#this like. Of comics where they're taking a lot of stories that were popular in the late '70s and '80s and into the '90s?

[chuplayswithfire]

This era of X-Men covered in X-Men '97 is genuinely one of my favorites and the fact that I'm already seeing signs that they're going to cover several arcs that are my favorites, is increasing the sensation that this show was made for, like me and a small handful of personal friends who are all losing our mind at the choices already made.

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

yes the plants take the gem but what does that have to do with sonic and tails can you explain I'm very intrigued

i'm assuming you're referring to this post!

In the anime Sonic X, the third season was dedicated to a completely original story. (also obligatory "please watch the subbed version, the dubbed version got censored heavily" mention) The spoiler-free version is that group of aliens in fucked-up robot armor, led by Dark Oak, descend on Mobius to try and steal the Chaos Emeralds. In attempt to save the universe from these freaks, Super Sonic scatters the emeralds across the galaxy before crashing to the planet (he's fine tho). The aliens, known as the Metarex, then attack the planet and steal something from its core, causing the plants to slowly wither and die.

Around this time, a refugee from space crashes on the planet, looking for Sonic. An anthropomorphic plant, her name is Cosmo and she is the last survivor of her race after the Metarex attacked her ship. She knows Sonic as the only person who can control the chaos emeralds, and begs him to help defeat the Metarex. Turns out these guys have been planet-hopping and genociding as they go, but their main goal is to steal the Planet Egg, which is a magic thing at the core of each planet that keeps it alive and thriving. She currently doesn't know what they're using them for but it's not for anything good. And, well, now they're hunting chaos emeralds... and, as we find out later, making fake ones.

Tails happens to have a spaceship so the whole gang goes into space to fight the Metarex. This takes up the entire season and it fucks severely. Again, the English dub was heavily censored; the og Japanese has constant death and shit. In the last of the spoiler-free bits, I will say that if you have ever heard of "Dark Sonic"... this is where he appears.

The entire season is extremely dark but extremely well-written, which makes it very popular in the fanbase. Ian Flynn has previously stated he wanted to adapt this arc to comic but Sega wouldn't let him; us seeing the Chaos Emerald surrounded by plants, along with fake chaos emeralds and Dark Sonic-implications, is making us wonder if Sega's let up and we might get this arc after all.

Now, spoiler version, though I really do suggest you watch the subbed version of this season bc it's a fucking masterpiece:

We find out late in the season that Cosmo and the Metarex are the same species. In this species, the sexual dimorphism is a different "final stage" of their life cycle. The "male" plant-creatures enter their final stage as basically a kaiju, in order to defend their society from threats; the "female" final stage is turning into a giant fuckin tree in order to reproduce with seeds. The downside is that once you enter this final stage, it is FINAL, and you die shortly after.

However, when their planet was attacked by an unseen threat (it's never clarified, but a lot of people theorize it to be the Black Arms considering Shadow 05 was about to drop), they were all about to get wiped tf out. Dark Oak started experimenting with the Planet Egg in order to stay permanently in kaiju version without dying. His wife, Earthia (or "Ashia" in Japanese, but it just translates to "Earthia") is fucking horrified that he's fucking with the life of their planet like this. While he convinces the "males" to join his side, Earthia escapes with the girls and bombs their planet to kill Dark Oak and his new monsters. They survive though, and Dark Oak starts leading them to steal more planet eggs.

Turns out their plan is to use the power of the eggs and chaos emeralds (fake or real) to do a full-scale attack on the entire fucking universe, which will kill all animal-people and turn every planet into overgrown plants. We actually see some characters from a Shadow one-off episode being killed and violently turned into trees in one scene. Fucked up. That's what they want to do to everything.

And Cosmo? Well she didn't just happen to be a survivor; turns out Dark Oak spared her from the attack on her ship, semi-possessed her in order to spy through her eyes and ears, and yeeted her down to Mobius. He's been using her to spy on the Sonic Crew this entire time, against her will and without her knowledge. It fucks everyone up a WHOLE lot.

Anyway there's like a three-part finale where Super Sonic and Super Shadow are desperately trying to keep these fuckers from Mass Genociding. Finally, Cosmo realizes that she's the only one who can stop this and sacrifices herself; she goes into her Final Stage, turning into a tree but trapping Dark Oak in there with her (it's a long story, he kinda turned into a meteor). She then appears to Tails, the ship captain, and tells him to fucking shoot her to kill both her and Dark Oak, saving the galaxy.

The problem is, Tails and Cosmo have had a bit of a romance over the course of the season. It's been fucking adorable, and Tails became extremely protective of her after Shadow tried to kill her (long story). There's an uncomfortably drawn-out scene (and I mean that in the best way) where Tails is like. Emotionally broken and trying to figure out any way to do this without killing Cosmo. Eventually, he has to give in and fucking shoot her, blowing her and Dark Oak up. It saves the galaxy but traumatizes the hell out of him.

Super Sonic and Shadow contain the blast, and Super Shadow chaos-controls it away and disappears (this is likely bc they were setting up for the Sonic Heroes arc, where Shadow would have to appear out of nowhere again). When Sonic returns to the ship, Tails meets with him, desperate for him to say he saved the day last-minute and brought Cosmo back. Instead, all Sonic could find was a single seed– considering how the Metarex reproduce, it's probably Cosmo's child, but it's never clarified. This causes Tails to have a complete fucking breakdown.

The season p much ends there. They show everyone starting to heal on Mobius, have a bit where the anime-exclusive character Chris has character development and leaves to go home, and then go "and now we're going to have more adventures!! yay!!" before panning to a potted plant in Tails's workshop, showing that the seed has sprouted.

As I said, it's very dark, but VERY good, and thus we all really really hope that it's what Sonic IDW is building up to. They've been building up fake Chaos Emeralds, Tails blaming himself for things outside of his control, and Sonic being 110% done. I didn't even get into the Dark Sonic stuff, cause it only appears briefly in one episode and then is never mentioned again, which you'd think would be bad writing but no it just raises so many questions and you know that was what was intended by it.

The arc is really beloved but because it only appeared in a 2005 anime (which was heavily censored in English, and the og Japanese didn't air officially until a couple years ago), not a huge chunk of the fanbase knows about it. Which means we really want to share it and get more people into it and how good a character Cosmo is. So yeah that's what we're excited for.

[mysterycitrus]

Hey!! Love your art and your meta posts. I was wondering about your thoughts on something because I don't think I've ever really read about much of it in canon (might be missing something though), but do the batkids have their own Brucie Wayne-esque personas? I figure they'd be expected to act a certain way, like they've been taking in by a party loving play boy, they're gonna be a at least somewhat spoilt social butterflies right? I just can't stop thinking about the kids hitting like teenhood and having to adopt and put on that kind of act because it would be a little suspicious if nothing about Brucie rubbed off on them. Maybe they steal Bruce's cars or crash a gala, something staged just for the tabloids like that. Idk, I just find the idea of (most of) the kids not being raised anything like that and having to act up in the name of keeping their identities safe really interesting because I don't think they'd find it fun, I think it would actually gross them out to throw around money and act like brats.

lovely anon this is SUCH a fun question and i shall answer it in parts. the first is this — what is the purpose of the bruce wayne persona?

bruce created a specific public image of himself for several reasons — to deflect any suspicion that he’s batman, to justify his frequent disappearances from the public eye, and to be consistently underestimated by people he was in opposition with (gothams corrupt elite, the gcpd, etc). the popular interpretation of this is that he’s like a kardashian, but to be honest id say he’s a lot more like a donatella versace— relatively reclusive but who occasionally pops up doing the weirdest shit ever. he posts on dick’s insta like bruce WAYNE ❤️

wrt his kids, no, i don’t think many of them have that sort of glamorised persona. part of it is that the “gala” trope in fandom just…… doesn’t really exist in the comics? like bruce will take vicki vale to an event, or go to a luthercorp thing to gather intel, but the idea of everyone hitting up an event at the gotham four seasons is not a common story beat. and even then, again, the performance has a purpose outside of just being a distraction.

in particular, u have to consider how his kids are different from bruce. jason and dick were both lower class, if not actively below the poverty line and acting spoiled won’t win them any favours. cass straight up isn’t interested in that kind of performance. damian is honest to a fault. duke has his own family that he’s proud of. when u consider that damian and cass and duke and dick also aren’t white, u have to think about how acting like a glitzy idiot would help them in the same way it would bruce. short answer — it very much wouldnt. many people will think less of them regardless. it would be dehumanising, and because none of them have that same degree of disconnection from the standard person that bruce has, how would them being seen as spoiled idiots help them?

dick has always lived with civilian neighbours, had civilian jobs, and fostered civilian relationships. him being a cop was bad, but he takes a lot of pride in being someone who’s like… dependable. a good neighbour. jason is legally dead, but he wouldn’t have wanted to be seen as the dumb poor kid either. cass would probably play with peoples expectations of her, but not like an established persona that she has to take on. duke is, again, very attached to his family and where he grew up, and is very aware of assumptions people might make about that. damian would rather kill himself than pretend to be an idiot. tim, again, is a strong maybe, but i also don’t think he’d give a shit. he really values keeping himself as tim drake intact, away from robin. he wants to keep being himself.

i just think most of them would stay out of the public eye. remember — bruce isn’t active online. there is still massive control over released information about him, especially with babs. i think they would purposely make themselves boring and unassuming.

the short answer is that none of them, truly, possess bruce’s raw commitment to the bit.

[krispdreemurr]

oh oh i have an interesting discussion/query ! what do u think the meta purpose of making kris act like they do at the end of chapter 1 was? specifically like the imagery of a kid in a green/yellow shirt manipulating a red soul, pulling out a knife, having red eyes and grinning evilly cause like... i feel like deltarune definitely incorporates the memory of undertale throughout? like its advertised as a game for people who finished undertale and theres lots of references and things that are only as impactful if you had an emotional connection to the original game, like spamton neo and gaster saying "have you been looking for me?" and just.. so many things but most interestingly imo being that ralsei almost comes across like a fanonized "cinnamon roll" version of asriel that was so popular way back when? ofc he's more than that but thats like. a Part of him anyways what i mean is like, when chapter 1 released many people (myself included) saw that and instantly assumed that kris was being controlled by chara because of how strongly chara-esque (*especially* to the fandom, like ralsei) the imagery was, only for chapter 2 to come out and many people (myself included^2) completely disregarded chara as having any bearing on the story whatsoever and that kris is just themself trying *not* to be controlled by us. i think we can all agree that the latter is correct, and some people were clearly smarter than me in chapter 1 and deduced the truth even then (e.g. lynxgriffin in their comics), but i am left wondering what the point of that was almost? i thought you might have some interesting thoughts on that, cause like, if kris's frustration with the player is essentially the main plot of the game (give or take), the allusion to chara was a little bit 'distracting' for the fandom i feel like? some ppl are (somehow) still confused & blaming chara even! i guess im just wondering, what if kris had wore a different shirt and menaced the player in a different way at the end of chapter 1? do you think it would have improved the story to eliminate the possibility of confusion, or do u reckon toby fox want us confused? idk LMAO just thinking aloud atp. just been on my mind the past few days bc in retrospect, while the intro to deltarune is obviously trying to trick you into believing this is "undertale 2", post-dark-world the game is unambiguously super different, to the point where it feels a little bizarre that there'd be a red herring *after* deltarune already smashed the notion that it's a prequel or sequel into pieces doesnt it?

i think it's most legible to me as an attempt by Kris to psych us out that they sort of get lucky with thanks to toby helping them!

like, obviously they have no way to know you've been menaced by nonbinary children before - the specific parallels aren't a thing they're reaching for. but they're trying to get the player freaked out, and toby sort of lends them a helping hand by making them coincidentally charalike.

it's not the first time he's had a character freak us out with knowledge they don't have (thinking about sans and the talking flower in grillbys), and it's not the first time in Deltarune alone where a parallel is arguably sheer coincidence in world but happens to echo something to the player. i don't think it's like cheap or anything - toby fox does a really good job building up a language of associations and connections and motifs and then sometimes uses that to trick you just the tiniest bit lmao

but just like Chara, the ways to see thru the trick are there if you're looking. if you pay attention to Chara, you learn their oh so ominous faces and scares were originally just a thing they did to have fun with their brother, and maybe you get an appreciation that they were a child trying to scare you in childish ways. similarly, if you talk to everyone in town, you learn that Kris is a prankster by nature who delights in freaking everyone out (and also someone who would eat an entire midnight pie), and maybe you get the chance to go "oh, they're pranking me, huh?"

a little like Chara, Deltarune ch1 uses Kris to ask if you've been paying attention to the material. did you notice this really, really wasn't Undertale? and if you did, what conclusion do you reach about this new kid?

[being-of-rain]

My collection of Doctor Who Magazine comic reprints! (Or 'graphic novels' as they're officially called, which I feel is a bit misleading since they're almost all collections of many different stories, but I don't think 'graphic novel' has ever had a standardised definition so whatever.)

I'm pretty happy about having the complete set, which includes very almost every Doctor Who comic published by Panini and Marvel UK over the last 45 years. It's a series I love a lot, because it has some of my all-time favourite Doctor Who stories, and because (like the TV show itself) it's a fascinating look at how a series can change over decades of regular releases.

Feel free to ask me any questions about them! As you can probably tell, I think about the series a lot.

Image 1: The 36 books in order of when the original comics were published (more or less. A few of the books collect comics from several different times, meaning I have to take some creative liberties in where I place them). This is the order I keep them on my shelf. The books aren't all the same dimensions, because DWM changed to a different size from 2013 to 2019.

Image 2: The same order of books, turned around so you can see the back covers. For anyone who happened to be curious about that.

Image 3: The spines of the collection on my bookshelf. They started out all different colours, but eventually standardised a black design.

Image 4: (Click to see the full image.) The books in order of when the graphic novels were published, which was 2004-2024. Here you can see how they started out reprinting some of the most popular runs of classic Doctors, then changed to alternating between the most current comics and filling in old gaps in the collection. You can also see the evolution of the covers, from character to dramatic movie-poster-style illustrations, and going through every Doctor Who logo of the last 20 years.

[kermdoeswriting]

Damian Wayne would be a secret Chat Noir Fan

Hear me out.

Damian is canonically a Manga and comic enjoyer (from what I've seen at least) and who owns a comic on the based on the tales of Ladybug Chat Noir canonically in the show??

Nathaniel and Marc.

So when Damian first got to know about both Ladybug and Chat Noir, it wasn't ever actually in person.

He doesn't even know they're actually real people and only knows about them through the eyes of Nathaniel and Marc's Manga comics.

Marc and Nathaniel had started a blog where they posted the adventures originally shortly after the duos first appearance, and the story was quick to gain traction for how realistic the superhero story was and the creativity behind their villain, so they get published into real life comics quickly after starting.

It became so popular that it reached outside France and to other continents where Damian gets his hands on it one day out of pure curiosity and because he has a habit of reading hero stories to compare to his own real life heroing he does. (Aka, critique them)

Damian reads the first story and absolutely adores it. He will never admit it out loud, of course, but reading about the adventures is honestly calming compared to living through the hero life he does on a daily basis.

The story is cliche in his opinion but relatable, and the writing is good but in a "kinda bad, childish" way. Damian sort of sees the comic itself as a fan of miraculous would here (horribly cliche and bad but not the worst show/comic ever).

And for Damian, Chat Noirs character reminds him a lot of his older brother Dick in a way. He's taunting, has heart, is determined, hopeful, and worst of all...

He's a pun prankster.

So Chat Noir wins him over pretty quickly just based on how he's written in the comics to mirror Nightwing (or at least that's what he's assuming since alot of the things Chat Noir has said mirror things Damians actually heard come out of Dicks mouth while on the field)

Anyways, bc of these things, Damian honestly just secretly thinks Chat Noirs cool as all hell.

He doesn't particularly enjoy the storyline all too much (particularly the way Ladybug and Chat Noir seem to obviously be dancing around each other romantically was super annoying) but he does really think Chat seems like he'd be a decent ally if he were real.

And his powers are just cool as fuck.

This all eventually leads to the Waynes taking a trip to Paris, France. One, for Batman to check in with the Justice League: Europe division and make sure everything was going all right.

And two, for Damians birthday gift, he got to choose the location for their next vacation and the things they'd be doing (Damian made them all stop at places in the comic and tons of musuems).

Damian also takes full advantage of the fact that Marc and Nathaniel are doing the first ever signing event in Paris for their comic the same week of the family trip.

It was all going well, honestly.

The perfect vacation until the Eiffle Tower caught on fire ten minutes before the comic signing by a deadly unknown monster and 2 suspiciously familiar looking people in familiar looking suits show up to take it down.

[shinesurge]

I think it's a side effect of having a slightly bigger audience than before, but this year I've been getting a LOT of questions about offering digital editions of the KC books so I wanted to talk about it out loud for a bit.

There are a bunch of complicated reasons I've never offered the volumes as digital downloads, and I think they mostly boil down to concerns about the pretty embarrassing lack of significant internet presence Kidd Commander has accumulated over the 11 years it's been running. The audience I DO have is very enthusiastic, and let me be clear that I appreciate how unique and cool that is, especially in the era we're in where I really have no business running things the way I do lmao

The problem is, in refusing to do any of the predatory social media bullshit that tricks people into doing advertising for my comic while pretending it's a fandom, and by taking initiative to build fandom spaces for people to hang out in myself, I've created an extremely insular community where folks don't really feel any need to help it grow. "If you build it they'll come" is true, but the other half of that is people going "hey neat this thing builds itself!" and you end up with dozens of fandom posts, hours of discussion, and even fanwork locked away in inaccessible spaces while the pages on the site consistently get no comments or interaction and the public tags are empty.

WHAT does this have to do with digital editions lol

The idea was, a thing that helps set KC apart is the webcomic thing where you're not only checking a site regularly as a routine, but you're building some impression of the author as well. My little news posts are bundled with the pages, the site gives a sense of Environment in way static editions don't. In return for offering nearly a thousand pages of completely free content the reader has to Encounter Me at some point, and be made aware that this is an operation being run by a single person, and that its survival is entirely dependent on other people reading it and supporting it. Going to the site ALSO at least lets people know a comment section /exists/, and there COULD be a community to participate in. You don't get that with the books as much, but the books are almost exclusively going to folks who already read the comic, I don't think they're floating around out there to many people who didn't buy them directly from me after reading it online.

It is objectively easier for people to binge an archive they can carry around offline with them, I completely get it. But I've watched SO many new readers fall in love with this thing in real time as they leave comments behind them through the archive, and even just forming the habit of checking the site regularly really goes a long way towards forming enough of a connection with a reader for them to stick around for the long haul. If you just read it all isolated on your phone, it stops there; it's easy to forget it's an independent operation that desperately needs your support, /I/ have no idea whether you liked it or if people are even reading, and when you're finished you'll move on to something else because there's no visible fandom to engage with.

I don't WANT to think this is what will happen, but it's already been happening here for years even without proper channels. I sort of feel like this would just be facilitating my own demise lmao. All the comics who run the way I do were ALREADY popular back before the landscape shifted to fast-fashion sensibilities, so Girl Genius offering digital editions doesn't really harm them, you know? By the time forums died their community was already so stable and self-sufficient they could quit updating the main story for a whole year and not even feel it. Gunnerkrigg is signed on with fuckin Dark Horse now. People doing the things KC does got in early and stabilized before I even got started, fandom is a different world now and I'm already barely keeping this train running on my own as it is.

But on the other hand: accessibility!! HOW many times have I wanted to engage with something but they WONT LET ME PAY THEM FOR THE THING I WANT so I just leave!! The alternative here isn't "oh if i FORCE THEM to read it online they'll stick around" it's "if i can't read it how i want then i'm skipping it". That makes total sense, /I/ do that! What about people who want the extra content in the books but can't pay international fucking shipping!! It's also an Archival issue, which absolutely kills me, but that's a whole other post lmao. There are extremely good reasons to offer another option for reading my work, but I am so anxious this would just be putting a nail in this stupid coffin I've been building already.

I've been having this conversation a lot, mostly with Lee, but it came up again this morning in an email and regardless of my own feelings: this is a thing people want, a very reasonable thing, and if I fail to provide it that's just bad business. Do y'all here have any thoughts about all this? I would like to give the people what they want and y'all are The People.

Anyway buried way down here so far I'll make another post about it: I /am/ going to offer the specials as digital downloads, permanently in the shop. They're old books by now, I'm having issues keeping them in stock anyway, and they DON'T exist online anywhere, so this isn't technically any skin off my back outside of piracy issues, which. would be a stupid thing to fret about lmao

thanks for reading all this! I'm gonna go sort through pdfs for a while

[alexissara]

Top 10 Comics of 2024 [They're All Sapphic]

Every year is an amazing year for sapphic stories, people are putting out consistently amazing stuff and they will keep doing it even if the world makes it harder and harder. It is a really competitive year this year for my top slot with the top 4 really all being able to be number one so take the order of this list with a grain of salt. I can’t say enough how dazzled I was by some of the stories I read this year and there was a lot of really cute stories that while they didn’t have anything that wowed me I still enjoyed that just didn’t make the cut. Unlike last years list there is no none sapphic stories here, I read some non sapphic stories but they simply didn’t make the cut. So this is a great place for anyone looking for stories about women in love with women. 

Last year I separated Manga from Webcomics and Comics but this year I didn't Read any new Manga, aka not part of an ongoing I was reading from last year that felt worthy of a top spot. So I will be including at least one of those ongoings on this list but they'll be no separate manga list. Here’s hoping 2025 I read so many great comics, Manga and webcomics there three separate lists so I can cheat and share more stories. 

If you end up enjoying this list do remember you can help me afford to make art and engage art by going over to https://www.patreon.com/AlexisSara. I have a rough draft of a novel I am working on ready for 5 dollar + tiers and I give monthly updates for every tier on the video games, ttrpgs, novels and more that i am working on.

10. If You’ll Have Me

This is a cute little modern romance by one of my favorite artists so I had to support it when I was given the chance. This is just a classic romance type story, not a ton of frills or twists to the normal romance formula except that it’s lesbains with a nice art style. A nerdy girl falls for a popular hottie with a reputation for getting around and love blooms through misunderstandings and tough feelings. It’s cute with a great art style, it’s just nice and a great book for if you just want to see a lesbian love story. 

9. LSBN 

This is a short but sweet comic, it isn’t very long, it isn’t particularly deep, some trans lesbians were working on a mech to do big battles but suddenly their hit with an order for peace. Feelings get messy as years of work go down the drain and these women find themselves going to each other and the feelings they all have about this. The art itself is really unique, it has an extremely creative vision of it’s world that is really a spectacle to look at and for sure gives value to actually owning the book rather then checking it out just briefly since it is a fast read. It’s simple, sweet and good.

8. The Marble Queen

This is a YA graphic novel which have a hard chance at making it on a list like this for me, I try to read a lot of them but I have such a hard time getting through them but here I really did get enthusiastic about this story. The biggest carry for the story is definitely the art, really striking art that truly makes this story stand out in the crowd. This is an arranged marriage gay romance where both parties fall in love with one another. It’s a very classic fantasy princesses type story in that way with you know scheming evil family and uproars and restoring order and what not. It is a fun book and the Pirate Woman in this story is very hot and I liked it, it’s just a solid classic formula type story. I have little critiques about it but ultimately I think it’s solid. 

 7. Rainbow! 

This was a turn around of the century for me where I was really not in love with the first half of this story at all but having stuck it through basically exactly where volume 1 ends the story really picks up and starts to be something great. It’s cover and stuff pitches it as a kinda sweet and fluffy romance but this is a drama romance there just isn’t a lot of drama between the romantic interests themselves. This is the story about two women who are being abused in different ways by their mothers falling in love and how they as high schoolers deal with the shifting of their lives through meeting each other and though the new lows their moms push them to. It’s a good story and it’s good to see stories about people who are dealing with this kind of abuse still finding love and figuring out their own ways out of situations. It’s idealistic in some ways but I think some hope isn’t a bad thing to give to people. This is a really sweet story story even when it gets rough and it’s worth folks time. 

 6. Eldritch Darling

One of those comics that feel like they could be on this list every year but it wasn’t on last years list so I feel extra good about giving it a slot this year. This is a very cute small panel comedy romance webcomic. The plot as it were starts with an eldritch monster girl having taken on a human guise falling in love with a woman and trying to keep it together and from there we follow how their relationship blooms, her feelings about human life and her shifting feelings on herself. The relationship shifts and changes and it’s a good story with decent progress and has been slightly expanding out it’s characters and stuff over time as it keeps going. It’s short, sweet, good times for anyone looking for just a nice read. 

 5. The Deep Dark 

A trans and cis woman romance with a ton of mess around them having secrets, toxic people in their lives and more all tied up with just a bit of the magical elements. Mags is a butch lesbian who’s got a big secret, a little monster tied to her she must feed her blood. This secret keeps her detached from everyone but small hookups with a girl who has a boyfriend and doesn’t want to come out. One day Nessa comes back to town, a trans woman and her old best friend, a person she cared so deeply about before the weight of her secret really got to her. She’s dealing with a creepy ex boyfriend and went back to her old home town to get away with him for the summer. Both are hesitant to share what’s going on with the other and both are effected by events that happened when they were a child that caused Nessa to move. The two’s connection is just really good and I like that both these women are very caught up in their own shit at first and really feel like they should be together but maybe can’t because of that. I think this is Molly Knox Ostertag’s best story so far and I am really glad she got to release it. 

4. She Loves To Cook And She Loves To Eat 4

A true masterpiece, I say this every time with She Loves To Cook and She Loves To Eat and I will keep saying it, I imagine She Loves To Cook and She Loves To Eat Volume 5 will be in next year's top 10 too. Sakaomi Yuzaki is simply a master of the craft of manga and storytelling that is beyond most people ever. The way she can capture the raw feelings captured by fatphobia, sexism, homophobia, lesbobia, aphobia, etc all while keeping a fairly soft and cozy tone is truly a testament to her craft. Volume 4 was a brilliant move forward in the story and the romance properly and it’s yet another testament that I enjoyed a fairly big slow burn when I am not a big slow burn enjoyer. The food looks brilliant, the character designs are fantastic, I can’t imagine a world where this story falls off.

3. Superwomen In Love 4 and 5

Having finished this I can say that this is one of the best Yuri Manga of all time. While She Loves To Cook and She Loves To Eat is a masterpiece that makes me think about the true mastery of one of the mediums of art I work in and love the most, this story was just fucking fun as hell for me.We have big love confessions, fusion, action, mechs, and so much more. I really can’t say enough just how much of a blast this story is. I would kill to see this adapted it’s just such a freaking blast and it’s so gay and it’s so much fun. The main couple is really masterfully done and the side characters are all great and thought out to at least some small extent. It makes for a really great cast and a really great time. It’s stupid but it’s like perfectly my kind of stupid and I love it. 

2. The Strange Case of Harleen and Harley

Two of my favorite characters of all time get a fun YA retelling that honestly might be my favorite origin story for both characters ever. Harleen’s life has gone to shit, her and Pamala broke up for a bit and she ended up dating a dude who was a bit unhinged and murdered her bullies. That made her have to move, ruining everything she had going for her the only saving grace from her families judgement, the judgement of people around her and the crushing despair of potentially losing her access to higher education is that her and Pam got back together. Harleen agrees to enter clinical trials with Pamala when she suspects they are doing animal testing and wants to find out, plus it would get Harleen some money for signing up. The shots Harleen is subjected to awaken Harley inside of Harleen and start these two off on an adventure. It fits the characters, it does the representation of plurality so much better than most media I’ve seen, it doesn’t condemn doing crimes at all which is great for a villain story, it instead lets us just see criminals as people who make choices and you can judge those choices on your own. You will though be shown the rich fuckers running these experiments and hate them and it’s great. I really love this story, it’s probably my favorite YA book, it might be my favorite superhero comic ever, it’s just great. 

1. Sunset Phoenix 

Lesbian Monsters, I did it that’s the review, shouldn’t have to sell it further than this. I will though, it’s a fantastical setting with magic but also very modern. Our Mob Boss is a Phoenix meaning she’s immortal unless you kill her with a special blade only a Phoenix can make. Someone kills another one of the Phoenix’s who run the city and the mobs and attempts to frame her spy for it which also frames her. The two have to work together to figure out who did it, prove they did it or else the best case for them is all out mob war and the worst case is their too dead to know what happens next. The story isn’t done yet but the first arc is finished meaning there is a very solid end point to hit if you pick this series up. The chemistry between Emilia and Valentine is just really strong and the action scenes are just super cool. It is one of those series that is like 10/10 everything I really have nothing negative to say about the book it just really perfectly does what it is trying to do and I like what it’s trying to do.

[nullen-void]

Lego Stories

There are times when I've considered the idea of a media of the sort that is so bad, we want to fix it.

You know the type. Miraculous Ladybug, Worm, Danny Phantom--these are works that are really cool in concept, and have really cool moments, and have the potential for truly great worldbuilding and stories... but the execution falls flat. Works that get you angry over what could have been. Works that drive people like me to rewrite them in our heads, where fanon becomes more popular, more accepted, and maybe even more well-known than the canon.

I would like to propose a name for this type of work.

I call them Lego Stories, because if you follow the instructions you make a fun enough little setpiece, but the real fun begins when you take it apart and put it back together your way.

Worm is probably the best example of this. There are so many pieces to it that would make a truly great story, if they were just rearranged a little. Or a lottle. And we, the fanfic authors, are the ones who see the shape we want it to be and work towards it.

Anyone in the Worm fandom can probably name three or more fics they've read that they'd call better than canon. Harry Potter and Miraculous too.

The first example that springs to mind at the moment is @zoe-oneesama's Scarlet Lady comic. It's a retelling of Miraculous that diverges from the moment Marinette recieves the Ladybug earrings, because Chloe steals them instead. Everything that happens in the comic is canon, but a little to the left; all the pieces are there, but put to a better use, in my opinion of course.

Any fanfic does this to an extent, of course. A Lego Story is one that leaves lots of room for fanfic authors to explore. Some works are too tight to squeeze anything new in, and writing fic for it is a constant struggle; instead of Lego, they're a stack of cards that could collapse if you move anything. But that's a conversation for another day.

[jesncin]

I know you said at some point that you had zero idea on how to put your own stamp on the Bat Rouges, and that does sound super difficult I feel like I have a few suggestions for the big 4 (Joker, Riddler, Selina, and Penguin) at least.

Joker - Follow B:TAS, bits of the 1989 film. In addition to actually being funny yet scary (especially B:TAS) those takes on the man were ex-mafiosi. Do what you will with the concept of Joker once being in the mob.

Riddler - He's an actual genius, but he's also an attention seeking narcissist, and the Arkham games the man has a case of megalomania, so maybe have him at some point move some operations to metropolis. Basically make the man an honorary Superman villain. He HAS worked alongside Lex in the silver age and in SOME comics, so like a Riddler-Lex team up could be in the air.

Catwoman/Selina - This is a free box so long as she remains a thief within the grey area of morality.

Penguin - Another free box honestly because Oswald has been redone a LOT, though I recommend going back to some earlier comics and some modern stuff to distill his essence.

While I appreciate the suggestions, I feel like I'm not clear enough with communicating why I struggle doing a reimagining of the bat rogues. So to put it plainly, when I do a re-mix: I need a thesis (a story to tell). I usually form a thesis if I find a narrative opportunity or I'm dissatisfied with how the character is handled in canon. That thesis will then fuel the story and design interpretation of that character.

Lately I've been reimagining Conner Kent/Superboy because I feel in canon after his initial debut in Reign of Supermen, Conner struggles being overshadowed by Jon Kent Superboy or Superman's legacy. DC doesn't know where to place him or what to do with him after his Lex Luthor-Superman-clone origin as a solo. Much of the later additions to Superfam don't feel as politically motivated as Clark would later be interpreted as (with the exception of Kong). So I wanted to create an origin that helps Conner stand on his own, be a uniquely different experience to Clark, and place him somewhere new after his origin is revealed- that adds longevity to his narrative. That's how my Paul Westfield/Conner Luthor version is created, from that thesis.

And that's my approach with all the characters I've done so far too. I wanted to tackle Martian Manhunter's ableist lore, or I wanted to reinforce the immigrant allegory in the Clois dynamic, or revitalize Superman rogues because they're underappreciated (Livewire), or I wanted the evil robot to be more gender (Brainiac). When I get suggestions to just follow what works, that's not creatively fulfilling for me.

Stuff that gets the gears in my brain turning are when I see fans passionately talking about but also being critical of characters they love. Like this Scarecrow video! It opened my eyes to how underutilized and undeveloped a character Scarecrow is (who I previously thought was popular). That's the kind of thing that gets me excited to pitch an interpretation on a character!

And lastly! I really don't want to crossover Batrogues into other hero's worlds where I can. I've done it sometimes sure, but only when there's a story to tell. Rogues are created to tackle a specific superhero's abilities and themes. A superhero crossing over rogues too often (especially with the Bat rogues, I get it they're the best rogues gallery in the business) feels like the creator lacks confidence in that hero's own rogues gallery. I'd rather revitalize a hero's rogues gallery than have My Adventures With Other People's Rogues Gallery. Amirite, MAWS.

[kysoncat]

Eeveelution Squad Journeys (My ES AU)

Hello everyone. If you saw on my introduction post I mentioned having an ES AU called Eeveelution Squad Journeys and I'd like to talk about it here. Hope you guys enjoy my first ever post about it here on Tumblr since I've talked about it before on other sites like reddit and Discord.

History I feel like before I explain what my AU is I need explain how it came to be so here's the backstory!

Way back in 2021, I was first introduced to the Eeveelution Squad comic from the dub and then found the actual comic and began reading it myself for the first time. While I was reading it a lot of stuff bothered me like Speed being stupidly overpowered, complex lore that I could not process, shipping moments being shoved down my throat every 3 pages, and more. I kept up with the comic till it ended and I was sad as I saw the comic could've had potential specifically with the characters but it didn't do anything with most of them.

After the comic ended I began thinking how I would write ES while fixing a lot of the problems I had with it. I dug through EV's account and found that ES was originally supposed to be about the cast as a Rescue team instead of living together. Around this time I was watching the Pokemon anime and while watching it I thought what if Eeveelution Squad was like the Pokemon anime. What if they were an actual squad, an actual team that would actually bond with each other by going on adventures like in the anime. It was at that moment that my AU was born. After developing it for a bit and sharing this AU idea with some people in the ES Discord Server (Now known as Astral Treehouse) with it receiving positive feedback, I would continue developing it for myself as it was fun developing and for what ES could've been with its missed potential. I decided to name the AU "Eeveelution Squad Journeys" after a friend suggested in the name in the Discord Server.

Premise So this AU is basically what if the Eeveelution Squad were a competitive battling team in a humanless mainline Pokemon world where they would take on the regional leagues and go on adventures as they bond and strive to become the greatest team ever.

The AU takes the series in a more action/Shounen approach rather than the Slice of Life or whatever the hell the Vacation Arc was trying to be. It takes inspiration from some animes I've watched like Pokemon and Fairy Tail.

While making the AU I have these goals in mind for it:

Have the characters be used to their fullest potential. A lot of ES' characters either had very little or nothing at all and after scrounging through the comic and certain journals I knew they had so much potential and I want to use them to their fullest.

Make the main cast actually bond. To me, the main cast in the comic had no real bond, they didn't feel like a squad, or family, or roommates. Also the title does not fit the comic with its story or genre. I want the main cast for my AU to actually feel like a team and make the "Eeveelution Squad" in the title actually make sense.

Don't make the AU stupidly edgy or confusing. Pretty simple with this goal.

Don't prioritize romance. Characters with their development and building bonds comes first.

Don't let anyone influence my AU. I'll listen to feedback and criticisms but I will not listen to someone who tries to change my AU into something that's unrecognizable. Toxic fans and shippers can go away if my AU isn't for them.

AU Changes

The World ES Journeys takes place in a humanless mainline Pokemon world where competitive battling is the most popular sport in it. The world has the Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos, Alola, and Galar regions only so no Paldea as well as some anime locations like the Orange islands. Rescuers are still a thing in this AU but they're part of the police. Because this AU has a more modern setting, there's no such thing as Wild Pokemon. Technology in this world is not as stupidly advanced as the comic so no Iron Man suits or other junk like that (I hated ES' technology), only modern technology like computers and stuff we have today.

The Lore ES Journeys does not focus on the Timeline Lore or Berserker Virus Lore because they do not exist. These two things should not have been in the comic but did because one comment said ES was boring which made EV add them. 90% of people either do not understand it or don't care about it. The only lore in this AU is backstory on characters.

The Cast While ES Journeys does have all 9 main characters (10 counting Axel) they're not going to be together right at the beginning. The reason I made this decision is because giving focus to that many characters right at the start of the story would be difficult to pull off. I want each character to get focused on without another one hogging it up like how Speed, Flare, Lazuli, and Silvia did in the comic. With the cast starting off small, focus can be put on them and when the characters join the main cast over time, focus moves on to them. The cast starts off with just Speed, Crystal, Flare, and Sunshine but when the group are in a region where the other main characters are they join them like how Ash gets new traveling companions when he arrives at a new region. So... yeah. That's Eeveelution Squad Journeys with what is had and how it came to be. Does this sound interesting or is this a stupid AU idea? I might make posts on my AU about the characters or story in the future. If y'all have any questions about the AU, feel free to send me an ask and I'd be happy to answer. Well until the next post that's all I have to say so bye everyone!

[dg-outlaw]

Supermom... I mean, Absolute Superman #3 Review

Okay, now that we're all done staring, respectfully.

*waits while you make your fanfic and/or cosplay notes, and finish questioning or confirming your sexuality*

Anyway. This was actually a really good issue... story-wise, and I like how we've spent a lot of time on Krypton, despite knowing that it's a doomed planet.

*mild spoilers below the cut*

I don't recall where, but I recently saw a popular comic book influencer (I'd name them if I remembered which one) talking about how Krypton's downfall tends to change or be tweaked based on real world issues faced here on planet Earth, and it's not hard to see the parallels here to our modern age.

I know, I know. "Comics shouldn't be political! They're supposed to be fun picture books with splashy colors, beautiful people, and with whimsical stories that don't mean anything."

😒

Whether it's climate change and climate change denial, the usage and reliance on A.I. and it's pros and cons, classism and the self-preservation of the ruling class, suppression of voices of scientific fact and reason in favor of maintaining the status-quo, capitalism, or to just give the ruling class time to build their arcs while their ill-informed followers suffer with the rest of us, it's all here. And sadly, I wish this comic weren't looking like an omen for the United States and possibly the world's future.

Often at the heart of the fall of Krypton story is Jor-El and sometimes Lara Lor-Van, as the voice(s) of reason and warning, desperately trying to save the planet. What we often don't get is Clark/Kal-El's perspective as he's often shipped off as as baby before it all goes kaboom, with Ma and Pa Kent taking on the role of his parents and helping shape who he becomes. Instead, what I've enjoyed about this run is that he is there with his parents, living life, watching his parents be who they are, and becoming who he is as a result of being their son. He's not just some random baby who later learns of who he is and who his parents were from some random videos Jor-El uploaded to the cloud. He's getting to experience this tragedy in real time, and we get glimpses of a "What if...?" Kryptonian childhood (similar to Kara/Supergirl who lived and experienced Krypton), and it's interesting to see how that shapes this Absolute universe's version of Superman.

Yeah, this Absolute universe does not pull punches, except for maybe in Bruce's case with Batman, but Gotham seems way worse. And while this run hasn't quite bridged the gap between "Then" and "Now", we're getting close, and this issue did help me understand more of Kal's "Now" personality here on Earth a little bit better.

Not to mention, Momma Supes is a bad ass in this issue, but something tells me you've probably already figured that out.

[demonsfate]

i've never seen a fandom hate and spite their own mc more than the tekken fandom. i was browsing r/Tekken one day for tips on how to beat lili and unsurprisingly i found a post where people kept disrespecting him on his OWN BIRTHDAY. seriously, as someone who is a diehard stan of kazuya mishima and sasuke uchiha (i loved both of them since i was a kid) even those two get more respect than jin - the naruto fandom on reddit never straight up disrespected sasuke on his birthday.

worst part of it all is that jin got basically the same treatment as luke from star wars and captain america in marvel comics - he was just ooc as fuck in tekken 6 and his characterization in that game completely contradicts tekken 3-5 jin. it can easily be fixed too by just saying he got brainwashed by azazel (like how nina got brainwashed by ogre). jin fans get called whiny for trying to retcon or fix their own favorite, but side character fans (ex. paul, law, etc) get a fix their own fav and be called "the best writers in all of fiction". i think i also remember seeing someone say they hope jin's va gets terminal c*ncer and dies so the writers could have miguel kill him off and then replace him with kazuya or lars as the new mc while xiaoyu fucks hwoarang or something (i checked to see if it was still there, but they probably deleted their twitter account).

why can't the tekken fandom just do what voltron stans do and ignore canon while making their own?...yes, everyone and their grandma knows tekken story has gone down the shitter since post tekken 5. so then instead of saying "Tekken story sucks and no one cares about lore in fighting games" for the 100th time how about fucking make your own au's and fanfic.

honestly it's hard to look thru any jin content without a joke about tk6, or straight up bitter haters. i'm not saying every jin post has a comment with that content, but there's a lot that does. reddit is probs the worst place for jin hate too as i see it there the most. heck, i get hate for being a jin main. usually when they don't agree with one of my takes, they point out me being a jin main and how we're all retarded or some shit. (alisa & jun are now more of my mains, but that was back then when i still listed jin as my main lmao) so whilst you're still gonna come across jin hate on places like twitter or even here, it's best to steer away from reddit 'cos it's most egregious there.

yeah. most normal fandoms do just ignore canon, or if they can't ignore canon 'cos it's canon, they acknowledge it's trash and purpose ways it could've been handled better. but the tekken fandom isn't like that. they're insistent on jin being a fucker head because it happened in one game. and yeah, i have seen ppl say jin fans are either whiny or losers for wanting to say he was brainwashed and not hold him responsible for his actions. and it's like, yeah, i approve of holding characters responsible for their actions. but the problem with jin is that his character should've never been written to commit those actions to begin with - i'm not gonna care to hold a character responsible when they were out of character. i'm just gonna criticize the writing.

also maybe you saw that on a message i already answered? there was another anon that also told me something similar that their sister or friend was praying for that in a church lol. i dunno if you're the same anon or not (as you both have similar takes regarding the treatment of jin's character)

i think the reason why tekken fans have a harder time ignoring the Bad Parts of canon compared to fandoms like marvel, star wars, or certain animation is because of the "stories in fighting games don't matter" saying that's popular. it gives people the mentality that they shouldn't care about the story as much... yet ironically caring about it as they're mad at jin for being the Hope of Mankind lmao.

[imperiuswrecked]

If you're in the mood to hate-watch-and-then-cathartically-destroy something, I'd recommend the YouTube video "Wakanda Forever: It's a Mess" by The Critical Drinker (🤢). Man really had the nerve to call Namor the worst MCU villain 💀 And it has 2.9 mil views and 128k likes! Wtf is wrong with people, smh

Lmao, The Critical Drinker's voice is extremely annoying and they are also very wrong. Like, the fact that both Black Panther and BP:WF are the only movies to get oscars/noms, and is very popular with fans and both movies are good superhero movies. Just because it's not some superhero movie curated to their tastes doesn't make it any less good. They just have bad taste, the opening line of "I thought the herb granted them permanent power" or whatever goes to show they didn't even bother to understand the rules and basics of the Herb and the Black Panther's world, and how that could be taken away from them. This is like if someone goes "omg I cant believe there is a man who can fly and shoot laser beams out of his eyes but a stupid green rock called kryptonite can hurt them and make them lose their powers". Like at some point you just have to understand that people do not want to suspend disbelief and actually engage with the characters and their world, they just want to criticize it because it's not something they liked.

And this is an issue when it comes to superhero stuff ALOT and to some extent fantasy works in general but not sci-fi, where people go "well why couldn't the hobbits fly to Mount Doom and destroy the ring" and they don't care to engage with the material/understand stuff or suspend their disbelief, and the reason I say it doesn't apply to sci-fi is bc sci-fi stories all have that pseudo science/answers that makes it less unbelievable than like giant eagles, or underwater people with feathers on their ankles. Superhero media really gets the worst of this "well why couldn't they---" because the superhero genre itself is usually rooted in lots of real world settings/comparisons. Them hating on Namor is ridicolus because I have lurked around and read comments from every type of fan and you know all those older Namor fans from like the early Marvel years who have been fans of his character for decades? I literally came across comments from them saying "even though they changed his backstory it's still the same character from the comics and it stayed true to his character" and this is what I have been saying since I saw the movie. lol. Some random youtuber farming for hate likes's opinion means nothing.

I'm not gonna watch this video again but I remember not being impressed with anything they said. They're takes are ice cold and stupid and ignorant of the movies/characters so why would I want to waste time again listening to them.

It was just really funny they were like trying to be "cool" and critique the plan: "their killer strategy to defeat namor was to lock him in a room with heaters and dry him out" and I was like LMAO. BUDDY. THAT IS EXACTLY THE MOST SUREFIRE WHY TO DEFEAT/WEAKEN NAMOR, it's LITERALLY in the comics, its been a thing for decades!!

Anyways I don't take any of those types of hate videos seriously. Namor was done really well in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever thanks to the actors, crew, and director.

[ilovescaredysquirrel2]

My thoughts on the new Chicken Run 2 + other upcoming animated movies

I saw the new trailer for Chicken Run 2 and I'm having a roller coaster of thoughts rn.... I don't know how to feel. I think Netflix is ruining Chicken Run! I won't come after Aardman on this, even though I think there's more they could have done, I don't really know how they could make this work since Chicken Run isn't really their thing. Like, Chicken Run is MORE DreamWorks than it is, Aardman. Aardman had a lot of work and effort put into the movie, but it still counts as being more of a DreamWorks film. I think Netflix is mostly to blame, I also wish that DreamWorks would have more say-so in this. Like, DreamWorks needs to step up and take back what's theirs! Like I said, not entirely blaming Aardman on this, they're neutral and have to be, it's Netflix I'm angry at.

Okay, so this new trailer didn't really feel like Chicken Run. My bestie Georgia and I are huge fans of it, so we felt a little hurt seeing this new trailer. Of course we're gonna watch it, obviously because it's Chicken Run, but we're still not excited for it and have a lot of mixed feelings. We both agree that this didn't have the same vibes as the first movie, where they mostly focused on telling a story of an American rooster with a broken wing who helps a hen and her flock escape from a chicken farm in the UK, because the owners plan on killing them off for food. The story has a lot of heavy topics and fits perfectly for a DreamWorks movie, relating to real life situations. Chicken Run is the best example but also Kung Fu Panda and Trolls were good examples too. I think Chicken Run is mostly known for the serious topics, and I relate to Rocky so much, that's why it's my favorite.

Everyone in the trailer seemed so out of character, especially Rocky and Ginger. Rocky was the main character in the first movie,m and it's okay if they wanted it to focus more on Ginger for the sequel, I totally get that! They barely showed him in this new trailer, however. I'm actually really mad. And when I saw how they changed Ginger's personality, I felt like crying! For so long, I saw her as one of my comfort characters, she seemed tough and strong but also very understanding and sweet in the first movie. It seems like they're just making her the just tough baddie in this and I'm really upset. Like, I didn't see her understanding and sweet side like in the movie. It's so hard to se my favorite characters like this. Plus, them firing almost all the voice actors. Like, Julia Sawalha stills sounds the same and this new lady who's voicing her sounds nothing like Ginger! I bet they only hired her because she's more popular than Julia. I also know there was some drama with Mel Gibson in the past, he might be a little bit of a jerk sometimes but he's still the OG voice of Rocky and there's no replacing him. Disney didn't replace Ellen in Finding Dory and Ellen's not a nice person either. Plus, what did Timothy Spall and Phil Daniels do to get replaced? NOTHING! I heard the voices and those are NOT Nick and Fetcher's voices... maybe favorite DreamWorks sidekick duo and I absolutely can't handle this. At least Jane Horrocks, Imelda Staunton, and Lynn Ferguson are in it still (I feel bad Imelda always gets stuck playing/voicing the worst characters, but she voiced an absolute icon in Big & Small).

To be 100% completely honest, I actually think Babs is the only good thing about this. Like I said, I'm also happy that Jane Horrocks is still voicing her, because I think she's perfect for this role. I love how Babs is the only one who's kind of in character, and also has more screen time. I don't want Babs to just be a comic relief, but I love that she has more funny lines. She's one of my favorites in the first movie, but I think it's safe to say that she'll be my favorite in the sequel. This still doesn't feel like Chicken Run to me, and it definitely doesn't feel like a DreamWorks movie. This feels like Netflix was trying to get ownership from DreamWorks and force Aardman to team up with them... however, I'm still going to watch this. Another good thing is Frizzle, she seems like a sweet character (I feel like they're going to make Babs and Frizzle be a couple, watch them be lesbian. Just watch, I can predict the future). If it were up to me, Babs is better on her own she don't need no love interest.

So after the long rant about Chicken Run 2 Dawn of the Nugget (ew I hate that "Dawn of the Nugget" title), I have other movies I'm way more excited to see. It used to be a Chicken Run sequel I was waiting for almost 3 years, but now there's other movies that look way better. It hurts, because I'm a huge fan of Chicken Run but at least Trolls 3 looks amazing! I don't know how I feel that they gave Queen Poppy a sister but she seems cool. I just hope we get that wholesome Broppy romance we're all hoping to see! I'm also really excited for Illumination's "Migration" which is about ducks, but what really won me over was this movie called "Butterfly Tale" which looks absolutely adorable. I love how it focuses on a boy butterfly and a boy caterpillar, because butterflies were always seen as a "girly" thing so HAH! Boys can like butterflies too! ^u^

Anyway, tell me your thoughts on this! Any other Chicken Run fans here? any DreamWorks or Aardman fans want to add to this too? What about Trolls 3? I'd love to read your comments!

[stargazer-sims]

You know how you have an idea and your brain just gets stuck on it until you share it or otherwise do something about it? Or are you normal?

Yes, this is about my OCs. In fact, it's probably everything you (n)ever wanted to know about Nikolai Pavlenko.

It's gonna be long. Apologies.

Seriously, you get all the 🍪 and ⭐️ if you make it through this Chaotic Info Post™

Anyway, I was just thinking about how some of my best and/or favourite OCs were only meant to be secondary characters, but somehow became so interesting to me (either on their own or in relation to other characters) that I absolutely had to develop them. Nikolai was one of those, and now, so are his potential love interests, Ginger and Mishka.

I already had skeletal backstories for both Ginger and Mishka (Ginger's was a bit more in-depth, to be fair, but still...) Now, suddenly they're both telling me all kinds of things about themselves to the point where I can't even decide which one of them Nikolai is meant to be with. I mean, let's face it; he's definitely not meant to be with Anya again, and he's too loving and sweet to be alone.

Nikolai can credit all his former coaches and his figure skating friends, and his students to some degree, for shaping who he is as a person. He loves his parents and has a good relationship with them, but his father in particular is not the sort of person to show much emotion or demonstrate affection and his mother is a bold, no-nonsense woman who can come off as brusque and rude to people who don't know her. Nikolai is not like that. He's gentle and patient and he likes to show others how he feels and loves to give and receive affection. It was his coaches, Stanislav and Beth-Anne, who brought out the best in him, and in reality they often parented him just as much or more than his parents did. As an adult, and since becoming a coach himself, he's also learned a lot about how to have good relationships with people and also a lot about himself.

As a teenager, Nikolai's closest friends were all figure skaters, like him. He started skating at the age of five, when his family lived in another town. At his old skating club, he didn't manage to make a lot of friends and would have been desperately lonely if it weren't for his sister Natascha.

He was sixteen when his family moved, and he flourished at his new rink with his new coach, Stan, who taught him just as much about life and love and the challenges of growing up as he did about figure skating. It was there that he met the people who would become his core group of friends; Anya, Ginger, Hunter, Juliet and Christian.

Vivienne "Ginger" Holmes moved to town during the same summer Nikolai did, so they already had that in common when they met. She was only 14 and had come all the way to Canada from the UK specifically to train with Stan. She was living with a host family, but was essentially on her own, according to her. She and Nikolai bonded instantly, not just over being the new kids at school and the rink, but also over their shared love of dance, bike racing, comic books and spicy food. Ginger never acted stereotypically "girly" and Nikolai appreciated that. It was easy to think of her as a buddy and a confidante, without the complication of adolescent infatuation.

Anya, on the other hand, was a totally different story. She was also 14 when Nikolai met her. Like him, she was the child of an immigrant family, but unlike him, she was well-integrated, attractive and popular. Nikolai tried to avoid her at first, thinking that she was probably mean and shallow like most of the other pretty, popular girls he'd met at his old school. It was actually Anya who approached him. She was learning photography from her grandfather, and wanted to take pictures of Nikolai on the ice. He refused at first, but after Anya kept pestering him, he finally agreed one day. After practice that day, he agreed to go with Anya to get food, and they naturally started talking. Slowly but surely, they got to know each other, and he learned to trust her. As they both approached adulthood, he realized that somewhere along the way, he'd fallen in love with her.

Nikolai and Anya married when he was 24 and she was 22.They were both actively competing and were at the peak of their skating careers. The year they got married, Nikolai won his first World Championship gold medal, and Anya came away with bronze, her second World Championship medal in three years.

Unfortunately, their marriage was not meant to last. Neither of them were ready for the responsibility of a marriage. They were juggling their training and competition schedules, their finances, managing their shared home, and dealing with growing pressure from both their families to start a family of their own. Even though they didn't realize it at the time, neither of them had been ready for a marriage. They hadn't been mature or stable enough, and Anya in particular hadn't been ready to settle down.

The final blow to their marriage that they hadn't been able to overcome was the injury that abruptly ended Nikolai's competitive skating career. He was 27, and competing in the Four Continents Cup, when he injured his knee in a spectacularly bad fall. Even before the doctors and physical therapists assessed his injury, he somehow knew that his career was over, and that he'd never be in another competition.

The eventual prognosis was that he would recover enough to be able to walk and run normally, and even to be able to skate again one day if he did everything the medical professionals told him to. But, they said, he would never be able to compete again. His damaged knee would not tolerate the amount and intensity of training required for it.

Nikolai wasn't ready to accept that reality. He couldn't decide if he was more angry or sad about it, and he became increasingly depressed. Anya couldn't handle the burden of taking care of him while he recovered, with his irritability and mood swings and seemingly random bouts of crying or angry outbursts making things even worse. She decided to leave, and packed her things to go move in with her grandfather.

As if Nikolai wasn't already broken enough, Anya's departure absolutely shattered him. He felt like he was losing everything. He actually contemplated taking his own life, and he might very well have done if not for his coach at the time, Beth-Anne.

Beth-Anne received a phone call in the middle of the night, and on the other end of the line was Nikolai, sobbing inconsolably and telling her that he was scared. Beth-Anne didn't ask questions. She told him to go and unlock the door and not to do anything else, and that she'd be there in ten minutes. She threw on some clothes, grabbed her car keys and sped all the way there. When she got there, she found Nikolai sitting on the floor in the entryway, still crying and looking absolutely exhausted. He hadn't even made it back to the sofa or his bed or wherever he'd been when he phoned her. He literally had unlocked the front door and done nothing else until she arrived.

Beth-Anne gathered him up and took him to the ER. She knew he needed help, at least to settle him down. Anything else he needed after that, she could handle herself. She lost patience with the doctors who were going on about anti-depressants and therapy, once they'd heard the full story, and she vetoed the idea of them admitting him for a psychological evaluation. She verbally exploded on the doctor with, "He doesn't need his head examined and he doesn't need fucking drugs! He needs a sense of purpose and someone who actually gives a shit!" That got the tiniest smile out of Nikolai, and Beth-Anne was silently and secretly pleased.

In the end, she and Nikolai did acquiesce to a painkiller for his leg and some medication to help him sleep, and agreed that he should stay in the hospital overnight for observation. Beth-Anne bullied the doctor into letting her stay with Nikolai all night, and she didn't leave his side for more than a few minutes. In the morning, she called Nikolai's parents and informed them that he'd be staying with her for a while, and then with the consent of the doctor, she took a still-drowsy Nikolai home to her place and tucked him into bed in the guest room.

For the first couple of days, Beth-Anne cancelled all her students' practices and stayed home with Nikolai. She made him stay in bed or on the sofa, and practically waited on him. On the third day, however, she bundled him up and took him to the rink with her, telling him that he needed to watch her and observe her students, because she'd be asking him for commentary and critique later. That was his first glimpse into the skating world from the other side of the gate.

As the weeks progressed, Nikolai began to feel better. Every day, he went to the rink with Beth-Anne to be a second set of eyes for her, spotting different things each of the skaters did exceptionally well and things they still needed work on. At home, Beth-Anne helped him work on his physical therapy exercises, taught him how to cook, introduced him to yoga, and happily expounded upon the joys and pains of being a figure skating coach. She answered all his questions about coaching, and encouraged him to join her as an assistant when he was ready.

Eventually he did join her as a coaching assistant. After a few months, he was able to skate again for short periods of time, and then it wasn't long before he'd taken over one of Beth-Anne's beginner groups, teaching his five little skaters mostly on his own, with minimal guidance from Beth-Anne. He was happy to realize she'd been right. The thing he'd needed most was someone who cared about him and something to bring a sense of purpose to his life.

Meanwhile, Anya was deeply regretting her decision to leave Nikolai. She still loved him and wanted to come back, but he wasn't ready for that. He was still hurt, and he didn't think he could put himself through another ride on the emotional roller coaster that had been life with Anya. He filed for divorce, and she didn't contest it.

They were able to repair their friendship, but Nikolai wasn't interested in renewing their romantic relationship at that point. Eventually, he would be, but he needed time. He had to admit that he still loved Anya too, but he realized things would never be good between them until they both changed.

At some point, they settled into a "friends with benefits" arrangement, where they agreed that they weren't going to commit to each other and that they'd be free to see other people.

During that period of time, Nikolai went out with his good friend Ginger several times, but they never once slept together and never liked to say their outings were dates. Nikolai dated other people as well, but nothing ever developed with anyone.

It was on the night that he, Beth-Anne, Ginger, Juliet and Hunter were out at a club, celebrating his thirtieth birthday that he met the person whom he'd have his next serious relationship with, Mikhail Vasiliev (a.k.a. Mishka). Nikolai and Hunter were up at the bar, getting drinks for themselves and the ladies when they noticed a man around their age apparently struggling to explain something to one fo the bartenders. The man was enormous, with bulging muscles clearly visible through his snug-fitting shirt, and Nikolai guessed that if they were standing side-by-side, the top of his head would only come up to the man's shoulder. Despite that, however, the man had an oddly childlike quality about him. His sweet face was crumpled with frustration and he looked like he might cry at any moment if he couldn't make himself understood.

Nikolai's second observation was that he recognized the language the man was speaking in between snatches of halting, broken English.

"He's speaking Russian," Nikolai told Hunter. "I'm going to help him."

As it turned out, Mishka was lost and had come into the club for directions. After not having succeeded in getting help at a convenience store down the street, he'd wandered into the only other establishment that was open at that hour. He explained to Nikolai that he was a professional hockey player, and that he'd been part of a mid-season trade from his old team to the one in Brindleton Bay. He'd only arrived a few days ago, and was staying at a hotel until he found a suitable place to live. This particular evening, he'd had dinner by himself at a restaurant, and then on a whim, decided to take a late evening stroll around town. But then, he'd gotten confused and couldn't find his way back to the hotel.

Nikolai and Hunter invited him to come and join Nikolai's little birthday party, and then Nikolai would take him back to the hotel afterwards. Mishka agreed, mostly because he was a little desperate, but he would later say it was the best choice he'd made in a while.

Nikolai and Mishka spent a lot of time just getting to know each other after that, and soon realized this was not going to be just a friendship. Everyone agreed that Mishka was good for Nikolai, and his family and most of his friends liked him. As for Mishka, he was very happy to find himself surrounded by so many people who cared about him, and to be falling in love with somebody who treated him gently and took care of him the way Nikolai did.

For all his strong, tough appearance, Mishka is a meek and quiet person. The thing he appreciated most about Nikolai is that he recognized Mishka's vulnerability and never judged him for it. He was always there to support him and look after him. For Nikolai, Mishka inspired the same kind of nurturing and protectiveness as his young protégé Eden Seong and all his other students, and the relationship offered him that all-important sense of purpose.

His relationship with Mishka was quiet and steady, with none of the chaos and emotional turbulence that his relationship with Anya had. There were fewer risky adventures, far less wild sex, very little personal drama, and no all-out screaming arguments. They often disagreed, but they rarely fought, and they would always try to make up before going to sleep if they did fight.

To Nikolai, their love was all the sweeter, knowing that they were able to successfully navigate through the aftermath of an argument and still want to curl up together in bed when all was said and done. That always made him feel safe, when they felt satisfied enough with the outcome to finally let themselves go to bed, and he was wrapped in Mishka’s huge, gentle arms. Sometimes Mishka would sing to him; the most unexpectedly angelic voice coming from this massive man who looked like he’d be more at home yelling commands to workers at the dockyard than chanting in a choir.

(Mishka had been in an all-boys choir as a child and young teen)

Mishka is cuddly and affectionate, just like Nikolai, and they both fulfilled each other’s need for physical touch. They also had no qualms about being affectionate in public, and it wasn’t at all a rare sight to see them holding hands while out for a walk or to catch Mishka hugging Nikolai from behind and shyly kissing his cheek while they waited in line for coffee.

Mishka shared Nikolai’s love of cycling, and the two of them liked to go on bike rides together. Their favourite thing to do together was to bike somewhere and go exploring. In the summertime, they’d take several small trips where they’d bike for a while, then hike into to the woods and find a nice spot to put up their tent, and camp in the forest for a night or two. Sometimes they’d find a place to fish, sometimes they’d sit in the sun and read, and sometimes they’d wander around and look at the flowers, mushrooms and trees and simply enjoy the quiet. Mishka often got stressed about getting lost, but Nikolai is good with a compass and so they never did.

Other things they enjoyed together were swimming, dancing, playing video games and of course skating. Sometimes the skating was more about Nikolai showing off while Mishka admired him, but mostly they’d skate laps together until Nikolai’s knee dictated a halt. Then, they’d go home, and Mishka would ice and massage his leg until he felt better.

One of the big challenges in their relationship was Mishka’s travelling. The team was constantly on the go throughout the regular season, and even longer if they made the playoffs. Nikolai didn’t like how often Mishka was away from him, and even though there was a set schedule for the team’s away games and home games, the whole thing still felt unstable and uncertain to him. Psychologically, it was difficult for him, and although he tried not to show how upset and stressed he was every time Mishka had to leave, Mishka always knew. He hated that Nikolai was upset, but there wasn’t much he could do in that situation, which naturally upset him too.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle for them was Anya. Nikolai and Anya’s on-again, off-again friends with benefits situation was in a definite “off again” phase when Nikolai and Mishka decided they were in an official relationship, but that didn’t stop Anya from coming around and trying to make herself at home. She’d show up ostensibly to cook for them, help them with their laundry or bring them something she’d knitted. The whole thing made Mishka feel extremely uncomfortable, and he said so on multiple occasions.

Regardless of the fact that Nikolai told Anya several times he wasn’t interested at all, Anya still tried to flirt with him (and with Mishka, much to Mishka’s distress). Mishka was never worried about Nikolai being unfaithful, but he neither liked nor trusted Anya.

One of the worst things for Nikolai during all this was that he didn’t even have his buddy Ginger around to talk to about it. Not long after Nikolai and Mishka had gotten together, Ginger had returned to the UK to begin her own journey as a figure skating coach and, as it happened, a wife. She and Nikolai did their best to keep in touch, but with their schedules, time zones, and Ginger’s new husband Liam not liking her to talk to other men, it was a challenge.

Inevitably, Nikolai and Mishka reached the conclusion that as much as they loved and cared for each other, this was not the right time or the right circumstances for them to stay together. They mutually decided to part ways and remain friends, and they promised that if their situations ever changed, they'd look each other up and hopefully try again. They did their best to keep in touch after that, but just like his contact with Ginger, Nikolai's contact with Mishka was semi-regular, but they still managed not to lose track of each other. He never forgot what they'd promised and neither did Mishka.

Fast-forward a few years, and Nikolai receives a message from Ginger, telling him that she and Liam are divorcing, and she's moving to Japan to continue to train her star student, Sebastian Fujikawa, a Japanese citizen who'd previously been training in the UK while he attended school there. The teenager was ready to go home to Japan, though, and he'd practically begged Ginger to come with him. She told Nikolai she was ready for a change, and that she'd gladly agreed.

Meanwhile, Nikolai was busy with Eden, his own young champion in the making, as well as his other students. Eden and Sebastian were the same age, Nikolai discovered, and soon they'd be competing in the senior division, where they — and their coaches — would undoubtedly meet at international competitions. It was easier for Nikolai and Ginger to keep in touch, now that she didn’t have Liam breathing down her neck, and their contact became less sporadic. Nikolai always looked forward to the chances when they'd encounter each other in person at a competition or training camp. Seeing Ginger again always made him happy.

Fast-forward another handful of years, and Nikolai finds himself in the unlikely scenario of being begged to come to Japan by his own student. Eden had decided to follow his brother Charlie to Japan, where Charlie was going to pursue his career as a professional aesthetitian, hoping to become the proverbial beautician of the stars in the J-pop music industry.

Initially, Eden asked Nikolai to come with him, and Nikolai said no. For one thing, he was terrified to uproot himself from his family, students and familiar surroundings. He was never good with instability, and he didn't think he could cope with that drastic a change in his life. His other reason was that he thought Eden might need to assert his own independence a bit. He didn't want Eden to leave, but knew that it'd be wrong to hold him back.

Eden found a new coach to train with, but the whole thing went terribly wrong after only a few months. Coincidentally, he was skating out of the same rink in a small town in Japan where Ginger was coaching her student, Sebastian. Nikolai heard more of the story from Ginger than he did from Eden at first, as Eden didn't want to upset him with all the horrible details, nor did he want Nikolai to think he was trying to guilt him into coming to Japan.

Finally, Eden did confess the whole truth, and Nikolai was heartbroken to realize that he'd made a huge mistake in not going to Japan with Eden in the first place. He'd all but made up his mind to go, and it really took very little extra persuasion on the part of Ginger and Charlie to fully convince him.

He was overjoyed to be reunited with Eden. Three months had felt like forever to him. He's struggling to adapt to life in Japan, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't scared, but having Eden, Charlie and Ginger close by helps him. Anya, a professional sports and entertainment photographer, has been there to visit him, while she was travelling in Asia for work. As much as he wants to deny it, he was glad to see her too and try as he might, he can't deny that he's looking forward to her coming back again.

But, other than training with Eden again, the real highlight has been his reunion with Ginger. It's brought him much more joy than he'd expected, and he's really not certain how to explain his feelings about it. He and Ginger spend as much time together as they can, and it didn't take much for them to slip back into their old friendship. They still don't want to say they're dating, and neither one of them really sees their relationship as a romance, but they're nevertheless very happy together. Nikolai can honestly say he loves Ginger, and he sees nothing wrong with that.

It's all good until he receives a long email from Mishka. Now 35 years old, Mishka has decided that too many injuries and stamina that's fading with age have finally made him uncompetitive as a pro hockey player, and it's time to retire. Nikolai could read the excitement in Mishka's written message, and he easily could picture Mishka's sweet face glowing with a smile at the sentence, "I never forgot you. I'm coming to Japan to find you, my love."

Nikolai is excited too, until he thinks about Ginger. And Anya.

He's still figuring out his feelings for Ginger, who is already right there in town, and Anya will be back soon on another business trip. How's he supposed to handle Mishka too, in the midst of that?

He has a problem, and not the sort of problem most people have. Some people have trouble finding one love interest. Nikolai's problem is that he may have far too many...