#oh how i {still} love toons and old toons in general

[enderina]

An art dump but uh, I like felix the cat now 😀💥💥

This is the first one i did {i used ink to ink it}

And the second,Tho i don't rally like it much

And a little ender too :3

And toon!ender, It's been a while I haven't drew her

And these,

I'll have to do another post for the last ones, And they're my favourite I drew yet :3

[ceilingfan5]

boy enrichment

happy friday! another one for @taznovembercelebration "YES"

“So like, I don’t know any of this nerd shit,” Taako says, flipping his hair a little. “But the lil’ man wants to play, and I want him to get to play, because the next time he gets the zoomies and I have to play Risk I’m gonna fuckin’ Risk It All, you know what I mean? No offence, Ango.” 

“None taken, sir! If I took offence at all of your flippant and seemingly disparaging comments made to distance yourself from real feelings and maintain the dangerously seductive comfort of irony, I’d be in a sorry state, probably!” Angus grins a great big gap toothed grin, not even looking at Taako, who just sort of accepts this as normal. Both of them look at Kravitz expectantly, and he, stunned, realized he’s meant to be formulating an answer and not just being more floored than the sad, sad fucking arcade carpet he won’t replace because he’d have to lose like, a WEEK of business. 

Also it’s vintage. 

“But I’m not!” Angus says, probably for Kravitz’s benefit, and also as a politer way to kick someone under the table, especially when you cannot kick under the counter of his game store. 

“Right,” Kravitz says. “So you want to play DnD.”

“Oh, more than anything, sir!” Angus does a little wiggle that betrays the absolute carbonated excitement lurking under his carefully controlled little bow-tie ass calm. “But even, perhaps, if it were possible to be more than anything and then more than that again, as how some infinities are larger than other infinities, as you may remember from the siren song of calculus, I really, really want to DM!”

“You want to DM?” Kravitz eyes the ten year old. Ten? He thinks Taako said ten. He might have also said five, and that’s definitely not true. Probably. No, definitely. Five is like double toddler. Right? Double and a half? “Dungeon Master,” Angus says helpfully, opening his mouth and taking a thrilled deep breath to elaborate ‘for Kravitz’s benefit’. 

“Right. Well, sh- heck, young man, uh, I admire your enthusiasm,”

“Don’t worry, you can swear in front of me! I’m perfectly well aware of what sort of words you say in what sort of situations. In fact, I’ve been learning a lot about code-switching, and-”

“Hey, lil’man, you gotta win the sale to infodump,” Taako nudges in a stage whisper.

“Right!!!!!” Angus straightens up, vibrating like a Looney Toons arrow. “Regardless, would it be possible to DM at your game store Mr. Kravitz? I promise I would follow any rules and guidelines you set out as appropriate based on your store code of conduct, even if they’re stupid, and Taako can help me bring snacks if that is acceptable!”

Kravitz laughs, getting the hang of it now. He gets it. Maybe he doesn’t get Angus specifically yet, or even kids in general, but oh, does he recognize this flavor. And he would fucking love to enable it as far as he’s allowed. 

“You know what, I do think I have an open table. I’ll put out feelers and see who’s interested. Do you mind a rotating party, or would you prefer to lock in for a certain amount of time?”

“Hmmmm,” Angus says, screwing up his face and clearly mentally flipping through his campaign notes. “Let me consider and prioritize.”

“Yeah, you consider and prioritize, maybe shop around a little, and I’ll chat with your, uh,”

“Taako,” Taako smoulders, which provides no fucking context whatsoever. Who are you to him. ELABORATE!!

“Taako,” Kravitz agrees with a smile. 

Angus bolts off so fast to look at the campaign books and dice that he leaves an Angus-shaped cloud behind, and Taako and Kravitz stifle laughter, because it’s still not like, a huge store, and the little guy probably hears everything he isn’t supposed to. 

“Precocious,” Kravitz says fondly. “You don’t know the half of it,” Taako sighs. “I can’t keep up with him half the time. But man, he cares so hard it wears a hole through me and when I eat it falls out of me like a cartoon skeleton.”

“So true.” Kravitz can’t help but laugh. They’re more the same than Taako may realize. They reek of the same vibe, like the kind of candle you wanna take a big bite out of. “He’s yours?”

“Insomuch as a stray cat is yours, you know?” Taako leans on the game counter and sigh, toying with his hair again, which Kravitz recognizes is a flirting technique and is somehow still kneecapped by. “Like, you can be like, hey, who the fuck lets cats outside? They’re gonna decimate the goddamn bird population, and then where will we be?”

“Ten percent less birdful,” Kravitz says, like that’s a reasonable thing any person has ever said on planet Earth, ever. 

Taako nods, which does nothing to discourage Kravitz’s bullshit. 

“But like, seriously, his legal guardians don’t do shit, and yadda yadda yadda,”

“Plot plot lore,  Kravitz agrees. 

“He’s mine, sort of. He comes and eats my food, at least, you know, when he doesn’t have to fight possums for it.” 

“Does the possum have a name?” Kravitz grins. 

“Garyl,” Taako says, whipping back just as fast. Fuck, Kravitz is obsessed with him. Damn, he had things to do. “He used to be a binicorn in another life, but he can’t escape the cycle, so he came back as a trash gargler. His favorite cheese is provolone.”

“Ooh, mild,” Kravitz says, so outside of himself at the moment that he could pause the livestream and do football drawings and commentary on his own stupid face putting these noises in this order. But Taako laughs, so it’s worth it. He looks at Angus, who is carefully inspecting the Bucket O’ Dice, and digging frantically for one he’s spotted in the very bottom. “I almost want to go open another pound of dice and pour them in, you know, for uh…boy enrichment.”

“Boy enrichment is the name of the game,” Taako agrees. “That tiger needs beefier meat pumpkins than cha’boi can provide. I can’t keep up with him, seriously. I was hoping maybe you’d know more about this shit?”

“Yeah, a little,” Kravitz massively understates, feeling a glowing, strong bond form between him and this alleycat of a kid. “I’d love to let him find his footing here, if you want. And if people want to be freaks about it, I’m not having it.”

“Fuck yeah,” Taako mumbles. “Knew I could trust a pretty guy like you. No one’s snapped you up yet?”

“Too goth and weird,” Kravitz laments, like he isn’t having a heart attack about being called pretty. “I’m as single as the day is long.” 

“Well, it’s Daylight Savings Time, bitch, and it’s about to get real dark.” 

“Are you-” Kravitz can’t help but laugh. “Are you announcing your intentions to pursue me?”

“Is it working?” Taako winks. 

“Yes,” Kravitz has to admit. “Yes it is."

[ID: a gameboard with 15 spaces, 1-5 taken up by stickers of a cat, a fish, "good worker", a door, and a dragon]

[unlimitedgolden]

I wish to acquire knowledge about funny green deer man, quick list your ten favourite tidbits about the character or the Soil Charge Triad to use on you will be decided

⏱️

you've activated my toontown sleeper agent (I NEED TO PLAY IT AGAIN) This is gonna be long so I'll put the reading thing HERE

Dr. Zippety Wonderwhatsit (Just "Zip" for short) was not a generated name, it was handcrafted. "Dr." because I like mad doctor characters, "Zippety" somewhat in reference to "Zebedee" from "The Magic Roundabout", "Wonderwhatsit" to mimic when people say "whatchamacallit", and just shortened to Zip sometimes for peoples sanity.

He was just intended to be a Toontownsona, but has actually now become my fursona. In doing so he's replaced Fatlip, my previous fursona (Though I still cherish Fatlip, since he was made by an old friend I'll never see again)

Zip gets paired with a few of the different characters in TTCC. You've probably seen him with Buck Ruffler and Alton S. Crow, but Dave Brubot is the 3rd addition to his collection of Robot Wives. Zip is also paired with my boyfriends Toon "Cap'n Snappy Gigglesnout". With this, I hope it's obvious Zip is polyamorous!!

Zip does have a sibling, my sisters Toon "Little Pearl" (the kiwi). Though to explain why they're different species and still related? TL;DR what happens when a toon and a cog fall in love + headcanons on how Toons are "born" (drawn into existence) and Zip is the result of a joke, Little Pearl had more thought.

The first gags Zip had were "squirt" and "drop". For Clash players you're probably screaming at the top of your lungs for this combo and in my defence: I thought it was really funny.

A majority of the time you will NOT find Zip without a hat in game, but in art I draw him with nothing added on. This is because he looks so bald in game it hurts my soul. You'll also never find him without those shades, I've never taken them off since the moment I put them on

Zip has influenced both my internet and irl life. During my last hospitalisation I had "toontown fixation withdrawls" and recreated him in Splatoon out of desperation. After that he influenced the decision of getting circle glasses just so I could get matching circle shades, and my favourite sets of clothes that I have bought since his creation are all shades of green (a.k.a my VFX classes worst nightmare). This also means after years of not knowing my favourite colour, it's blatantly obvious what I like now

Zip, like me, is British. Just like me the angrier he gets the more British he sounds (going from "oh my god fuck off die" to "You fucking wanker piss of you tosser. dickhead"

A little ramble: Zip is probably so intertwined with myself because of transgender metaphors. I've seen deers used as trans metaphors with the whole antlers thing, either losing them (mtf) or gaining them (ftm). Sometimes I forget to draw him with antlers but I feel it fits his entire [waves hands] trans thing

FINAL FACT: Zip takes a GREAT PRIDE in his house. It is very well decorated and usually changes around with the seasons (e.g. changing wallpapers to match halloween/christmas). In typing this I realise I've missed a bunch of catalogues in game <- will never recover

OK THATS ALL I THINK <- still could talk more he feels

[cartoon-buffoon]

Here's the objective, factual— if you disagree you're a mook—Cartoon Cat song tier list (/J, this is my personal ranking)

Explanation (going down from the tiers)

S Tier

Toon Catastrophe: I love this song, incredibly catchy with some good lyrics, not what I feel like a standard CC song should be but I think that works for it really well. I think the grim and depressing lyrics about how absolutely fucked you are while this snappy catchy beat really adds to it, there's also a decent part of humor with the humans characters in the song acting casual about this eldtritch monstrosity saying "maybe he needs the ol' litter box!". This part could make some people dislike the song yet I feel like it being goofy actually fits because CC is powerful but having him be a goofy element to his sinister presence does wonders. Not to mention this moment DOES NOT LAST and a few minutes later CC himself sings and comes out with STRAIGHT BARSthat give me chills:

"You can tiptoe and run all you want! I'm on the prowl, and I'm just being blunt but you're lookin' delicious, you're lookin' nutritious, you're probably going to sleep with the fishes! Cartoon Cat, I'm the Cartoon Cat, I'm the one and only, imagine that! The flavor of human is truly divine, let's count down the seconds before you die"

Only for CC to do a whispery countdown and then it goes back to singing. THATS STRAIGHT FIRE deserved top of S-tier plus the visuals look great with CC being stylized but still pretty accurate to Mr. Henderson's works, his walk cycle is pretty eerie and I love that too.

Run Away: it's fucking crazy this is 4 years old and it still holds up. The voice they give CC has been exactly how it sounds in my head since I've watched this It's one of my favorite voices for him with it being incredibly snarky and playful but still sinister. The entire song is essentially CC going on about how he's going to catch you and eat you which granted isn't very creative but with the rhythm so good it doesn't need to be. The simple lyrics work for it as well so the lack of creativity regarding the song doesn't matter, not to mention the bit after the second chorus utilizing a piano has to be my favorite parts. Overall good rhythm and in general solid.

A Tier

I honestly believe both entires in A tier are great and it was hard to put them down here, I wanted to put them both in S and it was a kinda 3-way tie with Run Away being considered to be put down here but ultimately I chose against it.

Tapes of Old: "but this isn't a Cartoon Cat song! It's a cartoon dog song–" SHUT UP MY TIER LIST MY RULES! SHUSH! SHHHH! Sorry but I actually really love this song, it doesn't really paint CD as a "good guy" like some people love to HC him as being the good version of CC meant to kill CC. Instead CD is just another creature with immense power who hates CC and they've had an eternal battle spanning across forever, it's been so long they don't even know why they fight they merely do, it's LITERALLY like cats and dogs. CD is pretty goofy looking in the video yet this works great and the run cycle of him on all fours sprinting creeps me out and if I saw that running at me oh yeah no that would be fucking terrifying. There's a specific section of the song that I believe implies CC and CD are harmonizing as well? Like after the second chorus there's a bit where it goes "our fight continues on and on! It keeps on going, never done! I keep thinking that cat is gone but it tells me RUN, RUN, RUN! it's a cycle I cannot escape, chasing forever this cat and a day, I refuse to take this as my fate! Some day I will put down the stray!". I heavily believe this is both of them singing at once with CD taking over only briefly to talk about the cat not dying, but the part where it goes "some day I will put down the stray!" It switches between the animation of CC walking and CD walking with "stray" being a neutral term for an animal with both calling the other a stray. The shared hatred and story these lyrics give make it soooo good plus it's fun to listen to, yeah once again struggled to put it down here in A.

Masquerade: also once again, I didn't really want to put this in A nor put this below Tapes of Old or Run Away as I believe these 3 are pretty on par with one and another. I bit the bullet though and this song? Although I don't believe it's the BEST CC song, it's my FAVORITE because the lyrics are once again aren't overly creative similar to Run Away and it's merely talking about how he's gonna get ya and you can't hide ya know. I will say though the title of the song and the tagline lyrics "After my little masquerade", I specifically love this masquerade line as it's a reference to the fact that CC isn't a cat nor cartoon. It's one giant act in order to latch onto this world and he just loves pretending to be one because he's something that is god-like. This is especially reflected in the lyrics that paints a real sense of hopelessness as while he also talks about killing he also does a good job demonstrating why running is pointless saying "Oh I have so much power!" Or "oh you don't know what I can do, especially to prey like you". This confidence combined with the voice they gave CC that's echoey and generally emotionless is so good as it once again paints a very vivid picture this is a mere game to him, all of it including your life means nothing to him and you're only alive because he's having fun. He doesn't need to worry about a thing, you're in his sights and it's over. Not to mention the visuals? OOOO, the SFM CC model is the perfect blend between fanon CC and canon CC being a weird middle ground that I think is perfect. I especially love how his ears look furry but their not, like the rest of his body it's pure rubber and it's just him trying to sell the bit of being a cartoon cat. Also towards the end of the song it shows CC commanding several other Mr. Henderson creations which granted isn't realistic as they all stay away from CC and CC also minds his own business, but this idea of him commanding over these twisted creatures kinda like an even more fucked up Bill cipher tickles me in a way I can't describe (and has also inspired an au of mine!). I love this song, sorry.

B tier

While these are good I wouldn't say they are in any way on the same level as A-tier because A-tier holds two songs which only BARELY didn't make the cut to be S and in all reality was more of a 3-way tie.

Curiosity Don't Kill This cat: I don't got much to say, lyrics are pretty standard as you'll see for all of these songs however one thing I will say though I love the much more ominous tone CC has. It feels like the standard for a song about him but other than masquerade I think this is the only one that does it hold throughout the entire song. Also I love the various jokes thrown in throughout the song like "I'm not some hello kitty!" Or "has cat got your tongue!", cat puns are par for the course yet I feel like this song is the only one that fully utilizes them. The beginning is pretty cute I will make a note on that with a kinda jingle for theoretical cartoon featuring CC, a cutesy version of him is also drawn on there which is adorable. The only last thing I will say is like all of these this pretty catchy with the part I keep replaying being "come over and watch me smile bigger, I'm walking on two paws towards my dinner, you're messing with fate and I'm all for it, curiosity don't kill this cat!". It's good overall with the visuals not having too much to comment on other than CC doing the funkiest little wave.

Outrun This Cat: looking back I actually think is pretty good than I first thought? Idk why I put it down so low this belongs in at least low A-tier I'm a fucking moron. Uhh starters the visuals have CC looking ugly as hell which works, ya know he ain't supposed to be pretty and the bloody gums sell this. As he's singing he's also very expressive, his entire body contorting or swaying using a mallet and pulling out a watch at one point. As much as I love ominous slow hunter CC the upbeat, energetic, and chaotic version holds a place in my heart. Towards the end of the song there's also a part with a toon version of CC and normal monstrous looking CC and I find this cool as the idea he can be either form but chooses the more horrific one funny. The lyrics are also solid, once again the standard of "you're gonna die" is set yet I think there is some cleverness like "better run for your life like a rat or it shreds you up instead", which btw the lyrics say "shredders" which I think is an intentional misspelling as it's a mix between shreds and cheddar because ya know, rat? Idk I find it funny shut up, but also the line "you're life on the line, it simply can't compare against my nine!". Nothing Shakespeare level ofv but still pretty good in my opinion, also the song has a bit of story with CC hating humans stating "there is no use for your urbanity, humanity drives mad my sanity" which I think is supposed to come with the implication that he was a cartoon abandoned which is why he hates people as this is supported by the lyric "abanonded in 2D—too bad i jumped to 3D!". Overall catchy and honestly really good than the ranking I gave it—heck there's a remix of this song made by "Mautzi" that features some FUCKING AWESOME THUMBNAIL ART, but also the way they remixed it would probably make it S-tier and beating Cartoon Catastrophe.

C Tier

He's The Cartoon Cat: I don't know, the song on paper isn't bad and I think the beat drop towards the end IS FUCKING INSANE AND CRAZY, but that singular great part doesn't make up for the rest of it being kinda a drag? I will say the optimism in the song only for the build up to the beat drop is phenomenal with the "run... Run... Run away!" Slowly distorting is a nice touch and makes it feel like the song was made by CC himself and hes intentionally trying to strike fear into the listener. Once again one good part doesn't make the entire good thing though yet in no way a bad song.

D tier

Kitty Kitty: I love rockit music yet they are a truly hit or miss nerdcore artist(s), this one sadly misses. Like it's not bad or at least not that bad, if I were listening to it on a playlist and it came on I wouldn't skip it, yet it wouldn't be something intentionally play, ya know? Like not a song I'd search for but if it comes up I'll vibe to it. I think the lyrics here are actually worse than Run Away in terms of nothingness though, it doesn't have that good of a beat to support these nothing lyrics making it suffer drastically. Once again, Rockit music has cooked some of my FAVORITE nerdcore songs but this one ain't it sadly.

That's about it, I ain't got no more tiers. All CC songs have their own merits with a few having somethings that just personally wasn't for me but I'm sure is someone else's cup of tea. That's the last song and there's no more, no more songs left. Anyways ramble over and Toon Buffoon out.

[crystal-lillies]

After watching Peter Pan and Wendy I had the urge to delve into the Peter Pan properties I love, and since I was already there in Disney Plus, I fired up Return to Neverland.

And god man even all these years later it still slaps and shows why it was one of the few (if the only? Iirc, don't quote me) 2000s sequels that was released in theaters rather than DTV.

It's far from perfect but the animation is really good, the heart and through line of the film ring clear and true, and after the dozens of times watching it I still get emotional at the feels gut punch moments like Tink's light going out and Peter's reunion with Wendy at the end.

And something I really appreciated this time was noticing how very young boy-ish Peter and the Lost Boys really are depicted. Playing keep away, the incessant "why" badgering, spit handshakes, chaos incarnate, "we're rolling in dirt and we don't change our shirts" (how BAD must they stink oh my GOD 😂). But then they really do care when and where it counts.

And Hook, despite being a bit tamed and toon-y compared to the '53 original, still has a menace and cunning that's fun to watch.

Peter in this iteration is arguably the animated Peter I enjoy the most because he's softened from his more asshole rigid style of the '53 movie, but it feels like at least a believable progression from his arc in that movie. But like I said, he's still pretty vain and childlike, but he's more in touch with his empathy, which I've always liked. And he has to be so that he can encourage Jane out of her defensive coping mindset.

Also have I mentioned the fucking baller move to set this movie during wartime? The scene of the Jolly Roger flying through London dodging planes is epic, despite the aging CG effects.

Don't even get me started on Mama Wendy, she's so good. A part of me still wishes she could deck Hook in the face for kidnapping Jane because I feel like she totally would if given the chance 😂 Where else did Jane learn to fight?

And Jane. Jane my love! They did such a good job of showing her characterization from start to finish. Even while trying to be serious and grown up at the beginning, she can't help but listen to Wendy tell stories, can't help but enjoy them, despite herself. She doesn't think she has the right to enjoy them, to indulge in fantasy when she's old enough to see and understand war as a concept and how it makes things hard. She thinks Wendy is just making light of things for Danny instead of preparing him for hardship (being practical), when Wendy is doing what she can to keep hope (+faith, trust, pixie dust) alive BECAUSE she knows of the hardship and that holding tight to that will help through any painful time.

It's so good! Executed in a bit less of a nuanced manner than I'm making it out as lol but that's okay for what it is! We don't have time to unpack that because it is a Peter Pan story after all and we gotta spend at least 85% of the time in Neverland haha. But the fact that it's there and serves as one of the emotional cores of the story is more than you can ask for, especially of a Disney sequel let alone a movie in general.

And I'm starting to ramble but point being Return to Neverland is a lot better than it probably needs to be but I'm so glad it went as hard as it did and everyone who worked on it should be proud and anyone who hasn't yet seen it that likes Peter Pan should watch it!

[popculturebuffet]

School House Rock: America Rock 4th of July Special! (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Happy LOUD EXPLOSIONS OUTSIDE MY GODDAMN WINDOW WHILE I'M TRYING TO WRITE THIS day everyone. I almost missed doing an indepdence day specail as in the chaos of my move, reorganizing the schedule, having to play catchup, I plum forgot. Thankfully Kev came in the clutch with something easy I could do and thus this special. Schoolhouse Rock is something I saw once or twice as a kid but was a few generations before mine. It came out of a very wholesome source: add exec David McCall noticed his son, while able to learn song lyrics easy, wasn't great with remembering his multiplication tables. So he awesomely wrote a song, hired a musicain to perform it and if he wasn't already father of the year had someone animated. This caught the attention of Radford Stone, a real person I assure you and an exec at ABC who urged him to pitch it and since micheal eisner liked it enough not to kali ma his heart out, the series got greelit as some educational shorts between programs, a way to edcuate kids in a fun way and one of the earliest edutainment breakthroughs i'm aware of. And that's.. really what these are. Simple little animated shorts with awesome music to edcuate you, with this batch having been on vhs and dvd as a collection. Simple premise, great execution, so let's rock under the cut shall we?

No More Kings: This one is about the colonization of america. Which naturally glosses HEAVILY over the meeting with and eventual subjication of the indigenous persons of this country . So here's wendsday adams to give us the real scoop

Otherwise it's a well done short and I just love their pissy little king george who uses a telescope to spy on america and shake his fist. He's the second greatest king george in history. You likely know the first...

The real question is why HAVEN'T I covered hamilton?

Fireworks Do you ever feel like a plastic bag? because I do. All day every day. Anyways, obvious jokes inside this one is also fire, not only for the stunning visuals of the fireworks, especially ont he budget of a paper clip and a piece of string, but just for the groovy beat for this one. It might be my faviorite of this batch. Aside from the creepy guy chasing a woman around.

The Shot Heard Round the World: .. after I typed that header ANOTHER firework went off in my neighborhood. and then about 4 or 5 as I typed this.. and another.. and another... okay it stopped ... wait no.. okay NOW it stopped. What was I on about? Oh yeah.. this one. It's not bad, but it's not really anything specail. I do however like the house art style for the characters, having most characters in black and white unless they needed to portray another race. THe only thing of not eit really does is feature THE PRIDE OF MOUNT VERNON, GEORGGGEEE WASHINNGTOONNNN!

Preamble It sounds pretty and features John Adams, who sat this one out that FAT MOTHER FU

Elbow Room This is a fun one about the lousiana purchase. Again this being america i'm PRETTY sure there was likely just a touch of genocide underneath this expansion, but it's still a jaunty enough toon.

The Great American Melting Pot Now this one is well meaning, being about how immigration is a good thing , using the old melting pot metaphor. Given how horrendous things have gotten with immigration lately, it's a message that needs to be heard. That said they PROBABLY could've picked a better metaphor than "putting a ton of children inside a giant literal soup pot for a giant lady liberty"

I mean like I said it MEANS well, I just didn't know the statue of liberty fed on the blood of children. My theory was: the statue of liberty likes dog food.

Mother Neciscity

Sufferin Till Suffrage After the nice nap given to me by that last one, we can get into a REALLY FUN one following the embodiment of suffrage as she celebrates how women have the right to vote.. and points out how horribly recent it was gained. It was only 55 years ago when this short aired and it 'll be 103 in august. It's a groovy bit of music about how old assholish men opressed women and how it took decades and decades of struggle for women to get the right to vote. I also like it a lot because unlike a LOT of these , it dosen't sugarcoat things: men opressed women and this was them fighting back for what they always shoudl've had. Simple and awesome, like the best of these.

I'm Just a Bill

Here we are, the GOAT of Schoolhouse Rock, the most iconic one of them. And naturally the one that's been the most parodied with both simpsons

Which, fun fact, I saw way more as a kid than the original. It also makes me laugh way more as an adult because I get it fully. Family guy also took a nice stab at it though instead of doing a full parody they just made a really hilarious joke

It also looks like they got the actual voice of bill to do both of these. What a champ.

I also had the rude awakening right wing doucher Steven Crowder thought doing a parody of it against trans rights was a good idea.

The original though his solid and still works. It's stuck, with me knowing how bills work primarily BECAUSE of this song, and the vocal performance is fucking dynamite. It's a work that really stands the test of time , from the image of bill sadly sittnig onc aptial hill to the jubilant ending of him becoming a law. It's really great stuff and easy to see why it endured enough to get tons of parodies and is clearly still shown in school enough for people to STILL recognize it decades later.

Three Ring Government: This one is about how a goverment is like a circus. Granted I would've had congress and the house both as clown cars full of people who either put party bias over personal intrests or are a giant pack of ghouls who care nothing but for their own power. What i'm saying is while this works perfectly for the intended demo for a jaded old man like me it's pretty fucking depressing, especially since 2/3 of these branches aren't in the best shape right now. It''s not bad on it's own merits, it's just hard to watch and not wince wat what the right is doing to it right now or have done to women, people of color and the country in general.

These are a great batch of shorts though. Maybe one day we'll return to school but for now we say good bye to this and hello to MORE EXPOSIONS. THE EXPLOSIONS NEVER END THE EXPLOSIONS NEVER

And thanks for reading

[suckitsurveys]

Millennial survey

What year were you born in? 1989.

Do you remember a time before smartphones and social media? Yes, I do. I feel like if I didn’t I wouldn’t be old enough for this survey.

Were you part of the generation that experienced the transition from dial-up internet to broadband? Yes.

Did you grow up watching Saturday morning cartoons? For sure. Garfield and Friends was my favorite one to watch Saturday mornings.

Do you have any memories of using floppy disks or cassette tapes? Yup, we used floppy disks in grade school and I had a small collection of tapes as a kid.

How did you communicate with your friends before the advent of text messaging? Landlines and eventually IMs. Or we just talked at school.

Were you a fan of any particular boy band or girl group during your teenage years? NSYNC, but in my “teen” years I was kinda over the “boybands” already. Unless Blink-182 counts as a boyband lol.

Did you ever own a portable CD player or a Walkman? I did indeed.

What was your favorite video game console when you were growing up? N64, hands down.

Did you ever use AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) or MSN Messenger to chat with friends? Oh yes. I had those and Yahoo.

Were you aware of the Y2K bug and the associated concerns leading up to the year 2000? I was. I remember my dad had to stay at work because they were concerned shit might go down.

Did you ever rent movies from a physical video rental store like Blockbuster or Hollywood Video? Every Friday night baby.

Were you into MySpace or LiveJournal during the early days of social networking? MySpace for sure. I loved it. I wish I had access to it still.

What was your first experience with online shopping? I don’t remember.

Did you ever participate in a flash mob or witness one in person? I’ve done neither.

How did you discover new music before the rise of streaming platforms like Spotify? The radio or my friends and family. Or movie soundtracks.

Were you a fan of the “Harry Potter” book series or the “Twilight” saga? Niether.

Did you ever have a MySpace profile and customize it with HTML and CSS? Oh GIRL I was SO into customizing with HTML. I would spend HOURS perfecting it.

What was your favorite TV show or cartoon during your childhood? Garfield and Friends, Pokemon, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Pete and Pete, Clarissa Explains It All, etc.

How did you feel about the transition from traditional television to streaming services? Honestly I love streaming services. I don’t remember much of a “transition” really.

[wheresmyrubyslippers]

Two

You are two and yet you look 4! You've grown exponentially in this past year and it has been amazing to be your mummy and watch you grow.

Last year at around this time, we were at Chirk Castle. You had soft silver unicorn shoes on and a rainbow dress and you were just starting to walk. We watched as you bravely and confidently toddled off, this way and that way, ending with a bump on your bum. You were overjoyed with this new independence and it didn't take long for you to be full speed, all the time! It seems like no time at all passed from when you were just walking to running full tilt in your wellies down the cut, pigtails flying with each bound. Your beautiful, sweet voice shouting "ready, steady, go!" as you raced mummy back from the nursery.

Climbing has always been a forte for you but this past year you have truly mastered clambering up to dangerous heights! You have immense confidence that propels you forward without fear as you tackle obstacles taller than you. Mummy and Daddy are both incredibly proud and ALWAYS on the tip of our toes to catch you. You are rapid so we have to act quickly! When you conquer a new "climbing obstacle" your face alights and you start a circuit until you can do it without even thinking. Our whole house is full of circuits now and depending on which room you are in, we will know where to find you climbing!

You've spent so much time with your cousins on Mondays and "Asagi" (Aunty Sarah). C is besotted with you and always runs to give you the biggest hug ever when he sees you. At this point I think you believe you are both 4 and 7 years old depending on which cousin you are with. You and Thea are two peas in a pod when you are together as you giggle and run off to explore new things. You two are so drastically different and yet there is such love between you, it's beautiful to see. I've never seen such warm hugs from a 2 and 3 year old!

Daddy takes you to Tumble Tots and Diddikicks on the weekend which has given both of you so much confidence. He comes home beaming to tell me about what new feat you've accomplished and how courageous you are. You tackle anything physical with such assertion, nothing can get in your way! Daddy is so proud of you, always. When we go to bed after we get you to sleep (generally after much protesting) we look at pictures of you and marvel at how wonderful you are. We couldn't be more proud and yet we will be.

I have my Fridays with you and we have done some serious exploring. We have been to the zoo, soft plays, aquarium, garden centres, mummy/daughter lunch dates. The way you say "mummy" makes my heart sing and especially, "mummy hug!" even though I know that means that you just want down from somewhere. More recently I have found it a bit harder to keep up with you as your little sister is due to arrive any day but you still find ways to make even the most boring days a bit more adventurous.

This past year you have learned to express yourself more and have had a few "throw yourself on the floor" tantrums when mummy or daddy turns off Minnie's Bow-Toons. More recently you are really picking up on words and their meanings. I love hearing you copy something mummy or daddy has said and putting your own lilt to it. You can count to 10 which is a big deal when you are jumping on your trampoline! You like sleeping with "Hop hop," "goldbear" and "brown bear," and do a pretend snore that is hilarious. There's a game you have started where you shout "STOP" and mummy and daddy have to freeze. You cackle away as you have this magical power to stop adults from putting you in the car seat, changing your nappy, or doing anything you don't quite like! There's also the "Oh No!" game where one of us falls down and we shout "Oh no! Daddy needs a BIGGGGG hug!" and you go and give the best, most reviving hugs EVER to wake daddy back up. It's seeing this playful side and getting to know your personality that has made this last year utterly incredible.

Your third year will see a lot of change as we welcome your baby sister to the family. I hope that, no matter what, you know how deeply you are loved. I will always try and give you those hugs, even when I know they mean escape. I will always try and make you feel how special you truly are. I will always try to cheerlead your singing and dancing to Bluey, Minnie, "let it gooooo." I will never stop trying to be the best mum I can be for you. I love you my 2 year old.

[ramzawrites]

Hello Ram! 💗

I have nine questions for you:

What are your favorite anime series you watched?

What are your favorite anime films/movies you watched?

What are your favorite manga books you read? What kind of general manga books you read? Like examples: horror, supernatural, mystery, comedy, romance, slice of life, isekai, reincarnation, action, school life and drama?

What are your favorite cartoon series you watched?

What are your favorite cartoon/animated movies you watched?

What are your favorite horror movies you watched?

What are your favorite Manhwa/Manhua/Web Toon books you read?

What are your favorite Disney animated movies you watched?

What are your favorite Disney cartoon series you watched?

~🍓 (she)

Oh I have still a weakness for Fairy Tail and Naruto, used to watch them as a kid, Soul Eater is also a good one! Oh, of course Jojo's Bizarre Adventure because the its straight up ridiculous and reminds me that I can do just whatever as long as I have fun

My favorite anime film is definitely Ghibli's Nausicaä, something about the world design and the sense of freedom I get it just mwah

Hmm I used to read manga back in the but nowadays I rarely buy any anymore, I used to by a lot of shonen though like Evangelion, Blue excorcist and Tokyo Ghoul, also have a small collection of detective conan mangas I personally prefer action that leans a bit into mystical themes and magic!

My favorite cartoons are definitely rottmnt/2012 tmnt at the moment, i'm trying to rewatch 2012 because I don't remember a lot anymore lmao

My favorite animated movie is definitely Klaus, its so beautiful and its crazy to think it's a 2D animation made by hand, its crazy also ofc the rottmnt movie is up there as well the fight scene at the end goes HARD

I'm not much a person for horror but I still love the movie Alien, you can argue if its really that much horror but I love it Ridley my 👀

Oh I don't read often web toons or Manwha but I recently started reading one called Omniscient Reader Viewpoint and it's delightful

My favorite Disney movie will always be Aladdin haha, as a kid I really loved Jasmine and thought she was so cool

Oh god my favorite disney cartoon huh, i remember as a kid I watched a ton of little mermaid but I also adored Chip 'n Dale: rescue rangers OH and how can I forget the old Duck Tales series

What about you? You always ask me these questions but never tell me what your favorite is :)

[thelittleboyfromloveactually]

Two Shorten the Road

part 1

joel dawson x reader

warnings: cussing? idk, bad writing.....fluff, cuteness, monsters(is this a warning), mentions of death, SPOILERS

word count: 2154

prompt: when your best friend decides to leave your colony to go find the love of his life, you decide to join him on his journey even if you aren’t so happy about where this journey is going

Welp I did it, I took it into my own hands. I am writing a joel dawson series. Because we👏need 👏more👏joel👏fics👏 it’s basically the movie, almost the same script but obviously slightly different…ENJOY! <3

No one in my generation or later had a typical upbringing, I mean some of us did but then the world ended. This type of thing sounds straight out of some apocalyptic movie, but we basically live in one now. Agatha 616, an asteroid heading straight for earth, I know, so original. So we all came together and did what we do best, blow things up. Yup, we blew up teh asteroid, and humanity was saved! We thought. But here’s the thing about rockets, they are made of a bunch of chemical compounds which eventually rained back down on earth. Suddenly there were these Aileen creatures that mutated and started eating us. Ants, lizards, roaches, crocodiles, you name it. Our president was even killed by a giant moth. Ya….not so original now huh? We suddenly need tanks to kill ants, oh man I remember the good old days when a shoe would do just fine. Sometimes even the tanks didn’t work. Eventually the really big ones and our military took each other out and we lost 95% of the human population in a year! Those of us who survived hid, bunkers, caves, panic rooms, all around the world. So for the last seven years I’ve been hiding in an underground bunker. It’s really not as bad as it sounds, and it’s better than getting eaten alive. It’s a great group of people and we all love each other.

“Are you sure they’re asleep?”

“Who?”

“Y/N and joel!”

“Oh ya I’m sure”

“Joel? Y/n?”

“He’s asleep”

Actually we are both awake. Me and my best friend joel have kinda mastered faking being asleep. Our beds are right across from each other so we normally just lie there and make stupid faces at each other. We are the only two single people in our bunker. Nice huh? Joel is my best friend. I met him when I joined the colony. He’s the sweetest. It’s funny cause everyone thinks we should just have sex already because that’s literally all everyone else does. But we are way above that. Anyway, joel is in love with his girlfriend from before the colony, her name is Aimee. With one “I” and two “e”s. He loves to talk about her, he writes her letters. So in reality, I am the only one who is not in love in this bunker. I’ve never had a boyfriend, ever, even before the world ended.

We don’t really get any sleep. The moaning kinda keeps us awake. I got up and out of my bed and headed for the kitchen. I heard Joel’s bed creak and then his footsteps as he followed behind me. Another annoying thing about being down here is that to get to the kitchen from my room, you have to walk though other people’s bedrooms. Oh shit, they are busy, why would they leave their door open. Me and Joel stopped.

“Oh” joel and I said in unison

“Hey Y/N! Hey Joel!” Ava said

“Oh hey Ava” Joel said, we didn’t dare look over to our left.

“Y/N how’s it going?” Tim asked

“T-totally good tim, h-how are you doing” I asked

“Yeah, good” he responded

“I uh we couldn’t sleep” said Joel looking at the ceiling

“Ya we know the feeling” Ava said with a laugh

“Yeah probably not for the…..same reasons” joel said looking straight ahead

“Your guyses door was open, did you…did you know that?” I asked

“Yeah we know” they said

I shook my head and knitted my eyebrows together

“Okay” joel trailed off

Ever since Tim’s parents were eaten by a swarm of termites he and Ava have gotten really close, in every way.

“Okay, goodnight” joel said as we walked

Basically everyone is coupled up down here, a baby was born last winter! Welcome to the apocalypse kid. Ok if we ever get out of this, that would be an awesome story to tell your kids. “Oh ya I was born in an underground bunker doing a monster apocalypse” “yes exactly like World War Z but with bugs bigger than a 5 story building”. I mean come on.

So your probably wonder how the hell we get food, we’ll we have a cow. Gurdy. Gurdy is great. We also have a hunting party that brings back whatever they can from the surface. It’s gotten harder and harder, cause we ran out of bullets. And facing one of those things with a handmade weapon is just as hard as it sounds. It’s very very difficult. I go with them….sometimes. I still get scared. But I’ve been out quite a lot, especially compared to my man joel over here. I’ve been out maybe 30 times, he’s been out…maybe once, or not even. He’s the chef of the bunker. He makes super good Minestrone.

Me and joel like to hang out with Mavis. A robot. Yup. Not much for conversation, her batter is shot. Just like every other mavis I would imagine. When I’m not hunting we hang out with her. But sometimes I just go read. Reading and joel keep me sane. I mean sometimes joel drives me insane but I still love him. I have quite the collection of books too! I’ve got Emma by Jane Austen, a couple random ones that we found, all the hunger games and Harry Potter books, some mysteries that stopped being mysteries after a while, and then of course some smutty romance books for personal entertainment.

Joel likes to say that his thing is target practice. He has never hit the target but ya know, gotta entertain yourself. I think his thing is drawing though, he has this book that he draws in from Aimee. It’s really cool actually. He’s really good.

I sat watching Joel as he tried to hit the target, laughing a little every time he missed. It was cute how hard he tried.

“Shut up” he said shaking his laugh away

I laughed again, but then suddenly the lights started flickering. You could hear screeches and creeks echoing through the bunker. Joel turned to look at me. Worry and determination in his eyes. We both scrambled out of the room and into the kitchen where everyone was preparing.

“Hustle, hustle people we’ve gotta move”

I turned to look at Joel but then realized that he wasn’t next to me. Where did he go? Worry flooded through me. Suddenly the clanking of our weapon started behind me.

“Hey guys!” Joel said as he rammed into the railing, I shook my head. “Guys! I’ve got the weapons” he smiled at me

A few people walked over to him taking them out of his hands

“Stay” said Tim

“W-what?” Joel asked looking around in confusion

Everyone was talking and barking orders “grab what you need and let’s go! Y/N you coming?”

My eyes shot open “yes! Yup!” I jumped up and grabbed the bow and arrow from Joel.

“W-what's happening?” He asked innocently “what’s going on?”

“There’s a breach” said Tim

“What do you mean? Like inside the bunker breach?!” He asked

“Yes joel! Now come on!” I told him, patting him on the pack as I followed the others

He followed me and watched the plan get arranged

“Anna, Y/N and I will engage. Anderson and Tom plank him”

“Plank him, ya ok where do you guys need me? You want me to uh come through the rear or..?” Joel asked eagerly

“I don’t think your going to pass this joel” I told him

“Pass what? You guys need help, let me help” said clutching his crossbow

“You gonna make me say it?” said Sam

“Say what?!” God he was so adorably clueless

“You can’t handle it joel, your shook” said Sam, we all began getting into positions

“Ya ok, yes so you guys don’t get scared..ever?” He asked still getting ready to fight

“We get scared, we all get scared joel, but you get really scared” said Sam

“They are trying to make you feel bad joel” I said sweetly, trying to calm him down

“We love you joel”

“But your a liability”

“Ok why did that speech feel so rehearsed? And what about Y/N? She’s like…ya know?” He said bobbing his head

“Joel-“ suddenly the bunker shook and the lights flicked again

“Ok 30 meters out! Let’s move!” And we were off

Leaving joel and some others behind. You could hear the growling of whatever we were up against

I followed the others and listened carefully. I was freaking shaking. Don’t ask how I got sucked into becoming one the the hunters. Kinda just happened and I was just-

“OH SHIT!” I heard someone yell, it was too dark to see. Someone was gone, that thing took them. I couldn’t even see it. Oh fuck my life. Everyone began scattering, running away from the monster. I stopped running to take a breath, when I realized I was alone. Nicely done Y/N. The lights kept flickering. I heard something blow up in the distance.

“Conned? Conner?” I heard a whisper, one I knew all too well. Shit, joel. I ran toward the sound, and had no idea I was also running toward certain death. I stopped running. There it was, that thing. I’d never seen this before. I didn’t recognize it. I stayed silent, not moving at all. It slowly crawled over a shower curtain. Oh fuck. He was going toward joel! I quickly grabbed my bow and arrow and shot it. Right though the face. Next to its….eye I guess you could call it. Joel stood there, frozen.

I slowly walked over to him “Joel, hey are you ok?” I asked as I slipped my hand into his. He was trembling. Tears ran down his cheeks. He has a bad freezing problem, so I've been helping him work on it.

About an hour later I sat with Joel, still holding his hand as he stared out into space. We could hear everyone talking. How could this have happened?

“It ripped through steal”

“Anderson and I resealed the Breach point, nothings getting in that way again”

“But why did it happen?”

I tried to toon it out, and I hoped Joel did too.

“Joel, do you wanna talk about it?” I asked squeezing his hand, he looked so sad, which just crushed me

He shook his head

“Ok….” I nodded, I leaned into hug him but was interrupted by his voice

“How far away is Aimee's colony?” He asked

I pulled back, looking at him confused. The talking stopped and everyone look at him

“What?” Tim asked

“Aimee’s colony, how far away is it?” He repeated

“About 85 miles” he said as he furrowed his brows

“How long will it take to get there?”

“What do you mean joel?” I asked leaning closer to him

“Just humor me, how long?” He insisted

“7 days” said Tim

“Someone who’s armed and trained would hardly last 50miles, but you…joel” Ava said, I felt bad for him, he really didn’t deserve any of this

“Alright” Tim continued “now I need volunteers”

“I’m gonna go” joel said

No one said anything, they just stared

“It’s an impossible journey joel” said Tim, crossing his arms

Joel stood up, moving around my chair. “No im serious…I love you guys but there’s only one person in this world who ever truly made me happy and she’s only 85 miles away” he said strongly “I’m gonna go see her” I could see his mind was made up

God he was such a romantic, how could you not love this guy? Sure it hurts when your best friend tells you that you didn’t make him truly happy. Especially when you maybe sorta kinda have a crush on him.

He let out a breath “woah, that felt awesome” he said as he walked off to start packing

I stood there for a second processing and thinking, but then suddenly my mouth took over and well….

“I’m coming with you!” I said, he froze “I mean you can’t leave me here with these middle aged people, and your my best friend so” I shrugged

“I’ll come back for you I promise” he walked over to me “I can’t let you put yourself in even more danger” he said grabbing my arms

“I can’t let you put yourself in danger knowing that I could have helped protect you” I said, he stared blankly at me

I smiled “o-ohK…then I guess…” he trailed off

“Cool I’ll go pack” I skipped past him. Was I scared? Hell yes. But like I said, I needed to help joel and protect him in every way I can. And sure I wasn’t so happy that he was returning to his long lost love but if it made him happy then I would live. And anyway, two do shorten the road.

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

The buttoned list anon here, due to being very tired I forgot some things. Nordic Manga™ are a term used for these Nordic graphic novels at times.

Flow, the main character's best friends, a guy and a girl, have crushes on each other, and while both of them are really important to him... Is there no love triangle!! He ends up with a girl in the end but that's honestly because a certain someone told him she'd get just as sad as his best friends if he died. It honestly felt a little forced, but it won't bother you for most of the 'toon.

Shimanami Tasogare: the leader of the lgbtqia+ friend group is canonically aroace and proud and the series more or less calls aces magic 😄

Ghost Trick: my favorite game, and not much focus on romance whatsoever, there's a lady writing smut who's gross, a simp, and a few couples. But the main character has no romantic/sexual interest in anyone and none have it for him. It's available on iOS and DS. I really wish for a switch HD version (let's pester Capcom) and for it to come to android too.

East, Into The Night: there's no attraction between the main characters and they're just best friends, it's great.

Saber Marionette J: an old SciFi anime I saw first when I was a kid. In the future, humanity tries finding a new planet to live on, going on a ship with a man and a woman from some selected countries. When they find one the group splits up, and a man from Japan, a woman from Germany, a man from Italy, a man from China, a man from Italy, a man from Russia, a man from Germany, and a man from USA remain. The men go down to the planet to explore, but when going to send signal to the woman to land the ship, the ship releases hibernation gas and she instead falls into a deep sleep. Now the men have to clone themselves to ensure the future of humanity, and only get male clones because... That's how generics worked in the 90s? Anyway, our main character is Otaru Mamiya, an ace young man on a planet of gay. To kind of have women, they have created androids called "marionettes" that look and sound like women but have no emotions and are soldiers, and have jobs the men doesn't want to do. Otaru is seen as weird by others as he gets romantically flustered by marionettes but has no interest in men. But one day he awakens Lime, a saber marionette, which means she has a special circuit called the "maiden circuit" that has a powerful AI that not only does she smile, but she also has emotions, acts very human, and has to eat and sleep to recharge. After a while he awakens Cherry and Bloodberry, two other saber marionettes and gets involved in a international incident... The manga adaptation is really pervy, but the anime is still really great. So it's kind of a harem with him and his saber marionettes, but he has no sexual interest in them and a little romantic interest but still cares deeply about them.

Snøkattprinsen, another Nordic Manga™, no romance or sexual tension between the main characters and they stay best friends and the girl doesn't end up with anyone and lives the rest of her life happily single.

Ragnarok, #NordicManga, the main character has no love interest in the first book at least, but doesn't seem interested in those things, so hopefully.

That's all I can remember now. Enjoy :D

Oh wait a sec, the creator of City Vamps I submitted last time. She tried getting it to be an "original" on WebToon, in other words, she'd get employed by them and get a steady income. This would be really good for her as she graduates later this year and wants to work with comics. But she didn't get enough votes sadly, so what if we submit it to the webcomic spot on the Seven Seas survey? That'd be a great graduation gift wouldn't you say?

Also the 4th Norwegian Nordic Manga I know about is Dragens Øye, I dunno if there are any aces, but the main character is non-binary, so that's cool. Since the previously shown Phenomena is illustrated and the books aren't too long am I sure it can be sent in as a light novel on the survey (Phenomena for some reason isn't on the Books from Norway page). The author is Ruben Eliassen as they are easier to find that way, same with Nordlys as if they search for just Nordlys you'll just find nothern lights, and Ragnarok is a bunch too.

Again, thank you for your time and enjoy!

This is such an interesting list, a lot of neat things here. Thanks for the recs, Anon!

[vindrawins]

How Limitless is art right now?

The Lion King and Loney toons respectively, definitely, it's everyone's favorite. And if we see a new generation then we have Klaus and Spider-Man: Into the spider-verse, both won Oscar for only the animation style. In both movies creators exaggerated/stretched the imagination & creativity to such extend so that it directly touches the audience's heart. Entertainment has to be felt through the heart and not by using the brain, mostly. Sorry if I hurt live-action fans, I too love live-action movies and am also a die-heart fan of movies like

Transformers & Avatar (2009), it has its own level of fun but when it comes to exaggerating style then 2D animation work best with infinite possibilities whereas in 3D or live-action creators are limited to making it real. Yes, there are exceptions and they are many.

As a digital artist, I had observed that few artists make paintings so real that you can't find the difference so easily. I'm a fan of artists like RossDraws, SamDoesArt, WLOP, artofWarrenLouw, and many more like them, you will notice all these artists play amazingly become realism and imagination, it's semi-realism. Yeah, that's what makes it so amazing, you can really feel their artwork (especially male audience 🤦🏻‍♂️😳, you got it). And yes, my ultimate aim or goal is to create something which visually pleasing and more about telling stories through this medium. I'm still learning, somewhere between beginner and intermediate level of experience 😁.

Oh! I just forgot about this. You all had definitely watched the upcoming Spider-verse movie's first look, if not have a look here. I'm really excited about this because as I said earlier 'Spider-Man into the spider-verse' was really an exaggerated version of the animated movie I had ever watched recently and it will interesting to see how creators will show the new spider-verse world, are you interested? Let me know in the comments

I think writing is not really my thing 😅 but writing posts like these are putting something effort into writing which triggers the mind to think more elaborately 😬. See you soon with the new artwork. Thank you for reading 😊

[shan2-d2]

As the garbage fire year of 2020 continues, I have been struggling to find something to fill the Schitt’s-Creek-sized hole in my heart.

Which, come to think of it, replaced the Parks-and-Rec-sized hole in my heart prior to that.  I’ve always been a sucker for “soft” television, but with everything going on the world, whatever tolerance I had for heavier fare has disappeared completely.  Like, yeah, I’d love to catch I May Destroy You or I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, but I just. Can’t. Handle. Them. Right now, anyway.  

I do have some old standards to fall back on-- Bob’s Burgers, The Good Place, The Great British Baking Show, and Kim’s Convenience (bless you, Canada) work just fine.  But with so much time at home, I’ve been getting antsy for new, soft, comforting content.

Then I watched Julie and the Phantoms on Netflix.

And I loved it SO. MUCH. 

(Warning, since this is a family-friendly show: profanity ahead.)

Which, I have to admit, I’m kind of embarrassed about.  Like, look: I fully own up to the fact that my tastes aren’t exactly refined or mature.  I’m one of those contemptible “childless millennials”, after all.  There are things on my Netflix and Spotify lists that would make film buffs and hipsters cry.

But what I will give myself a pat on the back for is that I’m extremely open-minded when it comes to any sort of art consumption.  My tastes are super-varied, and I don’t have the burden of worrying about what is “socially acceptable” for me to watch.  I can watch Barry and Fleabag just as happily as I can watch Sarah & Duck (literally, a show for preschoolers that works better than any anti-anxiety medication I’ve tried) and old episodes of Tiny Toon Adventures.

Regardless, there’s embarrassment. Which is not about the fact that it’s a cheesy, High-School-Musical-esque, pre-teen friendly series, actually (... okay, maybe a little), but because the aging freakout is real, my friends.  Hitting the “Oh-My-God, I’d-Have-To-Play-the-PARENT” period of your life is fucking rough.  

Basically, in the words of Roger Murtaugh... I’m too old for this shit.

But I’m trying to tell myself that 1) Generation Z is delightful and I refuse to feel guilt for appreciating them, 2) god knows we’re all watching Stranger Things without embarrassment, and those kids are, like, twelve, and 3) now that I’m apparently ANCIENT, I’m supposed to stop caring about what other people think.

So: Julie and the Phantoms made my heart grow three sizes and I loved it a whole lot.

Quick synopsis: Julie, our hero, is a performing arts school student who is grieving the death of her mom and unable to continue making/playing music because of it.  One day, three ghosts of teenage boys who were in a mid-90’s rock band show up in her garage.  They form a new band (insert title of show here) and help Julie rediscover her love of music, while she helps them navigate the afterlife.  Bonding occurs, lessons are learned, the power of friendship is discovered, you get the idea.

And okay-- at its surface, it’s family-friendly entertainment, you know? Cute story, funny moments, the music is catchy, the whole cast is super talented (and, hey, can actually play their instruments! Whaddaya know!).

But the CHARACTERS!  THE SOFTNESS! THE REPRESENTATION!  If this is how young adults are going to written from now on, sign me the fuck up.

First of all, the two female leads of the show are women of color-- Julie (Madison Reyes) is Latinx and her best friend, Flynn (Jadah Marie), is Black.  That alone is (sadly, STILL) noteworthy, but I literally wanted to stand on my couch and yell about how wonderfully self-assured, smart, mature, strong, and competent these girls are.  Julie, in particular, is just… she’s just so cool, you guys. She never once has to rely on anyone else but herself to get shit done, and she takes responsibility for her own actions.  The girl very clearly knows her talent, capabilities, and worth, and PHEW, do we need to see more young women like her on our screens!  Like, yes, the boys support her, but they’re complete equals.  Julie doesn’t need any male saviors up in this business. She’s got this.  I LOVE HER. I SOMEHOW WANT TO BE HER WHEN I GROW UP, EVEN THOUGH SHE’S LIKE HALF MY AGE (oh GOD. I’m so OLD).

In fact, throughout the series, the importance of honesty, respect, and healthy support is repeatedly emphasized.  There’s no dependency issues here, and lying of any kind is clearly forbidden.  Which I loved, because the whole “teen lying to everyone” storyline has been done to death.

Then there’s the three boys of Sunset Curve-- Luke (Charlie Gillespie), Alex (Owen Joyner), and Reggie (Jeremy Shada), i.e. the messengers of destruction for toxic masculinity.  THIS IS THE MALE FRIENDSHIP PORTRAYAL WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR, PEOPLE.  They’re so nice to each other! They’re so supportive! They’re tactile, openly emotional, and completely devoid of judgment of any interests or behaviors that don’t follow male social standards.  Bless the Age of the Soft Boys, may their reign be unbreakable and everlasting.

Oh, and Alex is openly gay.  It’s not just hinted at-- he’s out and proud, with an adorable crush/pre-relationship with a skater boy named Willie (Booboo Stewart).  And, apart from a quick mention about Alex’s parents being homophobic, the show pretty much takes the Schitt’s Creek route-- all love and acceptance, with not much of a thing made of his sexuality at all (in fact, there’s enough evidence that none of the boys are completely straight, and I’m here for that, too).

And if all of that isn’t enough of a cuddle to the heart for you, THERE’S MORE:

Julie’s supportive, soft dad

Reggie’s immediate, one-sided bond with Julie’s supportive, soft dad and her brother

Julie and Luke totally have crushes on each other and it’s SO SWEET but completely age-appropriate, good job guys

I’m a sucker for good harmonies and the band HAS ‘EM IN SPADES

Flynn being HBIC the entire series

Julie’s crush Nick being very realistically awkward and dopey in the shadow of Luke’s arms (Nick, dude, lose that HAT, I beg of you)

A surprisingly moving side-plot/song about Luke’s parents

Alex just wanting to dance, and also being a high-key feminist and calling out the others when they slip up

EVERYONE’S JUST SO FUCKING NICE, OKAY

So yeah. Shut up. It’s wonderful and pure, and I WILL TAKE ANY SOFTNESS I CAN GET IN THIS HELL YEAR, WHEREVER I CAN GET IT.

In conclusion, Kenny Ortega can have my entire soul if he wants it, for not only this but also Hocus Pocus and Newsies.

Completely Unnecessary Afterword:

Being old enough to remember 1995-- and, specifically, what was popular that year-- has brought up some important questions regarding the Sunset Curve boys:

We know they died in ‘95, but like… when? Did they get to see Empire Records, for Christ’s sake?! Did they see Casper, because, I mean, they’re basically the Devon Sawas of 2020?  Were they spared their contemporaries’ fate of constantly over-quoting Billy Madison and Tommy Boy?  

OH MY GOD, DID THEY HAVE AOL SCREEN NAMES, AND WHAT WERE THEY??

What are each of the guys’ favorite song off of Boyz II Men’s “II”? This is possibly the MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION.

Did they die before Jagged Little Pill came out?  That would kind of break my heart.  Not that I expect Julie to start portraying Alanis-levels of anger/angst, but ‘95 was a YEAR for women in rock.  Garbage, Hole, No Doubt, PJ Harvey, The Cranberries, Veruca Salt, Bjork, and countless others-- they all had massive hits that year.  I love the idea of Julie and the guys sitting around the garage listening to all of those women for inspiration.  Can we have a resurgence of female-led rock bands taking over the charts, please?

On a much more serious note, given where the AIDS crisis was in ‘95, it’s no wonder Alex is a nervous wreck. It’s not really something I expect the show to delve into, but man… getting transported to 2020 might’ve been a bit of a blessing (not that things are great now, but y’know, medical progress).

How in the world did none of them fall victim to the whole “white boys dressing hip-hop” trend back in ‘95? I mean… Clueless got it right. (Wait, did they make it to Clueless??)

[vwildmonk]

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 13 and 14?

B for you also!!

Also: If she were in smash/mario kart, what powers do you think she'd have and what would her vehicle look like???

What's your favorite thing about playing her?

Random thought you have about her that just won't leave your brain?

Putting under a read more as these got long again, but thanks for sending in the ask! Happy to take many more as these are always fun! Also looking forward after a game soon seeing how Lin centric answers change, she’s going to be going through some fun (and happy) things in her near future!

Also excellent extra Qs Frosty, love to see ‘em!

2.  How easy is it for your character to laugh? Laughter… oh tough one cos Lin, she does laugh quite frequently. But some of that is a forced laugh at the end of one of her own ‘look at the peckin’ idiot jokes’ or to misdirect things (both so others dont see and so she doesn’t always have to think too deeply about her words). But she also does laugh genuinely quite a bit as well; family shenanigans, silly stories over warm meals or steaming drinks, watching toon chaos go down that is safe and silly. It’s easy when you know her to get honest laughs- she’s open with those she loves and as they bring her joy the actual warm laughter comes easy. Something that is going to get even easier given time. It’s loud and bright and full of warmth and it’s going to be softer.

3. How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?) At the moment? A sharp drink of a sleeping potion and trying very hard to think happy thoughts as she blacks out- nightmares still come but she does try. Waking half-shifted too few hours later and fighting a shift isn't great... but she slept enough right? 

But In the future? It’s going to be better. Reading sometimes, but also a good cup of Stagehand’s special hot chocolate and a final chat with her boy are going to be important and soft. Making sure he’s asleep, sometimes staying with him to make sure he gets good dreams and nodding off herself. Other nights it’s getting herself in the comfiest pyjamas she can find, snagging a lullapop to put on the bedside table and doing some breathing exercises with Network humming songs to her. Nightmares might still happen, but with a major dangerous card off the table, she’s going to feel easier about getting support. Her dreams are going to get sweeter… and maybe one or two cuddle piles will be helpful. She always sleeps best when she knows family are near and safe, in either of the two places she calls home. The last thought she has when drifting off is the phantom of comforting hands she’s felt in the past full of love and reassurance, slipping into sweet dreams and true sleep knowing everything is alright.

4. How easy is it to earn their trust? It can be quite easy and also quite hard! She’s guarded and needs a reason to trust people. But there are ways, if you seem kind and caring and open- if she sees good and soft present? You show her through your acts that you are someone potentially safe to trust? She’s got a bleeding heart and a wish to help. Having people care for her back and trust in her confirms that bond, She will do her best to prove that the care is well placed. Other ways are steps: You help out children and she sees that? Congratulations you have a little bit of her trust. If she gives you her business card, you’re definitely working your way up as network, and if she invites you around or turns up to a place that you’ve invited her to more than once? Yeah you’ve definitely got her trust then- you might even be family.

5. How easy is it to earn their mistrust? Lin likes to think herself as a wary person, and she is- once bitten twice shy sort of thing- she can get quite railroading on her views. In this world if someone can harm you and gain something from it, they likely will- she’s seen that quite a bit from her cases. So if something sits wrong with her, or she finds things out that taint views, or someone just keeps pushing the wrong buttons it can break that trust or prevent it from ever forming. However, given time and proof Lin can learn to trust people even if she didn’t originally.

Breaking her trust? Withholding dangerous info from her or doing something that takes what little control she has out of her hand. Once you’ve broken or splintered the bond it is going to be incredibly hard to earn it back. 

She’ll beat herself up for months that she didn’t see it coming, or worse question where she went wrong that led to the moment happening. It’s a surefire way to get her walls up and once you’re on a mistrust list it’s tricky to find ways to get off them.

6. Do they consider laws flexible, or immovable? Oh another tough one! Lin sees laws as both. They can be flexible, you can find the loopholes and the strings and manipulate them so the system is the best it can be- work within it to keep people safe and as shielded as possible- with the Law backing you it makes it harder for things to go wrong. At the same time she sees the corruption in places and knows that if things go wrong that immovable authority and strong laws will be worse than hitting a brick wall. Just because laws can do good, doesn’t mean the people behind them always are. It’s one of the reasons she is so worried for Lil Boomer. If that kid gets into trouble enough to actually get caught by the authorities, she’s genuinely unsure how she could get the flexibility to make sure that little reelkind didn’t get hurt.

8. What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child Oh Lin had a lot of people giving her advice as a kid, many different stagehands helping her learn things and also beyond that. She’s got a few snippets she recalls best: “Start/keep exploring, there’s a world full of people Pompom, never stop seeing that.”, “”lil Lin, pompom, kiddo, please for the love of peckin’ gods stop leaping from the rafters to scare folks, do it like this!”, “Never be afraid to come in for a hug pompom dear, always ask permission first mind for most folks, but remember to keep being open- you’re a good kid, keep being soft eh?” … “Pompom… Lin please, whatever the peck is going on stop and talk to us Stop shoving us away! What’s happening to You?! What is wrong with your design? What is wrong with your face, this isn’t normal would you just- Lin Lil Lin Stagehand talk to us! -Kiddo!” 

11. How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)? If it’s for a case or for something related to someone she cares about, she seeks info out. Either clarifying with folks or doing some sleuthing and finding as many reports or related information snippets as she can. She might even straight up bluntly ask someone if something makes no peckin sense about them. Although she tries to have habit of tact for her inner circle when she asks questions, or with children. She tries to be soft as needed. Her track record of near perfect cases definitely proves that she has done her best over the years to limit confusion at all costs.

 If it’s something related to herself though, perhaps about the cure? She will dig up as much as she can but also likely spiral if she can’t find the source or the answer to the thing confusing her most. She’ll pretend everything is fine while internally going into panic spiral at ‘peckin detective can’t even help themself’. Nothing is ever simple or calm and so she can’t believe it if something is too easy, and she’ll drive herself into confusion if she listens to much to her paranoia.

13. What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color? Lin… doesn’t really know what colour she looks best in? She’s had the same outfit for as long as she can remember with the odd costume for a case or seasonal event. Navy and Red are her go to colours and she does suit them quite well when she is her natural true colour. In fact she does think she looks good in them, especially with her niece-jumper in gold-red-navy. So that’s her ‘best look’! 

When her fur has become the distressed russet the red kind of clashes a bit but that won’t be an issue forever. She’ll have to try out other colours someday, when she gets the time and energy to go clothes shopping, maybe try out autumnal or halloween themed colours, she’ll see how things go.

What animal do they fear most? Herself Wolves. She knows other wolves aren’t like the Thing that bit her, and the Thing in and of itself wasn’t fully wolf… whatever the peck it was is something else… but yeah, from her own shifting and knowledge of what she can do, and that memory of something lupine and huge hurtling at her from the dark… its definitely an animal that sparks her fear response and has her reaching for her broach and crossbow at the sound of a howl or a too big shadow. 

She will meet lycans in the future that help ease that, and seeing druids like her son be able to change to wolf form is cool… but if she doesn’t see it coming or one come at her from behind she will flinch and shield whoever’s closest to her and mentally be somewhere else for a second. 

An old fear that’s going to take a long while for her to be able to ease away. Wolves are wonderful creatures, she just has to break the association.

B) What inspired you to create them? Honestly? Toonkind in general. I saw my first session of it on YouTube when I was alone and wandering what to do with myself as my DnD adventure died with lockdown. But this whole new world of insane and amazing characters and stupendous people- it sparked such joy and life in me. Lin was formed from that joy, and then from there she has grown. I am so delighted by the stories I can tell with her and the people I have met through her. That creation inspiration has bloomed since then... in fact: Lin thinks in network connections, and in this instance, the Drafthouse server to me? Is a RAINBOW of inspiration.

Mario karts: 

Vehicle wise: She’d have something small, a very speedy little car in her signature colours and a very happy tooting little horn, does it have racing flames on the side? Absolutely bc she delights in the silly things even as she projects sensible detective as well. 

Special power move? You ever heard this little monkey swear? An explosion of tangible grawlix symbols in a rainbow of colours bursting from the car to knock people out of the way (followed by a very quiet version of her signature laugh).

Favourite thing about playing her? Interactions with others. Lin has built an amazing web of family that is full of love and warmth and softness. Getting to see her grow into that and reach back is something so soft that I am delighted to enable. Her CornMaze family, spooky grandparents, her son? her many adopted children and newfound friendly pecknecks? It’s the people that make it fun to play her and give her such life. She changes and grows and shifts even beyond what I think of her and so that makes it so exciting to play as I have no idea what the future will have in store.

…also not going to lie hearing people scream “Lin for peck sake NO” adds years to my lifespan as I cackle, she’s a beloved but so very dumb little monkey who makes poor life choices and audience reactions give me life.

[xxxtrouvaillexxx]

Paper Cranes

 A/N: I swear that I’m working on the first chapter of LSaD, I plan to have it out by THIS Saturday! I promise that it’s coming! In the mean time, I’ve been working on this piece for a hot minute and it’s kind of just been sitting around in my drafts and in the back of my head. So~ while you wait, here is a little something something to keep the waters calm. And I needed a little something to deal with quarantine. 

Pair: Bucky x Reader (platonic)

Synopsis: Y/N is an empath... More specifically, a healer with empathic abilities, which leads to from very severe trauma for y/n but you’d never stop helping your team for the world. Even when that trauma leads you to spend a night on to roof in tears and a very heated talk with your best friend Bucky.

Masterlist

Warning(s): angst (I’m a sucker for it...), an alarming amount of fluff, as usual.

Word Count: 3,931

The Tower has been bustling with life ever since the city closed down, or more aptly, the world as it seems. Every single one of the Avengers, other than Barton himself, was closed up in the same building for the last three weeks, and the air was becoming more restless every day. And the more anxious it became inside of these walls, the world was still doing worse for wear. 

You, feeling all of that, felt all of your own worries too. Not that you let anyone in on that little fact. You’re the personal on-site doctor to the Avengers along with being one of the hero’s themselves, though you had no real special power to name in the ways of fighting. You simply were rather good at kicking bad guy butt and were a rather well-known assassin with the Black Widow herself.

And though the two of you are as close as sisters, she doesn’t even know about your ability.

“Lady Y/N!”

You whipped your head around so quickly at Thor’s booming voice, you could have sworn that you’d given yourself whiplash, but you managed to give the large man a large grin and match his excitement.

“Thor!”

Laughing, he scooped you up and off of the floor in a tight hug as if you were light as a feather. If there was anyone who, throughout the entire time of being shut up in a building with the worlds most lovably irritating heros, could keep spirits high, it was Thor. The man was like a giant teddy bear, to be frank. You could swear that the only time you ever see him get intensely serious about an issue is during a mission, and it surely wasn’t anything you were going to start complaining about now.

Letting you down again to stand on your own feet, he grinned widely and with mischief.

“I require a bit of aid, I’m afraid. Sparring with the two super soldiers seems to be only a tad bit more interesting without the use of powers.”

“Don’t let him fool you, doll. We pummeled him and he doesn’t want to admit it,” Bucky said from the doorway. Steve was coming up from behind him with a smile too.

“Well, it seems you boys have had an eventful morning then.” The humor was obvious in your voice and they all laughed, Thor of course boomed.

“Indeed!”

“Well, how can I assist you three then?”

“Just Thor today, actually. He thought it would be funny to go easy on us old geezers. Lessons learned,” Steve said grinning as he passed you with a pat on the shoulder to the kitchen.

Thor after, another, belly full of laughter, showed you the bruises that now littered his arms and torso. There were no major wounds, and it looked like it was just hand to hand sparring, though if it were anyone other than Thor the damage would have been far worse coming from the two super soldiers.

Shaking your head, you smiled and pointed him to the couch. “You might as well get comfortable while we do this. You’ve got enough bruises to keep me busy for a week,” you joked and sat down beside him. “You know the drill, eyes closed and deep breaths.”

He followed your orders without complaint and you rested your hands against his chest first and matched your breathing to his and felt the steady stream of power flow through you. It was light, airy and cool, shining a beautiful gold from your fingertips in waves. But as gorgeous as it looked, this amazing power to heal the injured was a double-edged blade.

As soon as the marks on his skin began to fade and return to its normal color, images of their match flashed in your mind. Every punch and kick that Thor received felt like a blow of your own. Needless to say, you figured it hurt a lot more for you than it had for the god in front of you. Even if you knew that you didn’t physically attain any of the damage, it didn’t dull the sharp pains that coursed through your body.

The reason you always made them close their eyes before healing them of anything, an illness, battle wounds, haunting dreams, or trauma, was because it was easier than trying to force down every wince and grimace. Sometimes it just seemed impossible, which is also the reason you tried to keep healing sessions like this to more personal settings, not that that was always possible.

After a few measured deep breaths to match with Thor’s, you moved onto his arms and repeated the process. It didn’t take long, and by the time you were finished the sharp pains had faded into something of a dull throbbing. Though you didn’t imagine that would stop anytime soon.

“I feel like a brand new man! Thank you, Lady Y/N!” He grinned and launched himself into another suffocating hug before turning to the men in the kitchen. “I will remember to not pull my punches with you two the next time around!”

“We’ll look forward to your next challenge then. But don’t go crying to Y/N next time you get your ass handed to you,” Bucky hollered back.

“Hey! Language!” You exclaimed with a laugh when you heard Steve grumble and say something about needing to forget that moment ever happened… Not that any of you ever would, of course.

You all sat around for a while before Steve went off to speak with Tony about something or another and Thor decided to find and pester his brother. ‘Which I’m sure I’ll have the pleasure to hear about later from Loki himself’, you thought with a chuckle. And soon enough it was just you and Bucky left in the kitchen sharing a peaceful silence and tea for several minutes.

The two of you had grown particularly close over the time since he’s come to the tower and in Wakanda. He was one of your closest friends next to Natasha. Because of that, you took extra care of him not that you’d ever tell him that. You took extra time with him in the evenings and during routine checkups to help him with his nightmares and the general horrors his mind puts him through. You’d be sure to brush your hand across his skin periodically throughout the day subtly to draw out any built up worries and anxieties and he usually stayed pretty close by when he was feeling extra tense.

Of course, there was a part of you that dreaded his checkups and the late nights. Not because that you didn’t want to help him, but the pain that it caused you was sometimes almost to much for you to handle. His memories that flooded through your mind when you touched, the phantom pains you’d feel... You couldn’t understand how anybody could ever do something so absolutely horrible, least of all to another human being. And it was almost incomprehensible how Bucky had managed to survive so long after all of it, but you had managed to tie that to the fact that he was the strongest man you knew.

But no matter how much you may dread those visits and the things that followed, you would never stop helping him. And you would never tell him the truth about your power. You doubted that he’d ever let you continue if he knew what it did.

“I think everyone is going out for joyride tonight, you plan on joining?” He interrupted your thoughts with a warm voice and kind smile. 

“Not likely. I think I’ll just take the evening for myself. If everyone goes out, it might actually be quite around here for a change,” you chuckled. “What about you?”

“I haven’t decided yet, but Steve is trying pretty hard to get me out this time around.”

“So, probably then?”

He laughed and nodded, “Yeah, probably.”

“Where do they plan on going, anyway? Everything is shut down right now, so there isn’t much to do,” you asked. And it was true, with a global pandemic going around, everything was basically closed down until further notice everywhere. 

He shrugged and looked to the ceiling, “Who knows. Stark thought it would be a good idea to get the quinjets out and running before they sit around to long and need a toon up. And he thought it would be good for moral if we weren’t all cooped up in the tower again for another night together.”

You guffawed and shook your head. “Oh? And having everyone cooped up in the jets is going to be so much better for team moral, huh? Tell me how that works out for him.”

                                          »»-———————-««

It was roughly 11:30 now, and everyone was still out of the tower and flying around Lord knows where and you were in the tower alone. It had been nearly two months since these halls last ran silent except for the sound of your own footsteps. Nearly two months sinces you could freely express all of the pent up rage, and fear, and pain, and anxiety that has been building up inside of yourself.

On most if not all occasions, you were a very happy person. You enjoyed your work and the people you work with. You loved your family and friends, and the world even with all of its problems... And there were a lot of problems. And normally it would just be enough to spend a day to yourself with a book or a blank canvas and paint to release everything. You tried to always look toward the brighter side of things, but recently- without a way to vent out everything you’ve been taking in, things were to much. 

So you found yourself up on the towers roof at almost midnight with tears running down your cheeks and finding it hard to catch your breath. Your chest ached. The instant that the door closed behind you and you were hit with the cool night air it was like everything just rushed out in waves. 

You screamed, and wailed, and cried. You let yourself feel everything that you had been burying. Every last punch, kicks, knife and bullet, nightmare. It all came out in coughs and harsh please and grief. For yourself and for the people who went through it all. 

“It’s not fair,” you cried. “It’s not fair!”

After what felt like an eternity and your throat was coarse from the yelling and sobs, you felt like there was nothing left to cry. You’d gotten it all out and let go of everything, finally. And you knew you would be able to face everyone tomorrow as yourself rather than the shell of a person you have been until now. 

What you didn’t know, was that Bucky was there to witness it all.

                                         »»-———————-««

When you woke up the next morning you felt a great deal better than you had the previous night. Let alone the previous week. In a rather bright mood, you woke early and decided to make breakfast, nothing special because let’s be frank- you weren’t any Gordon Ramsey. But you could make a mean stack of pancakes and eggs.

An hour later, the kitchen was flooded with tired heros and grumbled good mornings. Though you were aware that Bucky seemed to linger in the doorway a little to long and continued to stare at you throughout breakfast. You could practically feel the discomfort and tension poor off of him. He didn’t mention it though so you assumed he wasn’t ready to come to you yet.

It wasn’t uncommon for Bucky to try and handle himself first, be it a nightmare or his own thoughts he tried to take care of it first. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. But you never wanted to try and take that chance from him, so you let him be until he decided for himself.

They all happily ate their share of pancakes, gave thanks in some form or another; hugs, verbally, a slug to the shoulder, the usual. And then everyone dispersed to go about their own day. 

By the time that a week went by, you started to become genuinely concerned about Bucky. He was still tense and sticking close to you, but he wouldn’t let himself get close enough for you to touch him and draw out whatever it was that was causing him to be so worried. But he never left your side either. Everytime you left a room, a few minutes later he would follow. It was becoming so apparent that even Natasha said something over dinner, but Bucky didn’t bother to respond.

You didn’t want to take away the option of helping himself if he felt like he could, but he’s never gone longer than two days before saying something to you. It started to make you wonder if you had done something wrong or if he really felt like he didn’t need your help anymore.

Either way, you had to figure it out. The worry was beginning to choke you if you thought about it for to long. So after dinner, you excused yourself from the table and waited in the hall for Bucky to follow. 

Sure enough, after a minute he started down the hall too searching for which way you disappeared to.

You showed yourself to him and ignored his apparent surprise, “Are you okay, Bucky? Did something happen?”

His face changed, he looked hurt and sad. Like he couldn’t really bring himself to say anything or absorb what you asked. You waited patiently while he grapled for an answer. 

“What?” Was all that he managed to get out. 

“Well, you’ve been following me around a lot recently, and you only really stick to my side like this when you need to talk or help with something. But it’s already been a week and you haven’t said anything yet so I was starting to get worried that it was worse than usual or that maybe I did something wrong or that you-”

“That’s supposed to be my line!” He exclaimed, efficiently cutting off my nervous rant and giving me a turn at being confused. 

It must of been written all over your face because he quickly continued, “I was there. I saw- I heard you last week on the rooftop! How can you possibly be asking me if I’m alright!?”

Your heart stuttered to a stop at his words and you could practically feel the blood draining from your face. You didn’t even know where begin to explain why or what happened last week.

“Oh...” you trailed off and stepped back. “I didn’t know you were still here. I thought you went with Steve,” you have a humorless chuckle. “I don’t know why you’re so worried about it, I’m alright. Can we just forget about it?”

You knew it was a pathetic attempt to get him to let the problem go, you knew that there was no chance he was going to now that he’s been thinking about it for a week. 

“You were begging out there, Y/N. Begging! You can’t just tell me you’re alright and expect me to just let it go like this is nothing!”

You were silent for a long time, taking deep and long breaths to keep yourself calm before taking the corner of his sleeve and dragging him to your room. “We should go somewhere private so we can talk freely.”

He followed you without question.

                                        »»-———————-««

The two of you sat silently for nearly half an hour in your room. You felt completely uncomfortable in the situation. Usually, you were the one who was patiently waiting and comforting someone else while they thought over what they wanted to share or compose themselves. You were used to that, but being on the opposite end of that was new and something you came to learn within the first five minutes that you weren’t particularly fond of. 

Finally, Bucky decided to break the silence. “Why do you have so many origami cranes hangin’ in here?”

Your room decor was a bit unconventional, compared to that of everyone else in the tower that is. The room was covered in your own oil paintings, all the ones you deemed should never see the light of day but didn’t get rid of, couches and chairs, bookcases, and of course, countless bunches of paper cranes you’ve hung from the ceiling. Unconventional, maybe. But you loved it anyway. 

“There is a myth,” you nearly whispered it but you were sure that he caught the words anyway when he turned toward you. 

“Tell me about it?”

You took a deep breath and nodded. “It’s an old Japanese legend. It says that anybody who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the gods. Some of the old stories even say that you are granted happiness and eternal good luck instead of a wish. But you can use the wish on anything, a recovery to illness or injury for example. Usually they’re made as gifts for special friends or family.”

Standing, you grabbed one of the many strings of cranes and gave it to Bucky. “Cranes in Japan are considered holy creatures and supposedly live for a thousand years. That’s why a thousand cranes are made, one for each year of their life. And there are some stories that even say that all have to be folded within a year and strung together on the same string by the one who is making the wish for it to actually work.” You drifted off and smiled at the strand he held and shrugged. 

He stared at you for awhile before he looked around your room again. “All of them are stung on one sting.”

“So the legend goes,” you answered. 

“But you have at least a hundred of these hanging around your room,” he awed and shook the his gently. 

“53 to be exact. There are 53,142 cranes in this room. I’m working on another one now,” you laughed as his face grew in een more amazement. 

The strands all hung next to each other. Currently you had two rows of 25 and one of three. Honestly, it was rather beautiful in your opinion. It created a sort of curtain on one of your walls filled with different colors and stories. 

“Why?” He asked softly.

“Because I have a lot of wishes?”

“No. Don’t dodge. You wouldn’t have gone through all of this effort,” he waved toward the curtain, “for yourself alone. So why? How long have you been doing this for?”

“Nearly 15 years? I usually try to fold 10 every night before I go to sleep. You would be disgusted by how much I spend on paper,” you joked but he didn’t break. You groaned, “Fine! It’s because I didn’t know what else to do, okay? People were sad and hurting and scared, I felt it, and I didn’t know what I felt like there wasn’t anything I could do to help them. And so I started to make wishes for strangers mostly, people I felt needed it.”

“Felt?”

You bit your bottom lip and nodded hesitantly. “Or saw depending on the person. And it’s not like I’d ever do it on purpose, I’d just bump into someone and see everything! And I wouldn’t be able get it out of my head. I felt like there wasn’t anything I could do, Bucky. So I wished and wished and wished for them. For everyone.”

He looked at you incredulously, “Y/N... What do you mean, “See everything”?”

You blinked rapidly a few times and grabbed three more of the strands from the wall. “These,” you handed them to him, “are yours. These are the wishes I made for you. And before you say anything, just... Don’t freak out, okay? I didn’t make all of those to upset you, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I’m a healer, that’s always been who I am. But for me to be able to use that gift, I have to make physical contact with my patient. And I’ve been blessed to be able to mend body and mind! There isn’t anything in the world that would make me want to give up that gift, Bucky. But when I... touch people- anyone, Wanda, Nat, Thor, a stranger... You- I can see exactly how they got hurt mentally or physically. And I can feel the hurt too, like it were my own.”

You could barely bring yourself to say that last part, and it was barely a murmur as it were, but you knew that he heard it by the way that the color drained from his face and he slouched back a bit.

“Bucky,” you reached out for him but stopped when he flinched away from you. You swallowed harshly and continued, “I don’t hate it Bucky. I prefer it this way, really! It makes it easier for me to understand who I’m helping and more than anything else it brings me closer to them. I’m okay, Bucky.”

“Stop telling me that you’re okay! How could you possibly be after-” he paled more if that were possible as he looked at the four rows of cranes he carried now, “Oh my God. Four years, you’ve seen everyth- You’ve felt everything for four years! Y/N, I-”

“Don’t you dare try to apologise or regret coming to me, James,” you interrupted in a hurry. “If I can breathe then I’m fine. And I will never regret helping you when you needed me. You’ve never done anything wrong. And what you saw last week wasn’t usually how I deal with... Well, everything that gets piled up. Usually I go out for a day to breathe and just let go. It’s just that with everything closed down right now, I hadn’t had the opportunity in months. It got to much, that’s all. It had nothing to do with you, I promise.”

Everything you said seemed to go in one ear and out the other with him. He simply grasped the cranes tighter and refused to make eye contact. 

“Bucky,” you whispered again and reached for him one more time and this time, he didn’t turn away. His wave of emotions hit you hard, there were to flashes of images or memories, just feelings of regret and horror and shame and fear. “It’s okay,” you breathed and raised to give him a hug. “It’s okay Bucky.”

Slowly he calmed down, and his emotions subsided into ripples rather than waves. His regret eased along with his fears. He pulled away from you eventually and offered a weak smile, that didn’t necessarily confirm any suspicions that you may have that he was lying or otherwise. 

He held up the cranes and smiled, “Thank you, so much, for these.Y/N I can’t ever thank you enough for these, let alone everything else that you’ve done for me. I understand why you would’ve kept this to yourself, if I’d known sooner I’d never had come to you. But because I did- God, I can do things without begin afraid. I can go out with Steve and not freak out, or go through the night without nightmares. I’ve you to thank you for that. You’ve done more for me than I could have ever asked you, and I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that but-”

You smiled and shook your head, “This, Bucky, is plenty.”

[tanadrin]

So all the terrible retcons and geographic inconsistency (Kul Tiras wtf) and the time travel and the bullshit with the night elves is bad (Illidan is the worst character ever, don't @ me), but the most frustrating part of WoW lore to me is its failure to explore certain complex emotional themes in a really satisfying way--like, the people who expound and expand on Warcraft lore are canny enough to notice that these emotional themes *exist*, but not clever enough to actually work with them or build them out, and so the whole thing collapses into rule-of-cool melodrama. There's nothing wrong with rule-of-cool melodrama; I love rule-of-cool melodrama. But Warcraft lore is *begging* to combine that rule of cool melodrama with some really rich and interesting emotions and character interpretations, it sets them up and is all ready to knock them down, and just... doesn't.

Take the conversation between Saurfang and Garrosh in the Borean Tundra, in WotLK, the one that ends with Saurfang saying "I don't eat pork." I think that's emblamatic of the big theme that unites the Horde, that makes it make sense as a faction. The Alliance, after all, started as a defensive association in the face of the Orc invasion; its renaissance after the creation of Durotar and the invasion of the Scourge is only natural. But what is the theme of the Horde? Is it honor? Strength? Sheer brutality? Well, none of those things. Orcs claim to value honor and strength; the Forsaken are certainly various shades of very dark gray at best, the Tauren and the Orcs *do* seem like natural allies of a sort, but all the races of the Horde have something even deeper in common: trauma. The Orcs are still (cf. Saurfang) dealing with the emotional turmoil of having been both forced and partially complicit in the atrocities of the First and Second War--after which their homeworld was destroyed, they were forced into concentration camps, and they had to rebuild their culture and their identity from the ground up. They have to find a new place in a new world, and there's this tension between the younger generation that doesn't have firsthand experience with any of this and just remembers that the Horde used to be a name that struck fear into the hearts of their enemies (Garrosh Hellscream, for instance) and the older generation that remembers how awful that time really was, and doesn't want to see the old ways revived because it might just destroy their people for good this time. Then there's the Darkspear Trolls and the Tauren, who were both driven out of their old homelands, and fell in with the Horde as natural allies with similar cultural points of reference; and the Blood Elves, whose suffering in the Third War was severe enough to radically alter their culture, coupled with being betrayed by their ruler who decided that joining the Burning Legion and abandoning them sounded like a better time than rebuilding Quel'Thalas.

And then there's the Forsaken. Oh, man, the Forsaken. The Forsaken and Sylvanas are some of my favorite characters in all of WoW, because sure, you could look at it and say, "okay, creepy undead who like green things that go plop and mad science = evil, bad guys." But you'd really be missing what makes the Forsaken interesting. They're not the Scourge--they explicitly broke away from the Scourge when Arthas left Lordaeron. They're not invaders, either. They're in fact mostly the human population of the destroyed kingdom of Lordaeron, the inheritors of that land, but who are treated by the Alliance as interlopers with no right to the very towns and villages they have *always* called home. They're treated as monsters by every living person who ever knew them, and they can't help but regard themselves that way, too. "What are we, if not slaves to this torment?" is one of the casual interaction lines you get when you click on Sylvanas: they do not *like* being dead. But Sylvanas is ruthless and cruel and after Arthas is killed, wins the Val'kyr over to her side so she can keep making more Forsaken. Why?

Simple. Let us imagine: you are an ordinary person, of no unusually great or poor moral virtue. You are hurt, badly. Grieviously. In a way you will never recover from. And everyone you love, all of your friends and your family, the whole society you come from, now sees you as an unredeemable monster that should, no, must be destroyed. How long must you be called a monster before you decide--fuck it, I *will* be the monster they call me. Because, at least that way, no one can ever hurt me again.

The overpowering motivation for the Forsaken is not power or bloodlust; it's not money, or forbidden knowledge. It's making sure no one in the whole world is ever able to make slaves of them again. To make sure they will not be hurt. And the biggest misstep the Alliance ever made was not reaching out to Sylvanas with overtures of friendship as soon as she established her kingdom--because like it or not, she has the support of the people of Lordaeron, and thus a damn good claim to her position. Maybe, if they had, they could have influenced the Forsaken, shown them that they had friends and didn't need to resort to amoral methods to defend themselves. But as it stands, they only have allies of convenience in the Horde (at least until Sylvanas becomes Warchief), and they know that no one in Azeroth is quite happy to see them continue to exist and be free. Everything else about the Forsaken--their use of dark magic, their development of a new, even more destructive plague, their recruiting former servants of the Lich King and raising new Forsaken from among the dead of the ongoing wars--makes perfect sense from the standpoint of a people that knows they are under threat from all sides, and will do anything to survive.

(The Draenei could have been something like this, too, FWIW. Like, a broken people, a people of exiles who are most comfortable in the shadows and with moral ambiguity. But then Metzen had to go make them Righteous Space Goats. I mean, come on. They're just boring now. They were never going to be Horde-aligned--there's too much history with the Orcs  there!--but having a group like that on the side of the Alliance, to help drive home the point that there is not a clear good guys/bad guys distinction here, would have been really nice.)

That actually makes them a pretty damn good fit for the Horde. Moreover, it creates an interesting point of tension with the Alliance, which is clearly *not* always the good guys. I mean, there's the matter of orc concentration camps, but also consider the refusal of leaders like Daelin Proudmoore to contemplate peace (and the subsequent, somewhat... forced turn of Jaina Proudmoore from dove to hawk) and the steadfast refusal of many on that side to deal fairly with the races of the Horde just because they appear monstrous. And arrogance, hoo boy. Dalaran, Gilneas, the Night Elves--huge swathes of the Alliance are characterized by being arrogant and not a little cruel.

And what of Sylvanas becoming Warchief? I don't know where the BFA lore is going (I'm not playing retail anyway), but right now it looks like they're setting up another Garrosh type situation, and preparing for Thrall to retake the Warchief-ship, but if they do that it would be a real pity. First of all, because, well, we saw that already in Mists of Pandaria! What, are we going to besiege Orgrimmar again? Second of all--Sylvanas and Garrosh are *very* different people. Garrosh was, well, Proud; hence the Sha of Pride. He wanted glory and power, he wanted war for war's sake, so he could live up to his father's reputation as a warrior. He was willing to sacrifice everything else that made the Horde the Horde for that. Sylvanas, though, has one overriding motivation: Keep Her People Safe. Punish the people who hurt her is a strong secondary motivation--but it's part of that first one, because if she can make her enemies' victories painful enough, she might discourage them from trying to press their advantage. And her people *trust* her on this: "Dark Lady watch over you," they say when you take your leave. She is not an autocrat--she is their beloved protector. So, she makes the ruins of Lordaeron uninhabitable. She annihilates Teldrassil. Does she spend very many Orc and Troll and Tauren lives doing so? Very well. They aren't *her* people.

I don't think this has to be a tragic flaw leading to her downfall. It sure doesn't make her a good leader for the rest of the Horde, though (even though, on an emotional and aesthetic level, I am 3000% here for Warchief Sylvanas, even more than Warchief Vol'jin, who also had a lot of the creepy threatening vibe that made him a much more interesting choice than either Thrall or Garrosh). But you could make it one, and you could do it very well--they've already mentioned in the tie-ins that Calia Menethil, Arthas's sister, teeeechnically has a claim to the throne of Lordaeron. And, even more interesting, is no longer quite among the living, even if the mechanism of that unlife is happy fun magic instead of evil death magic. Moreover, she has some sympathy for the Forsaken. You could have a squaring-off between them, and you could have a Queen Calia--maybe. If you could bridge that gap and make her understand that the Forsaken feel fundamentally apart from the other human kingdoms now, if she could come to understand just how much evil the Alliance has done to them, if she could really grok what it's like to be them. Then you could have a leader who understands their trauma--but also wants to heal it, rather than lash out at anyone and everyone that might conceivably be a threat. That, too, would be very interesting.

(There’s a reason that, while I loved the Alliance as a kid, I only play Horde toons as an adult. It’s not just that the Horde feel more interesting and vivid to me. It’s that the hypocrisy and the arrogance of the Alliance stands out in much greater relief now. The Horde aren’t good guys--nobody’s the good guys, here--but they don’t lie about their motivations, and they don’t act with cruelty and then play the victim in response. Jaina was an important exception, but they badly mishandled her character in the runup to MoP, which I find very hard to forgive.)

But knowing Blizz, even if they go vaguely that route, they won't stick the emotional landing. There is a very good, if very OTT and melodramatic (in the best possible way), series of fantasy novels or games lurking *behind*, or perhaps parallel, to Warcraft's lore. It is a shame that Blizzard has done so much to obscure it with obnoxious cruft, retcons and timeline compression, repetitive use of the same handful of characters, stupid-ass time-travel plots that create ten thousand plot holes and inconsistencies, shitty tie-in novels (cf. everything by Richard Knaak), and a total failure to make half the world's characters (i.e., everyone in the Alliance) at all interesting. I have a daydream of doing my own version of WoW lore and posting it somewhere like on AO3, but one of the things that makes WoW lore simultaneously so interesting and disappointing to me is that it's embedded in the explorable, realized space of video game worlds. Hard to reproduce that in print, I think. Might be worth it to try.