#this is what i sorta have also based my thoughts on lol

[not-xpr-art]

Len and Tommy's life told through nine photos ~

A fanart based on the Inside no 9 episode 'Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room' because I loved it so much!

(09/2024)

See below for close ups and unnecessarily detailed explanations of each individual artwork lol

First wanna say that I spent wayy too long on these (like 25+ hours), especially trying to make them look like actual old photos lol... also trying to get their likeness right for the various ages was really bloody hard lol, but hopefully each photo has the essence of each character even if it might not look 100% right pfft...

Second thing is that the dates & locations are very much my own subjective thoughts on their life and not particularly rooted in the canon of the show lol

Also I did go really heavy with the colour symbolism lol...

Ravenhill School, 1965.

The year they met, both are around the age of 10 (give or take). Len is 3 from the left in the top row, Tommy 2 in from the left on the bottom row (also I tried to include references to the other 2 League Of Gentlemen guys... Though I think the only vaguely recognisable one is Jeremy pfft)

Also shout out to @lapis-lazuliie for the idea that they met at school!

(side note, this is the least detailed of all the paintings not just because I was too lazy to render all those children's faces pfft but ALSO because of the significance of them being less recognisable or prominent in each other's lives in this point...)

I was planning on making another childhood/early teen photo but couldn't really think of any good subject matter that could also fit thematically with the episode (also the fact both are coming from poor families who would have had limited access to cameras in this era means we can just pretend that there are just no photos that really exist of them at these ages pfft...)

Photo booth in Leeds, 1974.

Both in their late teens, they'd (well, mainly Tommy) gone to a photo booth in Leeds with the intention of getting some professional looking photos only for Len to immediately make Tommy laugh once they got in there lol

The middle photo is covered in lines as Tommy had planned on throwing it away, only to find he couldn't bring himself to do it in the end... Is it platonic? Romantic? Both? Who knows, you decide lol! I mainly wanted it to be a candid moment between two people that love each other lol

(final one is them play fighting because that's kinda just what 19 year olds are like pfft... also I think photo booths technically gave you 4 photos? so let's pretend there was another photo that they did throw away for whatever reason lol...)

Rehearsals, 1979.

Deep in the midst of practising their routine for some of their first performances!

I'll admit this photo was mainly me wanting to include something more episode specific lol and also to get in some much needed heavy handed symbolism (the crease in the photo separating them, the bottle in front of Len's face, etc)

Polaroids taken at Tommy's flat, 1985.

In-between shows the two often spent a lot of time at Tommy's place (featuring that god awful sofa the previous home owner had left). I did originally plan to have them in the sofa shot together, but was finding it hard to figure out who would have been taking that kind of photo so figured it made more sense to make it shots they took of each other.

Also marks the beginnings of Tommy's weariness (& Len's over drinking...)

Outside the Glasgow Pavilion, 1988.

The morning of that fateful performance...

Ok not much else I wanna say about this other than the reference I used for the pose had Reece sorta awkwardly clasping his hands in front of him which I really liked but unfortunately in my art it just looked like he was trying to cover his crotch so I had to change it pfft...

Tommy standing at Len's grave, 2024.

The sixth anniversary of Len's death, and the sixth time Tommy has travelled across from France to lay flowers at his grave. Photo taken by Leanne from the inside of a taxi (I'd like to have had more references to her in these photos but was unsure of dates/ages where it would have fitted...)

She couldn't get her phone to not focus on the raindrops on the window as she tried to take a picture of Tommy at her father's grave but then realised that she actually liked the pathetic fallacy and had it made into a print anyway lol (look I'll be the first to admit that this is the least 'realistic' in terms of a photo that people would take, but I couldn't resist the symbolism of it lol...)

There were a lot more ideas for photos I wanted to do but for obvious reasons had to keep it to just 9 lol

Also will be posting these on my ao3 with snippets of stories to go with each photo so keep an eye out for when I share that link!

[goldenstarprincesses]

There's this fanfiction I read some years ago (can't find it for the life of me. Think it was on fanfiction.net) that had the plotline that young Alfred was almost snatched by the vengeful ghost of Eleanor Dare since she was angered that her family/daughter died while Alfred -who had been Virginia Dare's playmate-lived on and would will continue live on for eternity

My headcanon is that prior to almost being led to his (likely temporary) death by a vengeful spirt, Alfred had no fears relating to the super natural. Even before Arthur showed up, America had long been visited by those who stayed behind after their death. And Arthur probably introduced him to quite a few friendly ghosts back in England. And even more ghosts started showing up as the colonists settled in. Baby America could often be found babbling at a seemingly empty room or to himself while playing out in the fields. Honestly, before Matthew moved in, the ghosts of New England were baby Alfred's closest companions

So not only was little Alfred naturally trusting of ghosts, but he knew Eleanor and saw nothing wrong with following her down to the icy cold river in the middle of the winter. When she attempted to drag him under the ice, not only did he develop a life-long fear of ghosts but the seeds of his dislike of the cold were planted.

He was so deeply traumatized by almost being offed by the pissed-off ghost of Eleanor that the chemistry of his brain was forever changed. But it's not that he can't still see ghosts. America totally can. Like, he sees them clear as day or as clear as Arthur or Matthew do. However, he refuses to acknowledge them. He could be standing in a room of 20 ghosts (some that he may have communicated with as a child) and he will stead-fast refuse to admit that he actually can.

[x0x0josephinex0x0]

comfort | kmg

i am feeling icky (physically and mentally and basically in all the ways, send help lol) and as always mingyu is my comfort human so i guess i was just feeling it. reader is mentioned to be an introvert. also reader is in a bad place mentally, lowkey is implied to be a depressive episode (self-insert? hi). kinda sorta from mingyu's pov. pet names used (honey, baby, my love). kinda sorta based on this song (How to Love You Today by Son of Cloud).

mingyu understands the difference between being introverted and being quiet -- after all, he's friends with hoshi, an introvert, who can blow his eardrums at a moment's notice. he's also dating you, and while you're no hoshi, you're definitely not a wonwoo, either.

more than understanding the difference between quiet and introverted, though, he knows you. so he knows that look you have in your eyes -- the hollow, dull look that steals over your features, sometimes for weeks at a time, while you struggle to feel anything at all. he sees it in you now as you stare out the window at the gloomy clouds gathering over the hills.

it's getting bad again. he knows it. you're usually so still when you sleep, and so splendidly expressive while you're awake, but recently that has switched -- your dreams are restless and your sleep-talking more vocal, and you spend more time sitting and staring than you do normally, your face blank and empty, your hands cold whenever he reaches for them. these are the kinds of days that sap you of your saturation, leaving you feeling listless and drained -- times when mingyu has to remind you in gentle tones to eat, to come to bed, to join him in the shower. your mind is not always kind to you, so mingyu has made it his personal mission to be so.

the worst part is, you've stopped singing. when you'd been "just friends", sometimes your constant humming and vocalizing would peeve mingyu when he was trying to concentrate, but after living with you for almost two years, he barely notices it anymore. in fact, he only really notices when you stop, and it's one of his first indicators that something is off about you.

he's been waiting for you to tell him what's going on. usually he can tell you're in a bad state before you can, but mingyu also knows that if he tells you he's noticed, you'll start trying to hide it from him. because you don't want to be a burden. (the thought of you ever being too much for him is laughable to mingyu. he loves you like it's breathing -- just an instinct, something he never even needs to think about, because it's just that easy. every person is heavy sometimes, so why was it so unreasonable for you, his most beloved and treasured person, to believe that he'd willingly carry you, no matter how heavy you got?)

so he waits, staying aware of you always, noting how the dark circles under your hollow eyes get more pronounced. and he worries, of course he does. but he also knows that one day, soon, you'll --

"mingyu?"

he's in the kitchen shredding lettuce for a sandwich for you when he hears it: that tiny voice you use when you're sort of kind of hoping he doesn't turn around to look at you. because you're on the verge of tears, or you look like hell, or a million other reasons that he couldn't care less about. so he turns around. "hey baby. what's up?"

"i...i don't feel good."

that's really all he needs. that's really all it takes, if he's being honest with himself. he goes to you where you hover in the doorway, afraid to take up space, and pulls you into his arms. "i know, honey. i've got you."

there's nothing like the feeling of having your tense muscles relax into him, the way your body releases all that angst as he runs a warm hand up and down your back. you lean your head against his shoulder and repeat, "you got me?" softly, almost embarrassed.

but even as mingyu's heart aches for you -- even as the tears prick the back of his eyes as he thinks of how you must've been suffering -- he feels so grateful. grateful that you trust him. grateful that you feel safe enough to do what he knows is so scary for you. grateful that you choose to do it despite everyone in the past who has made you feel inadequate for needing a hand.

he presses one, two, three kisses to your temple. "i've got you, my love. i've always got you."

[revelingrexan]

made a reference sheet for Lucifer! :) he's wildly inconsistent in the show, so this sheet has helped me a whole bunch

QUICK IMPORTANT NOTE: BECAUSE HE'S SO INCONSISTENT, THERE'S NO "RIGHT" WAY TO DRAW THIS GUY. JUST HAVE FUN, REALLY! AND DON'T MIND MY SHEET AND NOTES IF YOU DON'T WANT TO

(NOTE DONE) the facial expressions in the lower left corner are more inspiration for pushing his expressions since he's SO EXPRESSIVE!! :D ...rather than direct reference since too many features change between screenshots there

(close-ups of sheet at bottom of the post but before the cut)

(his front view hair should actually curve in toward his two hair "sprigs" like it does in every other angle, but the way i drew it is just my own personal preference at times -- it helps me think of him as a bit more 3D)

below is how on earth i laid out that crazy-looking collection. there's a method to the madness! (the dashed line in the middle of the turnarounds is the "front view," and then the images spin Lucifer left and right from there. sometimes the screenshots in the turnarounds are just for body/leg/arm shape reference rather than face reference)

the note at the bottom of the "Hat angles" box says "The hat angles in the center of the ring are usually intended only for animation in-between frames, rather than for longer poses or for illustrations"

"The Ideal Man" in the upper left corner is a partially joking section name and is the Lucifer design i tend to aim for. i think of his face as "very round except for his pointy chin + his eyes are close together and take up almost the whole width of his face (except for in profile view, and except for when it doesn't look good)."

I WANT THIS POST TO STAY SORTA SHORT, SO UNDER THE CUT ARE SOME NOTES ABOUT HIS HAT plus some hat-less screenshots / screenshots where all or almost all his hair is visible

close-ups of reference sheet:

____

SO ABOUT HIS HAT. HIS HAT CAUSED ME SO MUCH CONFUSION UNTIL I THOUGHT OF IT AS A NON-PHYSICAL ENTITY LOL

short explanation: Vivziepop's art style, and especially Lucifer's design, is heavily based on what "looks right," rather than what is physically possible. so, my hat thoughts:

it's a droopy hat that folds down at the sides. so its brim droops in the back

BUT it also curves upward in the front, both to show his facial expression and in a way that sort of matches the curve of the top of his hair--

--so his hair doesn't look awkwardly cut off on the top

examples:

also, the top part of the hat has a smaller base than you might expect and then angles outward, with the front part always being taller and arcing down to the back

not every moment follows these rules, but they help me a lot when drawing him

(i often take liberties especially on the base of the hat and just do what feels right to me, usually based on similar characters i've drawn before -COUGHBLACK HAT FROM VILLAINOUSCOUGH- and based on where i sketched his head under the hat)

NOW SOME BONUS SCREENSHOTS FOR HAIR HELP. GET THAT HAT (MOSTLY) OUT OF THE WAY LOL

[brain-amoeba]

i was sent this ask:

"Hello, you! can there be a headcannon where, (Scout, Sniper, demo, and my favorite Texan, engi) hugging S/o and the merc is like: “Oh no I’m in love with them” as their face is all red? And, S/o is sorta worried about them and asking “you good?” this scenario has been itching my brain for a few days lol

Anon jilly🦭🌺"

and i believe you may have forgotten to turn anon on when submitting the ask, so i still saw your url. out of respect for your anonymity, i will answer here instead of from the inbox, so hopefully it still finds you well! also i hope you don't mind i do a mini scenario for these as opposed to HCs, just to give yall a little more content :3

Mercs Getting a Big Ole Hug

Scout

-You two always had a strong bond, and a dynamic like childhood friends. It was always fun and games with Scout, and when the time came, he knew how to comfort you and be there for you albeit in his own clumsy and Scout-y way.

-It wasn't until he noticed the way the other Mercs looked at you did he start to see you as more than just a friend--he now became acutely aware of how soft your skin felt when it brushed up against his, the way your hair perfectly framed your face, every small detail about you, and he couldn't believe he never noticed any of this before.

-It was your day off, and as usual, you spent it with Scout. The two of you tired yourselves out playing catch outside, as well as other fun roughhousing typical of your other pastimes. While running for the ball, you tripped and fell forward, but Scout was quick enough to catch you, and held you in a tight embrace. You instinctively wrap your arms around his torso and bury your head in his chest. He maintains his grip on you, but his face is as red as his uniform--all of a sudden the outside air feels cramped and he's getting clammy. It was like getting hit with his own Atomizer: all the times he's admired every little thing about you coming together all at once to beat him over the head with the realization that he was in love with you.

-You finally let him go, looking up at him and yelping a bit in surprise. "Scout?! What happened to you? Should we go see Medic?!" You ask frantically, concern showing on your scrunched features as you took in Scout's seemingly-ill state. "N-Nah, I'm okay, really! More than that, actually...I feel amazin'." He gazed at you with a softness you hadn't yet seen before, but it sparked a warmth in your heart and your tummy that you didn't oppose.

Sniper

-Sniper wasn't exactly one for PDA, let alone physical touch. Just didn't tickle his fancy. But you, something about you gave Sniper the desire, for the first time in ages, to hold, touch, and generally be around someone of his own volition. But for some reason, he just couldn't find it in himself to act on those desires. Whether it be his own deeply-instilled professionalism or cowardice, he couldn't tell. Whatever it was, all he knew was him being afraid of scaring you off. So he did nothing. The minimal interactions with you now would suffice, and his imagination could do the rest.

-You weren't exactly having the best day. Just yesterday, you scuffed a one-on-one encounter with an enemy merc that cost your team the mission, and today's target practice was not kind to you either. You found yourself alone on the range, tears of frustration pooling in your [color] eyes as you trudged along to set up the target dummy Sniper once again. Overwhelmed by frustration, you found yourself hugging the Sniper dummy for even the slightest sense of comfort, dropping your rifle to the dust below with a thud. The real Sniper, who had volunteered to check on you, heard the sound of your rifle hitting the ground as he left the base. The impact immediately spiked his adrenaline and caused the worst thoughts to run through his mind. He quickened his pace, almost falling over in place once he beheld the scene. Sniper couldn't help but feel a tug on his heartstrings watching you embrace the dummy of him. A warm flush crept its way to his rugged features as he realized the depth of his feelings for you way-exceeded his expectations.

-It's now or never, he thought to himself, finally finding the courage to approach you. He put a large gloved hand on your shoulder, eliciting a fearful shriek from you. Your face reddened with embarrassment, stammering as you tried to come up with a good excuse for your behavior. Wordlessly, Sniper wrapped you up in a tight embrace which immediately soothed your worries. "Shhh. It's alright, roo. Don't cry, now." He spoke just above a whisper, and despite being there to comfort you, he himself was trembling with anxiety at what he's just done. When you finally gathered yourself and parted from the Aussie's embrace, your eyes widened. "Sniper! What's gotten into you?!" He looked down at you with a slight smile, as if it would conceal the way his heart pounded in his chest.

"You have, sheila."

Demoman

-He wasn't always drunk! Okay, maybe he was, but that didn't mean he was always unaware. He was especially aware of a certain little merc who always took him to bed, always got him water, and always made sure to wish him a goodnight, even when the rest left him to drink himself to oblivion. He thought of you very fondly, like a close friend more than just a colleague. You were the first of the bunch to ever show a genuine compassion for him and actually attempt to care for him even in his drunken state (and he knew that was no easy feat).

-It was another night like always, the rest of the team off taking care of their own business while Demo had some precious one-on-one time with his scrumpy, this time accompanied by you! And you were actually drinking with him! It was the weekend, after all, and you decided what the hell, why not, and let your hair down a little. While not nearly as intoxicated as your Scottish companion, you definitely felt the buzzy warmth of drunkenness sneaking up on you. You felt more bubbly, confident, and silly. You gazed upon Demo fondly as he slurred through stories of missions, both failures and successes.

-Right as he was getting to the story's climax, he raised his arms above his head for dramatic affect, and you impulsively leapt into them. "Awwe Tavichhh, I wuv when you tell stowiesss" you mumbled into his chest, arms wrapped tightly around his torso as if he'd leave you any second. The sudden show of affection almost sobered Demo up a bit, but he quickly dropped his arms and returned your embrace. In his drunken state, the warmth of your body against his felt like fire, and he couldn't help but notice the way you fit perfectly into him. Demo soon grabbed your shoulders, moving you back to meet his gaze. The sudden serious look on his face sent a shiver down your spine. "D-demo! What's the matter?!" He took in your flushed face as if he were looking upon the Mona Lisa herself before finally speaking, "Oh it's nothin, lass. I just enjoy lookin' at ye."

Engineer

-You were lucky enough to get some time off when you were informed this go-round of contracts did not include you. To your surprise, they didn't include Engie, either. You discovered this when you bolted for the workshop in a panic as you realized your prized headphones were destroyed! You were about to go on a walk before fishing them from your backpack and soon met with the disappointment of your prized possession in tatters--wires frayed, and hanging down almost mockingly.

-As you busted through the double doors of Engineer's workshop, he jumped in surprise, nearly dropping his wrench. "Well howdy to yourself too, darlin'!" He regained his bearings and approached you with a chuckle. "What's got you in such a tizzy, hm?" You simply raised the broken pair of headphones up*, looking at him like a lost puppy. "M-my headphones are destroyeeeddd!" You whined. Engie, behind his goggles, looked at you with a twinge of pain in his eyes just from hearing how distraught you were. Though he was empathetic to your "loss", he couldn't help but admire how adorable you sounded when you whimpered, and got a bit of an ego-boost from how you immediately came to him for aid. Engie took the headphones from you, inspecting them closely as he set them down on a nearby workbench. "Y'know, dear, these might not be a lost cause...let's see what some good ole fashioned Texan ingenuity can do!" He assured you with a sly smile.

-You fidgeted nervously as you watched over his shoulder while he tinkered away on your poor headphones. "Can I get you somethin' to drink darlin'? Maybe some water?" Engineer didn't take his eyes off the headphones as he spoke, currently re-twisting and wrapping wires before getting to work on the broken frame of the device. "I'm okay, thank you, Engie..." Truthfully, you were just too nervous to take your eyes off of the headphones while Engineer repaired them. Of course, you trusted his skillful hand, but with them being such a meaningful item to you, you couldn't help but hover over his shoulder and watch. Suddenly, Engie spoke up again, this time with a command-- "Close your eyes, dear." Nervously, you did as you were told. Engineer turned to face you, gently placing the repaired headphones on your head. Your eyes shot open and hands immediately went up to feel the newly repaired device now muffling your hearing.

-Without a second thought, you pulled Engie into a tight embrace. "Engie, you're the best!! Thank you so much!" You exclaimed, nuzzling his chest a bit as the two of you embraced. His large gloved hand gently caressed your back, giving it a slight pat in response to your praise. While Engineer typically maintained a relaxed exterior, internally, he was practically melting. A proper southern gentleman such as himself couldn't be indecent in the presence of a lady, but the fog on his goggles and pink in his cheeks said otherwise. You pulled away, removing the headphones. You went to inspect them further, but the sight before you stopped you dead in your tracks. "Engie?! You feeling alright??" He looked like he was about to pass out--and he felt like it, too.

-Engineer simply nodded, placing his ivory-colored cowboy hat on your head in response.

*this is exactly what i envisioned for this scene btw

[genericpuff]

From the standpoint of someone who doesn't even like LO that much. Reading through this gave me a strange sense of discomfort? I think. Something about the combination of the essays, and the digs at the author in a lot of posts, and making a community based on it, and the ranting. It made it feel a lot more group ragging on something than normal fandom re-writes. I can't help but want to say something on the subject (0/3)

Gonna respond to all your asks together if that's okay, from what I can glean there's a word limit on mobile (?) so it makes it very interesting to see who's able to put all their thoughts into one big ask vs. who has to cut them up into parts 😆

So I can understand that discomfort, it's actually one that I also initially felt towards the community when I discovered it. Though even more so because when I found out about antiLO being a thing, I was still a MASSIVE fan of LO and my thought was "wow, these people are losers" LOL but then a lot of what they were saying resonated with me more as I realized the story was going nowhere (it was around the trial arc when Eris was revealed to be the 'reason' for Persephone's wrath).

All that said, I don't think I was wrong to feel off back then even though I don't feel that way now. We have our own takes and ways of approaching certain subjects, and how we feel is how we feel.

I will say that I can't, in any way, take credit for 'creating' the community. AntiLO pre-existed me by years and I was simply welcomed in as my opinions of the comic changed. I was a lot more involved in UnpopularLoreOlympus when it was born around the S2 finale of the comic. So... don't give me any sort of credit in 'owning' this community or anything of that sort, I came in during a period when criticism of the comic was becoming more common practice. I'm just also someone who's very verbose and loud in their opinions which appeals to a lot of people in this community, so I get why people might see me as some kind of "pillar" within it or like I'm the loudest person in the room, but I promise you that doesn't mean I have any sort of ownership over this part of the fandom or that I feel my opinions carry any more weight than the people around me. It's just a community, after all, not a religion.

It's true that saying I'm not making money off Rekindled doesn't mean I'm not benefiting off it in other ways. But the 'benefits' are still kinda... nothing? in the grand scheme of things? like okay great I have loads of people reading my stuff every update but like, this is still just Tumblr lmao none of this is real and as soon as Rekindled is over, I might be lucky to bring some of the readers over into my next project, but I doubt whatever I do next will get as popular as Rekindled was. All the "benefits" I get are virtually the same as what people writing fanfiction get on AO3 get or what people doing redraw videos on Youtube get. It's fake Internet points for making fan creations.

And that's okay, because that's sorta just the nature of fandom in general, throughout any niche community. People will be naturally drawn to what's familiar and what I do here appeals to the people who are familiar with LO and the criticisms of it, often people who agree with those criticisms. The Zelda community has LinkedUniverse, Pokemon has Hanamusa, Attack on Titan has communities that are dedicated to loving the anime, hating the anime, and even dunking on people who don't 'get' the anime, Undertale has every single crazy rewrite and rewrites-of-rewrites that have been spawned from its fanbase. Did you know there's an entire community of people who discuss and argue over fire alarms? I didn't, but when I found out about it, it was after listening to a video on Youtube discussing all the interconnected drama of the fire alarm community. Like that's wild and seems so stupid and pointless... but it matters to the people who are in it, and my opinion of how they operate isn't going to change how it makes them feel to be a part of that space. That's kinda just human nature, we create our own little microcosms of things to bond over so for people within those microcosms, any amount of disagreement or discomfort will feel massive in proportion.

I guess the point of what I'm trying to say is that a lot of this stuff feels crazy loud but it's really only that loud because it's occupying a single room.

The reality is that Rekindled is still a very niche project dedicated to a niche webtoon that's a part of a niche medium. As loud as it is within here, it's still only because it's such a closed community. Anyone outside of the Webtoons community has zero clue what it is. The 'attention' that I'm getting is still from other niche people who occupy a very specific interest.

And that's not even exclusive to Rekindled, despite Webtoons attempts to sell LO as a 'worldwide phenomenon', a lot of people don't know it exists and couldn't care less. Does that mean my rantings about the comic and its creator matter any less to me or the people who are interested in them? Not really. Is it all pointless? Maybe, but not everything really needs to have some bigger point. We're all kinda just here spending time talking about something we both love and can't stand. What I say about LO and do with Rekindled is undoubtedly inconsequential and pointless to people who aren't in the room. That's fine. That's why I keep it all in my own house. There are definitely people who talk about it outside of the home but that's far from what I can control.

That said, I think LO also does fall into a very unique category where it's very easy to do rewrites and redraws of it simply because it, in and of itself, is a rewrite. Rekindled is far from being the first "fix it" fic, not only of LO but also of any piece of media in general, it's not really a new phenomenon (but again, when it's loud, it can be easy to go "well clearly YOU had to influence this"). People are drawn to retelling LO or 'fixing' it because LO is based on Greek myth. If it weren't for that, no, I don't think people would be as interested in doing so. It's because we literally have a solid foundation of reference material - the myths and original poems - that we can go "hey, why did LO do this? it should have / could have been xyz". You can't really do that as much with a purely original work besides wish fulfillment of "what if xyz happened" because whatever an original piece of work winds up being is clearly what it was meant to be. We have nothing to compare it against.

But with LO, we know what it could have been because we know what it was trying to be since day 1 - a retelling of the Abduction of Persephone. That's not to say we always knew exactly what Rachel was planning on doing with it, but it's not hard to be disappointed when we see certain mythical stories being established in LO - such as the tale of Eros and Psyche, the Titanomachy, etc. - only to see them get dropped or completely mishandled.

On the one hand I could use HADES and Stray Gods as examples of popular media that don't get 'rewritten' the same way LO does because while they have their own unique interpretations of the myths they're based on, they still feel like properly thought out stories that appreciate the source material. LO, by comparison, feels like it's written by someone who hates Greek myth.

But on the other hand, those rewrites may absolutely exist and I'm just not aware of them because I don't occupy those rooms! The world is only as big as we perceive it to be.

That said, it's always sort of ironic to me when people say Rekindled is "riding off the coattails of LO" because while I can understand their sentiment - because obviously it's a direct re-creation of LO - that opinion seems to operating from the assumption that LO was ever not riding off Greek myth's coattails to begin with.

And no, I don't think my criticizing of LO on an LO-focused blog should in any way be conflated with "media isn't allowed to be bad". I've said this before and I'll say it again, I'm into loads of bad media. I'm also fully capable of enjoying a piece of media but also shit-talking it without actually feeling any sort of vitriol towards it. House M.D. is one of my favorite TV shows but goddamn some of the plots are just so dramatic and out-of-this-world that you can't help but laugh at them (and that's why we have spaces like /r/okaybuddyvicodin LOL). One of my favorite games growing up was Starfox Adventures because I had never played the original Starfox games but I had played loads of Zelda and Adventures was basically Zelda but with Starfox, and I know there are plenty of people who will go "but puff, that game is ass!" and I know! But I love it regardless.

With LO, it's not a matter of "bad media shouldn't exist!" it's a matter of observing what makes it so bad and why that's had a negative impact on both the audience it attracts (primarily teenagers and children) as well as the culture it's taking its ideas from. If LO was just some "so bad its good" webtoon that was easy to enjoy but also poke fun at, I would have zero issue. It's the fact that it's blatantly problematic in its writing and intentions but still hailed as the #1 webtoon on the platform (webtoons in and of themselves being a medium that I've lived in for over a decade so it's virtually impossible to get away from whatever is influencing the culture as a whole) while winning all these accolades for being "brilliantly written" and its creator is given a voice over Greek culture when she herself is not Greek or even well-read on Greek culture in any capacity - that's the issue and why I've spent so much time talking about LO. And if it wasn't me, it would be anyone else, because the problem has been around for ages and people have been trying to get the word out about it for years.

I don't necessarily think every 'fix it fic' is built equally. I think it's a case by case thing. A lot of people are deadass just doing it for fun and to be a part of a community, and I think that's wonderful. There are also people who try to do this but ultimately disrespect whatever the creator was going for by somehow implying that their own original ideas were inferior just by existing, or using their fix-it fics as a way to deliberately harass the original creators (ex. whatever the fuck 'art lore' is on TikTok, based on what I've seen it seems purely made for bullying budding artists and talking shit which is... gross af, but I don't think it's anywhere near the same as readers of LO calling out its highly successful award-winning creator for having zero clue what she's doing with her comic lmao). I don't think a blanket statement of "fix it fics are bad" accomplishes anything because it depends on a variety of factors like the person's intentions and what they're trying to accomplish. Many fanfictions in general could be called 'fix it fics' even if the creator 100% loved the source material with zero issue - because they're still saying "what if xyz happened instead"?

Me, personally? I'm someone who loves Greek myth and who used to adore LO. I was very discouraged and upset when I saw it turned into what it became, and I wanted to try my own hand at creating something new out of the rubble that could give me closure. It's what I choose to do with my time and other people seem to enjoy it as well. I'm sure there's loads to criticize and speculate on regarding my 'intentions' in creating it, but at the end of the day I'm sorta just doing what I want to do with my time because I have a lot of thoughts and ideas I need to get out of my head and many of them are thoughts and ideas that other people like reading about.

If you feel uncomfortable by the amount I talk about it here and the way I talk about it, that's fine. Those are your feelings. There are loads of other antiLO-themed blogs to read that might not give you that same vibe. Even I have certain icks towards certain opinions within the antiLO community, I've seen some people be genuinely shitty and I'm sure that's ironic to hear considering you're describing your own discomfort towards my stuff, but we all have different tolerances towards different things at the end of the day.

I do my part to keep things in my own house of a neighborhood that's really small in the grand scheme of things. It just feels like a big neighborhood if you don't travel. There will inevitably come a day where I'll pack my boxes and move elsewhere, talk about new things and write essays about other topics. That's obviously not today but I definitely don't want this to just be like, my entire identity or the rest of my life LOL it's just something I've chosen to spend my free time doing and I'm content with that. Maybe a year from now I'll feel differently, who knows? At the very least I'm hoping to one day finish Rekindled because no, I don't want this to actually be my identity for the rest of my life, change is a good thing LOL but what that change will bring is, for now, a mystery. Here's hoping wherever I end up at least brings its own uniquely good times like I've had here :' )

Sorry, that was a very long response with a lot of sorta aimless muddling over the topic at hand, but thank you for the opportunity to discuss it regardless ! because I do think it's important to find that 'grounding point' when it comes to stuff like this. because as much as I get riled up over LO, yeah, at the end of the day, it's just a dumb webtoon and I don't wanna go soiling myself over it LOL but I'm also just like... running a Tumblr blog with my personal thoughts and ideas, no more or no less. Even the "attention" I get is still only 200-400 notes per new episode of Rekindled, which pales in comparison to any real metrics of "success" imo LMAO again, it just feels loud because this is a niche community made up of a lot of the same names and faces; step outside of it and no one gives a shit LOL

[violeteclipseboaty]

So I recently went to go watch KOTPOTA again. I wanted to share my thoughts overall on the film, I couldn't properly do it before because I had forgotten some stuff lol

The pacing: at first watch I though it was kinda weird but watching it again I realized it pretty much went straight to the point, if anything I wanted MORE but you know the movie would've been too long but I wouldn't have minded either way. I mean, I've watched the Avatar and Harry Potter movies, so yeah I could've handled that lol

I really like the environment they set up with the eagle clan; their culture, their tradition with the eggs, and their bond with the eagles. I hope we get to see more details in the next movie.

The cinematography was amazing, they really nailed it. The sceneries were outstanding. A lot of that stuff reminded me back to Rise, back when it was filled with human life, now sadly the structures are abandoned and overtaken by nature but look pretty either way. The action scenes omg were so engaging and just done so well.

Let's talk about the main characters:

Noa: Great character. He's curious, smart, brave, and compassionate. I know a lot of people wanted him to be Caesar's descendant but i didnt really care about that. I'm excited where his next journey will take us if they have the chance to make a sequel (please 🙏) I'm pretty sure at the end of the film, Noa now has a new view of the world he lives in and now questioning his entire existence lol

Raka: loved him!! I really like how he truly understood what Caesar stood for. I did notice some things he believed were wrong lol but he's got the spirit and would lighten up the mood after what happened with Noa's clan. He's got a good heart, he sacrificed himself for Mae despite knowing her for a very short amount of time after all. Also I refuse to believe he's dead so there's that also and I hope he comes back to guide both Mae and Noa onto the path for the coexistence of both apes and humans.

Soona: I really wish we could've gotten more scenes with her, but I really like her. She's brave, sweet, and a ride or die for both Noa and Anaya. I hope we get to see her more in the next film

Anaya: yall already know cause I made a seperate post lol but loved him and I wish we had more scenes with him as well! I felt so bad for him when we see him again with Proximus, he's been through enough!

Proximus: he was a great villian and I did not like him, which is good! Not all villians need a sad backstory, this dude was clearly only hungry for power. He was twisting Caesar's words, enslaving other apes, killing humans, and wanted access to technology capable of bringing destruction and chaos. He's smart and knows how to be resourceful. I find it funny that he was talking smack about humans yet his way of thinking and actions are similar to the bad side of humanity. I only wish we could've gotten more scenes with him; he was underused and I thought he would have a much bigger role based on the trailers, but I enjoyed his presence overall.

Mae: I've already made a seperate post about her character and I still sorta feel the same way about her. Rewatching it again, I got to sympathize more with her situation. She's a survivor who clearly grew up and was taught misinformation about apes, but after meeting Raka and bonding with Noa; i truly believe she'll come around and change her mind. I believe in her, and I hope we get to see her again and get more of her backstory to understand her better.

The movie was great. The plot, visuals, and acting were so well done. I took about 5 years for them to work on this, and it SHOWS. Their dedication shows that when enough time is given; movies that involve CGI can be done properly. I'm sick of projects being crunched and the visuals ending up looking like 💩 because the teams/artists aren't appreciated enough. I definitely recommend watching at least twice, and I pray for a sequel.

[linisiane]

I’ve seen that post on here that’s like “What did they put in this game to make us all Like That,” and I think we’re all Like That about Disco Elysium bc we’re all hyperfixating on it because it surprisingly speaks to the chaos of living with ADHD. And we SEE that and feel seen.

- First of all, Harry Du Bois Adhd headcanons pop off hard, especially with the whole “I do speed to do detective work,” aka I need stimulants to focus, aka unintentional self-medication. Also the poor impulse control, emotional disregulation. And the voices remind me of the way my brain jumps topic to topic so I have like 4 ongoing topics going at once. Stereo investigations, thoughts in the thought cabinet, if you will.

- Additionally, a lot of interactions surrounding Harry’s memory loss even feel very ADHD. ADHD is a problem with working memory (attention/focus), which cascades into causing problems with encoding memories for long term storage. You can’t remember what you never even focused on. Because of this, being forgetful of things that seemed basic or obvious or easy to remember for other people is a staple problem for people with ADHD, and while the game is obviously much more extreme with total retrograde amnesia, I find that the game’s demonstration of “the people being frustrated or confused by basic things you’ve forgotten or misplaced” (and this being taken seriously as a Big Issue affecting your life, even if the others don’t take it seriously/brush it off) is very relatable and almost cathartic. Even if the only reason why it’s taken so seriously in the game is because you’ve just literally lost all your memory… and your gun lol

- Harry doing buck wild things to get results based on the conversations going on inside his head, which don’t get read to the outside world, is very relatable. Again, my brain jumps topic to topic so much that it’s almost hard to track the logical thread connecting the thoughts internally, much less explain them to another person at the same time. The “how did we get here, what exactly brought you to this course of action? This seems unrelated, detective” is very much a conversation I experience on the daily, whether with myself or the people around me.

- Kim Kitsuragi is the ADHD fantasy. @snowberry-pie’s got in one. He’s perfect for fighting off that executive dysfunction by helping you actually get shit done while not being suffocating/controlling/shaming about it. He sorta takes responsibility of you to help you take responsibility of yourself. He’s a body double, your partner in it with you. Lets you go on your barely related stereo investigations and indulges your inexplicable actions instead of controlling you, trusting that it’s part of the process lol. Offers positive reinforcement instead of using shame (like calling Harry a burden) to get Harry to focus on the case.

Disco Elysium has lots to say about how disability is exacerbated/unsupported by the system for a lot of characters, including Harry. Adhd fits right into that, especially with the ways an ADHD!Harry interpretation would highlight the understandable nature of his drug addiction (not only was it a way to cope with chronic pain that no one was treating him for, but also a way to cope with unmedicated ADHD).

Anyways I wrote this instead of writing my paper.

[12boogaloo]

Okay, I cant take it anymore. The brain rot is REAL

Been on a writing hiatus since 2019 or 2020 (I honestly don’t remember so don’t @ me)

And what gets me to finally start writing again?

You guessed it ladies, gents, and serpents!

Fucking TROLLS 3

Let’s get this bread or die trying y’all 😈

~•~

So first things first: I didn’t come up with the AU’s I’m using here! They were created by TheMiraculousMat and Keebsification on here and AO3

The AU’s in question are The Eldest and The Youngest and Out The Train Wreck

I just love it when people see John Dory and think “hmmm yes this grown man can fit so much eldest daughter energy in him” cuz SAME

So I thought: what if I just… put em together? OTT! JD and E&Y! JD have a grip on my soul and I’m filling a formal complaint in the form of fanfiction for not just 1, but 2 other pieces of fanfiction!!! Cuz why not

I’m gonna post the notes I’ve had about this idea for the past 2 week, at least the first part.

Well… it’s half notes, half chapter really…

Maybe. MAYBE. I’ll clean it up and post it on AO3. Maybe… probably lets be real

Anyway. Y’all can call me Boog and this is Project: Hyperfixation Won

Actual story name pending…

~•~

Part 1: Author’s Actual Notes because they are a nerd

Got an idea

Gonna scratch the itch

Half brain rot dump and half story here

Combination of the Eldest and Youngest JD and the Train Wreck JD

I also head canon that trolls have tails and claws and fangs

They’re lil creatures

Basically the same stuff happens in TW with the manager and John being Branch’s father.

Branch grows up knowing JD is his dad while everyone else thinks they’re brothers.

He and Luka are dating. He’s basically Branch’s other dad.

Luka gets taken and John thinks he died. He keeps his glove to remember him.

The fight still happens. John still leaves but promises Branch that he’ll come back.

He goes to the Neverglades for the next four years.

When he gets a letter about Rosiepuff and Branch he immediately heads back to the tree to take care of him.

Pretty much all of E&Y happens but with the change of Branch knowing JD is his dad.

Makes the trauma of him leaving worse in a way which adds to the angst of the first parts delicious, but it also makes their bond really solid later on.

John forgot that everyone in the village knew them as brothers until Poppy asks him if John is Branch’s daddy out of the blue. He panics and says “no” on instinct and they both decide to just go with it. Easier than explaining it to everyone.

She still doesn’t know. Nobody does.

John still loses his arm trying to save Creek(nasty ass).

One morbid silver lining John felt was that at least it wasn’t the hand he wore Luka’s glove on. Small miracles. Lol I’m sorry

Branch doesn’t remember Luka anymore, at least not really. He sorta remembers a burgundy haired troll that he thought was important but couldn’t remember anything else about them so he didn’t think too much about it.

John doesn’t really like talking about him and Branch hasn’t ever asked so he doesn’t bring it up.

He starts dating Hickory and he does tell him about Luka. He admits that while he definitely is falling for Hickory, a part of him will always belong to Luka and their relationship will always be really important to him.

Hickory is more than okay with that and even tells him that he would’ve loved to have met the man that made his sweetheart so happy and kept him safe before it was his turn. (John just about cried when he said that same buddy and agreed that they’d probably get along pretty well.)(He shows Hickory pictures of him and Luka one day and they laugh over the fact that John clearly has a type.)(And, based on Hickory’s own light blush, same.)(He immediately said Luka was ‘real cute’ and John still laughs at him for it.)

He also tells him about Bold and how Branch came to be. (Hickory spent solid hours comforting him afterwards and spent an equal amount of time thinking of ways he could get Dickory to help him torture the bastard if he ever saw him.)(He decides in that moment that he’d do anything to protect his boyfriend and his son. Anything.) (He’s also even more grateful to Luka when he hears about how he protected his love the day they met. He really wishes he could thank him…)

Branch makes jokes about not calling Hickory his stepdad till they get married, which makes John flush bright blue. (Hickory just laughs and winks, the traitor.)(Hickory secretly really wants Branch to call him ‘Pops’ and he’s so obvious about it.)(Branch finds it hilarious and doesn’t on purpose. He’d actually love to call him that, he’s just being an ass.)(You’d think he wouldn’t ever want to but no. For some reason, it’s only thinking of Hickory as ‘Papa’ specifically that makes him feel wrong. Like that’s not available to him. I wonder why.)

After saving Floyd, the boys all start spending more time together as a family. Floyd and Clay move into the bunker with John and Branch. Bruce still lives on Vacay Island but he tries to visit at least once a week, even bringing his wife and kids with him if he can.

They still love doing shows together and will do a big one every two weeks at least.

A few months later, they’re getting ready to hangout together after a performance in PopVillage. Hickory isn’t with them, he was actually watching with Tiny in the crowd, so he can’t see them.(Lil dude is really attached to his “Uncle Cowboy” and “Uncle Johnny” it’s adorable.)(And yes Guy is close by, Tiny is still very very grounded.)

Poppy wants to introduce them to a former stage manager that she’s worked with before that had come to see the show from TrollCity. Branch has met him once before and thought the guy was weird and a little creepy but nothing else made him feel suspicious so he kinda just ignored it. He figured if Poppy trusted him, it was fine. (Obviously he still kept an eye on the old bastard, cause your boy isn’t paranoid for nothing. And you never know.)

They all agree to meet and when they get backstage… it’s him.

Bold.

The bros old manager. The man who hurt their eldest unimaginably.

JD basically shuts down as his younger brothers immediately shield him from view.

They need to get out of here without causing a scene. Fast.

“Poppy, I think we need to go…” Floyd mumbles, his usually soft features twisting in both anger and slight fear as he stared the old troll down.

Poppy looks at them in confusion, “Wha- but you guys said you wanted to see everything we set up!!” She looks between the brothers and the older manager, Branch joining her as his eyebrows furrowed.

“Sorry, kids, I don’t think we can do that…” Bruce doesn’t take his eyes off of the old man as he steps back, closer to Clay and Floyd who were holding John Dory’s arms and hands to keep him steady in their safety bubble, their tails wrapped around his waist. “Not when he’s here.”

Poppy blinks in confusion. “What do you mean? Have you met Mr. Bold before?” She asks.

The old bastard chuckles. “Don’t worry, Miss Poppy.” Poppy huffs a bit at being called ‘miss’. (She’s Queen, dammit. Only Hickory calls her ‘miss’ and it’s always as a joke.) “I was the boys’ manager back in the day! It’s just been a while since we’ve seen each other.” He looks over each brother, clearly trying to get a look at John Dory and noticeably souring when he’s blocked. Then he smirks, taking a few steps closer, his wooden cane thunking against the floor. John flinches with each tap, tap, tap. “You’ve all grown up so much.”

Bruce holds his ground, crossing his arms and rolling his shoulders, his bigger body blocking most of JD from view. Clay was growling behind him, both him and Floyd curling closer to John and their ears pressed back in irritation. Bruce gives a humorless chuckle. “Heh. Yeah, we’ve grown up, Bold. We grew up and you’re fucking old now.”

Poppy gasps. “B-Bruce, that’s not nice!” She turns to Bold and smiles nervously. “I’m so sorry-“

The man waves her off. “Don’t fret. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it. He’s right after all.” He looks at them again all smugly, leaning on his cane. “Like I said, it’s been a long time.”

Floyd scoffs. “Not long enough.” He growls, baring his teeth. His claws start coming out and he’s thankful he’s holding John’s prosthetic arm as he feels them scratch the metal.

“Woah, okay, what the hell is up with you guys?” Branch finally steps in. That was so unlike Floyd to say something like that. He’s never seen the older troll that angry before, he’s never seen any of his uncles that angry before.

Bruce huffs. “What’s up is that we’re leaving. Now.” He goes to turn around to start steering his brothers out of the room when he hears Bold chuckle, making them all freeze.

“You all really have changed so much,” He says, his tail swaying side-to-side behind him. John looks up and they manage to lock eyes, Bold smiling sickly as John stares in horror. “Especially you, Johnny Baby.”

John feels sick. He feels like he’s gonna pass out. He feels his legs start giving out as Clay and Floyd rush to hold him up. He feels his body going completely limp and his vision blurs and his chest hurts and he can’t breATHE-

Bruce tackles the old troll, immediately landing brutal hits to the bastards face. He screams between punches, “DON’T TALK TO MY BROTHER!” Bold tries to hit him back, only managing to smack Bruce in the side once with his cane before continuing to get pummeled.

Branch and Poppy jump in frantically to pull him off of the man and the three of them stumble back. Bruce shoves them off and glares at Bold again. He was lying on the ground, groaning and clutching his nose, there were scratches and bruises on his face and he was covered in his own glittery copper blood. “Stay. The FUCK. Away. From John.” Bruce pants and shakes out his hands, flexing his exposed claws. He spits on the ground. “Bastard.” He turns back to his brothers. “Cmon, let’s get out of here.” He lifts JD up bridal style and Clay and Floyd follow him as he starts rushing to the door.

“Wait, hold on!” Branch runs after them, leaving Poppy standing in confused horror at what just happened.

~•~

That’s what I’ll give for now lol

I have like wayyy more written out but I’m mean so 😈

Anyway

Thank you for coming to my ted talk

Lmk what y’all think ig

Check out the folks that created these AU’s plz @matmiraculous and Keebsification (idk their tumblr so plz don’t yell at me) both on AO3 where I found them

Later yall

[lmanburgseulogy]

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE IN UNIVERSE CULTURE OF LMANBERG

WORLD BUILDING GO (I have so many thoughts)

OHHHH MY GOSH. OKAY. OKAY

IDK HOW TO WORD MY THOUGHTS HELP IVE NEVER LIKE. WORLD BUILT BEFORE AT LEAST NOT INTENTIONALLY

I think a lot of their virtues would be surrounded around the Independence War. This idea is based on lmancrew reflecting so much on it during election arc (especially c!wilbur, who. Is in charge of the country so he kinda reflects their image a lot lol.) They’re VERY proud of their history, so ofc their culture heavily celebrates it.

No casual/working clothing goes below the knees due to the marshy land. The uniforms don’t apply to this rule, but those are only worn on special occasions anyway. Some examples of when the uniform is required are like. political events, any conflict related to the country, certain holidays, festivals, etc. Basically anytime where the whole nation is united, I guess. They use the identical clothing as a metaphor for being equals.

They have festivals often (sorry canon) to celebrate the different accomplishments they hit during the early days. For example, when Tubbo builds the docks, or the space center, or Niki’s bakery being opened.

L’manburg also hosts festivals on holidays relating to it’s folklore or history. Independance day is a huge deal. Everyone in the whole nation gets together and I imagine they would be (unfortunately) kinda judgey if you didn’t attend. phhaa they celebrate summer solstice too. Big time. Yes.!

FOOD. yummy!! obviously a lot of culture is centered around the environment near by, so cuisine is based around fresh water fish or other things found in their river. Water lily roots and salmon are viewed VERY highly despite being quite common. (salmon got them through some hard times put the respect to the fish name…) They also eat a lot of bugs, with crickets being an exception because of local stories about them. A large population of L’manburg citizens are pescatarian or entovegan.

THEY ARE OBSESSED WITH NATURE LEMME TELL YOUUUUU….. Everyday I think about L’manburg’s first rule being to never damage the trees. L’manburg would’ve put so many preservation acts in place to protect their precious redwoods…hallo. They work with the land and the land works with them.. i think disrespecting it is an act that gets you completely outcasted from society tbh. (I also think this got more extreme after the war because doing something that’s hurtful to their home, whether intentional or not, is similar to the smp. They also kick preservation into full gear after the l’manburg forest fire because they lost so much wildlife. Anyway. I’m normal.)

I think the sunrise would be a religious experience for them. I dunno. I just remember c!niki saying nights in l’manburg are long so maybe the sunrise is a crazy thing for them. The end of the darkness. The rays of light peaking through their walls. The yellow spanning across their home and making everything bright and clear……that’s be sorta holy, don’t you think?

ANYWAY THESE ARE KINDA BAD I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS (looking at you with big wet eyes)

[katiekatdragon27]

Being an artist is fun cuz I can draw whatever whenever as long as I have a group of people peerpressuring me /j

This all started as a joke talking about THANOS Muffin and sorta escalated/derailed into just sorta assigning OSC characters as a whole to the DSMP characters.

My gc and I had no real idea what we were doing, and this is honestly just for shits and giggles, lol. Everyone was assigned on dynamics and vibes instead of being logical. PLEASE DON'T BULLY ME FOR MY SPELLING, IT WAS SUPER LATE AT NIGHT WHEN I DID THIS.

The culprits: @always-just-down-the-street and @friiskuz (the main two), @mambari, and @glitchtypes

(Also keep in mind that I have never watched a full stream of the DSMP, I only watched certain content creators outside of the server. I barely had any say in this so don't blame me if you don't like iiiiitttt.)

Specifics under the cut:

Firey from BFDI is Tommyinnit. This was decided because of his main characterness, him being one of the most important characters in OSC history, and his mildly chaotic nature.

Leafy from BFDI is Tubbo. This was decided because of Firey being Tommy. Also, because I find the ship between Tubbo and Ranboo cute and this universe's equivalents really funny to pair up.

Taco from II is Wilbur Soot. This was decided because of the betrayal stuff, the violence and manipulation, and because we thought it would be fun.

Top Hat from TNM is Ranboo. This was decided because of vibes, trauma maybe(?), and some other stuff that my friend said. Also, something about hallucinating probably and just being in a general sense of not okayness.

Muffin from THANOS is BadBoyHalo. This was decided because this is litterally BBH. He is literally based on BBH clips from his videos cropped together to make a character. He started this whole thing.

"Blood" Diamond (although their built like Aquamarine) from BFDI (ABCDEFG) is Skeppy. This was decided because Skeppy's skin is literally a diamond. They're a "blood diamond" because of the egg arc, and they are probably a brother instead of sister since that short isn't really canon to anything. They're a blank slate, we can do what we want.

Oodle from AIB is Slimecicle. This was decided because of his omnipotent god powers (immortality) and just being a silly goofy guy in general. We considered Goo for a bit, but Goo's a little too young to have been around since the dawn of the server. Maybe before becoming Oodle he was Goo? Idk.

X from BFB is GerogeNotFound. This was decided because of who we made Dream XD. That's really it (they might have also had some weird romantic stuff happening in the stream before???).

Four from BFB is Dream XD. This was decided because of the revival aspect of Four's power and also their scary and overall powerful nature. The rainbows are because of Infinity being a rainbow in canon.

Call me cringe all you want; I can take the heat. If you want to feed into this hellhole, be my guest. Have a great day bros >:)

[alt-wannabe]

MCSR D&D

Couriway time!

Order of Scribes Wizard 15

I'm havin a little trouble with fulham's sheet so if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions about that lmk! Either way ill try to have his character sheet posted tomorrow!

More under the cut like always :) thanks for showing interest yall!!!

Wizard is lowk my favorite class in the game so I was super excited to make one! I ended up making couri an aarakocra in order to give him a fly speed but in my mind he's just a human lookin guy w/ wings and not like a full bird-person.

Here's his spell list! I was a lot less focused on picking minecraft related spells here and focused a lot more on general versatility (IE making a wizard without shield or mage armor would be very bizarre, especially once you clock that couri's AC is ELEVEN). Some of the things I did specifically pick out with couri in mind include scrying/locate creature (scrying is sorta like finding the stronghold and locate creature acts as finding spawners) and tiny hut (this was just me thinking about his house on HBGSMP).

Here are the items I gave him! The spell focus I picked was an orb cause it reminded me of an eye of ender. He also has 16 pearls and 5 rods (even though they're definitely not created with the minecraft counterparts in mind lmao). I'm gonna be real I gave him the eyes of charming almost entirely because they look like a pair of big round glasses. Similar logic behind the circlet of blasting- it's a crown. The boots are pretty much just a speedrunning reference and I hope staff of WITHERing is also fairly obvious lol. The robe of eyes is a little more interesting. It's basically what it says on the tin- a robe covered in eyes that allows you to see in every direction at all times. This seemed fitting for couri based on just the sheet number of seeds he runs, being aware of your environment at all times holds extra importance when you run than many different worlds.

This book is why I ended up going with order of scribes as his subclass. You cannot tell me that this thing isn't his chat. It's a little sentient book that follows him around!

Finally these are his feats! TBH basically the entirety of my reasoning behind picking telepathic is I needed a +1 boost to intelligence to get him to 20 for that stat lmao. Skill expert also seemed fitting in like a "practice makes perfect" type of manner again because of the sheer amount of no reset speedrunning he does.

This character sheet had a lot more of choices based on vibes alone than either fruit or fein's did, but I hope yall still see the vision lol. Fulham's sheet coming sometime tomorrow! (if I remember to post it)

[komotionlessqueenmm]

I've practically been stalking your old ivan drago content and saw your imagine prompt for being Rocky's younger sister and having a crush on Ivan, can you IMAGINE the idea of you, being Rocky's younger sister, seeking ivan out after his life changing loss because you know what that means for him? Just being soft and understanding because even though your brother won (and there's a good reason as to why that's the appropriate ending cough cough) you feel the need to offer a shoulder and comfort ivan because you see him for what he is, the product of having to please such a demanding regime? Maybe it's just my penchant to see big strong antagonists and want to hold their face in my hands lol (like iceman, my beloved)

Gah dammit now I wanna write about this!!!!

(No seriously tho I love this, I have daydreamed about it so many times, just needed someone to convince me to write about it! But I'm doing this as a headcanon instead of an actual story because I don't think I can properly get across what I want to get across. Which is why I never wrote about this despite fantasizing about it.)

Headcanon/Preference # 28

Pictures NOT mine.

Year posted - 2023

*I'm randomly coming back to this request because I saw it in my drafts, and I'm dabbling with a few pieces with Dolphs characters again, so I wanted to finish this one. That being said, I've actually got a story I'm working on based loosely on that imagine, it's got a fun little twist to it though. So keep an eye out for that, and I apologize this took so long, but that's honestly kinda just how I roll. 😅 ALSO this isn't exactly what you asked for, but I think you'll enjoy it regardless! MY BAD!

☓Before the fight☓

☭ So before the fight you'd only seen Ivan on the TV screen. But even then you could see him for who he really was. And apparently you were the only one who could, so you kept your thoughts to yourself.

☭ You more or less threatened your brother to take you with him to Russia. And he of course tried reasoning with you, but you'd made up your mind, and he wasn't going to change it.

☭ Rocky was of course worried that the cold might get to you, so he made sure you were bundled to the nine every single day. It was sweet, but a little annoying at the same time. And you had to admit the cold was definitely harsher in Russia than Philadelphia, and that was saying something.

☭ But despite the cold, and the harsh glare from the locals, you found yourself enjoying the landscape scenery.

☭ You helped to encourage your brothers training, and despite having lost your old friend Apollo to him, you couldn't help but find yourself enamored in a way with the Soviet boxer. A fact that you kept under lock and key.

☭ You wondered most nights what would happen in the end. What would happen to Rocky if he lost? What would Ivan go through if he lost? There was just so much at stake, and you couldn't decide who you wanted to come out victorious. Well both of them if you had it your way, but you knew that wasn't an opinion.

☭ You often replayed the fight he had with Apollo in your head. You'd seen how Apollo's theatrics effected him, and how unbothered he'd been by Apollo's taunting. How precious he was, and how powerful.

☭ It made you worry for your brother, but you knew he was one tough son of a bitch. You'd been there for every single one of Rocky's fights after all, even back when he was fighting in shitty clubs.

☓During the fight☓

☭ You were sorta like Rocky's coach at this point, well maybe not coach but rather his hype-man, always had been. So you were with him when he went out to the ring, and beside him in the ring.

☭ You had to admit, seeing Ivan up close for the first time... Jesus he was huge... And very intimidating with his cold expression. Queue your curiosity and worry both spiking.

☭ You shook hands with his team, per the typical routine, and when you were about to turn and leave the ring. You found Ivan staring at you, making eye contact, and maintaining it for far longer than you probably should have.

☭ Rocky noticed your hesitance, and gently bumped his shoulder with yours, knocking you out of your stupor. You offered your older brother a small smile, and he gently bumped your chin with his glove, drawing a proper smile from you. Which in turn made him smile.

☭ He didn't even notice Ivan had been staring at you, or that Ivan continued to do so as you left the ring. But the announcers? The fans? They noticed. So around the world people wondered if maybe it had been a bad idea letting you go to this fight.

☭ Before the fight started, you stood beside the ropes in Rocky's corner, and made good on tradition. Resting your foreheads together you said a prayer and wished him luck, smiling when he kissed the crown of your head before breaking away.

☭ All throughout the fight, you found yourself feeling rather queasy, you'd never experienced that before during any of Rocky's fights. You knew subconsciously because it wasn't just because of your worry for Rocky.

☭ You realized pretty quickly into the fight, that far more was riding on Ivan winning than Rocky. For Rocky if he lost, he would have been humiliated, and failed in avenging Apollo... But Ivan. You knew he would suffer far worse if he lost.

☭ You didn't have to speak Russian to know that his entire life would be determined by the outcome of this fight. If he won he'd be a hero, like Rocky was back home. But if he lost, odds are he'd loose everything he's come to know. How perceptive of you.

☭ Often you'd find yourself looking to Ivan when they were separated for a short break. Almost always finding him already staring at you, his expression dark and furious. Which admittedly made you a little nervous, but you didn't feel his frustration was directed at you.

☭ By the time they were both bloody and exhausted, you were on the brink of tears. And both men had noticed. Rocky trying to comfort you as best he could during his breaks, despite the fact that his state of mind was more important. (Something you kept reminding him about, but he didn't care. He's a good brother.)

☭ Ivan did nothing but watch, wondering if you were afraid for your brother, afraid for himself, or if perhaps you were afraid of him at this point? A series of thoughts that only confused him, and distracted him more than he'd care to admit.

☭ When Ivan picked that man up by his throat, you found that the tears had finally escaped, rolling down the apples of your cheeks as he shouted in Russian. His eyes found yours in the commotion, and he was certain he'd gotten his answer to his earlier ponderings.

☭ Little did he know you were crying for him, not because of his actions.

☓After the fight☓

☭ The crowd had boomed with excitement, and many people rushed the ring to celebrate with Rocky. You had watched as Ivan was led out by his team, and you didn't think twice about following them.

☭ When his team realized you'd followed them, they tried to shoo you away, but then Ivan noticed it was you, and barked at them to leave in his native tongue. Perplexed they complied and left you alone in the locker room.

☭ "What are you doing here?" He questioned, his accent think and heavy, like honey to your ears. "I..." You were at a loss for words. "I'm not sure... I-." He scoffed at you before turning away, looking at himself in the mirror, and glancing at you through it.

☭ "I guess I just wanted to see how you were... If you're... If you're okay." You tried to make sense of the way you felt, you knew you were drawn to him, you just didn't know why. He simply kept watching you through the mirror as you fumbled adorably over your explanation.

☭ But what you said next really caught him by surprise. "Your hands... Are your hands okay?" You'd asked, now looking at him through the mirror, he turned to you with confusion evident on his expression. No one ever asked if his hands were okay after a fight before, not even his wife.

☭ "I'm usually the one that mends Rocky's hands after a fight... Are your... Are your hands okay?" You explained yourself, taking a tentative step towards him, freezing in place when he stepped towards you.

☭ "You are afraid of me." He stated. "Not exactly." You quickly defended yourself. "I'm not afraid of you... I'm anxious around you." You added, thinking he'd accept that response. "What is the difference?" Ivan argued, watching you approach him.

☭ "My heart is racing, but it isn't because of fear." You tried to explain, feeling incredibly sheepish, especially considering you knew he was married. "I know fear... And you do not inflect fear in me." You added, sort of hoping he wouldn't understand what you meant.

☭ Thankfully he did. "I feel it as well." He admitted in a soft tone, not wanting to startle you as you gently unwrapped his wrist wraps. He noticed how you flushed at his confession, it made him smile softly.

☭ You tended to his busted up hands with a gentle touch, more gentle than he's used to. And by the time you'd finished, he couldn't help himself and he kissed you.

☭ It was tender the way he tilted your head back with his index finger, slowly leaning in to give you the opportunity to turn away if you wanted, but you didn't turn away.

☭ It's probably the most wholesome moment of his life, and yes I'm taking into account the birth of his son Viktor.

☭ You were just so sweet, peering up at him with big doe eyes. Foreheads resting together you both forgot about the world around you, if only for a moment.

☭ Ivan just wanted to wrap you in his arms and stay that way forever. He wasn't sure why he was so drawn to you, but he had been enamored with you long before you even knew about him.

☭ Granted you had just been a face on the screen of his TV, but that didn't stop his heart from fluttering at the mere sight of you. Perhaps it was fate, perhaps you were made for eachother, separated from eachother across the world.

☭ After what felt like hours the moment was ruined, because down the hall you could hear Rocky calling your name, probably worried sick about where you'd disappeared to.

☭ "I have to go." You whispered, despite not wanting to. "I know." Ivan murmured equally saddened. "Until we meet again." He added before giving you one last kiss, breaking away and leaving right before Rocky barged in. His heart shattering in his chest, as he knew you'd probably never see eachother again.

☭ "There you are!" Rocky breathed a sigh of relief, and practically fell into your arms. He never questioned why you were in Ivan's locker room, and he never questioned why you'd run off like that. (He had a feeling he didn't want to know.)

☓Years later☓

◈ You hadn't seen him since his fight against Rocky. And you wondered if he'd even recognize you anymore. Or if you'd even see him that is.

◈ You knew about his son, and his determination to fight Adonis Creed.

◈ What you hadn't honestly expected, was for him to show up your brother's restaurant, atleast not unannounced.

◈ "Rocky we need-" You cut yourself off as you laid eyes on him, he looked even more handsome than you'd remembered. Frozen in place you jumped when Rocky touched your arm.

◈ "You okay?" He asked with a soft expression, wordlessly pulling you into a hug when you nodded your head yes.

◈ "(Y/n)." Ivan had approached you both, and you could tell Rocky didn't trust him. "Hello Ivan." You smiled softly, those old butterflies from before fluttering around in your belly.

◈ You'd secretly been sending letters to Ivan for years, and while you sent them religiously, you only ever received a handful in return. Not that you minded, you understood, better than anyone.

◈ "Still so beautiful." He mused as if Rocky wasn't standing right there, his hand coming up to brush his knuckles across your cheek bone. Rocky was quick to put himself between you and Ivan of course, ever the protective brother.

◈ "Rock." You placed your arm on his bicep, gently tugging at his arm, a reassuring smile on your face when he turned to look at you. "It's okay." You reached up cupping your brothers cheek, smiling as you felt him relax under your touch.

◈ When you looked to Ivan again, you asked him if he would like to take a small walk. Rocky immediately tried arguing against it, but you assured him you would be fine, and he listened to you begrudgingly.

◈ "You look good Ivan." You'd mused as you walked side by side, just the two of you, as he'd made Viktor wait in the car. "I've missed you." He admitted, making you smile. "And I've missed you." You found it funny that he could still make you blush.

◈ "I kept all of your letters." He added in a soft tone, again making you smile. "Yeah?" You stopped walking and he turned to you, taking your hands in his. "Of course." He smiled.

◈ "You were always on my mind." Ivan murmured quietly before wrapping his arms around your waist, burying his head into your neck. You quickly wrapped your arms around his large shoulders, your right hand coming to rest against the back of his head.

◈ "You know... I never married." You mused thoughtfully, hoping he wouldn't think you crazy. "I couldn't bring myself to love anyone else." You added when he pulled back from the hug.

◈ "I would have given anything to have you by my side, helping me raise Viktor." Ivan closed his eyes for a moment, thinking back on his fantasy. "Want about now?" You wondered aloud before you could stop yourself, and Ivan smirked.

◈ "You would want that? Want me?" He asked with a small smile, adoration shining in his eyes. You cupped his face between your hands, pulling him down to your height so you shared the same air. "It's all I've ever wanted Ivan." He visibility melted into your touch.

◈ Needless to say the world was shocked to see you by Ivan's side, and even more so when you announced your engagement. Rocky tried to "reason" with you, claiming it was a rash decision. But you told him about everything, the moment you shared with Ivan in Russia, the letters, and the way he made you feel, the way he'd always made you feel.

◈ Rocky came to realize your love for Ivan, was like his love for Adrian. He knew you never really dated, or let yourself get attached, especially after his fight with Ivan. And despite his past with the Russian, he supported you (warning Ivan about what would happen if he broke your heart like any good brother would.), and he attended your wedding of course.

[genericpuff]

A while back you made a post mentioning Down to Earth is trash and I would like to here your take on it. No pressure on it I just like hearing your opinion on things. FYI I hate Kade lol

I did, and I've been meaning to post about it, but I've been taking some extra time to re-read as much as I can so that I could better collect my thoughts :' )

Now I will mention, I have not caught up to the most recent episodes. Most of my thoughts here will reflect the earliest parts of the series, as I didn't end up sticking with this one. So please take my criticisms as someone who just never got into this series for various reasons, not as someone who was incredibly into the comic and fell off it (like I am with LO). I will try to judge it and review it fairly based on that context.

Most of my issues with Down to Earth don't stem nearly as deep as my issues with LO, Let's Play, or even Big Ethel Energy. Frankly, I think the comic is 'fine', but I don't think it's necessarily all that good either, and the amount of attention it gets from the platform lends to the fact that I really think its success is due to a lot of generated hype. This is one of the other comics on the platform that gets a LOT of priority advertising, not quite as egregious as LO, but still a lot.

The short answer: I think the comic is just overrated and pretty basic in terms of its storytelling and art, and I don't think it's necessarily a good "romance" comic for some of the same reasons I don't think LO or Let's Play are good romance comics. I think the only reason I don't get quite as mad at it as I do with LO or BEE or LP is because (as far as I can tell) it's not really advertising itself as some feminist progressive piece of work. It's sorta just "what you see is what you get", and what you get isn't really all that great (for reasons listed below) but at least it doesn't try to sound smarter than it is most of the time. Read it the same way you would watch a fluff anime.

Moving into my long answer, I will say some of the things that were initially appealing about it: the art is very colorful and cutesy, the comedy (for the most part) is inoffensive and simple, and the story is really easy to pick up and get into.

That said, I do think some of those praises are also part of its weaknesses.

While the art gets better over time, there are certain aspects of its stylization that still feel very "baby's first webcomic" to me. Which is great if you're someone who's into that style, but when I read it, it never really stops feeling like a Canvas comic, if you catch my drift. Nothing really sets it apart from the flood of Merryweather-esque fan service comics that are in the Canvas section.

And boy, is there a LOT of fanservice in this comic. I think the main plot point itself is fanservice in and of itself - cutesy anime alien girl crashes on earth, and winds up living with the depressed NEET-like guy, shenanigans ensue from how "inexperienced" she is due to her alien status. Everything from the circumstances of this character's plot to how she's drawn screams "this is for people who like to read about small titty girls with big asses being put into a situation where they have to rely on a man". The comic takes many opportunities to draw the FL, Zaida, as wide as possible (and of course, the ML Kade loves this trait about her, it's one of the first thing he notices aside from the fact that she speaks an alien language and can do weird alien things like telepathy and flying).

Thankfully this does get a little better in the later episodes, you can tell the creator was struggling with anatomy in places and then honed their skills, but there are still times it regresses back to the extremely-pinched-waist-mega-badonker-hips look.

Don't get me wrong, having a protagonist with wide hips like this is all fine and dandy, but there's a point where you can tell it's purely for fanservice and that's definitely what the comic wants you to know from the starting gun. She fits perfectly into that "born sexy yesterday" trope that so many romance FL's do (cough Persephone cough) while also having that "uwu I'm so inexperienced :(((" vibe that you get from characters like Sam in Let's Play. Shit, Kade pretty much starts sexualizing her before he even knows what her deal is as a person. Does he even know how old she is? Is "she" even a "she", do these aliens have different concepts of gender identity or even different types of reproductive organs than what you would find on Earth?

Look, I get it that I'm probably WAY overthinking it, you can write comics about characters from other dimensions and planets without having to get into the nitty gritty of whether or not they have periods, that's fine. But the real problem is the fact that her being from another planet seems to be used purely for creating an infantilized character with extra steps who's easily laughed at for not knowing things (don't even get me started on how "alien" could be replaced with "someone who doesn't speak English or have access to modern devices" in a lot of this comic, but I feel like that's way too deep of a criticism to be pinning on something that's literally designed to be a quirky fanservice fluff comic.)

Like, you want an alien girl who looks human but still acts reasonably like an alien - while even tackling subjects that come with being an "outsider" - without making her act like a literal baby? Starfire from Teen Titans.

(granted, the whole "smooching to transfer information" thing is definitely a little weird in hindsight, and there are definitely moments of fanservice, but that's about as weird as it gets lmao you don't see Starfire acting like a literal toddler, she is smart and capable, she just isn't from Earth, which is the whole point of her characterization being parallel to that of what foreigners experience ! She's not stupid or incapable of taking care of herself, she's just not accustomed to life on Earth!)

Like, this is in one of the newer episodes and I just-

(I suddenly have to throw up-)

It really dials the creep factor of this whole relationship dynamic to 100 when they drive home just how "babylike" she is through panels like this. It's not really her being unaware of customs around her, it's just her being written as babylike as possible with the fact that she's an alien being used as justification.

But it really makes you think about Kade's intentions when he goes straight to buying lingerie for the girl he just met who's been forced to stay with him in his home. He doesn't even really make efforts to help her get on her own feet, he just accepts this as his fate and goes "welp I guess I gotta make sure I don't get fired from my job" because now he has to support the baby girl that landed in his backyard. So Zaida ends up having no agency as a result. It just feels like a contrived situation meant to force an unaware, vulnerable girl into being taken care of by a guy who's, frankly, a creep.

And boy, Kade is actually kind of a creepy scumbag.

Kade makes for a really uninteresting and frankly pathetic character, he's just sort of a whiny man baby and you just know if Zaida was an earthling who had spent time on this planet longer than a few days, she probably wouldn't put up with this shit LOL Like, deadass he basically threatens to harm her within the first few episodes of the comic-

Like, this is after she's ruined his Playstation or w/e, and it's just like DAMN girl, this is a RED FLAG. But of course, she's an alien girl who's ignorant about everything, so it creates that power dynamic where he basically has full reign to take advantage of her at any time. Ladies, if a guy says you shouldn't trust him, take him at his word.

Zaida's characterization is also very inconsistent between her being an alien and her just being an "uwu baby girl". Often times it just makes the whole "alien" thing feel like it's only there to justify writing yet another "I'm babyyyy" romance. Sometimes she's WAY more privy to things than you'd expect her to be and then other times she's doing the dumbest shit for laughs.

Now to be fair, she DOESN'T put up with his shit here, but the fact that the writing for Zaida is inconsistent makes scenes like Kade being a creep being more about the creator realizing they're leaning too hard into her being vulnerable to abuse and so they quickly have Zaida combat it with some strange amount of awareness despite the fact she's only been living with him for a few days... but not enough awareness to maybe realize this isn't a good living situation. Like, again, she may be able to speak English, but that doesn't mean she's fully aware of what Earthlings are like, so she's suddenly really smart about what it means to be taken advantage of by a human man even though everywhere else in the comic she's written like a toddler.

And of course, like many of these webtoons tend to do, they don't linger on the implications of this scene too long, so they quickly turn it into a punchline to ease the tension. Audience comfort restored.

And that brings us to the comedy. The "jokes" in this comic basically boil down to, "haha, the alien girl doesn't know how to take care of herself on Earth!" , which frankly, I think is just a very thin veil for infantilization. I mean, really, the fact that she's an alien doesn't even really matter in the world of this comic, it takes a while for the comic to even really give us a glimpse of what her life was like off Earth so most of the comic is just typical slice of life cutesy moments you'd find in literally any shoujo or romance webtoon. You could switch out the fact that she's an alien with her being from another dimension, or turn it into an isekai where she was the female character in Kade's favorite video game who suddenly got zapped into the real world, and it would make fundamentally zero difference.

They even sorta lampshade this fact but swiftly move on from it.

There's nothing really that makes her an "alien" in any unique or consequential way, she's just a carbon copy anime girl with pointy ears who could be replaced with any other trope from other romance subgenres like this. She can eat human food just fine, dress in human clothes, and as long as she wears a hat over her ears, she's literally indistinguishable from the humans around her.

I will add as well that there are a lot of little ways they hint towards the implied dynamic between these two, at least in the beginning. The whole "second rule: obey" bit, while passed off immediately after as a joke, feels like it was inserted there JUST to create that imbalanced power dynamic that so many "romance" webtoons rely on, similarly to LO and Let's Play. The fact that he corrects himself from this just feels like, again, lampshading.

And again, after this we do see Kade legitimately acting like a creep and he DOESN'T DO ANYTHING to help Zaida get her footing beyond paying for her room and board and telling her to mind her vocabulary, so this seems more like him trying to create a situation that's beneficial to him where he's effectively trapped this girl into relying on him.

They even lampshade this as well so that leads me to believe they're fully aware of this dynamic and how creepy it is, so they try and play it off as a "haha so funny" joke to ease the tension or create suspension of disbelief.

When it comes to the actual execution of punchlines, again, 90% of the jokes in this comic are "haha alien girl so stupid!"

(I will admit this scene did make me laugh, but it's telling that it was the only one that stood out to me for that because every other joke in this series is very mid and resorts to the same type of "haha she's a stupid alien girl" punchlines.)

(omg mental illness! so funny! /s)

If you really want comedy written around aliens describing human things in weird ways, then just go read Strange Planet. They're actually aliens and they're consistently funny through much smarter writing that doesn't rely purely on "lmao they're stupid because they're not from here". If anything the aliens in Strange Planet are way more welcoming and endearing to the concept of being a fish out of water than simply making them stupid for a punchline.

(i swear to christ, "crisscross flop disc" and "prohibit anxiety" are lines that have lived in my head rent free for like 3 years now, it never gets old and THAT'S how you know it's a good joke LMAO)

And the story, as mentioned, is easy to get into, but ultimately that winds up meaning it's not really all that well done. Like, it's fine! It's a cute comic to read if you're into this sort of thing, there are a lot of sweet little moments that feel good to read between Kade and Zaida, but ultimately because of the focus on the fluff, that's all it ends up feeling like - weekly doses of fluff. Even when it tries to have some semblance of plot, it's quickly undercut by fanservice. So it's just kinda boring and vapid.

Case in point, one of Kade's observations of Zaida is that she apparently looks "just like his ex girlfriend" who he still clearly hasn't gotten over, but we don't actually see even a hint of what his ex-girlfriend looks like until MULTIPLE episodes later after the "sparks" have already started being formed between him and Zaida.

Um... she doesn't really look like Zaida at all aside from them both being generic anime girls, but okay lol by that logic the girl he served at the store in Episode 7 also looks like Zaida.

So it kinda makes the whole relationship feel superficial, like he's only interested in her because she vaguely reminds him of his ex, and it's taking so long to get through any amount of plot through all the fluff that I can't be sure if they ever actually address this. I'd like to think they do eventually, though from what I've heard of the later episodes after his ex-girlfriend makes an appearance, it seems more like they go the LO route of making the two relationship "choices" just be complete opposites where one is actually sweet to the ML and the other is abusive JUST to make the sweet FL seem like the "better option". IDK, obviously my criticism of this is lukewarm because I haven't kept up on this comic in ages, but I have the sneaking suspicion the whole ex-girlfriend-the-ML-can't-get-over plotline isn't gonna be used for his development, just to further propel him and Zaida into a relationship - and by extension, manufactured drama to make their relationship more "interesting".

Overall, I don't think Down to Earth is anywhere near as egregious as Let's Play and LO, but it's definitely cut from the same cloth, and that's why it frustrates me to see it - alongside LO and Big Ethel Energy - being marketed as "new voices in romance".

(also real talk, it's so disingenuous for them to include LO in this "new voices in romance comics" panel when it's been around for so many years that everyone and their grandma who uses WT knows about the comic, if they aren't reading LO by now they REALLY don't want to. It's not "new", if anything it's one of the oldest ongoing webtoons on the platform and it REALLY needs to end already lmao)

Far be it from me to gatekeep an entire genre, but this brand of romance comic isn't really "romance". It's vapid fluff loaded up with egregious fanservice that's meant to give you a hit of dopamine every week, while never lingering on serious scenes for too long because they don't want you to realize just how imbalanced the relationship is between the two main characters. It's not quite as concerning as LO or Let's Play, but it does have a vibe that's really uncomfortable when you start to feel it. So having comics like these held up as the "golden standard" of romance is just... it's really telling as to what WT's priorities are and how unhealthy "romance" has become in mainstream media.

And if I can get a little "old man yelling at cloud" for a second, I miss when romance was sweet and soft and earnest and heartfelt. I think the only mainstream and successful romance webcomic (and it's not even an Originals!) that I've seen in the last several years that isn't loaded up with these problematic tropes is Heartstopper. Heartstopper is sweet and soft and earnest and heartfelt. Heartstopper is way more of a pillar for a healthy romance than what any of these "new voices in romance comics" can provide. It literally couldn't function as an Originals series because the definition of a WT romance comic would undercut the actual point of Heartstopper.

These unhealthy standards and dynamics that we've set in the romance genre have been so pervasive for years now and I really just wish they'd go away.

y'know what, this whole essay is really just a promo post for Heartstopper now, go read it-

[justmystyles]

Hey, you are literally one of my favorite writers out here. I honestly love every piece you've written, it's just all really really really good. (guess I am not as good with words as you, oops)

Anyway, I am so glad your requests are open. I was wondering if you could write something where the reader comes from a difficult family. emotionally abusive mother, distant father, eldest daughter syndrome, all that jazz.

So she's sort of moved away but still keeps in touch with her family cuz she does sorta love them but it's hard. So it's like she's got some body image issues and she's closed off, pretty funny but likes to use humor to hide her feelings, has a lot of acquaintances but doesn't like sharing herself with people much (why do I feel like I am describing someone specific lol)

And one day it all just becomes too much ig. I don't know exactly how the story goes, guess I am just looking for some comfort. had a weird few days.

Honestly, love you work. You're great. Thank you for reading that bs. Doesn't matter much if you decide to write it or not. You're already perfect. <3

Let's talk about this ask I got a few weeks ago, shall we?

First of all, I am honored to be considered one of your favorite writers on here, your words are so sweet and I love you.

Now, getting down to business, this ask genuinely made me cry because I know this reader. I am this reader and it was truly terrifying that a stranger on the internet described me so well to me. As soon as I read this, I knew it was going to be my next series, and after weeks of taking down notes and ideas, I finally started actually writing it today.

It'll still be a bit before I start putting it out there, this premise means so much to me that I want to really take my time and do it the justice it deserves, but I have included a little teaser for you below the read more so that you can get a taste of what I'm working on. I've also tagged my tag list peeps so that you all can see what I've been up to.

I'll still be working on NYIML and the other asks I have (if you sent me one, I love you and I'm working on it, please be patient, life has kind of blown up over the last week or so).

You would watch on in awe, watching the music come to life, watching Harry work. From time to time, you would meet his gaze, noticing a softness in his eyes that warmed your insides. You brushed your feelings off, reminding yourself that Harry was just a kind person. He probably looked at everyone like that. He would often invite you to join the group for lunch, or drinks after a successful session. You always declined politely, certain he was just asking to be polite. 

But Harry wasn’t just asking to be polite, and those looks that he threw in your direction were different than the way he would look at anyone else. He was fascinated by you, he felt like he needed to know more. When he met you, he thought you were beautiful, and the refreshments that you had laid out showed how kind and thoughtful you were. But he knew there was more to you, and he couldn’t wait to find out all of it.

You truly were the studio mom, always making sure everyone had what they needed. You would bring coffee and breakfast in the morning, make everyone’s lunch orders, or reservations if they decided to go out. But you would never join them. He found that curious, but also disappointing. He understood if you wanted to focus on work while you were all locked away in the studio, hoping to take those lunches and extra curricular times to get to know you, but those moments never came. 

He had asked your coworkers about you, hoping to gain some kind of intel that could help him break the ice. Everyone told him how sweet you were, always asking about them and their goings on, but often changing the subject when the conversation would turn to you. He also learned about how funny you were. He would have never guessed, based on how quiet you’d been around him. He figured some of that was because of his celebrity status, he was used to people being shy around him, but they would typically warm up over time. You hadn’t. 

There was a bit of worry in his mind that maybe you had an issue with him. You weren’t cold with him, you had always been incredibly kind in your interactions with him and that threw him for a loop. He racked his brain, trying to think of anything he might have said or done to upset you, but nothing came to mind. Perhaps you just weren’t a fan of his? Whatever it was, he was determined to figure it out. 

One afternoon, he was coming back from lunch and he overheard you talking to someone in one of the studios. He lingered by the doorway, he knew eavesdropping was wrong, but he was desperate. 

The conversation wasn’t much, you were just talking about a television show, but he heard the excitement in your voice and couldn’t help but smile. You sounded so cute. And then you laughed, and he could have died right there on the spot. You had an incredible laugh. He wanted to do anything to be the reason that beautiful sound came out of your mouth. 

Harry was so distracted that he didn’t notice that you were coming out of the studio. You weren’t expecting anyone to be standing there, so you bumped right into him. 

“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry Harry.” Your eyes were wide with panic.

He put his hands on your shoulders to steady you. “Don’t be. That was on me. It’s what I get for zoning off in front of doors.” He chuckled. 

You smiled politely and nodded at him. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?” 

“I was actually hoping to talk–”

He was interrupted by the ring of your phone. You pulled it out of your pocket and saw your mother’s name flash across the screen. “Crap, I’m so sorry it’s my mom. Do you mind if I take this?”

“No, not at all. You should always take calls from your mum.” 

“Right,” you scoff. “You’ve never talked to my mother.” You answer the phone, walking away quickly. 

He noticed your posture stiffen when you answered, and he hoped everything was okay. Once you were out of sight, he left, returning to the studio. “Y/N is taking a phone call, she’ll be right back.” 

When you finally returned, you apologized with a smile on your face, but Harry could see the sadness in your eyes. You took a seat at the computer, and he came up behind you, placing his hand softly on your back. You subconsciously relaxed into his touch. 

“Is everything alright?” He asked. 

You put on your best fake smile, which he immediately saw though. “Yeah, thanks.” 

He wanted to press, but he knew it wasn’t the right time or place. He also wasn’t totally sure you even liked him.

@allthelovehes @ameerakane20 @ash-craze @bethanysnow @blue-ballad @blueraspberryreader @brightlightsinlife @creativelyeva @cute-as-ducks420 @deannaard @fanficismydrug @gem1712 @golden-hoax @gothmingguk @groovychaosavenue @hillzrry @iceebabies @indierockgirrl @jerseygirlinca @jng4kook @jooniesbabie @kaverichauhan @laurxn-robinson @lexiecamposv @likeapplejuicenpeach @lilfreakjez @mrs-anna-styles211994 @n0vaj3an @potterheadandsherlocked @rach2699 @ravenclawdirectioner @stylesfeverr @superchrystaldrug @tenaciousperfectionunknown @tiaamberxx @thechaoticjoy @theekyliepage @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @youknowwhaaat

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Aira Character Talk

Since Aira was mentioned again in Saltyplaytoons (spongebob reference? Lol, funny either way) blog post I wanted to take a deep dive and talk about her. Plus at this point she’s the only pure character that deserves to be rescued from this shit comic and not written by a misogynist. She get’s shit on for no fucking reason. 

It is very well known now that kique has stated that she is his “least” favorite character. Why? Probably because she’s another female character he made and got bored of her. Honestly it saves her the injustice he would have given her if she had more screen time.  When we first met Aira, she was stuck in her creature form. I thought at first she was an evolved creature that was based on Aedra and her beast form was pretty cool in my opinion it looked like a mix between a cat and a dog. Which btw people was made and turned into by a Spirit, so that quickly leads my thoughts into rhov’s and feaf’s future kids. If a spirit can turn a dog into an evolved creature, then it’s very much possible because of the spirits for them to have hybrid kids. Will it be canon? I don’t know, like many have said; it’s obvious kique is bored of his own comic and shoved into our faces just to keep pages being pumped out with nothing really interesting. For me, I see the comic as a sitcom show that just goes nowhere and the characters do and say random stuff that doesn’t revolve around their world or plot. Besides, you can’t tell me half of the characters in this world wanna sit cooped up in one area based on “Tribes” Dog’s just don’t do that they would have way too much pent up energy and would need to run. Can you just imagine if this comic was realistic,  the dog's muscles and bone structure would become weaker because they aren’t doing anything really, they just sit in one place and that's it. Ok sorry, back to Aira :) 

   (Aira’s first appearance form)

You see what I mean though? She resembles a sorta dog and cat hybrid mix. The paws are a dead giveaway as they look like a feline and she has retractable claws. It’s a neat design in itself. I'll give kique that much of any positivity for his comic XD. 

Very Interesting design features if you ask me. Anyways, Aira gets killed by kargo and she wakes up a normal dog again and sets off into the woods to heal her wounds I guess? Probably also went to seek shelter maybe. We later on see her again on page 138. Heavily bleeding still and this when she meets keirr and you know how it goes. He ends up helping her and she’s taken aback from being surprised I guess, which is quite valid of her character, as we do eventually learn about her backstory and she was never treated kindly by others. Aira is a character who’s a really good example of someone who would have a “fixation” on someone, I don’t think it would personally be a bad thing and realistic to her character because she’s never been treated so kindly before and i don’t think she’d be able to help herself with that mindset. She obviously took comfort in keirr  as she hesitated to follow him at first, but also because he was offering to help her and wasn’t appearing a threat to her.

  (oh look when keirr was actually a nice guy, before becoming a dick to her) 

Moving forward. Keirr takes her back to her cave and was suspicious why she was living in such a large area for one individual. Aira remains mute and just eats the food she was given. Which I suppose was rude on her part, but her communication skills seemed to be lacking as she was trapped inside a body and couldn’t talk for a long time, ok at least that makes sense because there is a valid reason enough for her to be doing that. Eventually keirr leaves her behind as she is now safely placed back into her sheltered area. But she ends up following him and keirr ends up venting to her about why he couldn’t go back to his family, he was understandably grieving over zilas. I find these next few parts important to Aira’s character. She willingly sits there even if not knowing him for not a very long time. But she sits there and listens to him vent and doesn’t question him, that’s just an empathetic thing and it's wholesome to have seen that in the comic as they being the characters actually talked about things that troubled them, and it didn’t lead to sex confrontation. She may not have known him very long, but she’s a character that gives off a warm and comforting vibe, like a friend you can tell anything too without her judging because she obviously cares about others. 

Later keirr ends up following her and getting to know her more. Then we see a page with them together and keirr is giving her physical therapy? 

(hey keirr how do you know about PT?). They end up jumping over some logs to strengthen her legs or whatever. Kinda pointless in a way if she was born with a weak structure. It’s like saying you can just magically cure a dog with mobility issues with just some PT. Wellll nope, it’s much harder and time consuming. Plus it won't fully heal someone with a physical disability, it may help strengthen her a bit, but she wouldn’t be able to fully walk normally. Compare it to a dog who was born with swimmers syndrome or cerebellar hypoplasia. That’s a lot of PT work and also medication in order for them to walk to a degree. It’s not something that can fully be cured, so Aira’s 180 later on would be really stupid when the author wrote her this way. 

Now the next page (198) is important, keirr states he has to go back home cause he’s been gone for too long. Aira very clearly goes into panic mode and begs keirr to stay with her because she clearly states she doesn't wanna be “Alone” She’s told to basically just shut up and he’ll return soon whenever. Again Aira panics and kisses keirr forcefully. 

Now I find that quite sad and interesting for her. I’m not a therapist or a physician by any means. But this is my own take on this situation. Aira is using a tactic that almost feels like she is forcing her own affection onto keirr, not being in control of her own body due to her panicking. In a way, yes Aira did sexually assault keirr and he had every right to confront her about it because it was wrong of her. He leaves her behind anyway to go back to his family. Aira is then left with what looks like the expression of shock and most likely guilt because she’s being left behind again and most likely processing stuff in her head. I'd like to believe that her mind is very scattered due to her having issues of being left behind. 

We then proceed to see Aira again and most likely took keirr’s words to heart and goes back to the spirit of strength because she feels weak without and can’t survive. She practically feels hopeless without that spirit, keirr stops her and then asks was it because of him? Keep that in mind. Aira is obviously upset in this scene and then tells keirr her back story and the things she did. She basically claims that she went back to the spirit because of Keirr, she was upset. It’s like if someone told you as a person, that you weren’t good enough for them, nor did they want you around them because to them you felt like a burden. I wouldn’t be surprised if Aira was the first dog in the comic to commit suicide because she deems herself as a burden and was never accepted. If the spirits didn’t exist and the comic took more of a dark turn, I think she would have been a character to have that type of mindset. 

Eventually keirr takes Aira under his wing with a better understanding of her to a degree. She proceeds to then help him look for his family as she’s apparently traveled all over the map while being a beast at the time and saw many tribes fall and create new ones. We meet the deer rp tribe and then kique puts them there because he doesn’t know what to do with them at that moment. Aira is then very clearly seen to be hesitant and doesn’t wanna join them because they were just going to ask if they saw family members of keirr’s. But then the 180 happens and they join anyway. Keirr becomes a dick and then judges fucking Aira behind her back  because of the jarl confronting her leg structure. Yeah hey morons, maybe she's struggling because she got a giant ass heavy deer rack strapped to her head and has weak legs, antlers are not light things. Of fucking curse she’d be struggling. 

Honestly that’s when I started hating keirr the most, like why the fuck are you jugding her? She literally told you she was born with a mobility disability and was tossed aside for it. *sighs* She ends up stuck with Keirr as a Herbalist, like kique? The fuck man, how stupid can you be. You made a character with a physical disability who struggles with that and you give her a rank that requires to walk a lot? Like what? She’d be a terrible herbalist because she’d probably take much longer to even get to a location and back to the tribe. She has to carry her weight around. How frustrating, it’s like he literally forgets his own character traits they have. Like if you didn’t wanna deal with a character with a disability then why give her one if you're gonna 180 it.

Page 481. The page that did it all for me and hated this dude's guts. Ok so even if Aira did end up stuck in a tribe she didn’t wanna be, plus she looks absolutely miserable in the panel. She literally got excited when he returned with bootleg kargo after their little flirting session or whatever that was. 

    (look at the sweet baby… I love her)

Like damn keirr, you should be fucking honored that someone likes you for you and your company, plus she was even worried about you. He could have easily just told her he was being sent to scout, like keirr did you not forget that you joined the tribe when you didn’t have too? Like at all. Aira stated to you that she didn’t wanna be there and wanted to go back to looking for your family. But whatever, he gives her the cold shoulder and tells her to suck it up and build connections with a tribe of strangers. God I really want to just rewrite this page at times. Keirr should have welcomed her with open arms (or paws) and told her about his travels and that he didn’t find what he was looking for unfortunately. Like why did you diss the only character who showed remorse and care for you. She obviously likes having you around and because you took her under your wing, you have no right to be a moody dick to her. This is when I see abandonment issues come into play. As someone who has abandonment issues myself, Aira is so frikin relatable. It hurts a lot when you think about it and you're stuck in your head wondering what you did or if you're doing something wrong to have someone push you away like that. It’s the worst feeling ever and poor Aira here basically got rejected from someone she clearly cares about. 

    (She looks so lost and heartbroken in this page)  But like keirr, dude how the fuck did you forget that she told you earlier on before you joined the stupid tribe. That she literally went back to the spirit because of YOU. That’s basically her struggle, Rejection and being alone. I’m disappointed that some of the people were siding with keirr on this page. In reality if a friend asked about your mental health and you told them to fuck off in, just because your moody. Then be damned if they leave your ass. That's such a shitty thing to do to a person. Aira is no exception and didn’t deserve any of that. And sadly it only gets worse for her as even when he did do that, she still looked out for him and had to save his ass from a ghoul. 

(She cares about him still)

      (Fuck you keirr, you should have thanked her)

I’d also like to point something out. But in a certain page, Aira claims she lived with the meteor tribe. I’m unsure if she was referring to a beast or when she was a normal dog before cursing herself? 

If that’s true then could Aira quite possibly be a victim to rape as well? I didn’t think much of it at first because the wording confused me for a while. But going back it made me think. If she was used by MT before arenak rules then she’s very much understanding when it comes to her trauma and issues she has. In conclusion Aira seems like a complex character with her own trauma and if it was written better, it would have been interesting to see her overcome her said trauma. She’s a literal victim, a lot more than what kique claims rogio and his “mental chains” bullshit. Aira didn’t have a choice in her life,she didn’t ask to be born the way she was or have to deal with not feeling wanted by others. I feel if kique actually knew how people worked when it came to trauma and one’s mental health and emotions. Aira and keirr could have been a great duo for each other and helped support each other as friends and grew a good connection based on needing each other in a certain time because they were struggling. Sexual intercourse during trauma isn’t something that’ll help someone. It's only a distraction really at the moment. But again it shouldn't be a way out when you're in your feelings and all that. It’s quite unhealthy. I’ll say it again, Aira deserves better and needs out of this terrible comic.