suit for when it's her time on diaper duty

Pouting when you say no

She decides to wear goggles, gloves, and a face mask instead

Singing softly to your daughter as she rocks her to sleep

Sometimes falling asleep in your rocking chair with your baby in her arms

And you find them and just 🥺

WHEN YOUR DAUGHTER IS A TODDLER & UP:

Visiting Lisa's family and your own when you can

Very wholesome memories being made with them

Food fights

She is 110% down to act silly and do anything your kid wants

You unlock the front door of your shared home, tiredly rubbing your neck after a long day of work. The sound of one of your daughter's favorite movies playing on the living room TV brings a smile to your face, and you quickly set your things on the kitchen table before joining them.

Upon stepping foot into the room, you comically narrow your eyes.

"What are you wearing?" You ask both of them as an amused smile grows on your lips.

Lisa turns to you now, appearing to have been so invested in the movie that she hadn't even heard you come home. You start to wonder if maybe she was the one who wanted to watch the movie all along.

A tin foil hat rests atop her head, matching the adorable, mini-sized version that your daughter is modeling. Lisa's grin widens cutely as she looks you up and down, happy to finally have you back home.

"Here mama, we made one for you, too!" Your daughter says excitedly, giggling as she hops up and runs towards you, cap in hand. You crouch down so she can put it on you, feeling your heart melt at the happy look in her eyes; she's proud of herself, and so are you.

"Thank you baby, it fits just right." You praise, lifting her into your arms as Lisa stands up and approaches you.

"We missed you, lovey." She presses her lips to yours, humming against them when you bring a hand to her hip to pull her even closer. You pull away before you can get too invested and scar your child for life, opting instead to cuddle into the cozy embrace that Lisa offers to the two of you.

The warm material of her sweater brushes against your skin as she brings her arms around both of you, protecting you from the slightly chilly air of the room.

"You know, I still have no idea what the hat's for..." you smirk, feeling your daughter raise her head from where it previously came to rest against your shoulder. She scoffs, sounding offended that you don't know the answer.

"It's to protect us from aliens. Duh," she rolls her eyes, making you and Lisa chuckle. Clearly Jennie has been giving her some sass lessons lately.

"My most sincere apologizes, princess," you bow your head in mock shame, doing your best to conceal your smile.

"Let's go sit back down. I wanna hold my girls," Lisa declares softly, kissing your temple as you go to agree.

The three of you make your way back to the couch, snuggling up close as Lisa presses play.

Very affectionate

Constantly squishing your cheeks and gushing about how cute you are (she does the same thing to your daughter too)

Spoils her (and you) rotten

Matching onesies

Matching outfits, totally coordinated (usually Celine or some other designer brand)

Pillow / blanket forts

"Queen Y/N, requesting entrance." You announce with a smile, hands full of snacks for the three of you as you sit back on your knees in waiting.

From inside, you hear Lisa say, "Your Highness, there's a guest at the door. Would you like to see her?"

Your daughter's faux royal voice almost makes you crack up. "Oh, alright. Open up." She commands, sounding British.

Lisa parts the front two blankets, doing her best to conceal her grin as she locks eyes with you.

"SNACKS!" Your daughter shrieks, completely breaking character.

"No no no! Wait--" She eagerly rushes over to you, knocking you over in the heat of the moment. Your mom skills kick in and allow you to angle the bowls correctly and keep most of the food in, though a few stray pieces of popcorn fall out and land in your hair.

"Oops... sorry mommy," your daughter says, snickering softly.

Lisa leans over you, peering down at where you now lay on your back. She smirks as she picks some of the popcorn out of your hair.

If you're preparing a meal for the three of you, they'd turn on some music and come hang in the kitchen with you

Dance battles everywhere

Lisa doesn't always let your daughter win, either, and it makes your little girl all the more competitive

Taking your daughter to street markets to introduce her to new foods and develop her palate

Betting on what foods she'll like more

Lisa getting sulky when she loses, and never shutting up about it when she wins

PICTURES PICTURES PICTURES

Lisa's always taking pictures of you all to add to your family photo book

More like photo books

Seriously so many pictures. She just can't get enough of how cute her little unit is

Taking trips to local cat cafés to let the gang play

Lisa convincing you to let her get another cat

"Pleaaaase?" She draws the word out, wrapping her arms around your waist. You glance over to where your daughter is surrounded by a sea of fluff balls, almost unable to be seen. She's laughing her head off, filling the room with her cute giggles as the kitties brush against her.

"Just one more. Last one." Lisa says, gathering your attention again.

"You said that last time," you quip.

"I mean it this time."

"I feel like that's a lie..."

"If you let me get this cat, there'll be a reward for you later." She husks the last part out, letting her fingers trail to the back of your neck to rest there. She leans forward to press a kiss to your cheek, then your jawline, smiling against your skin when she feels your heart beat a little faster.

"Fine, Lisa. But this is the last one," you point a finger at her, pushing her back slightly.

"Thank you, my love. You won't regret it." She smirks, head held high as she slaps your butt and goes to the crate to pick her cat of choice.

Roadtrips

Sightseeing and exploring

Teaching your daughter how to take good pictures, too

"My little prodigy" - Lisa (🥺🥲)

You and your daughter go to Lisa's performances anytime you're able

Cheering the girls on, fully decked out in BP merch

"BLACKPINK IS THE REVOLUTION!" Your daughter screams, bonking her light stick against her head wildly. From the vantage point of your front row seat, you lock eyes with Lisa before glancing down at the little human with an amused smile. Lisa laughs when she notices her, leaving only the backing track to play for a second. She giggles again and points to you before picking back up with the song, a wide smile on her lips.

The other members look down and laugh, too, clapping for her.

Your baby has too much energy for her own good -- something she definitely got from your wife.

Visiting the girls often

They always love to see both of you

Jennie makes food for her and spoils her with lazy days, Jisoo teaches her how to play video games and be more of a crackhead, and Rosé teaches her to paint and sing (and also speak with an Australian accent)

"Nœř"

They all have a secret handshake with her, different for each member

Which you think is absolutely adorable

They always take such good care of her

Always showing up for her school recitals and performances

When you pack your daughter's lunch, Lisa will usually sneak extra sweets into her bag, thinking you don't notice. You do, but you'd never tell her that. Seeing her think she's actually being sneaky is cute

Your Relationship With Lisa

Playful banter

She still makes time for you

Likes to be connected in some way as often as possible. Holding hands or pinkies, back hugs, kisses, gentle caresses, cuddling, etc. -- anything she can do to constantly remind you of her love.

You both always look forward to date nights

You drop your daughter off so the girls can watch her, or you call a sitter

Lisa takes you wherever you wanna go

Some past places: the park (to stargaze), the roller rink, fancy restaurants, art museums / galleries, couples dance classes (when you want to practice a new style and have an excuse to dance the night away together), or even just the couch

Sometimes both of you are too exhausted to go out, so you opt to stay in instead

Other times she wants to get all fancied up and see how gorgeous you look in your outfit of choice

She loves to show you off

"Damn, baby. How do you get hotter every time I see you?"

You look over at her with an incredulous expression, still clad in your oversized shirt with you hair pulled back.

"I haven't even gotten ready yet..."

"Still sexy," she coos, coming up behind you to give you a hug. You settle back into her arms, sighing softly when she trails soft kisses along your shoulder, towards your neck.

"I have to shower," you inform her, releasing the words gently. Part of you knows you'll be late for your reservation if you let her continue, but you can't find it in yourself to care. You've been aching for her touch lately, both of you caught up with the stressors of life. But she's here now, letting her hands roam to the places she knows they shouldn't be.

"Lis..."

"You know," she pecks the mark she just finished making on your neck, feeling satisfied as it darkens before her eyes, "I'm in need of a shower, too." Her fingertips flirt with the waistband of your panties, dipping underneath the material to caress your skin.

"Didn't you get in a couple hours ago?" You ask, furrowing your brows in genuine curiosity.

She laughs at that, letting her head fall against your shoulder as she stills her movements.

"Y/N, can't you just go along with it? Jeez, let me flirt with you."

Both of you chuckle together now, giggles mixing together as they fill the air of the room.

"Alright, alright. Go ahead."

"You look-- No, you know what? Let's just get in. I'll show you instead."

One of the best showers of your life ;)

You somehow managed to make it to your reservation on time

Lisa had to help you walk, though

Cause, ya know

Wöbbĺý łəğ§

Flirted like crazy at dinner

But was also very romantic

As a plane blinks by in the distance, merely a speck on its journey across the dusky sky, Lisa ponders on what her life would've been like, had she not met you. That lonely looking plane symbolizes what she'd probably be doing right now: flying somewhere for tour or brand deals. Every flash of its lights is like a call out to the universe, searching for something it doesn't yet have. It reminds her of how she felt before she met you -- like something was missing.

"I love you, Y/N/N, so much," she says out of the blue, looking over to you. "I'm lucky to call you mine." She says sincerely, gazing into your eyes with a big smile. You turn her into a lovesick, giddy teenager just by being yourself. One look from you is capable of sending her falling all over again.

Her fingers intertwine with your own, hands resting on the table.

"I'm so proud of us. There's no one I'd rather grow old with." You bring her wrist to your lips, kissing it tenderly. Her heart melts at the action, and she cups your cheek in her palm.

She takes you to the park after dinner, right back to the place you met

It leads to a big sentimental talk about when you fell for one another and realized you were in love

You take a bite of the froyo you got as desert on the way here, looking over to her as she begins explaining.

"I knew I did from that first moment we met. It was… not love at first sight exactly, but- familiarity. Like: oh, hello, it’s you. It’s going to be you."

She looks so sweet after she says it that you almost melt right then and there. You put the container down on the bench beside you before turning back to her. Curiosity shines in her doe eyes as she waits on your answer.

"Oddly enough, it was the same for me," you start, feeling your cheeks tug up into a smile as the memories come flooding back. "As soon as I made you laugh that first time -- when I saw your face light up after I told that stupid joke -- I knew it was you. I never knew what I was missing until I met you."

She cups your cheek, rubbing the pad of her thumb across it as tears begin to well up in her eyes. Years ago, when both of you happened to be in this very spot at the same time, you had no idea what life had in store for you. She had no idea that when she accidently bumped into a complete stranger, that that person would become her world.

She wouldn't feel complete without you, and neither would you without her. The life you've created has taken sacrifices and courage, but you know you'll always have one another no matter what. She makes the hard days bearable, and the good days unforgettable. She's your reason, just as you're hers.

"I love you--"

Both of you say the phrase at the same time, laughing when you realize it. It's a sweet moment, plucked straight out of a romcom.

She leans forward after a few seconds to kiss your lips, reclaiming them for her own.

Holding hands as you walk through the city

Not wanting the night to end

You stop in a couple other thrift shops and take some pictures together before deciding to go home

You catch up on some movies / Netflix / trashy TV that you've been wanting to watch together, finally having enough time to do so

She holds you close, snuggling up against you and not letting you go

Fights

Of course, they're inevitable

Never fun

You both communicate well, though, so they don't happen too often

But when they do, they usually start over little things, your annoyance only heightened by the stress you're constantly under

It's tough on Lisa, being an idol on top of everything else, and it's tough on you to have to raise your daughter alone sometimes

You don't fight in front of her (your child), and you don't say things to attack each other's character. Sometimes you just get loud because you're frustrated and trying to get the other to understand things from your point of view

You usually take time to cool down and then come back together later, once you've had time to think and reflect

After putting your daughter to bed, Lisa comes to your shared bedroom.

"Y/N/N, baby, I'm sorry. Please open up, I need to see you." She says quietly, resting her forehead against the door. She's beyond disappointed in herself, baffled by the fact she could treat you in such a way.

You look over to it, weighing your options as you toy with your wedding ring out of habit. This was a particularly nasty fight, and you hated every second of it; the anger in her eyes broke your heart.

She hears shuffling from inside, and she stands up straight. When you open the door and lean against it, eyes red and cheeks puffy from crying, her heart sinks. It's not surprising that her words hurt you so much, but knowing that she caused you pain in any way is almost too much to bear.

She purses her lips as she gathers her thoughts, and you momentarily look down to the floor, scuffing your foot to busy yourself.

"I never should've said any of that to you. Work has just been stressing me out lately with the comeback and all, and I took it out on you. I was wrong," she says, fresh tears spilling out of her eyes. She quickly wipes them away, not wanting the moment to be about her. She knows if she breaks down in front of you right now, you'll be forgiving her in an instant and wrapping her in the embrace that she's been in dire need of all evening.

That's exactly why she doesn't give in; now isn't the time to be selfish. She sniffles, willing the tears away as she finds the words she wants to say to you. She has to make things right.

"You're everything I've ever wanted, and I treated you like that? I'm ashamed of myself, Y/N. I'm not asking you to forget about this; I just want you to know how sorry I am."

You let a shaky breath out as you look into her eyes, deciding on what to do. You can tell she's being genuine; her fear of losing you is real, and she's doing everything she can to prove how guilty she feels.

You drop your hand from the knob and step through the threshold of the door, wrapping your arms around her neck. The second you do, her tears finally begin spilling out again. Your hair tickles her nose as she nuzzles her face into the crook of your neck, securing her arms around your waist like her life depends on it. You cry together, letting out all of your stress and frustrations while muttering out strained apologies and I love yous.

"I forgive you, Lisa." She sobs a bit harder at that, and you feel her lip tremble. You stay like that until you both calm down, your sniffles fading to hitched breaths every now and then.

"Come on, let's go take a bath."

She decides to take over, wanting to make it up to you. She has you sit down and relax while she lights some candles and fills the tub with your favorite scents and oils

She comes back out into the bedroom to get you as the tub fills up

She carries you back to the bathroom, cradling you lovingly in her arms

You get in and cuddle, massaging the pain and tension away from each others shoulders

Very soft way to end such a stressful day

She reassures you that she'll be better for you and that she never wants to lose you or jeopardize what you have

You believe her, and to this day she's never been like that again

You still argue from time to time, but you both listen more and stop things before they can escalate

When All Is Said & Done

At the end of the day, Lisa always makes sure you know how happy you make her and how much she loves her life with the both of you

Even though things get hard sometimes, you wouldn't want to do it with anyone else

One day, when your daughter is away at school, Lisa and you are snuggled up on the couch, watching some TV

"Y/N/N?"

"Yes, my love?"

"Let's make another baby."

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alldayangst · 4 years

Text

gold rush (Tom Holland)

All of my fics are LGBT and PoC friendly. Inspired by gold rush by Taylor Swift. Everybody wants Tom, but you don’t like a gold rush. WC: 2.7K words.

“Y/N, I just wanted to say again, thank you for coming in today and doing this for us.” Tom’s dad, Dominic, said as he displaced papers across desks, earl grey swaying like an angry lake in his mug. Approaching footsteps hinted that the star of the show was soon to be hold. In other words, Tom was running behind.

The door creaked and light from the corridor crept through like Sun peeping through curtains of the Night. It refusing to shut after Tom budged and pushed was maybe divine punishment for him being so late, and maybe provided the bit of laughter you needed after rolling out of bed at 6am for this, for him. When the door eventually did close, Tom turned around and saw you in all your glory; much taller than he remembered, more assured than he’d imagined, and more gorgeous than drowned out and half forgotten memories of you could ever fabricate.

You and Tom ran in the same social circles, but hadn’t seen each other since Tom’s career imploded when you were both nineteen. As much as Tom felt he owed his heart and soul to the UK, he maintained an almost permanent fixture on the States. It started to feel like his trips back to England were in fact actual holiday. At one point, you were in love with Tom, but meeting became a constant battle of ‘here, not there’ and your heart grew tired of the duck and goose chase. The gravity of the situation was too much for you, whom hadn’t even tasted their twenties yet.

“Y/N!” Tom launched at you and held you in tight embrace. You let go of the hug, but he didn’t. And his dad watched on in momentary awe as you wrapped your arms around Tom once again, who breathed in every part of you with unwavering adoration.

“Tom!” You rubbed along his back as he hummed. “When I was told we were gonna have a ghost writer, I had no idea it was gonna be you.”

Tom and his dad (being an author) were collaborating on a book, a million dollar idea that’d been years in the making. Tom had stalled it, his dad told you out of simple insecurity. Now that the world was a stage, he was worried people would criticise his dyslexia with every line he wrote, that every stroke of his pen would reveal him as a rare type of monster that lacked intellect, he pondered that he wasn’t insightful enough in some way. His dad may have written a book about Tom outfaming him, but Tom felt like he’d always live in Dom’s shadow in this respect. Fresh from Oxford with an English Bachelor’s degree, Dom employed you to get grease on the gears to commence writing. Tom had always come out of his shell when you were around.

Your writing session lasted from 8 til noon, when Tom had promo with LadBible or Entertainment Weekly or whoever had bid the highest from his presence that day.

The door swung open and three men in all black and mics saddled around their waists called for and led Tom out of the room.

“Tom, session’s over. We need to get you to your BBC promo in 30 and we’re already running behind schedule.’ One cloaked Tom in a jacket you were sure was more expensive than your own home and another whispered something into a walkie talkie: “Holland is on the move. Check the back entrance is clear.” With that, Tom rose to his feet and left completely opposite of the way you came in. Without a word, no goodbye.

You and Dom left the building together around ten minutes later, where ten men with large cameras stood, lenses focused on you, glaring at you, not sure what to make of you. One of the men screams “Hey! You dating Tom Holland” and after that all you hear is clicks and all you see is bright flashing lights and Dom clenches your hand and leads you to your taxi cab.

The next time you see Tom is sooner than expected. The Hollands were hosting a last minute dinner party and you found yourself sitting opposite Tom, feeling his hard, hot and heavy gaze on you. The tension in the room was so thick not even a chainsaw cut through.

“Next topic,” You picked up a card from the deck and read it aloud. “Politics!” You said devilishly as you sip on what was left of the white wine in your cup, and now that your thought process is blurred; Tom’s longing gaze puts you at dismay.

“Fuck!” Harry exploded, and you hear their mother hiss. “Fuck I hate politics, there’s no making it out alive!” he remarked as he drummed on the table cloth, drunken excitement brewing a new energy in the room.

You go on like this for hours until dinner party is dinner party no more. And while Dom, Nikki and all of Tom’s siblings have chosen to exit stage left, it’s 1am and you and Tom have yet to leave the scene.

Tom sets down your deck of debate cards in favour of a genuine moment.

“What are you doing these days, Y/N?” Tom’s not looking at you, he’s looking at your knee as he rubs circles on it. You want to look down there too, see what he finds so intriguing; but you decide against it in fear you might spontaneously combust. You don’t know if this moment’s supposed to be intimate or innocent and you’re not sure if you want to find out.

So you put up a wall.

“I should be asking you the same thing, Holland.” You say sarcastically. “What have you been doing these days? I haven’t seen you around.” Your eyebrows scrunched up together but you’ve got a big, idiot grin on your face that’s more than telling. Tom giggles at your facetiousness.

Tom scratches his head in mock thought. He never clocks out, always putting on a show. “I don’t know - uh.” You’re laughing before Tom has even told the punchline, ‘cause I guess anything’s funny when it’s said by the one you love.”I’m kind of -” He snatches an old Spiderman comic off the floor. “I’m kinda doing this acting thing at the moment. Playing, y’know, this guy.”

“Well I wish you better luck in the future.” Tom has stopped rubbing circles but instead places his two hands on your knees as you rock back in laughter.

“I’m serious, Y/N. What do you do now?”

“Um.” You suddenly forgot your entire career as Tom, with no shade of subtlety, stares right into your soul. “I got my degree. I write like little stories, y’know? Have you ever heard of folklore?”

Tom shook his head.

“They’re like these little, old beautiful myths. And I write them for a living. And if I’m lucky, they get published in The Times. If I’m even luckier, I get to work with my old best friend - ” You feel your world stop temporarily as you call Tom your ‘best friend’ and you pause for all of 0.3 seconds to register Tom’s reaction but his face doesn’t flinch. “-Writing a book with him and his dad.” And that makes Tom smile. So he doesn’t have to tell you he missed you, you just know.

‘Undivided appearance’ and ‘undivided attention’ don’t necessarily mean the same thing in Hollywood as they do in real life, and you learn that the hard way in your writing session.

Tom may have been sat right next to you, but he was miles away. He was doing press with Cosmo, who hadn’t stopped tagging him with blue hearts on his Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat stories, causing his phone to go off every two seconds. You looked at the phone and then at him who then got the hint and put it on silent. Then there was a knock on the door. Tom rushed to open it, expecting that Dom had sent down a food delivery to egg you on finishing this chapter. You rehashed his childhood like a million times - in fact, you were part of it - so when it came to writing the parts that hurt, where you took a more supporting role in his life, you needed his help. The fact is, the knock at the door had come from one of Tom’s men (Tom liked to call him Man In Black no. 3) who hadn’t said as much as a ‘hi’ before he made his announcement. “Tom, you’re on the line with Cosmo in 10.” The man stepped back and pulled out his walkie talkie, “Holland knows he’s on the line with Cosmo at 10.” And then continued to pace around the hallway.

Cosmo called as he said they would and you almost felt for. second like tom might enjoy an entertainment magazine’s company more than yours. The interviewer made glaring comments and passive flirts at Tom who just blushed and chuckled and sipped his water like the woman on the phone calling him ‘hot’ was just too much to handle. At one point, she says: “What must it be like to grow up that beautiful, Tom? With your hair falling into place like dominoes.” You’re not expecting it when Tom tilts the phone so you’re in view. “Well I’m with the most beautiful being on Earth right now so..” Tom looks at you as if to ask ‘is this okay?” and you know it’s too late for these kind of questions, because that moment is headline fodder, so you smile not to make him feel bad for opening Pandora’s box. But Tom is merciless and likes to rub salt in the wound. “This is Y/N! Y/N’s helping me write the book with my Dad! We go way back.” He covers his mouth as soon as he says it. “Shit! They’re not supposed to know about the book yet.”

This is the moment, you think, where you believe when they say your first love is the one you never let go.

And you can’t think of anything purer than the love you have for him.

Tom thinks being on land is boring. He likes being strung from chords 30 feet in the air, and drowning in despair through scenes of emotional turmoil. You want to tell him you’re an arrow from Cupid’s bow about to reach him, but you couldn’t recover from the splinters if Tom shut you down. After all, Tom was a gold rush. A treasure that everyone had discovered but nobody owned. How precious is a jewel that anybody could take home with them?

Tom had invited you to a visit to Brighton with him, a city near the coast, for some inspiration on writing his section of the book.

You accepted. And because you did, you found yourself at the beginning of the end, on Tom’s boat in Brighton. “We don’t have to talk about the book right now.” Tom throws a stack of blue tinted paper on the floor. His dyslexia meant that spelling and reading was so much easier when done on blue pages, and you could only guess that was the reason the body of water around you brought him so much peace. So when you saw that something might compromise your best boy’s happiness, you point it out. To give Tom a little bit of time to exit before things got ugly.

“Tom, I see someone in the bushes.”

“Yeah. It’s a pap.” Tom mumbled nonchalantly.

“They’re here to get pictures of me,” He turned to face you. “and you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, the fans ship us. Think we’d be a good couple after that Cosmo stunt. We would have been a good couple when we were like, 18.” He laughs.

“Huh, yeah.” You look down.

“The best one around.” And you can’t tell if he’s serious.

You rip off one of his blue sheets. “I’m coming. I got hit with inspo.” And you trail to a different section of the boat. A very obvious click of the camera from a shrub nearby coaxes your pen to write without a second thought, How is he so accustomed to this? Fake private moments, protected by sheer glass curtains?

You scrunched your paper, well his paper, into a ball.

Your mind had turned his life into folklore. You weren’t sure if that was crossing a line, so you just put the ball into your bag and hide it until he hits you with the spark again.

“Let me see it.” Tom says.

“No.”

“You ran off to write it and won’t let me see it?”

You held your bag at your hip in defence. “No, Tom. Drop it.”

Tom’s face drops a little bit, but then he reaches into his own bag and reveals a deck of your debate cards. “I know what will cheer you up, good ol’ Y/N.” He sets a card on the wooden table between you two.

“Do you believe in a higher power?”

You toyed with the pendant around your neck which revealed your faith. “Do you?”

“I don’t. But I believe in soulmates.”

You look to the left to really ponder on what Tom is saying, and a paparazzis captures another photo of you in the corner of your eye.

“And you don’t think there’s a higher power that manufactures our souls to make our soulmates?”

Tom feigns a scowl. “That’s ridiculous.”

You scoffed. “How very contrarian of you.”

“What the fuck does that mean.”

“It means you contradict yourself, Thomas.” You laugh as he holds his chest in fake hurt.

“Are you implying I’m anything less than perfect?”

“Never.”

Never. Because you didn’t believe that to be true.

“Good. Cause you’d have to be punished.” Tom picks you up and throws you in the water below before jumping in with you.

On your way home you stop at the yours and Tom’s writing booth, scavenging through your bag to drop off Tom’s notepad, some scrunched up blue and white papers you and Tom thought could still help you write his book. You’d made an addition to your love-hazed scribblings about Tom and reckon you’d die if he found it. You managed to throw the other in the water, excusing yourself with “It’s utterly awful.”, to which you and Tom agreed you wouldn’t throw any more paper in the ocean cause the poor fish already had it hard enough.

You and Tom had a session the next day. Tom was excited for the day, and you could tell because he’d given his phone to one of his big babysitters for the time he had you.

“I think that’s all of yours.” You and Tom made a business out of unscrunching your paper balls to see if they had any useful ideas. You were certain you reached the end of Tom’s. All of his notes had ‘T.H’ written on the back in big and were scribed on blue paper. When it came to your little ‘secret admirer’ notes you weren’t worried - you had an English degree and were quick to think on your feet and was ready to make something up when it came to opening it.

“No, this one’s mine.” He’s confident, so you let him have it. He goes to pick up your tea and then realises it’s nowhere near warm, and was the one you made for yourself when you crept in yesterday evening. Tom has a smile on his face, and then he doesn’t. Before he goes to read it aloud, his eyes tell you he’s reading it again and again and again. “At dinner parties, I’ll call you out on your contrarian shit, and the coastal towns we wondered round will never see a love as pure as it.”

The look on Tom’s face gives you the splinters. He tries to look at you but you know he can’t. You don’t blame him. You can’t look at him either. “I really thought this was a good friendship.”

You hum and nod your head in agreement, pull your lips into a thin straight line as streaks of tears abandon your eyes. This was worse than Tom rubbing salt in your wounds. He’s rubbing dirt in your painful fucking gashes and you are reminded of why this didn’t work before, why it will never be.

And you wouldn’t dare to dream about him anymore.

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love-takes-work · 4 years

Text

Steven Universe: End of an Era: Outline & Review

I wrote this review in October but never got around to posting it here

Steven Universe: End of an Era is far more than an art book–it’s also a collection of behind-the-scenes material, stories about the experience of working on the show, planning documents and associated background info, and both older versions of developed concepts AND concepts that never made it into the show. It's a huge fusion of all those elements, and it's definitely an experience!

Some low-quality images are included with my review just to give you an idea of what’s there--it’s not a good substitute for getting your own copy, but here’s a tour!

Like the previous concept art book, Art and Origins, I'll be giving you a description of the structure and overview, while also collecting notable information for fans. Obviously just about everything is "notable" once again, but I'll aim for unique insight or perspective on the main source material, keeping the screaming about everything new to a minimum so you can also enjoy something for yourself if you pick it up. My low-quality photos should prevent people from feeling like I'm reproducing the book in any capacity. Please grab one while you can and have your own experience!

[SU Book and Comic Reviews]

OVERVIEW

The book is titled "End of an Era" for a couple reasons--obviously because it is released after the show has wrapped, but also because Gem history recently ended its "Era 2" and began Era 3--an age of prosperity and peace. The author--the person in charge of adapting all of this information into this slick, readable package--is Chris McDonnell, whose work was previously applied on the Art and Origins book.

The foreword is by N.K. Jemisin, a well-known science fiction author who's a huge fan of the show (and wrote a really excellent series that also has a weird geological connection, by the way).

And the cover, like its predecessor, is shiny and decorated with a beach scene featuring minimalistic characters--this time it's the Gems at night in front of the Temple, and on the back cover is a big pink leg ship in a cross-legged pose.

The interior covers are decorated with tons of amazing sketches of Steven and Connie on the front, and a bunch of Gem sketches on the back. Every interior page that most would leave blank is highlighted with some kind of sketch art or character exercise--it's so much to look at, so much to absorb.

The book is dedicated "For Eddie."

Its organization is different from the previous book in that it shares applicable work in chunks associated with groups of episodes rather than pertaining to different aspects of building the show.

FOREWORD

N.K. Jemisin gives us such a great introduction to the book--apparently understanding very well that the audience of this book is full of animation enthusiasts and adult fans more than it is full of kids, and explaining that bewildering journey some adults had from blowing this show off as a silly kid thing to falling in love with it hard and fast.

The important thing, Jemisin says, is being able to trust a storyteller with your heart. And it was clear to her that Rebecca Sugar knew what she was talking about and was saying important things about identity and the radical power that comes with accepting it and demanding respect.

Important also is how we handle heroes and who gets to be one in fantasy. That's part of the reason Steven Universe speaks to so many--because we see ourselves here, and know stories can be about us. Acknowledging the power we all have to MAKE THINGS BETTER with what we fight for is so important--especially if we're going to speaking to the next generation about it.

Highlighting Rose Quartz as a "born leader" who failed and Steven as a relatable scamp who did what she couldn't, Jemisin asserts that we can save the world.

1. END OF AN ERA

We start with an appeal to the audience to think about identity and the formative parts of our childhood--and how different it is if who you are and who you become is restricted, mocked, erased, or Not Allowed. Most people, if not ALL people, can relate to this, but for those of us with a special relationship with Steven Universe because of queer identity, this hits hard.

But it doesn't have to be anything grand to be something we respect--this show's authenticity comes largely from how personal everything is, drawn from real-life experiences and incidental truths from each artist's perspective, leaning hard on childhood and formative experiences.

Rebecca Sugar offers some interview bits to discuss writing philosophy and why "writing female characters" was difficult for a nonbinary person who'd been socialized as a girl and a woman. Rebecca has spoken before about how frustrating it is that marketing for cartoons was SO gendered when she was growing up (and to some extent still is).

The Gems in the story are all "she/her," but on their planet they're defined by their work, not by emotion or relationships (unlike women in our society), so having them be socialized opposite to how she was and be able to claim those emotions through choice and NOT as just an expectation "as women" was revolutionary. Rebecca wants her show to tell all marginalized people that they don't deserve to be in the margins.

Weighing in on other aspects of the show were Ian Jones-Quartey, Joe Johnston, and Miki Brewster. Ian describes feeling like at first doing SU was a thrill ride that meant they'd finally get to do all the cool stuff, but it quickly became a responsibility that he took very seriously--the need to tell a good story now that he'd been given a megaphone.

Promotional art, planning documents, character sketches, and concept art from the lighthearted to the stone serious is included, along with some very cool (sort of famous) timeline charts that track major characters' developments. It's emphasized by Rebecca that the developmental materials ARE NOT CANON (and especially are not MORE canon) compared the final show.

There are concept sketches alongside final art for Aquamarine and Topaz in "Wanted" (with Topaz labeled "Imperial Topaz"), the Zircons in "The Trial," Blue and Yellow Diamond, and the Off Colors (including Pink Lars).

And there's also a spread of "the two sides of Steven's life: Gem Magic and Rock N Roll" featuring Sadie Killer and the Suspects (referred to as "Buck's band")--as well as a cool "Crew Cameos" key and some concepts for short-haired Connie.

And then there's some more "finished" art with stills alongside concepts, including some background art, revision, and really cool "fairytale" art from some of the shadowplay storytelling bits. We get "Lars of the Stars," "Jungle Moon," and "Can't Go Back."

2. THE BEGINNING OF THE END: A SINGLE PALE ROSE

In discussing the huge reveals and Gem mysteries in the show, the pacing is examined, and emphasis is put on the intended "slow burn." One of the most difficult things in the show was to strategize so that every piece that was needed to support another piece in the future was placed properly to seed what it was supposed to.

Some of the ideas they developed were more of a group effort and were fit together collaboratively (like Amethyst's being younger than the other Gems and Jasper being from Earth), while others were intended from the beginning based on Rebecca's vision (the fundamental idea of Pink Diamond's true identity, for instance, as well as Obsidian's design and sword and our Pearl not being Pink's first).

The writing process gets a great deep dive here, including fun tidbits like how the orb in the moon base was inserted by Joe Johnston and they literally had no idea what it was for when they wrote the episode. They repurposed it when they figured out what they needed.

Rebecca credits her detailed timelines for helping keep the order straight, and discusses how other artists are sometimes flabbergasted that a storyboard-driven show can have this much detail and continuity and yet not get wrecked by the free non-scripted boarding process. But Rebecca and the Crew valued that approach and loved the way fresh eyes would handle an idea, making it come back alive, entertaining, vivid.

Several Crew members weigh in on the writing process. Lauren Hecht refers to making lots of incorrect guesses despite being on the inside. Joe Johnston recalled getting briefed on his first day and getting so excited to start working on this massive project.

Miki Brewster remembered being told Rose Quartz is Pink Diamond and being shocked--and also confused about why Ruby and Sapphire would need to be married if they're already basically married. Drew Green talks about being brought in late and getting to watch unaired episodes and a rough of the movie while eating cereal.

Ian Jones-Quartey complains about Pink Diamond's real jester-like form being leaked to the internet through a Hot Topic shirt. Rebecca piggybacks on that and says it was upsetting that the wedding was leaked because of toy fair keychains featuring Ruby and Sapphire in wedding attire. They'd always be worried about leaks, and sometimes Rebecca struggled not to talk about the reality of Pink Diamond before the reveal because she knew it would make so much more sense once the truth was out. And everything associated with Rose makes more sense once you know she's Pink--especially what happened with Bismuth, considering what we know about how Pink Diamond has a habit of treating anyone who no longer serves her interests.

When it comes to visual cues, Rebecca also talks about intentional designs to create a feeling of unity between concepts, like the flower shapes on Pink Diamond's palanquin lining up with the poofs of Steven's hair and the star imagery of the series. Steven Sugar and Mary Nash discuss how the Human Zoo incorporated this imagery, trying to look like Homeworld with a Pink Diamond touch.

Steven Sugar, as a game nerd, liked to throw in video game references from old and modern stuff to feel like he's inserting what he's enjoying and who he is from moment to moment, while Mary Nash, who related to Sadie as a basement-dwelling young person with cult interests, liked to include stuff from MST3K and cult movies. Pearl's hand gestures get a spotlight too--her reflex to cover her mouth when Pink Diamond was being discussed was analyzed here.

A "Top Secret Visual Timeline" from 2016 is included which tells us some Diamond history. It has an earlier version of Pink Pearl's fate and does not include Spinel since the movie hadn't been greenlit. The timeline includes the birth of the Diamonds, the emergence and major story beats for each major character, and some philosophy of the driving force behind each.

We're told that Pink Diamond straightened up, behavior-wise, after she lost her first Pearl, and that Yellow and Blue wanted to give her a planet but White only agreed to it to prove she would fail at managing a colony. Pearl, meanwhile, is so confused to have a Diamond who keeps asking her what she thinks when she doesn't believe she should have opinions.

And when Pink moonlighted as Rose to start conflict, she found herself leading an army to fight Pink's troops--then Yellow's, and eventually Blue's too. Lapis is said to be waiting for the conflict to end on Earth so she can terraform, but she gets trapped instead.

Pearl's love story with Rose is described as "an endless honeymoon" where she's free to love her, while Rose's is more like "I'm now the head of the family and I'm going to give everyone what they never had, so everyone is super special!"

Jasper is described as "adopted" into Yellow's army as the only successful Beta Quartz. And White Diamond knew that Pink Diamond was not dead--she thought she was just running away from home like a brat and would eventually be back.

3. THE HEART OF THE CRYSTAL GEMS

Now we discuss Rose Quartz--the original Pink Diamond. How she was selfish and selfless, never enough and always too much, and how Greg was her first partner who "challenged her" to be an equal. Rebecca describes Rose as being delighted by the idea that both she and Greg reinvented themselves, but when that leads her to want to share her past, Greg isn't interested--he only wants to know who she is now, and doesn't consider the old her to be her.

Rebecca likes Carl Jung's concept of "enantiodromia," which is the idea that extremes lead to their extreme opposite. This is demonstrated in all of the Diamonds. This narrative is interspersed with drawings of Greg and Rose being cute.

But another "heart" of the Crystal Gems is its relationships--particularly, Garnet, the fairy tale romance embodied. More psychological theories are discussed with regard to differentiation in a relationship making the relationship stronger, and how they made sure that happened for Garnet during the appropriate arc. Rebecca has struggled with the idea that she, like Ruby, went straight from a "family" group to a living-with-others situation and never lived by herself. But she also learned that you can in fact develop as a person in the context of a relationship--you don't have to be alone to do it. Ruby learned that too, and chose on her own terms to be with Sapphire.

The wedding made so much sense to Rebecca and the crew that they couldn't imagine a wholesome couple like Ruby and Sapphire not having a wedding episode. They wanted it for years: The wedding concepts always included the tuxedo for Sapphire and the wedding dress for Ruby.

But pushback (often blamed on the conservative standards of the international market) led to negotiations trying to keep Ruby and Sapphire's relationship from being explicit. Rebecca and the Crew were very tired of this double standard, and they were especially irritated by attempts to claim a wedding wouldn't be well received by a core demographic or wouldn't make sense for Steven's character. But other shows had done weddings and Steven had been established to love weddings already.

Rebecca kept adding more elements to the wedding episode to answer all the concerns, but she didn't want to back down from explicit marriage between these characters. They deserved it. And the audience deserved to see this as wholesome, like any other cartoon wedding. Eventually they got their way and were allowed to have the wedding. But the ordered episodes were also coming to a close without promise of more, so Rebecca had to request more episodes to be able to wrap up the storyline!

And of course, there is Steven, the true heart of the team. A very interesting aside discusses Garnet's leadership and how the network pushed the Crewniverse to acknowledge Steven as the leader. This was successfully resisted throughout as well--because Garnet is the leader (unless she's incapacitated, of course). It's fantastic that this concept was preserved because too often a young male chosen one is elevated above people with more experience and knowledge because of that chosen one tradition, so it's really nice to have a show acknowledge that team leadership is more appropriate for an adult.

4. ERA 3

Beginning with a discussion of the Diamonds, this chapter deconstructs the dysfunctional "family" of the Diamonds (who are said to be based on tropes about evil stepmothers and stepsisters), with the thread of dysfunction originating with White Diamond.

Yellow is physical, Blue is emotional, White is judgmental, and Pink is impulsive. Some philosophy on why Pink is naturally manipulative and why she clashes so much with White is offered.

White believes her identity is to be imposed on all because she is the pinnacle of what should be--and therefore, she has the right to make decisions and statements about and on behalf of everyone. But her secret is that she can't do what the others do--act or feel or want. In trying to be everyone, she is no one.

And this becomes very important when she confronts Steven about his identity and turns out to be wrong. The triumph of Steven being totally, fully himself is a beautiful, simple revelation that's described as far more satisfying than the theories about Pink living inside him or Rose returning from his Gem.

Also discussed is Gem architecture. A lot went into this idea, and Steven Sugar weighs in to say he had to think of what it would mean for a world to have buildings but serve no human needs. That's why it's mostly focused on transport and storage. Even the broken planet is meant to indicate a place stripped for its resources, and everything serves a function that is meant to avoid looking like the human equivalents.

And there's another layer, too: a difference between Era 1 and Era 2. Era 2 became more functional to hide Era 1's broken bits, and older Homeworld buildings still have some "ornate and ancient" feel to them. And the fact that props, tools, and even walls and doors could be living was taken from a concept Rebecca thought was horrible from old Busby Berkeley movies, where people were inanimate objects and it was portrayed as lovely. Tom Herpich helped conceptualize these living objects.

Steven dealing with "princess tropes" is discussed here too. The Pebbles (worked on with Pendleton Ward) were sort of his Cinderella's mice, and all the locked-in-a-tower, having supportive tiny friends help you, getting princess clothes made, attending a ball, having to mind your manners stuff was intentionally related to fairy tales.

The point of doing that (besides fun) was to easily invoke the feeling that Steven was being made to be someone he's not, and that he was being treated like THIS is who he really is when it isn't. White Diamond as the "evil stepmother" is discussed with regard to her detailed features and massive scale. They generally didn't put fingernails and eyelashes on characters (especially not to indicate that they were women or girls!), but they decided White would get all of these feminine markers for tradition's sake.

Rebecca also invokes several other references that were included and describes the princess tropes as "chipping away at his integrity" setting him up for the final challenge with White.

There is again tons of concept art: Homeworld architecture, Pebbles, Diamond diagrams, background Jades and Lemon Jade Fusion, Comby, Diamond extraction chambers, and White Diamond.

5. CHANGE YOUR MIND

Now we finally begin to discuss Steven's identity. The "Perfect Steven," discussed in several interviews before this book's release, was an idea back in 2013; the "ultimate Steven," beefed up and shonen-looking, was far from perfect because OUR Steven is perfect, while this alpha hero Steven idea (used in Steven Universe Future) didn't belong being idolized in such a show.

They thought about having Steven fall apart into organic half and Gem half early in the show (during "Giant Woman" after a successful fusion and unfusion, even!), but they didn't try the concept until the last episode. They didn't want the "Pink" Steven to be portrayed as "better" even though he would be more powerful, so they decided he isn't whole without his organic self and he's just as much of a shell as the organic half. They absolutely did not want any ending that required Rose to be inside him or waiting to come back. But the debates were fierce--what DOES it mean to have Rose's Gem?

Ian Jones-Quartey brings in an anecdote about his own family to emphasize some of the immigrant themes that inspired aspects of the show. He had a brother who reinvented himself elsewhere away from family without resolving issues, and all the ramifications of that were explored in the show through Rose Quartz. (He is careful to say he doesn't think his immigrant experience is like being from another planet!) But he did say you can hurt your old family even if they were toxic or didn't know the real you, and you can hurt your new family by hiding your past. The Pizza family of course was also a more direct reference to Ian's Ghanaian family.

In talking about the new Fusions from this episode, Sunstone is largely described by Miki, who also got to board the Sunstone section. Sunstone was described as a cool 1990s character and the evolution just continued into making them a fourth-wall-breaking PSA dispenser. Obsidian is also discussed, with their sword being an early concept. Steven Sugar said they totally knew it would be forged in action. Obsidian being similar to the Temple design is of course another very early detail.

The story of how James Baxter got involved with one of the final scenes (Organic Steven and Pink Steven fusing in front of White Diamond) was shared. His family was fans of the show and Rebecca Sugar took the time to drive to a birthday party for his daughter and give her a drawing. He then owed her a favor, and this was it.

Concept art is again included, this time with sample boards, promo images, a Diamond fight concept, costume design changes for the Gems, new Fusions, the so-called "Mega Diamond" ship conglomerate, some scenes from the White Diamond confrontation, Pink Steven, multiple pages of James Baxter animation, corrupted Gems and their healed selves, and photos from the "Change Your Mind" premiere and some awards. The show has won one design-related Emmy, a Peabody Award, and a GLAAD award.

6. STEVEN UNIVERSE FUTURE

The book doesn't cover the movie because it got its own book, but dives right into Future. Ian Jones-Quartey emphasizes that the movie and Future are separate and different from the original show, which ENDED. After all, after that, Steven has a neck!

Some new names are invoked now: new writers Kate Tsang, Jack Pendarvis, and Taneka Stotts. They were excited to have Steven make HIS OWN mistakes instead of trying to clean up someone else's! Now, instead of doing the usual shonen anime thing and having the final battle be a big physical rumble, Steven has to make peace with himself and take an active role in coping with what all the fighting has done to him and what effect it's had on who he is (and who he wants to be). There is no sudden "I love myself!" answer, either. It's always a process.

Drew Green and Maya Petersen, who came on board as storyboarders officially in Future, also weighed in on writing for a "mature" show, how to deal with Steven being a "moral compass" while being sort of unreliable, and what they learned as Crew that they didn't know as fans. Drew didn't know Garnet never asks questions. Jack didn't realize the show never deviated from Steven's point of view. Taneka was nervous but excited to collaborate. Kate was worried about how established the show was and what to do as a new writer to contribute appropriately.

Maya was on the old Crew but not as a storyboarder, so felt like some of the "old" ideas ended up not being appropriate for the "new" Future in an embarrassing way--and dreaded the idea of dealing with Steven's emotional problems when they were similar to stuff she'd been through. She also was personally behind the idea of Steven wanting to dump his problems by becoming Stevonnie, and got to work with Etienne Guignard on inventing the Pearl creation backstory with Volleyball.

There's some discussion of "depression hobbies," stress, and the show's pacing. And they say Etienne was entertaining at pitches. There's even some discussion of how Greg is taken off a bit of a pedestal because his terrible restrictive life in the suburbs sounded wholesome to Steven and Greg presented it negatively.

And then there is some information about how the Crew felt behind the scenes due to fan reactions and negative press. Ian discusses feeling offended when the Black characters are described as bad examples, as if their cartoonized but realistic-in-context features are automatically caricatures.

Rebecca Sugar felt beaten down by some of these narratives and began to access mental health services, inspiring some of the content of "Mindful Education." A long reflection from Rebecca discusses people's infighting about her show and what she had a responsibility to show or not show in the story. She learned a lot about bullying from Cartoon Network's anti-bullying program and learned that bullies thrive on whatever attention you give them--unless it is made clear to them by a peer group that no one is impressed by their cruel actions. Also, not all negative feedback is bullying. Constructive criticism is different. Self-awareness can help you avoid internalizing what bullies might do or say to you.

Segueing from the discussion of how people are affected by and connect with the show, we then discuss how they chose as a team what should be covered as the show came to a close. They didn't have time to do quite a few stories they wanted time for, like a Rhodonite story, a Lars side story, and Diamond "prehistory" and religion; all of it was put aside for the main arc with Steven.

They thought people would find those stories about Homeworld and Off Color history very interesting, but so much of the show had been about Steven's Gem adventures, so keeping him mostly on Earth seemed appropriate. The acknowledgment of his battle damage, of his trauma, was necessary and real, and helpful in an important way to the core audience.

Oh, and there was some stuff about a cheeseburger tree. Don't ask.

In discussing the "reverse escapism" of the original show (Gem aliens are intrigued by everyday human culture, and realism is necessary), Rebecca says her views have changed on escapism and gets why some people want a soothing feel-better show. She acknowledged also that her own escapist dreams-come-true fulfilled in the show didn't feel like escapism because they were givens to the majority of mainstream culture, but were never guaranteed to marginalized people.

Rebecca ties in her several-times-told story about "Love Like You" and how the middle bit was when she didn't feel she was worth looking up to, and the realizations she had to tie the beginning to the end. Feeling like someone will like you less if they know you more is terrible. So sometimes a show like this can be helpful in telling people that they belong when their fantasies are things like "I want to be loved" and "I want to know I exist."

In Future, Steven has to connect to who he is and love that person--and understand that person enough to finally feel that even if he's not fixing their problems or saving their world right this second, Steven deserves his family's love and support, and they WANT to give it to him.

There's a huge amount of supplemental material in this section so there's no way I could name it all. The charts for Future's timeline are pretty straightforward, though a few episodes like "A Very Special Episode," "Why So Blue," "In Dreams," and "Bismuth Casual" aren't specifically represented and a couple are in a different order ("Prickly Pair" was conceived as happening after "Fragments" and "Homeworld Bound").

Steven feeling like a monster, having intrusive thoughts, having not forgiven the Diamonds, and getting help/moving on--it's all there.

We have keys, color scripts, and boards for the new opening and some various backgrounds and storyboard art from episodes. Model sheets for Shep, Nice Lapis and Mean Lapis, Jasper, Steven Tag Gems, Pink Steven Powers, Monster Steven. New house concepts, Era 3 Homeworld concept art for the Diamond environments, and background art for the Reef.

New Connie and Greg designs. Concepts for Mega Pearl, the Rose Quartzes, Bluebird, and Morganite (who didn't get used). And there are some photos from recording and the conference room. There are even some extras from "Crossover Nexus," the crossover with OK K.O.!--including an unused cut scene that included Ruby and Sapphire fighting. The rest of the book is a bunch of adorable Crewniverse art--extras, blog drawings, promos, and gifts to each other.

NOTABLE

The first timeline chart in the book features a cool sketch of the original Off Colors, which at the time this planning document was drafted included unused Off Colors Flint and Chert.

We knew of their existence already because of an episode of the podcast, but these two unexpectedly appeared as incidental characters in the Steven Universe Future episode "Homeworld Bound," identified only in the credits. Sad to think that instead of banding with the Off Colors, these two were probably shattered for their crime (being Quartzes who don't want to fight) and that's why we see them being repaired in this episode. Later, there's some brainstorming for types of Off Colors and "a Ruby that wants to wear limb enhancers" is mentioned as well.

It looks like there was also originally more juice to the story of tracking down the events of the war culminating in Pink Diamond's assassination.

One of the timelines talks about Steven thinking it makes sense that Pearl can't talk about her involvement because she might have been a double agent, explaining why Rose Quartz always knew what Pink Diamond was doing. It seems like that bit was supposed to be included in Garnet's version of the story she believed in "Your Mother and Mine." Seems like they originally conceived Garnet's story to inspire the Off Colors to become pirates and freedom fighters, though in the show's canon this storytelling happened after Lars had already reinvented himself the way he did.

Sadie was also supposed to be sending letters to Lars via Steven, which is funny since the "Letters to Lars" episode is just a montage Steven letter. And of course it's specified that Steven was supposed to get Pink Diamond flashbacks by going to the Palace on Homeworld.

The second chart in the book makes references to Sadie's reinvention of herself as a parallel to Lars, Greg, and Pink Diamond all doing the same thing, and how positive it is to embrace such a thing--a version of yourself that YOU create.

I love that Yellow Diamond's arm ship arm-wrestling the Cluster was always part of the plan.

There's some more explicit direction to have Connie help Steven understand the Diamonds as "strict parents," and a lot more emphasis on everyone realizing Rose had been inspired by THEM rather than them all following her.

White Diamond is presented here as if she thinks of Pink Diamond as a "daughter" (whom she now understands she has "lost"). There are notes on how the Diamonds have a responsibility to their children and should attend to it before just continuing to make more.

One of the concept art images for the Off Colors features Rhodonite crouching by Padparadscha saying "Don't worry, I won't let them hurt you." It's very interesting because she DOES seem to protect Padparadscha in the show, but doesn't seem confident about it in her final version, even though it does seem like she'd be "programmed" to guard aristocratic Gems because of her Ruby and Pearl makeup. Cool.

A "Crew Cameos" spread was included, which is of great interest to some of us who loved seeing the Crew insert themselves into the show. Not every SU Crew person who's been represented in a crowd was there, but this crowd included Amish Kumar, Kat Morris, Amanda Winterstein, Angie Wang, Lamar Abrams, Emily Walus, Mary Nash, Joe Johnston, Christy Cohen, Danny Cragg, Hilary Florido, Danny Hynes, Matt Burnett, Ben Levin, Elle Michalka.

The official national flower of South Korea, Hibiscus syriacus, is the name of Pink Diamond's flower.

One of Steven Sugar's comments about the silhouette difference between humans and Gems points out that humans have ears. This seems to be pretty good confirmation that they are not supposed to have ears, despite that sometimes we'll see ears drawn on them in some frames.

Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond is characterized in this book as "self-hating" in a really interesting way, saying that because she believed she was not capable of compassion, she practically worshiped those who demonstrated that ability and thought they were so much better than her--which is described as "intoxicating" and resulted in others being drawn to her. How interesting is that!

Timelines reveal that early plans for Pink Diamond's first Pearl originally had her getting destroyed by Pink during a game, and then her destruction was rewritten as a punishment from the Diamonds after Pink Pearl defended Pink Diamond to the other Diamonds. They went back to the idea of her getting hurt by Pink for the final version, though the cracked face and control by White Diamond was not on the agenda until they started writing "Change Your Mind."

10.

The approximate ages of the major characters, based on emergence, are revealed on these timelines. It begins with a cracked-planet-looking graphic depicting four tiny Diamonds emerging at 20,000 years ago. Some suspicious "blacked out" redacting surrounds a long timeline tail that goes back before that, which may mean there are secrets they still don't want to reveal. But the dates go like this:

20,000 years ago: The Diamonds emerge.

11,000 years ago: Pearl is custom-made for Pink Diamond.

8,000 years ago: Sapphire emerges (on Homeworld).

6,000 years ago: Ruby emerges (on a colony).

5,750 years ago: Garnet is formed.

5,600 years ago: Lapis is poofed and put in the mirror.

5,200 years ago: Jasper emerges (on Earth).

5,050 years ago: The Cluster is planted.

5,000 years ago: Amethyst emerges (on Earth).

4,500 years ago: The Crystal Gems found Amethyst.

3,000 years ago: Peridot emerges (on Homeworld).

40 years ago: Pearl found Lapis's mirror at the Galaxy Warp.

And of course we know 14 years ago Steven is born!

11.

Originally the Diamonds were based on a quartet of themes: Love, Fear, Pride, and Sorrow. It got too complicated to keep and it was abandoned, with Pink's identification of "love" being described as "particularly outdated."

12.

Notes on a sketch say that Pearl was inspired to become bold and unashamed because Pink's questions drove her to have opinions, and it's said that Rose "fell in love" with her boldness.

13.

Rebecca tells the story of driving off a ridge and getting stuck in the desert, comparing this to Ruby's tumble during her Wild West adventure and using it as inspiration. She's told this story before but here it is in print. She also included the story about using the flowers from a friend's wedding to put in Ruby's hair.

14.

Rebecca describes having to "fight" notes she was given when it had to do with Ruby and Sapphire's relationship. One she describes as NOT fighting was for a signing card depicting Ruby and Sapphire dancing. It was called "too romantic" and she decided not to worry about it since it wasn't the actual show content.

She was also scolded over her book The Answer because the powers that be expected her to downplay that relationship. She always argued that queer youth deserved these things.

15.

Tom Herpich describes being inspired to name Blue Diamond's comb "Comby" because he was watching the news about Comey getting fired from the FBI. It's also a mineral-related term and I always assumed that reference was intentional, but maybe it's not and this is the only intended significance to Comby's name?

16.

Rainbow Quartz 2.0's design is not discussed, though the other two new Fusions from "Change Your Mind" (Sunstone and Obsidian) were. RQ2 has some sketches included, but no accompanying narrative in the text.

17.

A sheet of corrupted Gems and their healed selves is offered, though it doesn't appear to be final. The obelisk in "Serious Steven" is labeled Albite. The unnamed Worm Monster, Desert Glass, and Watermelon Tourmaline are included. An unnamed birdlike Gem represents the Big Bird monster from "Giant Woman." The crab monster from "Arcade Mania" is labeled Blue Chalcedony. The Tongue Monster is drawn uncorrupted but not named. The Flower Monster from "Back to the Kindergarten" is labeled Grossular Diopside or Titanite. The invisible monster from "Island Adventure" is labeled Moonstone. The Lighthouse Gem is labeled White Topaz. A form for Larimar that was used in "Change Your Mind" but changed in Future is there. The Slinker is listed as Chrysocolla. And the Crab Monster is listed as Aventurine.

On the next page, this is changed to Bixbite (as it was in Steven Universe Future), and we then also have Lace Amethyst, Blue Lace Agate, Crazy Lace Agate (Fusion), Ocean Jasper, the Mother Centipeetle Nephrite (Facet 413 Cabochon 12) and three other Nephrites, Angel Aura Quartz, a hooded Jasper, Zebra Jasper, Biggs Jasper, Watermelon Tourmaline (labeled as Fusion of Gem * Onion--huh?), Snowflake Obsidian, "Little" Larimar, and Orange Spodumene (who was the Worm).

18.

The Rhodonite side story would have been about the love story of a Ruby and a Pearl working for Morganite. Images of Morganite and her servants, unfused, are in the book. We do not get this additional information, but Rebecca said in a panel shortly before the book's release that Rhodonite's story would have been about finding out that she had been Rejuvenated 17 times because her components kept falling in love and needing to be reset.

19.

Referring to the Diamonds on one of the charts, Steven's perspective is "I can't believe I helped these" and then there's a censor bar. Welp.

20.

Some included art by Hilary Florido features Kevin with a souped-up Koala Princess car and another where Kevin is staring at himself in the mirror in front of an altar to himself.

21.

Rebecca's sweater collection is included in the Crew art.

[SU Book and Comic Reviews]

#steven universe #steven universe end of an era #su spoilers #long post #su merch #myblog

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the-young-and-forgotten · 4 years

Text

Gingerbread and Mistletoe

Ficmas Gingerbread House - @wonderful-writer

Warning/s: tw food mention, tw swearing

prompts:

4) “Will you make a gingerbread house with me?”

25) “You’re already under the mistletoe, so will the two of you stop stalling and kiss already?”

Prompts will be in bold

It was a couple of weeks into the Christmas break. Your friends had all gone home for the holidays. You had nothing to do but look out at the raging blizzard happening outside now that you were stuck like a schmuck at Hogwarts. You had absolutely no one to hangout with. Or so you thought.

Of course, Sirius had to be annoying you every second of the day, not that you minded all that much. The two of you had known each other before you had moved to Hogwarts and he had taken it upon himself to annoy you with every step within this castle.

You had met him a couple of years ago while he was on vacation in America. He and his family had been visiting your state and you might have run him over in the street with your bike. After rushing him to a doctor, you also might have developed a slight crush on him (I mean who wouldn’t crash their bike after seeing him?). You were only too happy to bump into him again the next day to hear that he wanted to “hang out with the girl brave enough to make his proud family introduce themselves to a muggle doctor.” He introduced himself as Prince Sirius Black, succumbed to a life of misery and riches. You had discovered that while you went to Ilvermorny, he went to the highly praised school of Hogwarts Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Then, about 3 months ago due to some issues, you and your family were driven out of America to England. It took much persuasion, but your parents finally let you enrol in Hogwarts. Which brought you to the present.

You were glad to see Sirius again… sort of… You had a fair idea of how annoying he could be but his constant presence and prying questions was driving you insane. You had wondered how his friends coped with it. But after a day of observing, you included they were all equally insane as him. Well, the exception being the scarred boy. He just looked like an exhausted mother on her last cup of coffee.

Unfortunately, the school transfer did bring back that old crush you were sure you had got rid of. Obviously you hadn’t quite squashed those feelings enough. The only one in this school who knew about your crush on Sirius was James and you had sworn him to secrecy. He knew if he told anyone or did anything to push it along, he’d be instantly dead.

But, no matter how insane Sirius seemed you could deal with it. After all, this wasn’t the first time. But one thing you couldn’t handle was the throngs of girls that nipped at his heels and hung onto his every word. You knew he was good-looking, but did he deserve his own cult? The girls aggravated you so much, making you wish violent thoughts on them and causing a pang of jealousy in your heart.

A few days with those fangirls was okay, but when you found out this happened everyday, you could now understand Remus’ constant look of aggravation and the quiet sighs from Peter and James when this happened.

But today was worse than usual, due to the quidditch game he’d won a couple of days ago, girls were swarming him. You snuck away to the library, before the jealousy caused you to act rashly. You hid amongst the Divination books, hoping he and his herd of girls wouldn’t find you.

But to no avail. “What a boring section to hide in, love.” A cocky voice called out. Sirius walked out between two stacks of books a wide smirk on his face. “But then again, you and I had never seen eye to eye on everything.” He picked up a book with an eye on it and tapped it, his smirk somehow stretching wider.

You cross your arms in mock anger but you couldn’t help smirking at his pun and seeing that he didn’t have any desperate girls tagging along. “That pun was lame and you know it. Plus, no one likes Divination so I figured this would be the best place to hide.” He plonked himself down on the boxes beside you. His smile stretched even farther, irritating you slightly.

“Pretty obvious spot though. People would expect you to hide here. If I were to hide, I would go to the Transfiguration section, it's a painfully obvious spot, but no one expects it. So you failed.” “It didn’t fail if it means there were no brain-dead bimbos following you here.” You snap at him. “Ahhh, so you wanted to be alone with me.” He leant in close, making your face light up like a lava lamp.

You turn away and stand up, trying to distract yourself. “C’mon, Y/n. Is it that hard to believe I just want to do something fun with my friend! We have a lot of options! Afterall, it's Christmas time!! We could go sledding, sneak out to Hogsmeade or we could-” His eyes light up. “Will you make a gingerbread house with me?” you turn to stare at him in disbelief and scoff. “A gingerbread house?!” He nods his head comically “Sirius, you haven’t even touched any baking ingredients, how will you know what to do?”

He picks himself off the boxes and grabs your arm. He pulls you out of the library and towards the kitchens. “It’s called an adventure Y/n, search up the definition.” “I’ve done enough crazy shit with you to know what an adventure is.” You grumble under your breath.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The two of you stood at a counter in the kitchen, the decorations and gingerbread house pieces spread out around you. “Right… so what's next?” Sirius asks, the confusion prominent in his voice. You pull all the pieces towards you and start filling him in on what's happening “Luckily, the house elves were nice enough to get us the muggle pieces which are already pre-made, so we just have to decorate it.”

Hearing no response, you turn towards him, question on your lips. You stop short and stare at him. He was leaning on the counter and staring off into space. Doing nothing but continuously eating the bowl of lollies in front of him. You slap his hand away, startling him. “Those are for the house! Not you!” He lowered his head looking awfully sheepish. You relented. “Okay, maybe a few.” You wink at him and pop a few into your mouth.

“Right!” Clapping your hands together you turn back to the gingerbread house pieces. “Let's get into it!!”

Long story short, It was messy work. The sides fell down about a dozen times,causing a lot of anger. The two of you alternating between eating the lollies and putting them on the house. Luckily for the two of you, the house elves had endless amounts of sweets so you never ran out.

Adding the icing with Sirius was extremely aggravating for you. He couldn’t seem to get the hang of the piper and was putting it everywhere. But he kept on persisting that he could do it. After he had covered practically the entire bench with the icing you snatched it off him. “Oh, just give it here you incompetent pureblood.” It took a bit of time, but you finally finished decorating and icing the whole thing.

When it was finished, you were positively bursting at how great the gingerbread house had turned out. Reaching over you, Sirius picked up the tray and started out of the kitchens. Turning back, he smiled at you. “Lets go share this with the boys, I know they’ll want a bite.”

“Wait up!” You run after him, trying to grab the tray from him, but he just pushed ahead faster and faster. “Slow down!” you shout desperately trying to catch him, weaving between random students. “Why do you have to be so goddamn fast?” You said, with a slight whiny tone. But he just laughed and ran on.

When you guys finally arrived at the Gryffindor Tower, you were panting for breath. Several people had been pushed over along your run. You had certainly made your presence known in the hallways. Taking a deep breath, you walk up to Sirius who was standing a little way away. “Can I hold the house now?” You whine. He rolls his eyes at your tone of voice but hands it over to you.

He turns towards the Fat Lady and gives the password. As it swings open, he holds it open long enough for you to walk through. You stumble on the threshold but Sirius catches you before you or the house falls. You blush furiously as he helps you right yourself. The two of you look away from each other, the air now extremely awkward.

You hear an ‘ahem’ from the corner of the common room and look up to see the rest of the arauders there. Peter had a sly grin on his face, Remus was giggling and James looked extremely aggravated. You knew straight away that knew where you had been. James stared you down before throwing his hands up in exasperation. “You’re already under the mistletoe, so will the two of you stop stalling and kiss already?” Gaping in shock, you look up and see he’s right. You hear Sirius groan and bury his face in his hands as you glare back at James. ‘You’re dead’ you mouth. He just smirks and points to the mistletoe. “Get on it” he shouts.

You reluctantly look back at Sirius. Much like you, he was a blushing mess. You had never seen him look this hesitant about anything. He seemed to weigh something in his mind before leaning toward you.

Due to the huge gingerbread house in your arms he had to awkwardly lean over it, which made the situation 100% more weird. Hesitantly, he placed his lips on yours.

The kiss was sweet and short but it might as well have lasted a lifetime. He gasps in shock, and you knew he had felt the same thing as you had. The two of you pull away giggling, blushing more than before.

You hear the shouts of joy from the boys and you remember James’ betrayal. “Wait here, Sirius. I need to kill your best friend.” You transport the gingerbread house to Sirius’ arms and run towards James, the boy's laughter echoing in your ears.

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taglist: @just-a-belgian-girl @loonyvee @kashishwrites @lilgoddesshines

#Sirius Black #sirius black x reader #sirius x reader #sirius black imagine #sirius #sirius black fanfiction #sirius black oneshot #hailey’s ficmas wc #sirius x y/n #sirius black x y/n #sirius x you #sirius black x you #sirius black fluff #sirius black christmas fic #fanfiction #tw food mention #tw swearing

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niuniente · 5 years

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TATTOOING GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS

Congratulations! You have decided to take the leap of faith and have your very first tattoo! By this time, I assume you have already found your artist and made sure their style fits the tattoo you had in mind (you wouldn’t order a wedding cake from a bread bakery with no cake expertise, even when both do baking, right? So, choose an artist who naturally does the tattoos and the styles you want to have on your skin. A well chosen artist is better and cheaper than cover up tattoos or laser treatments)

Here’s a little guide for you to help your journey from the beginning to healed tattoo; from a tattooed woman who has also worked in a tattoo shop.

BEFORE TATTOOING

- I recommend moisturizing the about-to-get-tattooed area daily for a week. Healthy, moisture skin absorbs ink better and is easier for the tattooer to work with. When tattoo heals, it will dry your skin anyway, so it’s nice if the skin already has some head start with the daily moisturizing.

- Be healthy! If you are sick, do not go to get a tattoo. Contact your tattooer and change your appointment. This includes hangovers.

- For ladies on periods, I recommend not to go get your first tattoo just before periods, when your skin is sensitive. It is possible (been there, done that), but it hurts far less without this extra hormonal burden. Of course, not all women get these symptoms and you know your body the best, so if your periods are easy ones, you might not hurt any more extra whilst getting tattooed on this time.

- Take a shower! Seriously, go wash yourself.

- Shave the tattooed area. Tattoo shops can do this for you but it’s faster if you do it yourself.

ON THE TATTOOING DAY

- Eat well before tattooing if possible. It is important to keep your blood sugar levels good.

- If you didn’t shower or shave the previous day, do it now.

- Take, if possible, ibuprofen before you sit under the needle. Ibuprofen prevents swelling, which makes you feel more comfortable, helps the tattooer’s work and also helps with the pain and healing afterwards.

- Put on comfortable clothes, which can be easily removed from the tattooed area. You can pack with you clothes which you change into when you get into the tattoo shop. The longer the tattooing takes, the more comfortable you want to be in your clothes. No one’s there to rate your looks, and if they are, the place is full of jerks.

- Take sugary snacks and drink with you! Very important! Your body will naturally react to the pain with a panic, which causes jumps in your blood sugar. Have sips and bites of your snack whenever you start to feel uncomfortable, dizzy or nauseous, as it is the first sign your body needs some sweet help. Fruit juices, baby smoothies, energy bars and chocolate work wonders.

- It’s OK to bring some entertainment with you, like a book, a tablet, comics or a handheld console. Would you prefer to watch a movie while your tattooer works on your tattoo, go ahead!

- Let your tattooer know if you are prone to nausea or dizziness when you feel pain or are nervous. It is OK to admit this! The tattooer knows then to keep an eye on you and take breaks with you if needed. Your tattooer is there to serve you, not to judge or mock you (and if they judge and mock, they are an asshole and should have their tattooing machine pushed sideways up to their rectum)

- Would you get shaky while being tattooed, eat & drink something. If this doesn’t help know that it is most likely just your anxiousness/nervousness/fear leaving your body, as you have now faced the fear and are starting to relax. (Would you for some start to shake heavily while feeling really, really bad, inform your tattooer about it.)

- Speak honestly about your tattoo to your tattooer! If you don’t like the tattoo size or its placement, inform your tattooer about it before you start inking. The place and the size can be fixed as many times as needed. There’s rarely need for more than tiny adjustments with a good tattooer, but if you want adjustments, ask for them. Remember, your tattooer is there for you.

AFTER TATTOOING

- Follow the instructions you get from your tattooer and contact them immediately if something seems to be wrong. Would you get a full-blown infection (you need to be super uncaring and sloppy to get this), go first to doctor to get medication for it.

- Wash your tattoo with a mild soap as often as instructed. I prefer organic baby soaps, as they are mild and often contains 100% or almost 100% natural ingredients only.

- After washing, tap your tattoo dry. I prefer to let my tattoo air dry a little before I put on lotion. For lotion, I recommend Tattoo Goo’s products. Tattoo Goo salve is especially good for dry skin, but it takes time to apply it. Tattoo Goo products are available in multiple countries.

- When you tattoo starts to itch a lot, you may apply pure 100% coconut oil on it. Coconut oil is antibacterial and very good for dry skins, like mine. But first 3 days or so I always use a proper tattoo salve.

- If itching gets really bad, take allergy medication. It helps some people. Would you tattoo itch a lot and be clearly infected, go to doctor.

- Your fresh tattoo will sting and burn after you remove its cover. It is normal. Small redness with slight warmness is also normal. Below is a fresh tattoo of mine, taken yesterday. Notice the swelling and redness around left side of the pic. The area is also swollen from liquids.

- Tattoos gather liquid around them, especially in legs. Your leg/arm might get swollen due this (the bigger the tattoo, the greater the natural swelling) and the leg tattoos tend to hurt when you stand up and go to walk. This is normal, too, and will go away from a few days to a few weeks. We all heal differently.

- It is OK to take pain killer if the tattoo aches a lot afterwards.

- LET YOUR TATTOO BE FREE WITHOUT ANY CLOTHING AS MUCH AS YOU CAN. Oxygen really does miracles for healing. Just avoid bumping your tattoo on different surfaces to avoid infection. Wash often. You can sleep without covers, too. I would recommend changing sheets before, though, especially if you have a big tattoo which comes easily in contact with the linen.

- Avoid excessive drinking, smoking etc. if possible, as healthy life style -> a healthy body -> your tattoo healing faster.

WILL TATTOOING HURT?

Yes. It will. But I’d say mostly for the first 5-10 minutes. After that, your body’s natural alarm reaction goes off and at least gets more quiet. It’s like “OMG WE’RE GETTING KILLED WHY DON’T YOU DO ANYTHING OH NEVER MIND IT’S NOTHING”.

How much it hurts depends on the area, your personal pain endurance and are you are a man or a woman (and for ladies your hormonal cycle). For some reason, men tend to hurt more while getting tattooed. Sensitive areas for men are neck, chest, back, stomach and sides, for some also back of legs. For women, there are generally no super sensitive areas aside the areas which are already sensitive naturally, like crook of arms, neck or groins. This is probably due childbirth’s evolution.

Does it hurt also depends where the tattoo will be located. I have big piece done on outer side of my right leg, running from knee to ankle. I almost fell asleep while getting it done! However, the tattoo I showed you above is at the back of my leg, near angle, and it was a lot more painful!

Good areas for a first tattoo are legs (esp. lower legs and outer thighs), arms (esp. lower arm and outer upper arm), shoulders and upper back if you are unsure of the pain.

When people, who take big tattoos like a sleeve, say that they can’t take tattooing any more but need to stop, it’s mostly not because it hurts but because it feels annoying. Like, ANNOYING. Like a sound which first alarms you, then you get used to it but eventually it starts to annoy you so much that you just want it to shut up. It is personal how long you can take tattooing before the annoyance gets too irritating. My first annoyance is after 3h, so I think I might survive to 4h-4,5h mark only. My friend can sit for 6-7 hours. It is OK to let your tattooer know if your limit has been reached or if you’d want to have your big piece done in multiple shorter sessions.

HOW DOES IT FEEL LIKE?

I saw someone comparing tattooing to a really tight and strong clothespin pinching you with only a tiny piece of your skin in between its hold, and I find that rather accurate. Stinging also happens.

I wouldn’t compare tattoo needle to any needles, not to doctor&nurse needles, not to vaccination needles, not even to piercing needles. It is really a feeling of its own!

HAPPY TATTOOING AND REMARK MY WORDS; YOU GET ONE AND AFTER THAT, YOU WANT TO GET 10 MORE :D

#tattoo #tattoos #tattoo guide #tattooing #tattooing for beginners #fiction #fac #tattoo tips #i'm hunting down typos I'm sorry

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Scottrospective: Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness

Welcome back my Scottaholics! We’re moving right along fun and fancy free just a few days later from Book 2 to 3. Which fits: As I mentioned in my review of book 1 I first encountered Scott, Ramona and Wallace in a free comic book story, and VERY intrigued, bought volumes 2 and 3 from the same comic shop after reading it in line.. or maybe I went there again later and bought them. My brain is a foggy sinkhole. Point is I was hooked from then on out, and bought the next three volumes as I came out, and through the internet because by then i’d leanred to use Amazon. Ironic given Ramona’s work for them is not only iconic to the series but plot important in volumes 1 and 2. As is Scott’s package toss in the movie. But the story of my long wait for volume 4 can wait for February. Point is it was these two and Free Scott PIlgrim are the ones I poured over again and agian, obessing over as a teen and the ones that stick in my brain the most. But even with that last time the exaustive process of covering it exposed a LOT of volume 2′s weakness: While it has a lot of iconic scenes, including Scott accidently convincing a man to skateboard himself to death, the Ramona and Knives fight, the envy call, the flashback, and is still very enjoyable..it also feels the most like a collection of loose events out of the books. Good stuff and character and tone wise better than last time.. but not quite as narratively strong. The series was GETTING there, the art was solidfiying into it’s final form, the characters were in the right place, SCott was more likeable.. but it hadn’t quite hit it’s stride yet. Three guesses when it did and the first two didn’t count. Infinite Sadness is one of my favorite volumes, along with 4 and 6. And while part of that is nostaliga and a personal connection.. the bulk of it is just this volume being even BETTER on the re-read. I picked up subtle bits that I didn’t notice before that only enritched the experince, the pacing is sublime, the character work is top notch and compelling, the art work is finally crystlalized into what the series is known for, and would only get even better as it goes, and the fights are some of the series best. This is one hell of a story and I warmly invite you to join me as I break it down after the break.

Previously on Scott Pilgrim: Scott defeated Lucas Lee, the second Evil Ex, met Luke Wilson, and prepared to go to his ex girlfriend’s concert despite this being a terrible idea to discuss a gig. It was there he and Ramona found out Envy’s base player Todd, the douchenozzle who she cheated on Scott with, is also the douchenozzle Ramona cheated on Lucas with.

So we open.. exactly from that moment, with Scott and Ramona starring wide eyed while the band plays in an utterly dazzling sequence that’s been brought up a notch in the color remaster. Also one of a handful of moments that was barely touched from page to screen, with only slight adaptations to make it better on screen, and the addition of Metric’s now iconic “Black Sheep”. And when reading the scene.. I couldn’t resisit turning black sheep on as it matched it perfectly.. so yeah have the Clash at the Demonhead performance from the film

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So while that worms it’s way into your head, let’s talk about the character designs for Clash Of the Demonhead, since volume 2 is the last time in the color editions O’Malley really talks about character origins and stuff. I could’ve missed something of course, we’ll see as we go won’t we. I just saved it for here as the Volume 2 review was running a bit long as is and while their shown on covers and on the back cover of the black and white edition, they don’t show up in person and in their full glory till the last panel, hence saving it for here where Envy and Todd are the main antagonists and Lynette is... plot relevant.

Envy was based on the front woman for the band Metric, Emily Haines, designed much like hanes to be a tough, confrotnational, sexy woman, his words not mine, who’d gone through a lot of change in a few years since according to him, and i’m willing to take his word for it since I don’t know the band outside of the one song he picked for the movie, a lot of the bands songs are about that. And honeslty it makes me want to check them out more, as does how awesome black sheep is I can’t belivie I took this long, and is supremely intresting as I hadn’t realized there was a good reason there wasn’t just an original song written for clash at the demonhead. I mean if you base your character on the frontwoman for a band why NOT use one of their songs.

Speaking of band, Plumtree’s drummer, Lynette Gillis, was the inspiration for Lynette Gycott, though the final version of her is more cold and robotic and less like Gillis than initially envisioned.

Finally Todd..was based on Scott, and while he evolved out from that a bit especially in powers.. the concept basically stuck as Todd is a stronger, dumber, more agressive and douchey version of Scott whose mistreatment of women is far more deliberate than Scott’s untetional douchebaggery.

So after some interview segments for some sort of documentary on the band with the crowd, we cut to our heroes after the show, all standing around and being nervous. Stephen’s first words are “Decent show eh, told you they were good”.

Admitely re-reading this one and answering a reader question, unrealted but it got me to thinking, made me realize Stephen wasn’t AS much of a dick as I thought: I didn’t think about the fact Scott and Envy’s blow up cost him their old band which was close to singing, and that Scott both as revealed in volume 3 and in bits here, was kind of a dick towards the end, intitating the breakup while drunk and belligernt and saying a facepunchingly dickish comment we’ll get to. So he wasn’t BLAMELESS and it’s understandable Stephen dosen’t hate her as much. She was friends with his horrible albatross of a girlfriend and didn’t break his heart.

However.. he’s still an asshole and deserve jeff blim’s theatrical fuck you up there. He still ignores Scott’s pain, or the fact that most of the breakup WAS Envy’s fault as we’ll see. We’ll get into it in full obviously but for the cliffs notes so I can yell at a fictional grumpy closted canadian man: She slowly drifted away from him, treated him like he had no say in a band he helped found or took his feelings into account in the record deal, and cheated on him with Todd and possibly another guy. And as seen here she used her fame to bribe her ex and friends into showing up just so, as we see, she can torture him and his new girlfriend a bit. Envy is not a good person and Stephen is ignoring that and his friends VERY obvious emtoinal turmoil. Especially dickish since by this point Scott has clearly swallowed his pride and agreed to a show with someone who really DEEPLY hurt him for Stephen and Kim’s sake.. and he’s not even remotely greatful for it clearly. The only reason he’s not the biggest asshole left in the building is because Todd, Envy and Julie, queen of bitches, is in there.

So after a save point gag that goes nowhere, Envy shows up to take the group back stage... awkward, uncomfortable and very intentional silence insues to makes Scott even more sweaty and nervous and Ramona visably and understandably annoyed. Knives tries to talk to her hero but gets ignored because Envy’s a bitch.. and so’s Julie who not only joins in the shunning of a fucking teenager who clearly loves this band, but also is clearly trying to conversationally surgically attach her lips to Envy’s ass. Her toadying is obnxoious as you’d expect and as transparent as you’d expect, trying to drudge up old nostalgia while Envy’s clearly barely intrested, and the only thing that makes it more tolerable than normal Julie is Envy clearly barely tolerates this and likely is only going with it because she could be a useful minon in the future.

Thankfully this is broken up. Unthakfully it’s by knives shouting her most iconic line:

Given Envy is shown to not be the best person.. her response is to have her cyborg goon belt knives in the face

Which leads to an even better line seconds later

Envy then to just .. complete the circle of being a bitch has NEil take knives out then mocks her when Julie explains why knives and neil were even here. And it’s VERY telling that even Julie, who was must minutes from humping envy’s leg and begging to go with her when she leaves, is visably put off by Envy’s attitude. So while Ramona is understandably fucking done with this, as even she has some shred of sympathy for the teenager who tried to stab her a day ago, Scott has to take a minute to have a flashback. We see two brief bits of Scott with Envy, at the start of their college band Kid Chamelon where they were all happy.. and shortly after the breakup where Scott is miserable, in the middle of the street, sadly saying their name while saying “I’m so alone”.. explaning that desert bit from volume 1.. and making it ten times more painful. Nicely done Brian.

So with Knives gone we get our usual character age intros and descriptoins, my favioritte being Stephen “wants a damn buritto dammit” which I can relate to and thankfully got it monday. He also does show a bit more of his noble self as, things have escalated to the point even he can see Envy has some sort of evil scheme planned and he walked right into it so he asks what her ulterior motive is. Julie pipes up with “She dosen’t NEED ulterior motives she was written up with in spin!”

So Envy grills Ramona a bit clearly trying to make her squirm..though at least when Julie TRIES to jump in she shoots her down, like some asshole pulling a yappy dog on it’s leash hard. Eventually Scott flips out and .. well I don’t want to overpanel this review but this is just.. quotes cannot do this justice.

The result.. is the reveal Todd is psychic due to being a vegan and he throwing scott through a wall with telkenisis, kyle!

It’s explained he has these powers because he’s a vegan and even was top of his class at the vegan academy. Citation... needed. Not because of his power but because Todd may be one of the stupidest beings that’s ever lived. And I once had a friend whose other friend told me, since they’d be going to diffrent high schools and he was trying to pass off his mummies curse of keeping him from destroying himself with his own stupidity, tried to run into a wall to loose weight. No I don’t get how this would’ve worked but having known the guy I guarnatee he was arrogant and dumb enough at the time to try it. Nowadays I assume he’s much better... I assume. You.. you’d have to be to have survived another decade.

Todd is also THAT kind of smug dickhead. Thankfully I haven’t met one in real life or online, as the two vegetarians I have known, one of my best friends micheal and my uncle drew, the former of whom now also eats fish and the latter of whom gave it up once he moved to places he could get meat that was raced humanely easier, but who I still respect for having that amount of self control. But Todd is a clear parody of the type of vegan and vegetarian who think their better than everyone.. by thinking he’s even BETTER than regular vegans because not every vegan can take the strain of psychic powers, with Kim naturally sniping at him.. then flipping him off when he says “don’t get snippy babe” and is very lucky he has psychic powers as otherwise he’d suddenly be wondering where his dick is and why kim’s holding a broken bottle.

Brian also pokes fun at the old 90 percent of your brain trope. You know the old one that claims you only use 10 percent..

But it’s only because your only ACTIVELY using it and the rest is simply other functions. But hey we got Deathstroke out of that claim so good enough. Todd claims it’s because the other 90 percent is curds and whey. This might be the greatest use of this outdated trope in human history. No.. no.. it is. It exactly is.

Envy brags that’s why he can’t beat him having clearly traded disappearing up her own ass for disappearing up todd’s, Julie was also crammed up there, it was getting crowded. Envy claims to have been with todd since age 11.. which.. is more.. delusion than anything and she brushes off Ramona rightfully pointing out that’d mean he cheated on her with Ramona as Rammy trying to distract her and trying to smack talk SCott more who has another flashback.

SOME YEARS AGO.. I DUNNO 5? 5 YEARS AGO?

We see Scott’s first meeting with Envy, who was rooming with Julie. Julie, it might shock you.. has not changed at all in 5 or so years. She’s seen bitching at her roomate Natalie V. Adams, the future Envy, for not wanting to get drunk and high and for hanging out in her room with all her anime posters and stuff. As you can tell, she’s a vastly diffrent person at this point, a nerdy interverted otaku and as you can probably guess now the flashbacks have started at the top, we’ll be seeing how she became the sexpot rockstar she is now and how that drove a wedge betwene her and Scott. Julie SHOCKINGLY does not take this well and as Stephen to kil lher if she ever becomes friends with her. I mean I would but If I could travel into fictional works I certainly woudln’t be wasting my time murdering Julie. I’d be asking kim out and trying to get into some cool video game ablities myself. I ain’t got time for that bitch.

Next cut Julie is ... even worse as she’s calling Scott some “jerky jerky ladykiller”, pointing out he’s hooked up with recurring background characters Sandra and Monique. Now GRANTED, Scott could’ve hurt them and Julie could be right for once.. we’ve seen he has a history of being an insenstive douche by pure accident. But.. from the sounds of it given his encounters with Sandra and Monique were both in seperate ladies rooms, as in casual hookups I assume are common in universities. As long as he used a condom and dind’t lie about being in it longterm, who the hell does it hurt. Same if he and Natlie ended up being that. He’s not a “ladykiller” if he got busy on a washroom sink. He just had casual sex in an awful location and given Scott is both horny and stupid freqently, I could buy he either inittated it clumsily and sandra and or monqiue went for it, or one of them thought he was cute and wanted a quick one with him and it just never went anywhere either due to lack of intrest or Scott being kind of a moron. I don’t buy he INTENTIONALLY hurt anyone, he MIGHT of hurt Sandra she seems kind of ditzy and might’ve not realized it wans’t serious.. but it just entirely sounds like a casual, consesual one time hookup with two seperate women. And as long as he wore a condom and repsected their needs what the fuck is it Julie’s buisness. BEcause their here freinds? I mean they told her but they weren’t expecting her to play dick sheirff with scott probably. And Natlie is not her buisness: their not really friends.. she’s just trying to ruin Scott’s day. I honestly get the sense she only hates Scott because she can’t get rid of him, Stephen won’t dump him as a friend and he fucked her friends once. Which makes me hate her MORE. Natlie/Envy however also calls bullshit and thinks Scott’s much too awkward to be a ladykiller. Accurate. I mean he’s good with women and gets dates easily, he’s just not inteitonally leaving them high and dry. He’s just not great with empathy.

Scott snaps back to the present and gets pissed.. and we get the real reason for the outburst as he shouts “You you ass! She USED to be NICE!”. It’s very clear that Scott blames Todd for Envy’s change into an cold and cruel person. But .. that’s not on him entirely. I do think Envy’s cattier, more cruel “play with prey like a cat with a mouse” personality at this point is due to Todd feeding into her worse impulses.... but the flashbacks make clear even before she saw him again she was slowly changing as a person for better, gaining a drive and passion for music.. and for worse, shutting scott out cheating on him and generally not carring about anything but her career, especially Scott. As much as he wants to belivie it she didn’t MAGICALLY change into a bitch overnight and beating todd won’t fix that. She became what she is as a choice. Todd just made what she became worse.

After the predictable result of Scott getting flung into the air and falling back down, he has another flashback and we see the next phase of their relationship: Scott, Envy and Stephen playing in a band for Stacey and Wallace (!), whose hair is certainly a... choice. And the two falling in love and julie grilling scott on if he and nat are a couple because why stop making me wish for a bus to hit you NOW Jules?

So we then get ANOTHER iconic line and another scene that was perfectly translated into the film

Comic gold no matter the medium.. Brandon Routh just nailed it and I watched the scene again before writing this just out of curoisty. Flawless stuff. Check it out

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I will say however that while Movie!Envy’s response of just quickly covering is pretty funny.. I prefer the comic’s envy’s utterly baffled and pissed off “What are you talking about Todd?”. Even she can’t fathom what the fuck just happened. But since it’s late and Todd’s brain is pretty fried, Envy calls for everyone to get some sleep and they’ll regroup tommorow at 1pm at Honest Ed’s. Honest Ed’s WAS a famous discount Store in Canada that sadly closed in 2016, making what ‘s about to happen to it here sad in hindsight. It was known for big sales, big spectacle and i’ts larger than life owner who sadly passed a few years after this volume. But god bless him for giving this series one of it’s best settings. More on that when we get there for now FLASHBACK

Back in College, we see Nat’s change into envy as she sells all her stuff for some bitching new boots and cd’s and during sex with Scott asks him to start calling her Envy. Their still somewhat happy, as the next flashback has Scott remembering their 8 month anniversary and her playfully mocking him as the girl.. before we get a much starker one of him telling her he loved her and her not responding.. and looking at him.. more.. bored than anything.

Back in the present our heroes try to wait out the rain under a bank thing, can relate to the times i’ve visted the city and came out to rain, and when that fails Kim says she’s off and will see them at practice and tells Stephen to blow her when he asks her if she’s going to Honest Ed’s, then seems genuinly confused if he pissed her off before heading home. Swing and a miss stevie, swing and a miss.

Scott is hungry and sorta drags Ramona, whose not in the mood for anything, over to Pizza Pete’s a nearbye eatery. It’s there they happen to run into Other Scott... Other Scott is another guy named Scott. He dosen’t do much in the books. But the name Other Scott is objectively funny and he is objectively nice so he’s fine in my book and I applaud the movie for using him as Wallace’s love intrest. Though I wouldn’t be REMOTELY suprised if they were fucking in the books too. And of course with him is Wallace himself, who really is just.. entering this volume in the most Wallace way possible.

A little drunk, eating some cheap but good food, with a million dollar style and in just the exact right place at the exact right time. If that’s not Wallace Wells, I don’t know what is. Wallace and Other Scott were clubbin, not a huge suprise given Wallace has his own deep and complicated social life we never see and Wallace is naturally a little bit absolutley livid when he finds out Scott went to see Envy’s show anyway despite you know, putting him in a misery coma. Who do you think has to clean you and feed you when your like that Scott? Elves? Well I mean .. Wallace MIGHT be an elf.. but he stilld soen’t want to do either of those things. He breifly gets sidetracked by the fact that Scott is wearing his shirt.. maybe. I mean he wore it the other day but given their living situation it’s honestly hard to tell. Ramona reminds him of his priorites

That’s part of the fun of rereading these again so soon after rereading them in december: I’m noticing tons of little moments like this I didn’t really before. The two explain things, including Ramona pointing out Scott’s extra stupid around Envy. I mean it’s a bit mean to point out given this is clearly a lot for him.

Wallace brushes it off and promises to help him train like a true pal before being prompted to talk about this new boy he picked up Mobile.. who we wont’ see in person for a while but Wallace is clearly head over heels for and begs Scott to let him have the apartment.. or more accuratley Ramona, whose clearly not in the best of moods with Scott, to take him. His sales pitch is immaculate

So she agrees and a friendship is forged based on mutual hatred and being someone’s dipping sauce bitch. I’ve forged longer lasting friendships on far less. Also Wallace forgot his keys but wisely banked on his Gladstone Gander esque luck to help him out.. seriously i’m convinced he has a lower yield version of that. Or God wants to bang him but can’t because his penis is so powerful it CAN SPLIT A MOUNTAIN IN TWAINNNNN. You make the call.

So they sleep it off, and Scott heads home early next morning.. and forgot he gave wallace his keys. Thankfully wallace finds him, and even got him donuts for when he came back, what a guy, makes you cry and I did. He also shows off a new trick about using your chi to dust rain off you. Turns out Mobile is psyhich which.. dosen’t come into play but for vallad reasons: Scott assumes Mobile can just.. give him psyhic powers and training but a) he and Wallace JUST met and while they’ll remain together for the rest of the series, it’s a big ask to have him help train his best friend to fight a man as dumb and chisled as a mountain, and B) “It dosen’t work that way” meaning scott’s probably not psi adept and even if he can be taught, there’s not NEARLY enough time for him to get good enough at shielding himself from Telkenisis in time given Todd’s already fighting him today and has two other oppprotunites afterwords to beat his ass to death. There’s just not enough time. So scott collapses with a donut in his mouth.. are .. are we sure this isn’t just a more attractive more sucessful canadian alternate me?

We flashback to when Wallace met Envy and since i’ts post-becoming envy, it dosen’t go well and he hates her immidetly, and expects Scott to break up with her asap.. which while bitchy.. actually woudl’ve been a good move in the long run. And “Bitchily phrased but a good move in the long run” has apparently always been Wallace’s go-to move.

In the present Wallace helps Scott , who thinks everything sucks, realize it does not, with the help of fresh bacon and perspective, helping him avoid thinking Envy is “back” when she’s just vistiing and somewhat forces him to admit it’s not happening again nor should it. And implicity your both with other people, you’ve moved on, stay moved on. ANOTHER Flashback, this time with Envy asking Scott how he and Wallace met after dinner with Scott’s parents. It’s the story we’ve been hinting at since.. uh last volume.

And indeed it is somewhat gay! Behold! The origin of a friendship to piece the heavens or .. something like that. I’m tired.

It’s a quick breezy story that honestly both explains a lot and is what you’d expect; Wallace taking an intrest, Wallace presumibly realising Scott is straight off screen but deciding fuck it I like this guy let’s be pals instead, and jjust sorta showing up at his house. But since it’s Wallace and he and Scott both love gaming.. it just stuck. And it’s easy to see why. Scott’s a bit of an introvert and Wallace is a ton of an extrovert. Wallce is nice, naturally charming and endlessly cool, and as you can see it took him probably just an afternoon to go from freaking scott out for showing up randomly, to Scott talking the guy up and clearly being the bosom buddies they are now. The two just ballance each other out well. Wallace need’s scott’s weirdness and general heart, and Scott needs Wallace to keep him from running into the brick walls of life via his own stupidity and conflict avoidance. It’s what they do, they make it a two player game.

So later that day, and some off screen training later, presumibly to the song Two Player Game despite the fact it didn’t exist yet, our heroes (Scott, Ramona and Wallace), Villians (Envy and Todd) and other not so much evil as just cretionus assholes (Stephen and Julie) arrive. It’s also clear that Envy just made up the challenge as she went and I fucking love it, just saying they’ll run to the back, try and kill each other and no psychic powers, with Scott’s own handicap being “He isn’t a surivivor” which earns a rightful you unebleiviable bitch from wallace and a just ast rightful “fair enough” from Scott.

Stephen wonders what the deal is and Julie’s answer is... I don’t.. I can’t unpack this.

Meanwhile Wallace says “I hate her so much” Which I THINK was meant for Envy, but as a teen I interpited as being for Julie. Then again it being BOTH is entirely possible given no one can stand Julie for more than five mintues other than Stephen. And that’s because he’s still in the closet and hasn’t come out as bi or gay and thus sees her as a safe option or he really sucks with his taste in partners. Or a little from collumn a , a little from collumn b. So yeah Scott wants a Strategy and Wallace has.. nothing other than “Well he can’t use his powers so.. use that. I guess.. I dunno. I’m hungover” though Ramona warns he can’t go long without using them without freaking out. So gooood? I’m starting to think Kim is the most useful member in his crew for this fight.. and she’s the one who decided to nope out of it because she didn’t want to watch his ex pick him apart mentally and her muscly new boyfriend pick him apart with MIND BULLETS. Wallace isn’t really helping this go round, though he’s still a treasure, Ramona is trying but dosen’t have much, and Stephen thought bringing Julie was in any way shape or form a good idea. Which really sums up their entire relationship so it’s not surprising, it just makes me question why the two are friends at all.

No really, out of Scott’s three close friends.. this friendship feels the most like two guys who just used to hang out but have no real reason too other than convience. Wallace would go to bat for scott.. with an actual bat.. to Envy’s skull. He just dosen’t want to go to jail.. again. Kim pines for him, pun intended, and also does care, she just dosen’t show it because scott’s kinda a moron parade and an insenstivity brunch rolled into one. So she sticks around even though it hurts to. Stephen.. lost his big shot in part due to Scott (Though Envy’s pushness and lack of consideration for his feelings didn’t help), his shrew of a girlfriend hates him and he’s not that good at bass... and I just got it. While Tornoto’s a big city , he’s probably not sure if Kim would be doing this without Scott. He’s.. entirely still his friend because he needs a bass player and kim’s a damn fine drummer whose hard to replace. I just got it.. it makes him a self serving douchecanoe for only being someone's friend because he needs a bass player even though he doesn’t like him, but I at least GET IT now.

So the rush into Honest Ed’s begins and.. my god this whole sequence is sublimely redelcous. It feels like what would ACTUALLY happen if two guys fought for the reasons scott and todd are fighting: just two idiots dinking around in a discount store. Scott dosen’t even last a few seconds before shouting in response to Todd’s taunts “We are all dead”, tripping while looking for eyeware and well..

Meanwhile Todd starts to break down while shouting FATHEERRRRRRR like all good psychics. As for how long this beautiful nonsense has been going on....

Oh and if you thought it hadn’t gotten redicously hilarious enough... wait till you see what’s next.

No words.. should’ve.. sent a poet.. got a tubby asshole who reviews comics, disney shows and disney comics instead....

So we then get a montage in todd’s head with his SHOCKINGLY OLD dad telling him he dosen’t have the willpower to be a vegan.. Lynette telling him she’s his for the taking and Envy will never know as she opens her shirt, and

Gideon.. showing he not only consults the league but confriming what the audience and scott realized: He’s behind these assholes.. but it also shows how much. He’s actively coaching them.. and granted we KNEW the exes were in contact with one another given Lucas was having an understandable sigh about Matthew.. but this shows Gideon isn’t just some player and this isn’t some automated service. He brought them all together. The how ends up being hilarious, and we’ll get to that but while it was obvious he was the final boss this is a nice and terrifying bit of clarification. As for what happened next.. well Todd freaks out with his powers from not using them

Really sad in hindsight.. but still really funny despite the horrifying concidence. So yeah our hero declares victory but dind’t really when and things just kinda end. This segment went basically nowhere and acomplished nothing. .but was still really fun, with great lines and is one of the most memorable and awesome scenes in the series. It also shows the series growth between volumes: Last volume had a lot of cool moments.. but no real plot structure, just a bunch of things that needed to happen to get here. With Volume 3.. things are VERY tightly plotted, and even a fun but kinda pointless diversion like this... still fits in perfectly, giving us a second Scott and Todd fight to build him up, showing off just HOW powerful Todd is, and fleshing out the tofu headed douche a bit. As we’ve seen this volume still has it’s little slice of life moments the series does well. their just well put into a very compelling and fast paced plot, one we’re fully invested in as we see Scott’s torment and Ramona’s mounting anger at envy’s bullshit. It helps that Envy and Todd are the second best big bads of a volume behind gideon himslef in the fimale, with Roxy close at their heels if you were curious. Envy just oozes ego and superiority and is fun to watch every time, while we see moments once in a while that show she’s still human underneath even if she acts like a goddes.. and is admitely one of my types but that’s enough of that. She provides a nice contrast to ramona, also being standofish and mysterious but wheras ramona is clearly mysterious out of shame for a past she’s not proud of Envy is out of a past.. she has no reason to flee from and was never that bad.The only part Envy kept was Todd which was an objectively bad decision.

Todd meanwhile like all the exes as I re-realized.. is a mirror to scott. Each one has a piece of his worse traits amplified and expanded. So far Patel has been scott’s dorkyness, expanded from

To being a giant showy hipster douche desperate to seem cool and important. Lucas is scott’s afabliity and laziness taken to just outright avoiding a fight.. not nearly as bad as the others given he still has one of Scott’s best qualities with no drawbacks. But Todd.. is probably the ex that mirrors scott the second most. Besides both being base players with shaggy hair, both are delightfully stupid, both have a lot of charisma besides that and both are extremley good in a fight. But noticably.. Todd zigs a lot where Scott zags and the simlarites sort of stop. While both are objectively attractive, Todd is more conventinually chisled while Scott is more adorable, expertly reflected in the movie by having former Superman Brandon Routh opposite former George Micheal, Micheal Cera. Todd’s ablities are mental while Scott’s are entirely in martial arts and later swordplay. Todd has a rough relationship with his dad who never supported him and constnatly doubted him while Scott’s parents fully support him and love him uncdoitoinaly and despite his protests and annoyance with them.. it’s clear he still cares about them and loves them. And most damingly.. Scott treats people like garbage sometimes.. but it’s because he’s oblivoius. He’s a finaical burden on Wallace, cheated on Knives, gave Kim no closure, blew up Stephen’s chances at the big time, and in general can be kind of a dick.. but NONE of that is intetnional. It dosen’t make it okay, the books make that clear.. but it’s why we can still root for him: It’s something that can be fixed. Scott hurts people a lot but he lacks gneuinely malicious intent. He leaves a lot of pain in his wake.. but it’s because he’s socially inept, and again and I say this as someone with atusitim myself, defintely on the spectrum , so he dosen’t GET he’s hurting people unless they tell him. Something that will probably not shock you but I relate to and has happened to me in the past, hence while i’ll clal him a douche or stupid, because he’s both, I do sympathize with the guy as the whilrwilnd of descrution is just him being so intent on being seen as a good person and moving past things he can’t see the wreckage in ihs wake, and the series is about him growing past that mindset.

Todd.. is just an entitled dick who KNOWS he’s probably going to hurt people but does the things anyway because he thinks as a rock star he can do whatever he wants. As a Vegan he’s superior so he’s allwoed to do WHATEVER he wants. He’s so obessed with making his dad not see him as a failure he’s developed an Ego that can only be visualized properly using well.. Ego

That’s what his ego has become. He’s so up his own ass his head is coming out of his mouth somehow. He’s so in love with himself he’s probably googled “How to make a sexy clone of yourself”. He’s scott’s oblivoiusness and selfishness, but with genuine intent. He’s scott if he KNEW what he was doing was wrong.. and said fuck it anyway i’m a rockstar baby. Todd, is EASILY what scott could’ve been at envy’s side had they not broken up.. successful.. but an utter bastard who only cares about themselves. Anyways we cut to practice that night were Stephen is spiraling and Kim declines going to the show.. not for the obvious reasons of wanting to avoid another round of “watch Envy tourture scott before Todd beats his skull in with his psychic powers”, but because she has a date. Lucky bastard. The guys are naturally as tactful as you’d expect about this and suggest she’s doing a collage or puzzles before she shuts htem down and they awkardly recover and I laugh my ass off.

So Scott and Ramona head out, trading some talk and what have you and having some Sushi, not going there often because they can’t afford it.. but it’s cool Scott swipied Wallace’s card. When pressed on his douchebaggery Scott assures her.

We’ll get more into this next time, but needless to say Scott’s mooching is finally becoming a plot point next time. Speaking of next time on the way to the show Ramona realizes “Wait why the hell are we doing this” and convinces Scott not to go as they can relax, have a night off, cuddle and stuff, and then Scott can fight Todd tommorow at the big show. Why DO they need to sit in with two assholes who are only inviting them to fuck with their heads some more. Well okay one asshole while Todd is okay with all this he probably just mubled some “sure whatevers” while trying to solve a rubix cube while Envy outlined her plans to him before rearanging the stickers so he could win.. I Mean with his mind so it’s sitll a little impressive but still.

So they TRY making out, complete with being in their undies.. but it just dosen’t work as both of them keep picturing Envy’s face and that’s not good for either of them.

AND it was at this point fucking tumblr.. ate an hour’s worth of work I just did. Probably not something you need to know or care about but something that pisses me off greatly as I was approaching the end of the review and now have to either retype or entirely rethink what I JUST spent a while working hard on.

And this time I mean it. The only reason i’m not giving up and shelving this review for a bit.. is ithat i’m a stubborn bastard who refuses to give up that easily and who needed to vent about this to somewhere.

So Ramona finally comes clean about Todd.. and in a nice moment admits to cheating on Lucas with him “It wasn’t very nice but I wasn’t a nice person”. It’s a small thing, something I didn’t notice before.. but it’s actually a big step given how guarded Ramona is to admit to doing something this bad. Last volume, just a few days ago time wise, she lied entirely about this and probably has no idea Scott knows already. But she’s being honest, telling him the truth so he’ll be prepared for what’s coming and know the full story. The full story is they were both little shits who raised hell together till Todd disappeared for a while. He shows up as you’d expect, dickishily interupting class before explaning Dairy Scientests kidnapped and experimented on him. He also says this

So he proves his love. in the most badass and horrifying way possible: BY MAKING ONE OF THE TWO BIG NOTICABLE CRATERS ON THE GODDAMN MOON.

One of the series best jokes. Ramona also takes a hard pass to learning about envy and asks about Kim... not for any reason.. just thinks sh’es nice. It’s not like she wants to make out with her face.. a lot. Just.. girl things. SHUT UP. She’s also unsatisfied with Scott’s piss take version of his relationship with her. Closing out the chapter, Knives.. has somehow climbed a huge pile of billboardsi n the middle of tornoto.. which would be awesome.. if it weren’t such a beautifully sad image.

Whelp my heart just exploded with pain at this poor girl whose lost the love of her live, which is a goood thing mind you but dosen’t mean it dosen’t hurt less, her faviorte band and her highlights all in the span of a month. Moving on as we approach the final act, we get a brief scene as Todd orders some Gelato, which is itallian icec ream, very not vegan and Envy does not relaize this. Todd however rants about being a rock star, being so above people and as for the rules

We also get this lovely bit

And then they make out and i’ts treated as a big shocker despite.. us.. finding that out several dozen pages ago. We know already.

Back at Scott and Wallace’s place, Ramona shows up with cool new blue hairdoo, which I agree with Wallace is awesome and admits she changes her hair up every couple of weeks.. someething that in the color version we do see better. We also get a gag that no longer makes sense as he asks if that’s her natural haircolor and she says yay and the caption admits this was funnier in black and white. Eh one or two jokes for some really pretty colors is a fair enough trade.

Scott however once again bitches about his hair, despite Ramona pointing out to him and Wallace that.. there’s like dozens of haircut places within walking distance. I remain unsuprised thier that oblivous. But to shut her boyfriend up she agrees to cut his hair and while they do asks what Envy’s actual name is.. scott’s response .. is pretty heartbreaking “Natalie. She stopped liking it. Then she stopped liking me. So Scott shows up with his NEW HAIR CUT.. aka his old one just trimmed up a bit, but the one you see in modern merch and the game. A bit shaggy but not as long. Scott reassures Stephen whose spiraling with panic that it won’t be the same as last time and they’ll have fun. Kim, understandably and having not been told anything, wonders what “last time was”. After everyone chimes in Kid chamelon i’ts time for another FLASHBACK.. as you were probably expecting by now.. but this time I added some proper effects to spice it up.

So we find out more of whta drove a wedge between the two: Envy slowly but surely took a tryanical death grip on the band, adding some guy named Joel on the drums, possibly the same guy from Crash and the Boys, and bumping Scott to bass, without asking him or Stephen about this and just sorta.. demanding it. While her intetnions are understandable, she just wants the band’s best sound.. her actions are still head tiltingly obnoxious, and clearly show she had not studied rock history yet as usually taking absolute control of the band and ignoring your band mates is the easiet way to destroy a band. Sometimes it’s just envy, pun unintneded but welcome, but yeah.. it’s no wonder they didn’t last. Scott is also shown to be more and more uncomfortable with the band going from a fun thing he did with his friend and girlfriend.. to something that could make him famous.. something he’s very transparently not ready for and dosen’t want. And it makes sense: he was just a dumb college kid in love.. he didn’t start the band for fame or glory.. he just wanted to have fun. Same with his current band. And while in the PRESENT his lack of ambition can be obnoxious and will be a problem in the next volume, here.. he’s still in college and sudeenly got thrust into a career he dosen’t want with a person who no longer loves or respects him. It’s understandable that he’s a nervous , miserable wreck.

So in the present, Stephen is throwing up and asking for julie and Scott.. is a dick and ignores him. Were it anyone else and any other relationship currrently int he books I would actually give a shit. So he wonders around a bit, running into some teens who are intrested in him, word travels fast apparently, Julie, who for once displays a human emotion of concern for Stephen or the closest she can, and thankfully Wallace, Stacey and Micheal,who now has a spooky skeleton ring from the future and badly needs his own spinoff. Stacey TRIES to pump her brother up.. but it’s clear he’s in no good mental place for that and trudges off while Wallace, man of the year, worries about him. One GOOD THING about the astronomical setback that happened is in the orignal draft of this.. I forgot to talk about Stacey. Despite promising to. So here it goes: After this Stacey.. just sorta vanishes from the series. She’s still around and while not super promient gets a decent amount of screentime in the finale, she makes cameos before then. But from this book on she’s no longer a main character like she was in the first two books. There she had several scenes, lots of focus, and her own mini arc in the first one about Wallace stealing her boyfriends. There’s. an actual reason for this as O’Malley regretted naming her after his sister and thus basically stopped writing her unless he had to, sticking her in once in a while to assure fans he hadn’t forgotten her but removing her from the main plot. That being said while his reason is weak.. I dn’t think it’s the ONLY reason she slid into the background. The main cast already had 6 characters, and on top of that this volume heavily focuses on Envy, the next adds Lisa Miller to the mix, and every volume frmo this one on has increased focus on the ex of the week, building them up more as characters and giving them way more screen time. Stacey.. really didn’t have a unique niche or roll in the sotry the other 5 non-scott leads didn’t: Knives filled out the position as the baby of Scott’s friend group, Ramona and Wallace served as better voices of reason, Kim and Wallace had better chemistry with Ramona and thus worked better as her friends, and Stpehn. did nothing she did but still at least had a part to play as band leader and the only one of Sex Bomb-Omb with ambition. Stacey is not a bd character and DID deserve to still be way more prominent.. but her move to the back let Kim take her place and rightfully so. And not just because of the crush on kim thing, Kim’s just more compelling and tha’ts an objective fact. Still would’ve been nice to learn more about Stacey though.

Scott then frees his girlfriend from a conversatoin with Sandra and Monique, as Julie bitchily told both about Gideon which Envy told her about, because as your every couple of paragraphs reminder, Julie is a piece of shit. Scott then orders them some alchols, breaking his usual teetotling and runs into kim, hollie and joseph. with Hollie here to see the band and .. Joseph here to see todd. At least h’es honest.. for this volume. Anyways, our happy couple soon split off for a bit and while we bounce back and forth.. i’m just going to cover what hapepned with each seperately as SOMEHOW tumblr once again ate a good hour’s worth of work, this review is already a day late, and I have both abother one and a dental apointment today. So in short

Ramona and Kim: Kim fills Ramona in on her past.. via tone down, seemingly contridctary, and as we’ll find out later the true version of what happened: She was with Simon, he was a dick, Scott showed up he was also a dick, things happened. I guess. Ramona is disapointed, though Kim does provide some crucial info on her moving to tronto.. and reuniting with scott.

It honestly.. explains a LOT of why Scott is the way he is what happened with Envy. He saw Envy change entirley as a person.. and thus feels changing as a person , and smoking, is a sign of something bad.. when really it just means.. your changing. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worst but we area LWAYS changing and it took me a lont time to realize that. The two are distracted from this though by Todd sloppily making out with Lynette in front of everyone.

We’re also reintroduced to Crash and the Boys, now redubbed the boys and crash, and seemingly playing music without intsturments. The thorughly lovely and rediculous explinaton for this and their new gloves and goggles, i’ll save for in a bit.

Scott and Envy, Scott and Knives: Scott goes out to get some air.. only to find Envy, who despite menally tourturing him for a few days insits they talk like regular people.. Scott wisely counters with “Nat when did we ever talk like real people” and while saying he won’t get to call her that again, it still chips down her walls for a second and shows that a bit of who she used to be, loath as she is to admit it, is still there.

Scott then spots knives... and has a moment of truth. And a hell of a series of reaction panels

It’s a VERY good scene.. that i’ve written about TWICE now but regardless, it shows Scott.. genuinely changing. Ignoring his past actions, running away from them and trying to pretend he never fucked up once... that’s been his go to. It’s his main flaw and hte one that takes the entire series to deal with as we’ll get into. And it’s here.. he faces it for the first time. He’s scared of knives at first.. but realizes.. he genuinely hurt her, and she’s where she is, cold, alone, and huddled in an ally lost and confused, because of him. Sure Envy hurt her.. but so did he.. and what’s worse. he did it just like Envy hurt him. Not thinking of her as a persona nd throwing her away when he didn’t need her. And so after books of build up.. he finally takes some responisblity and talks to her. It’s WHY the books work: Sure scott’s a dick, and remains a bit of one throughout, but.. he means well, isn’t inteitonally a standoffish prick, and slowly grows PAST this, and tries to be better, for Ramona.. and just because it’s the right thing to do.

So Knives reflects on the past few weeks, admitting that it’s been unbearably painful.. but she can’t and won’t go back to who she used to be. She’s lost her innocnce and all that, been dumped by the “love of her life”, been punched in the face by her faviorite drummer and treated like dogshit by her faviorite artist. Todd did nothing for once but gets no credit because of who we’re dealing with here. Point is.. it was a lot and while sh’es not HAPPY.. she’s greatful for it. Scott however.. steps up, saying what Envy did was wrong, she deserved better.. and finally, after how terribly he broke up wit hher.. apologizes for how he hurt her. And while Knives takes this as hope they’l get back together, Scott continues to be very mature, especially for his usual behavior, telling her no, it won’t happen, to give neil a try as whle she is dating him because he looks like Scott he’s not all bad, and that wallce was right: she was too good for him. And while Knives isn’t ready to accept it.. Scott did the right thing. Good for you man.

So while he, and later kim and stephen seperatly, get ready, Ramona.. runs into Envy. Whose oddly nice for ahlf a second.. before bringing up Gideon and giving Ramona a barrage of insults, clearly trying ONCE AGAIN, to knock her down and wreck her. Thing is while Scott clearlya nd understandably has baggage with Envy is easy prey for her manipulative elephant dung, Ramona. isn’t. All Envy’s done is piss her off more and more with each act of high school level mean girl bullshit... and sh’es done with it.

FIGHT’S ON. This Volume.. is honestly where Ramona really comes into bloom, pun intended, as the duetragonist of the books. While the book IS about Scott getting his life together and their relationship and he’s still her hero.. the books are also about RAMONA growing as a person, her own flaws and past, and the climax of all of them.. is just as much about her as it is scott. And this book has her own flaws come into play: Just like Scott she runs from the past, from who she was, and only faces it when needed, which will become more apparent as we go. But at the same time, we get to see far more of her personality as a result as her mysterious facade continues to drop. She’s prone to getting upset, but also clever and witty and knows her limits, knowing that going to that second performance would’ve just done no good and knowing herself very well, something Scott has genuine trouble with. She’s strong, sarcastic and knows who she is and what she wants and this volume finally brings that into focus. Not only that but her fight with Envy, is just as warranted, climatic and awesome as Scott’s fight coming up, as no one has stood up to envy due to her fame.. but Ramona.. dosen’t care. Someone’s gotta stop her, and Ramona’s taking up the job. And the awesome looking hammer.

That being said taking up a giant hammer against a beloved celebrity dosen’t win you any point, so Ramona finds herself discouraged, even if Envy can very clearly handle herself. Thankfully she gets some encouragment from exactly who you’d expect.

And Wallce.. turns out to be pretty useful. At least in this one fight. His shouting not only gives Ramona her fight back.. but keeps distracting envy, leaving her wide open. The tide turns though when Wallace has to pee, and Envy uses the distraction to knock the hamme rout of Raona’s hand and prepare to flatten her. But once again.. someone save sher in the knick of time.. and this time it’s the LAST person you’d expect, as Knives gives the hammer a flying kick.. and then crashes into a wall, and when Ramona, understandably not getting this since she tried to turn her into swiss cheese earlier this week, asks why, Knives admit’s she just wants Scott to be happy. Knives has grown too, and while she’s still obessed with Scott and waiting for themt o break up.. she’s no longer going to try and wedge her way in. If Ramona is what Scott wants, tha’ts what he gets.

All three are distracted by well.. this...

State of your outfits mates. Though that line is iconic. But serously the outfits are hilaroiusly and reaslitically mismatched. Kim’s home made and overdone gothica lolita outfit that dosen’t match her AT ALL, goth yes , poofy goth no. Stephen’s johnny cash outfit he clearly had lying around and Scott’s Dad Suit.

That being said.. still the best looking one of the three. But Envy takes advantage to regrab the hammer and try and murder the two of them.. but Scott sees this.. and well... you get it by now, one more time. Bake me away toys!

So we get the final weeks or days or whatever of the relationship. In a nice parallel to Scott playing Ramona a song he does the same for Envy.. who both questions what this is for then is confused why he’d do something so sweet. Next scene is her getting a call while their cuddling in bed from some guy she idntiefies as Jason and.. barely disguises is clearly cheating on Scott with. and could possibly be todd I dunno. After that we get to Kid Chamelon preparing to sign a deal and Envy.. trying to press Scott into sginging it, ignoring his obvious discomfort, and then casually threanting to replace him. While Scott does give us a face punchingly dickish comment about “How he started this band to meet chicks and maybe he met the wrong chick”... he’s still somehow in the right as while he’s being a manic dickhead... Envy has ceased seeing him as a person or even something she cares about and tells him to get a hair cut and leave.

We then get the breakup itself as Scott goes up to envy.. and she tells him to get out of her life. ack in the present, Scott’s grown enough to realize he has to stop her and does so.. by touching hte back of her knee which.. uhhhh.

So yeah.. he beat her with an orgasm, and that looks oddly hot. And i’m moving on before that last part of the sentence sinks in. Envy, once she recovers, orders Todd to do a murder on them, but Todd’s not there and Ramona, naturally, brags about him having cheated on her. Envy.. denis.. this.

I .. don’t have time to unpack that. This review is late, I have two other reviews to get to today. Time for ANOTHER flashback.

This time it’s Envy teling a story bok verion of her and Toddd’s relationship. It’s a real poetic and well done sequence. In a nuthsell: Envy and Todd were best friends and deeply in love as kids until todd moved away i’m guessing sometime in middle school. Deeply depressed, Envy sailed through life as sort of a ghost, TRYING to find another connection like that, but failing. Todd returned after she graduated though, and gave her a symbol of his love.. a hole on the moon. Yes another one. And they both promised to never waiver as he went off to the vegan academy. Clearly Envy did with Scott... but it paints her ambition in another light. One where she wanted to be big and bold enough for him.. but slowly carved out her old self to do so.

And as is obvious it was pointlness: not only did Envy love someone else.. but Todd never cared as much as she did. As Ramona points out, and relcutnantly because even she feels a little bad about this one, he did the moon trick with her.. and this time Envy CAN’T deny it.. becaue the evidence is right there.

And of course Todd.. makes his case even WORSE by picking that moment to come out of the bathroom, sipping up his pants, with panties on his head, and with Lynette following right after him. Envy.. tries to murder Lynette, her go to, but LYnette teleports out. Because she can do that. Though Envy does hit her cyborg arm so she looes that and the panties and Ramona offers to mount it at her place if Kim takes the panties, but kim admits she wasn’t scrapbooking, she said she was and was just making the dress. Horay, as ramona puts it “Col se can still be friends. Right.. FRIENDS.

Envy TRIES to cave Todd’s skull in, get some therapy woman, but Todd naturally tk’s it away but despite being the king of all assholes DOES care enough not to fight her. Envy... plays nice then knees him in the nuts like he fucking deserves. Todd then returns to being the once and future douchebag by TK’ing her into the crowd and bragging about it.

Scott dosen’t take this well, even after everything and the final fight begins. They have a bass fight.. but like the game i’ts redicuously one sided since Todd both is a skilled bassist compared to Scott.. and is still using his psychic powers lest you forget he’s a bastard man.

The Boys and Crash however show up to even the odds.. and their trainig is the reason they can play music without insturments as they can now manipulate pur sound. Fucking beautiful. But even they aren’t enough and Todd swats them aside.

While poorly is a bit harsh.. the vegan police show up, which is awesome, though the movie got thomas jane for one of them and had that high five so they win. But yeah.. while this is hilarous.. and the scene with them is great.. it’s also the weakest part of an otherwise near perfect book. It just feels a bit anti clmatic that after all this build up.. Todd is just.. beaten with a sloppy depower. The boys and crash would’ve still been a cop out, but it would’ve been a freaking cool cop out. The thing that saves it is afterwords Scott still gets an epic finish: after they devganize him for the gelato earlier, scott headbutts him epicly and wins. He gets money and.

A 1-up, which understandibly terrfies him but will come in hand in a few volumes. Trust me. Scot checks on everyone. Ramona’s fine, Envy is not and breifly blames scott before he points out Todd was a no good cheating dickwad, and Kim is obviously fine as nothing happend, but him asking is a nice bit of charcter growth. Kim asks about kinves but she’s okay and neil is helping her. But theshow must go on and since the headliners are dead (don’t worry he’ll respawn), in parts unknown and in emotoinal apocalypse, someone’s gotta play.

So our heroes have the show of their lives, and crowd reaction is mostly positive with Jospeh noticing htier levels were horrible, a hint for next time, and the crew interviewing everyone.. including a mysterous gentleman having a beer, who has no commenta nd walks away.

Gideon.. was here the whole time,but he’s not ready for Scott JUST yet. Still a really damn cool tease for the final boss.

So we close the next day, Scott and Envy sorta make up, with both apologizing for their behavor and while Scott gets no closure, envy promises to return.. and makes good on it. But.. that’s for the finale. For now Scott’s girlfriend and best buddy give him a moment to baste in his pathos, before heading off. And in a nice bit of metaphor, the clouds part, and our three amigos walk off into the sunset and a bright future. Three down 4 to go. Next time: Lesbian Artist Ninjas! Side Stories! Scott Gets A Job! The Band gets a producer! Kim gets a decent apartment and a boyfriend! Lisa returns! See you in feburary.

Until then if you liked this review, spread it around andi f ther’es a comic you want me to cover, my comissions are open. Until the next rainbow, it was a pleasure.

#scott pilgrim #scott pilgrim and the infinite sadness #ramona flowers #wallace wells #kim pine #stephen stiles #neil nordgraf #envy adams #todd ingram #lynette gycott #julie powers #other scott #monique #sandra #college #comics #Brian Lee O'malley #oni press

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