#this fandom has morphed and changed so much and I'm glad I could be here for most of it

[beetleskeleton]

You guys want to know something?

My first post is almost a year old. 

...I’m getting old./hj

[possessingtheproperspirit]

Fic Author Self Rec

Fic authors self-rec! ✨ When you get this, reply with your favourite five fics that you’ve written, then pass on to at least five other writers.

Thanks for tagging me, @kay-elle-cee <3 I found this very hard haha as self-reccing goes against everything I hold dear, but nonetheless here we are...

the way you left me || At nineteen, James vanishes, and Lily breaks.

I wrote this in a fevered rush, and I think it's the one I'm most proud of overall. Not entirely sure why, which doesn't lend itself to this sort of post, does it? It's sad and sweet and painful and all the things I like writing most. Angst with a happy, hopeful ending is my sweet spot.

2. Uninvited || With NEWTs looming, friends gather at the Potters' cottage in Wales to study and let off steam during the Easter holidays of their seventh year.

What's not to enjoy about pining, a Welsh beach and a 'there was only one bed' scenario? It includes this sentence, which I feel nicely encapsulates the gang:

They ate their fill; Mary tried to teach them a strange Muggle game called cricket, which James had a natural affinity for (“ever the fucking sportsman,” Marlene jeered from her position on the opposing team); Sirius tried to lead a team into the shallows, forgetting that the waters around the British Isles were frigid at the best of times; Remus built a bonfire in a bid to stop said team from developing frostbite.

I mean, what more can I say?

3. Forget-Me-Not (cw: sa). ||. At eighteen, Lily Evans fell - and fell hard - for James Potter, a classmate she had never given much thought to before. He seemed as into her as she was into him, so why is it, when she starts a new job almost a decade and a lot of water under that particular bridge later, that her new boss - James Potter himself - doesn't seem to remember her at all? A Don’t You Forget About Me by Mhairi Mcfarlane AU fic.

I wasn't going to include this one, but I guess I changed my mind? I'm proud that I a) finished this fic at all, and b) hopefully managed a very fine balance in dealing with an extremely sensitive subject. It was all a very personal writing experience and I guess I'm glad it all came out okay in the end.

4. A Lesson in Communication || There's a rule at his school that teachers are strictly not allowed to date the parents of pupils. James has never minded this rule before...

This largely started because it so amused me to think of James wrangling children at sports day. This is one of those stories that was supposed to be a quick thing, and then morphed into a nearly-12k monster whereby the misunderstandings piled up on top of each other like delicious pancakes. Yes, if anyone asked a straightforward question this fic would be about 500 words. Yes, my favourite bit is still Remus' reaction when he realises James' mistake.

5. The Price We Pay || As the summer before their sixth year comes to an end, Sirius, Remus, Lily and James consider how things may be different on their return to Hogwarts. When Sirius finally breaks free from his toxic home, it should be a fresh start - but unfortunately, it's the start of a spiral that will threaten the foundations of friendship, and change their lives irrevocably.

Last but not least! That blurb could do with updating, really, given that now – 27 chapters in – we're into seventh year and rather a lot has happened, haha. Still, when I started it, I didn't think I'd write more than maybe five or six chapters, and then it sort of grew its own little legs and scurried away from me. You know, how writing does? It's my original baby fic and I love it so but I also go through phases where I worry it's all utter bollocks, so it's very much a rollercoaster of a relationship. There is something both wonderful and challenging in writing a canon multi-chap, especially in this fandom where there are so many amazing canon multi-chaps. We battle on.

What a strange, therapy-esque post this ended up being 😅

Tagging (please feel free to ignore if you don't fancy it/have already done it) @wearingaberetinparis @mppmaraudergirl @clare-with-no-i @thequibblah @isahorcrux

[book-o-scams]

'Sorry Wrong Ed' Alternate Ending Storyboard Sequence

Check out Al Kang's Ed, Edd n Eddy portfolio!

Al Kang worked on the show during seasons 3-4 and had roles on the storyboard and prop teams apparently. (IMDb says he was credited as Al Choi at the time, but it also says he worked on season 1 episodes, which doesn't line up with the timeline he mentioned.. anyway.)

I discovered his portfolio a few months ago after seeing fandom discussion of the alternate 'Sorry Wrong Ed' ending. I was pleasantly surprised to find a few other treats as well! But yes, I even sorta liked what I learned about 'Sorry Wrong Ed' in the process... (I threw in a little analysis comparing the two endings at the bottom)

I noticed Al seemed to mix up the order on these, so I thought I'd try my best to figure out the right order. This was the most confusing one for me to try and figure out the order of since almost all 8 pages were out of order. I think I finally figured out what's going on in the original ending.

So this alternate ending starts at an unknown point with Eddy flat on the ground, presumably injured, picking himself back up. At this point in the final cut of the episode, Eddy has just been squashed by a tree, but this seems more like a different injury, and he's not even retaining his injuries from the truck scene... The scenes with Jonny and Plank from the final cut of the episode seem to not exist at all here, Jonny and Plank don't appear in this sequence.

Anyway, Eddy picks himself up in the middle of an on-going scene, sees Jimmy drop a coin in a jar for Ed, who has inexplicably turned the cursed phone into a scam on his own. Edd is glaring at the off-screen kids, who have somehow learned about this phone and are excited to kill Eddy with it.

Eddy: "Jimmy! No!"

Jimmy answers the phone: "Hello?"

Ed: "HA HA HA"

Edd: "You people don't seriously believe--"

Then we sync up with gags that did happen in the ending of Sorry Wrong Ed, with context that makes its tone a little more sadistic than random. Jimmy's paid phonecall drops the sandbox on Eddy.

This page has the most skeletal dialogue...

Kev: "Yes." (I think he's meant to be fist pumping because Eddy got hurt, more of a "Yes!")

Jimmy: "BAD LUCK EDDY PHONE." (this dialogue must have been a placeholder)

Edd: "HA HA" (sarcastic ha-ha or did Al mean to write "Ed" for this?)

Jimmy seems to offer the phone to Edd.

We sync up again with Edd's denial from the final cut of this episode, except now it actually makes sense that he's so one-track-minded, because there are people actively arguing with him and keeping him disengaged from the victim.

Edd: "There must be a cargo plane overfilled with playground supplies..."

Sarah interrupts him.

RING RING

Sarah: "Oh, that's for me."

Eddy at this point holds Ed responsible, as he should, and starts running to stop Ed or Sarah. Ed offers no explanation for his betrayal.

Eddy: "Ed! What are you doing!?"

Sarah: "Hello?"

Sarah's paid phonecall summons the hippos, the most random moment in the final cut of the episode. Note how both of these slapstick gags were storyboarded on the same generic background, seems like the lane or an empty lot, but clearly a different location than Eddy's front yard from the aired ending.

And that's all we have to go off of!

I'll put my updated opinions below the cut, but suffice it to say, I like the episode a little better now! Knowing what the ending was going to be and trying to figure out the choices that led to the ending we got, I feel more appreciative that it didn't end up a lost episode or something and less annoyed that it was 11 minutes of one joke.

I know I have a reputation for not finding slapstick funny and disliking this episode, but violence was never my only issue. Lots of episodes have lackluster slapstick that I just let wash over me. My point that never gets as much focus is that this episode never felt FINISHED to begin with. It's just a slapstick vacuum with no ending and no point, and it used to be frustrating to me not knowing for sure if my hunch was right or not that it felt like the episode just wasn't working and they had to cobble it together from the scenes that almost worked.

I am surprised to say I like the episode more now that I know that is pretty close to the truth. Judging from this peek into the episode's development, this episode seems to have reached Danny Antonucci's and/or Wootie's (the episode's lead board artist) limit for being mean-spirited with the characters without a reason. I'll still probably avoid rewatching it, but knowing the episode has no ending specifically because it's been trimmed to bare bones is somehow reassuring.

The most obvious flaw to this original ending is the lack of motivation for Ed's or the kids' actions. The kids presumably still weren't in the rest of the episode, so there's really no reason for them to be here other than reiterating the same idea from 'Your Ed Here' and 'The Good Ole Ed' that the neighborhood kids are always looking for a reason to gang up on Eddy, something that isn't really true of those characters in earlier seasons.

I think I can imagine how, on paper (in the writers' outline), this episode sounded funnier. Trying to imagine this ending as part of the whole episode, I think the script's idea of the final joke is that Ed is not satisfied with ending the tests at the point where they tried to return the phone to Rolf. I think Ed converts the curse-testing process to a scam at that point, building off of how Ed already wasn't processing Eddy's safety in anything so far, and is probably more focused on proving to Edd that curses are real (as Ed was previously in league with Evil Tim). The addition of Ed running his own tests and the kids arguing Eddy's point against Edd's while Eddy's busy, does sound more like a complete manic cartoon boiling point than the way the finished episode just petered out with Edd as the sole antagonist. But unfortunately, in visual execution, suddenly piling in so many aggressive characters and so much random violence at once, would only really result in it petering out at a higher volume.

Meanwhile Edd's characterization is made much more structurally sound in the original ending. He's annoyed FOR Eddy's sake, and the only reason he's not actively helping Eddy is because like 3 other characters were supposed to be arguing with him while this was happening. It seems extremely apparent to me that the cuts made to this ending were for the sake of mitigating Ed's reputation in the fandom, as well as the kids', and I think it's really unfortunate that Edd's characterization was the cost for salvaging everyone else's. I'm glad I already considered his behavior in 'Sorry Wrong Ed' non-canon, because now it feels like the reason the aired ending is so out-of-character is just because Edd is basically arguing with the ghost of the original scene. I formally forgive 'Sorry Wrong Ed'. Production turnarounds are tough and AKA did their best to not turn this into another forgotten 'Special Ed' episode that simply wasn't working.

I think ditching the original ending was ultimately the right call. It was not an exemplary episode, but I can admit it's less out of place to have a pure "vacuum of violence" story than it would've been to essentially give the kids a supernatural revenge plot like this. That would've been really weird to have to accept-- Eddy definitely wouldn't want to be friends with anyone at the end of the movie if THIS was their past. Changing it to an unaware Jonny and a questionably aware Plank being responsible, indeed, was a vibe that landed much more like standard EEnE fare. It was weird enough that the kids all saw Santa in JJJ, can you imagine if they all knew curses were real AND participated in attacking a neighbor with one??

If there was a silver lining for me the first time I saw this episode, it was that none of the kids were directly involved in Eddy's suffering. It made the questionable reality of the cursed device slightly more acceptable that only the Eds and Rolf know about the curse. If this ending had happened, I would've reacted the same, but I would've rejected its continuity even more than I do now, because it would just feel like they animated one of the DC Comics (where the kids can blow the Eds up with fireworks at the end or the Eds can randomly be crushed under an avalanche of anvils)-- the art could end up gorgeous but the characterizations don't exactly land as real human beings, the balance this show strives for typically.

And I think that's all I wanted to say! In the end, I found myself liking 'Sorry Wrong Ed' slightly more than I used to, all thanks to this glimpse into how the animation production system morphs the outcome of a cartoon. Thanks so much to Al Kang, for sharing your art and this insight into the industry! I don't know whether he did both the gesture drawings and the revised art, but judging from his other boards I think the cleaned up art is his, and I liked seeing the poses that almost were!

[spirit-of-vengeance]

1 year anniversary explaination

I can't believe it's already been one year since I made this Tumblr. Like where tf did the time go?? I was so reluctant about making this blog; would my muse interest anyone? I have no computer/coding talent for the aesthetic and themes, will that steer away people because they think I'm lazy to do it? This thread stuff is truly a chaos, would I be able to do it?

But I'm glad I made this step. I've made tons of new friends, the fandom was incredibly welcoming, helpful 💖 During this year, Cindy's final design, purpose, history and powers finally formed fully; I've been creating her for more than four years and I feel she reached the point where I can't evolve her more but I can make more AUs and alternative endings. This made me to write the full story of how she got her powers, why and what is it exactly and what it does. So without further AN, here's the story of the Fire:

𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕻𝖍𝖔𝖊𝖓𝖎𝖝

The Phoenix is the Force, the eternal fire, the purest form of energy bursting free when the Universe was created. For billions of years It roamed free, creating, destroying, reshaping; every heat, fire, energy came from and tied to the Phoenix. Since It brought both death and life, It broke into two sides, Light and Dark, both Angel and Devil; the polar opposites coexisted in a fusion, they couldn't be separated or dominated by the other.

Ĺ̵̥̔a̷̳͕̗͈̣̤̼̦͓͎̾̄̐̅̓v̴̦͇̮̗͓̮̘̲̞̩͌̐͐̽̈́̕͝ȃ̷̻͉͍̝͛̔̈͌̇͛͜͝r̵̻͙̹̬͇̼̺͕͛͐͒̓̄͂͋̀̀͝ͅ

An infant with red eyes was born when the first black hole swallowed a supergiant star. He was found and looked after by powerful mages of advanced civilizations but no matter how they tried to influence him, his powers, his aura darkened each day, pure evil seemed to radiate out of his core. In his teen years he experimented with the primal emotion: fear; creating the inky, soulless monsters, the fearlings. Lavar was banished from that galaxy when he brutally slaughtered seven people to test the potential of his creations. Not long after, he returned, letting the fearlings loose, devouring the planets, consuming every living being. The thirst was awakened and since then, he's roaming the Universe in search of prey. He has a sort of humanlike appearance, though he can change any part of his, expect his red eyes. When he's fully ready to shred a planet, he morphs into his true form:

𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊'𝖘 𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖕𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖊

Lavar was the embodiment of evil, all of that intense power was contained in himself, part of it in his creations. The Fire had been battling with Lavar and his slaughter for millennias and searching for hosts able to wield it's insane power. The ones before Cindy all succumbed to it, no one was able to handle the extreme duality of it. If someone was sinister enough to unleash Destruction, the Creation didn't approve the chosen one. If they were a pure guardian angel controlling Creation, Destruction tore them apart. After all, the two extremes couldn't be separated or shut off completely. Like the Fire, Lavar has been trying to find hosts for the fearlings as 'allies' and some sort of sick defense: tying himself to them by corruption, therefore if he dies, so do the possessed ones.

𝕳𝖔𝖜 𝕮𝖎𝖓𝖉𝖞 𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖊𝖘 𝖙𝖔 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖕𝖎𝖈𝖙𝖚𝖗𝖊

Cindy was created by the Moon in 1987 as the Spirit of Vengeance and Artistic Freedom, as part of the last line of defense if Lavar attacks. She had fought with him once, she could make him halt, but she would've died if she didn't accept Fire's offer to merge together with her to save her life. Due to her death but most importantly her mother's death, Cindy's psyche split into two extrmes, she's both capable of gentle nuturing, pure love and gruesome murder without regret. She can hold together the two wildly different sides of hers without much difficulty, therefore a perfect host for the Force's duality. For a few years, she had felt its presence coursing through her veins but then, it was impossible to tell apart; Cindy had became the Force itself, mostly because her will is almost never differs from the Phoenix's. She is Creation and Destruction, Life and Death, Light and Dark, Peace and War, a sacred being yet eternal damnation, one of the youngest yet oldest forces; Cindy is the Fire.

𝕻𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗𝖘, 𝖆𝖇𝖎𝖑𝖎𝖙𝖎𝖊𝖘

🔥 Draw power, control Earth's lava and the Sun without much difficulty

🔥 Her fire is cosmic, meaning she can burn underwater and in the space.

🔥 Her existence is not tied to the Moon anymore, Cindy will live as long as one star is burning in the Universe

🔥 Feel and control every existing heat, explosion, fire, magma, whenever it's a candle of a giant star. So far, she hasn't let her mind stretch too far to feel everything, she fears she would be unable to return into her human form.

🔥 She cannot be possessed by fearlings thanks to her pure light, either she destroys them if they get inside her or they tear her apart

🔥 Creating stars, even galaxies

2 𝖉𝖎𝖋𝖋𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖘

The two forms stand for the Fire's Dark and Light side, Cindy tends to use the Demon side more, when doing her job or when she's in physical or emotional pain she morphs into Destruction to prevent even more serious injuries. In this state she's like a cruel, intelligent predator only caring for survival and causing pain, violence. Her appearance changes: sharp black claws, fangs hanging from her lips, blood red slit pupils. Sometimes, she also chooses to speak in the language of the ancient demons of darkness.

The changes of her Light side are quite angelic: glowing golden skin, phoenix wings stretching wide, orange/white fire hair and eyes. In this form Cindy heals, creates and relax by letting herself burn.

𝕬𝖋𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖒𝖆𝖙𝖍

Lavar still has to be killed and now Cindy is ready to face him, she will protect Earth and any other planet from him. If she succeeds, she's most likely to give in the stars' calling to return among them. She wants to test, to feel her limits what she can't do here, the planet is too fragile for her to experiment with this amount of power. Cindy almost died protecting it, she's doesn't want to accidentally cause harm to it. She will follow the whispers of the stars and find her true home.