I’m actually so upset over the grimmons resolution I’m tempted to start a YouTube channel and make a whole video breakdown of their fucking queerbait

Ok bestie, anon who followed up on Amoore reporting back as requested ha. I should say we are on a similar page, her & Kitley are very tough to get a read on. And a lot of the online chatter agrees its hard to judge and goes back and forth on whether theres something more going on. For those interested, I suggest watching their youtube ch series for a general sense of them interacting. Entertaining and light vids, not overly long. Really just little things between them here & there that add up. And of course a person can review their socials..

Now onto the tea I came across online. Imperfectly summarized the best I can below. (Allow me to stipulate that I have no way of verifying any of this, so please understand Im not at all sharing any of this to be presented as true or false. Take it as simply passing along the posting of others for conversations sake here in a safe space. Comments/feedback/corrections welcome)

:

Its described as on/off thing, first beginning summer 2020. A VT insider says people are aware that Amoore hasnt been committed, to put it delicately/nicely. Leading most recently to a break of sorts last Dec-mid Jan. (Added pretty sure they are together rn though. And another person did point out if Liz was getting cheated on why would Georgia seem to maintain a good relationship with the Kitley family, which is a fair Q to pose). But notably, a strangely long break in their podcast took place over that period and for the first time in 3 years they didn’t spend XMas together or hang around each other over the holiday and when podcast recording returned they just said “we had Xmas” and didn’t talk about it. It was also pointed out that sometime in winter, Liz had tickets to see an NHL game and went w Cayla King despite her and Georgia talking about how they wanted to go together before. Only sus bc it happened to coincide w the time where Georgia was speculated to have gotten close to Kate Martin. Then suddenly they K & G werent interacting anymore and L & G seem back to being “besties”.

Sidenotes:

Liz’s "2020 love playlist"… apparently someone has screenshots that it used to be titled Georgia. Includes some fav bands/songs of Amoores. And a tune called Australia Street lol. Lots of love songs predictably, but some breakup songs were added to it at one point (the comment seems to insinuate during the time they were going through issues)

They're friends with a married lesbian couple (Youtubers/influencers? The Bellaires) who they once visited alone.

Also, fyi, Kate Martin is apparently recently back w her last ex, whoever that is - per talk re social media activity

You're my new favorite person omg because this is my kinda tea fr! Can y'all tell I love some good gossip?

I'm ngl, I was never the most invested in V-Tech or the girls on the team, so I don't really follow them. And I was pretty convinced Liz was straight so I just assumed her and Georgia really were just really close besties.

But this checks out with what I've heard/read too, that they were in that "undefined" kinda place, mainly because of Georgia and eventually Liz got tired of it. I definitely didn't know about the Christmas or the NHL stuff but that makes sense. Also from what I heard, they were probably done for good now with Liz going to the draft? But still being together also makes sense. I'm so invested in this now omg.

the great adventures of y/n tubbo tommy ranboo and george - trampolines and chaos

this is part 13 to the great adventures series

an: so it’s very clear y/ns love language is spending time with people and physical touch, all love mentioned is platonic

you and ranboo settled in rather quickly. However, there was good and bad news the bad news was you both had to isolate which meant when tubbo would go out with the others the pair of you couldn’t go the good news however, was that it would only be for a week and that you could both spend a lot of time together catching up and talking about anything that came to mind making the pair of you grow close. the pair of you would work on the scrapbook with tubbo, this was your favourite thing to do as ranboo would add his own twist to it and often came up with new ideas, you would both stream together for your twitch channel when tubbo was out and when he would come home you would all stream on ranboos channel. you often found yourself helping ranboo film videos for youtube or help him cook when tubbo was streaming. since you shared a room with ranboo every night you would sit on the couch pulling him close so you could play with his hair whilst a random film would play in the background, today was no different you sat on the couch and put bo Burnham's inside on whilst you waited for him to walk over with a blanket so he could sit in between your legs letting you play with his hair

“your hair got long boo…I’m going to try and plait some of it”

“I couldn’t get a hair cut and you know this”

you laughed quietly to yourself continuing to plait some of his hair he would occasionally sigh and pretend he didn’t like it but it was pretty obvious that he was beginning to relax under your touch, you continued plaiting his hair listening to him quietly sing along to the songs. it was moments like this you both loved and appreciated but would never tell anyone that it happened. it was your little secret.

after five days passed you and ranboo were free to go meet with others again meaning you could finally go out and film the trampoline vlog for tommys channel which you spent the last five days planning. safe to say you were excited, you hadn’t been to a trampoline park in a while. you woke ranboo up at 10 am you didn’t need to worry about tubbo as you heard him walking around talking to his phone it took a few minutes to realise he was doing a Twitter space. tubbo sent you a message earlier to let you know that there was a package for you near the door so once you got ready you went to grab it, inside was a couple of shirts, hoodies and hats from your sample merch you were honestly amazed. ranboo walked up to you grabbing one of the shirts and a hoodie.

“y/n these look great wow”

“I got a couple of each size, find the sizes you want and they’re yours”

a few minutes later ranboo walked back into the room wearing your merch

“mind if I wear it for the vlog”

“of course you can ill be showing it on stream later”

and with that you all made your way to the tubbo and began your journey to the trampoline park, it was a relatively quick trip the three of you spent the entire trip talking about stream and youtube ideas.

as soon as Tommy saw you all walk into the trampoline park he ran over tackling you all into a hug

“Hey guys, how have you been! we’re just waiting for George”

“speak of the devil he’s just arrived..ranboo I am not an armrest”

“sorry y/n it’s not my fault that you’re the perfect height to be one”

a few minutes later you all made your way to the trampolines. this is where the chaos began you all didn’t know where to begin, excitement took over and safety when out the window. you and ranboo challenged each other to see who could jump higher

“CATCH ME RANBOO”

“HUH Y/N”

you jumped from the trampoline you were on into ranboos arms (luckily as if he didn’t catch you, you would have fallen)

“thank you boo”

Tommy dragged you all the area where you had to try and hit the person opposite you off of the plank, you stood laughing as tubbo instantly hit Tommy making him fall

“boooo”

“I’d like to see you do better y/n”

“bet..tubbo get back on”

the pair of you put up a decent fight, Tommy ended up distracting tubbo which allowed you to win, you then went against George and won then ranboo decided to go against you

“…haha hey boo looking awfully tall today”

“you look awfully short today”

you then tried and failed to make him fall ranboo on the other hand was able to make you lose your balance however you weren’t going down on your own so you dragged him down with you. after that you stood in awe watching tubbo do tricks on the trampoline

“look at him go he’s like a gazelle”

“I'm sorry ranboo what gazelles have you been watching”

“you don’t know what I’ve seen y/n”

you laughed as Tommy went up next claiming that he could also do that…he couldn’t.

George noticed a box and attempted to jump over it followed by you who only just managed to jump over it as you got distracted on the run-up, up next was tubbo who jumped over it, Tommy tried to jump over it but ended up rolling over it you stood shaking your head as ranboo went next unsurprisingly he jumped over it easily then lied down on the box

“Hey how’s it going”

you and Tommy had the same idea

“we’re going to jump over you ranboo”

“oh no please don’t- OH GOD”

so you and Tommy failed to jump over him and crashed into him

“hey boo-“

“that didn’t go to plan”

“no, it didn’t”

you and Tommy got up and decided to lie down with him you noticed tubbo at the run-up getting ready to jump over the three of you, you all screamed as tubbo successfully jumped over thou all

“holy shit”

“oooohhhh”

“didn’t doubt you for a minute tubs”

you got up and went over to George who seemed to be having a lovely time on the trampolines, you heard screaming in the background and turned around to see ranboo chasing Tommy who decided that the safest option would be to run headfirst into the wall

“what the fuck is up with him”

you all stood on the inflatable safety hazard not knowing which way it was going to turn, this didn’t go well for any of you as everyone but ranboo (because he was filming) was instantly hit by the inflatable you ended up on the floor you looked up to see ranboo looking down at you

“don’t look at me like that boo”

“you really do amaze me”

“I put a rock in your pocket”

“no- what how”

you couldn’t contain your laughter as ranboo pulled out a rock which you did indeed place in his pocket sometime during the trip. you all decided to try again on the inflatable this time it went slightly better…for less than 30 seconds you got hit and dragged over to tubbo and George who had also been hit

“Hello boys”

a few minutes later you tubbo and ranboo tried again this time it went well for you, you managed to pay attention and ignore ranboo who was shouting that he will beat the machine. well, it went well till ranboo got hit as you found it hilarious which ended up being your downfall as you got distracted.

you all decided to have a totally safe game of dodgeball

“guys it’s like mcc”

you and ranboo looked at each other before yelling about how you both wouldn’t know, you decided to aim at tubbo who was focusing on Tommy which allowed you to hit him multiple times

“Y/N I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS”

you made your way over to him tackling him resulting in you both falling

“We are bee boy”

“I hate you”

“love you too”

after helping tubbo up and aiming at Tommy you heard ranboo yelling

“I just got hit in the balls by tubbo...OW AND Y/N THANKS A LOT”

“you’re welcome my beloved”

you sat with ranboo as the others continued to play dodgeball, he tapped your thigh to get your attention, you turned your head to see him holding part of his glasses

“your other pair is in my bag I’ll go get them”

“I’ll come with you”

after ranboo told the others the pair of you made your way to your bag

“thank you y/n…how did you know I’d break them”

“tubbo and I both carry a spare pair on us just in case. we went out to get them on our way to the airport”

the pair of you made your way to the others who were now stood waiting for you

“Woah what the fuck is this”

tubbo tapped your shoulder and whispered that someone is on their way to explain what it was, a few minutes later one of the workers came over and explained how it works and what to do, you all watched Tommy go up you tubbo and ranboo constantly made jokes about him the entire time, you continued to do this as tubbo went up

“can I clickbait this if you die”

“oooh can i”

ranboo went next you and tubbo both tried to hit him with the dodgeballs from earlier however you both missed you watched as ranboo slid down and looked at you

“sup”

“oh god I’m next”

you went next the entire time you made comments about not letting go

“what if I don’t let go”

“I will personally drag you down”

you looked down to see Tommy pretending to get ready to drag you down

“NO TOMMY”

and with that, you let go

“Hello boys that go fast doesn't it”

George went next and screamed the entire way down you and tubbo looked at each other questioning if you heard the same thing before looking back at George

“Are you okay”

one at a time you all jumped off of the mini wall onto the soft landing below, Tommy landed funny accidentally hurting himself

“Tommy I love you but you’re an idiot”

ranboo went next landing in the same pose as before

“sup”

“stylish..real stylish”

tubbo pushed you off before you even had the chance to jump

“TUBBO I SWEAR TO GOD”

“REVENGE FOR HITTING ME IN DODGEBALL”

the others sat down looking up at you and ranboo who was now stood on the wall looking down on them

“jump”

“okay”

“wait what”

ranboo grabbed your hand and jumped off onto the landing taking you down with him

“Why does this always happen to me why not George or Tommy”

Tommy ran off after asking you all if you all thought he could request a song as he returned you could hear mask beginning to play and Tommy trying to sing along whilst running over to you all. you all then spent a good while messing on the trampolines so Tommy had footage to use for a montage after that you all made your way to some chairs so you could have a minute to relax and have a drink. you sat next to tubbo trying not to laugh as you watched ranboo attempt to drink the water through his mask

“oh wait did you just-“

“now your mask is going to be wet”

tubbo and Tommy ended up running off to get more content for the vlog and George ended up walking off somewhere, ranboo looked at you before welcoming you with open arms, the two of you sat in each other’s embrace watching Tommy and tubbo run around the park.

“you doing okay boo”

“I’m alright a little hot”

“that’s expected I mean you’re literally wearing a hoodie and mask with glasses I’m surprised you can even see when you're on the trampolines”

“I can't”

the two of you sat talking for a few more minutes before going back to the trampolines running, jumping and falling over. 10 minutes later you sat with Tommy watching George definitely do something on the floor, you weren’t quite sure what he was trying to do

“wooo go, George”

“thank you y/n”

at this point, it was clear you were all getting tired you all went off to buy a slush before sitting back down in the chairs you were making your way to sit with tubbo however your dear friend ranboo pulled you down to sit with him

“oh hello”

“hi y/n”

“I have a slush”

“as do i “

before you could speak again you heard Tommy and George messing with a walkie talkie, you sat looking at the two of them not realising that ranboo also had one

“give us more trampolines”

“hi George”

as you didn’t expect this you jumped slightly making ranboo turn his head and laugh

“Jesus christ when did you get that”

“well tubbo gave me it I was going to tell you but I wanted to scare you y/n”

after cooling down you all went to the play area, you found a slide and ran to it ranboo not far behind

“y/n wait for me we can go down together”

“okay go behind me”

ranboo got on behind you and held onto your waist so you didn’t go down without him. Tommy noticed this and wanted to join the chain

“We can go down together”

“alright hop on”

“slide trio”

“tubbo…there’s four of us”

not wanting to be left behind, George decided to join the chain

“is everyone ready”

“no”

“don’t care”

and with that, the five of you made your way down the slide, after this Tommy dragged you all to the mini jump area where you all sat watching George have a great time

“I don’t care about the rules”

“you’re doing great”

you all ended the trip at the inflatable safety hazard again, you sat with ranboo who kept an arm around your waist whilst recording Tommy who was just constantly being hit and knocked over even though he wasn’t playing

“just get out just get out”

“get out get out”

“he’s dying”

“I'm using this for clickbait on stream”

later that night you decided not to stream as you decided that you’d rather spend the night scrapbooking and playing random board games with tubbo and ranboo

taglist

@fuzzycloudsz @wtfwriter @bearytime @milkydisaster @dumb-chaotic-bi-energy @uselesssapphickitten @l0ver0fj0y @etheriaaly @xx-smiley-xx @hawarun @kylobensgirl @cawcaw-pretty-thing @reverse-iak @renleicrashed @augustine-is-joy @c1loudee

HI 💕💕💕 can I request fluff with oikawa and #11 🥺🥺 i’ve been in my feels lately LOL written please :) if you want to change anything it’s fine✨

Physical fatigue consumed every inch of the setter’s body, with tension stretching along his shoulders, developing numerous knots between his muscles. While walking along the hallway to his apartment, he sunk his bandaged fingers into the flesh, applying pressure to ease the ache, but his limbs were of little use. The final set of the evening left his fingers in dire need of rest, and since he departed from practice they throbbed incessantly under the tape. What he truly required was a weekend of rest, preferably one where he spent at least one day in bed, cuddled into his loving partner’s embrace. Unfortunately, the cure to his problems would not be available until Sunday, as you were invited to a sleepover hosted by your college friends. He doubted you would be home now, and the thought only increased the setter’s dismay.

Maybe he could ask that you return home one day early? That wasn’t too unreasonable, was it?

A chorus of heavy sighs parted Oikawa’s lips as he entered the apartment. A bitter expression painted his features, directing his bottom lip to curl out slightly. Except, his bitterness was short-lived, instantly evaporating when he caught sight of an adorable little person, sulking on the couch. There you were, dressed in a brand-new pair of pajamas, with a matching sleeping mask attached to your head. The amount of accessories decorating you from head to toe was so damn excessive; it was hard for him to maintain a frown. When you finally noticed your boyfriend, a loud whine vibrated inside your throat as you wigged your fingers at him, gesturing for him to enter your embrace.

“What happened? Did they cancel?” After lowering his gym bag onto the floor, and removing his shoes, he padded across the room to where you were sat. Upon reaching the couch, he placed a hand against the back cushion just above your shoulder, before dipping down to plant a single kiss against your forehead. “I would join you, but I’m covered in blood and sweat right now. I don’t think you want me to stain your brand-new pjs, do you?” The teasing edge to his low voice did not eliminate the alarm rising inside your core – did he just say blood?

Instantly, your mind abandoned the self-pity party it was partaking in, as your y/e/c irises scanned him for any visible injures. “What are you talking about? Did you get hurt?” Your palms framed his face after you failed to locate the source of his pain. You delicately guided his face from one side to the other, permitting you an additional opportunity to analyze his visage for any sign of blood. But once again you found nothing.

“It’s an expression, y/n. I’m not bleeding. Though, I did hurt my fingers.” His caramel irises flickered to the couch, where his bandaged fingers were sinking into the back cushion. It was strange but your presence alone helped lift some of the stress that plagued him. Who knew that his pain was no match for the presence of significant other?

“What? Oh my god, Tooru!” A horrified expression crossed your visage at the sight of his worn out limbs. “You know what, you’re ban from volleyball now. Sorry. I don’t make the rules.” A little huff was exhaled through your nostrils to demonstrate the seriousness of the matter, but the noise only earned you another laugh from the setter.

“You’re always so dramatic, my sweet angel. How about this instead, I won’t play volleyball for the next two days, and instead you and I will have our own slumber party, hm?” Curving his eyebrows, he awaited your response with a wide beam displayed. Spending the weekend cuddled under a pillow fort was actually very enticing – hell, he would do anything as long as it was with you.

“Hmmmm.” Squishing his face with your palms, you tried to appear deep in thought, knitting your brows together. “Okay. Deal. Go shower, pretty boy. We have a long two nights ahead of us!”

While your boyfriend showered and selected his outfit for the impromptu sleepover, it was your task to begin building the largest pillow fort known to mankind. After watching a few Youtube videos on how to construct a proper support for the fort, you elected to include the rod from your mop and broom as the frame. A thin mattress cover was draped over the rods, connecting them to the loveseat couch in the living room. All that remained now was to add the pillows inside and to decorate the outside with some fairy lights. You were about to exit the fort to gather the pillows from your bedroom when you heard your boyfriend comically question your absence.

“I wonder where my pretty little angel is?”

Poking your head out from under the sheet, your plan to return his comment with sarcasm was withdrawn when your eyes landed upon him. His skin was glistening under the dimmed lighting, and while his mocha mane lacked its usual puff, you were overcome with the urge to play with the wet strands. He just appeared so soft, dressed in a plain t-shirt and flannel pajama pants.  

“What? Did you think I’d look worse after a shower, angel face? I take offense to that, you know.” A hand was placed against his hip as he clicked his tongue in disappointment.

“No. You just… never wear pjs. You look so…” Why the hell were you stuttering? Growing exasperated with your own inadequacies, you sighed out the remainder of the compliment “cute. Why the hell are you so cute?”

“I don’t know. Should I ask my mother?” Humour released in the form of a melody, demonstrating the playfulness of his retort. Your heart was seized by adoration when the soundwaves hit your eardrums.

“You are so annoying, Tooru. Stop teasing me and go bring me some pillows!” With one hand clawing at your forehead, a series of grunts were growled out.

“I’ll do that in a minute.” Instead of retreating to the bedroom, and complying with your demands, he advanced closer, kneeling down to where you were sat. “You know, talking about my mother… I think we should take a trip back home soon. Don’t you think it’s time you met her?” While his voice was projected confidentially, Oikawa was a tad bit nervous. Two years into dating – wasn’t it time that you two met?

The suggestion was enough to force you out of the comfort of the fort and into your boyfriend’s arms. Once you tackled him onto the ground, he mumbled a little “ow” but a smile remained glued to his features. “You’re very sus right now, Tooru. Why are you saying this now!?”

Oikawa did not mind being walled in by your arms on either side, even if you were interrogating him. Particularly because now he was provided a perfect view of your face. “Well, I can’t propose to someone she hasn’t met before, now can I?”

Your arms almost caved in upon hearing his explanation – were you hearing this right?

“Excuse me!?” Underlying your words was a demand for some clarification. He seemed to have understood that, as he provided you one seconds later.

“You heard me. No one’s ever stuck with me for so long before, y/n. Well, except for Iwa-chan!” His eyelids fluttered shut for a second, while his mouth twitched into a large smile. How could he not want to marry you?

Inside of your chest, your heart squealed in joy, and the additional amount of blood rushing through your veins left your mind in a daze. “Lucky me then. I’m glad none of your ex’s stayed, because if they did, I would have never met you.” Soon, tears formed at your waterline as the weight of his words slowly sunk in. “I love you, pretty boy.”

Your reaction was everything he could have wanted and more. Reaching up, he brushed his thumb along your cheek, swiping away the liquid sticking to your skin.

“I love you, y/n.”

A/N: I 100% do not know how to write small things WELP. BUT I HAD SO MUCH FUN WRITING THIS. I hope you enjoyed it! <3 Thank you for participating! 

Can you pick me up? my uni burnt down (Chapt. 2)

Relationships: Sleepy bois inc (all fics i write are platonic)

Summary: 

 In which Techno goes to England for University, his building catches fire in the night, and he isn't prepared for the difference in climate between England and California. SBI fluff ensues

Chapter summary: 

After waking up, Wilbur has the great idea that they should do a sleepy boys stream. Tommy doesn't get told about this id

Words: 1785

Language: English

AO3 Chapt. 1

Listen, waking up on a sofa, with a thin blanket shared with 3 men was never going to be the best morning. His back hurt and his legs were numb from Wilbur having sprawled out over the three of them as he slept. 

Stretching his arms back, he recounted the events of last night. God, it really was only a few hours ago, he was so tired. Had this been last year, he would have been able to stay up for days on end and then just crash for an entire weekend. It wasn’t last year though and Techno had gotten himself into a fairly healthy routine, he couldn’t exactly be sleeping through his uni classes anyway. 

“Alright you two” Hearing Philza’s voice, he propped his head up, “Get up, you can’t lay around all day”

A groan came from the mass of blankets and cushions that happened to be Wilbur, who was curled up in the centre of it,

“Phil it's so early and we went to bed so late. It’s fine to sleep in”

“Okay” he chuckled, humouring his tired friend “It’s midday Wil, im taking the blankets away now”

Techno thought it was much too early too, as he tugged the sleeves of Wilbur’s hoodie down a little further so they could act like gloves. 

“Do you mind if I use your PC to try and find out what’s going on with my classes at some point? They'll probably send me an email or something” He grumbled, standing up so he could stretch his back out properly, following Phil slowly to the kitchen.

“That’s fine, it's up in my room, do what you need”

Breakfast was nice, it had been a while since Techno had had time for it honestly, and even longer since he had been able to eat with people he cared about. He had a couple slices of buttered toast and a bowl of some british cereal which he didn’t really like but he didn’t want to be rude so he ate it anyway. 

“You wanna stream together later?” Wil asked through a mouth full of food, earning a snort from Phil. This was nice. 

“Yeah maybe, you use face cam though, I’m not like against showing them my face but y'know, it is what it is” he shrugged, spooning another mouthful of his breakfast into his mouth, he had to admit it was very bland, he much preferred the sweeter ones that were more popular in America. 

“Well think about it, if you decide you don't want them to see you, you can always just sit off to the side and I'll turn my monitor so you can still see it. My office is big enough for it anyway, it’ll be like where Niki was during that one MCC remember?”

Techno nodded and carried on eating, they really were 3 very sleepy boys right now. Maybe he’d take a nap once he found out what was going on with his classes. 

------------------

------------------

Streaming without any gameplay to comment about and with facecam on? Techno wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. That just didn’t really sound like something he was going to enjoy.

It was nerve wracking and he always seemed to glance at the camera too much when it was pointed at him. He knew the fans would be disappointed if he didn’t do it though, When Wilbur tweeted out saying that he and Phil would join him in a ‘you laugh you lose’ he watched as the replies freaked out. 

You could say he was just a bit camera shy, he wasn’t incredibly insecure, sure there were things he didn’t like that much but everyone had things like that, it just made him nervous to know that people were looking at him. 

He’d be okay with his friend’s though, he trusted that they’d never put him in an uncomfortable situation. He knew if he got overwhelmed he could sit outside the frame. 

It would be okay. 

“Hey hey chat” Wilbur mumbled into the mic, making it loud enough so that everyone could hear but it still sounded like he was whispering. 

“We’ve got the blade here, bet you weren’t expecting that huh chat? Or maybe you were, maybe you read the title of the stream, bet there’s someone watching who didn't think he’d be here though” he finally turned the music off and switched from his ‘starting soon’ screen to his regular camera. 

Wil went through the rules, it was the normal stuff, he added in some jokes here and there, prodding Techno and Phil to talk at times. They’d already agreed that this wouldn’t be for youtube, since that seemed to add a bit too much pressure for Techno, but hey, he still had to welcome his chat. 

“Okay!! First media share! Lets go”  

After a series of videos, some funnier than others, Techno had started to loosen up a bit. He was getting more comfortable with the camera and while he’d probably cringe while looking back at the footage, at least he was having fun right now.

He had a warm feeling in his chest that wasn’t usually there when he was streaming alone, sure it was usually fun but nothing was better than being with his friends while doing it, there was really only one person who was missing. 

As if on queue, chat started spamming Tommy’s name, for a moment Techno thought he had been mumbling his thoughts out loud, before he looked between Phil and Wilbur, who both seemed equally confused. Moving Wilbur’s mouse over the chat to pause it, Techno tried to read some of the messages. 

“Oh he tweeted something” he mumbled, pulling his phone out of his pocket without a care. Maybe some irl streamers would have used the computer but knowing Wilbur’s history, he doubted it could run Chrome and streamlabs at the same time. 

Looking at the tweet he felt a little pang of guilt. It was lighthearted and jokey but he knew there’d be a little truth to it. He nudged the other two and read it aloud to them. 

‘Damn guess I’m not a sleepy boy after all’

The air felt a little thick after that, they hadn’t meant to exclude Tommy; all of the excitement of Techno coming to stay had just made it a little hard to arrange to have Tommy here after all. 

Still, they probably should have still told him though. They were supposed to be each other's family.  

“Hey chat I think we’re gonna have to end stream early.” Wilbur finally piped up, deciding it wouldn't be right to carry on when they had hurt their friend, not that chat needed to know that though, he didn’t want to embarrass Tommy. 

“I feel kinda sick and I don't think you all wanna watch me vomit right? Yeah so it’s best we end it now” 

Techno sniggered to himself at that, in games Wilbur always seemed to be very cunning but he supposed he wasn’t very good at lying when it was about something he actually cared about. Said something being Tommy.  

After raiding Fundy, the trio hopped straight onto discord. 

Tommy didn't answer the first time he was called. 

Or the second. 

Finally, after three calls, Tommy decided he’d talk to them. 

“You are all a bunch of dick heads, you know that? What the hell! Why wasn’t I invited to the sleepy boy’s stream! Wilbur you bitch!” Through all the vulgar language and the constant yelling, it was clear that Tommy was genuinely upset. 

He had every right to be, as far as Techno was concerned. From his point of view his friend’s had just gone off and hung out without him. He just hoped he’d calm down once they explained everything.  

“You know I thought we were friends! I thought we were brothers! But if you don’t wanna hang out with a ‘kid’ you can just tell me and i’ll- i'll go!” He was still yelling, as usual, it was clear he was trying to make this into a joke where he could overreact but Techno noticed the small sniffles and the quiver in his voice. 

By the looks on Phil’s and Wilbur’s faces, they recognised it too.  

“Listen, Tommy” 

Wil was the first to talk, it made sense, it seemed that Tommy trusted him the most at times. Sometimes Techno could be a bit too cold and sometimes Phil could get a bit too overbearing.

Techno understood this, he didn’t take it personally, he knew it was only natural that you have people you trust with your emotions more than others. It didn’t mean Tommy didn’t love them just as much, just that they weren’t his ‘go-to’ when he felt down. 

Techno felt the same way sometimes. Feeling’s got complicated and personally he thought Phil was the best to talk to about that, the fact that he was older and had his life sorted out gave him a sense of comfort, like he could trust him because he knew what he was talking about. 

“We didn’t plan a meetup, it just sorta happened. Phil was at my place, helping me record, and then Techno’s Uni had a fire and he needed a place to stay while they’re making it safe again” Wilbur sighed as he heard Tommy moving on the other side of his mic. Techno wondered what he was doing. 

“We would have invited you, had we known that we’d all be in the same place Toms” 

Phil took over, giving Wilbur a little sympathetic smile. The brunette so obviously felt guilty about the situation. 

“But when we got the call from Tech’ it was past 3 in the morning and it was tipping it down with snow, as soon as we got home we all slept. We decided to do a stream this morning but never once did we intend to try and make you feel like you aren’t welcome with us” 

Finally it was Techno’s turn to talk...Fuck.

He wasn’t exactly the most sentimental guy, he struggled to show his emotions and he just assumed everyone he cared for just knew that he cared for them. He rarely had to say it out loud. God okay. He just had to swallow his pride and go for it. 

“Tommy you are a sleepy boy and you are our brother. We did kind of a dick move today and if I was you I’d probably be upset too. I know I didn't like seeing you guys playing without me during MCC and that wasn’t even any of our decisions. We should have called you or something. I know I kinda tease you a lot but that’s just how I show I like people. Listen Tommy if I didn’t care about you I wouldn’t be comfortable enough to make those kinds of jokes with you. It’s not funny if it’s hurting you though..”

Techno bit his lip, this wasn’t as hard as he had anticipated but it was coming out like word vomit. 

“You’re young Tommy but you’re so talented. We love you”

There was some more rustling, it sounded like Tommy was wiping his eyes. Maybe the boy had expected a yelling match, only for it to turn out to be very emotional. 

“I love you guys too.. If you ever exclude me ever again though I’m getting my vlog knife out”

Hazbin Hotel and Compulsive Representation

(aka my accumulated experience writing and researching about Hazbin Hotel characters as a fan and critic)

Date: September 17,  2020

This is going to be my last article for Hazbin Hotel for now. After that, I’m taking a long break from HH.  

I Can’t Ignore My Own Research

I like Hazbin Hotel. But when people have criticism for it, I listen and try to understand why they have concerns about the cartoon that I like.

Mindful Consumption of Hazbin Hotel’s vodoo Content

When someone has concerns about Alastor being an example of Hollywood voodoo, I listened and did the work since I didn’t know what Hollywood voodoo was.

What I found out after writing the article? Alastor’s use of sacred symbols and inspiration of those symbols of an exclusive religion gave me the impression that Vp didn’t do her research beyond aesthetic. 

Exploring Angel Dust’s Gay and Sex Worker Stereotypes

When someone said Angel Dust has a lot of stereotypes, I listened and did the work in order to understand where they are coming from.

What I found out after writing the article? The roots of Angel Dust’s stereotypes made me wonder if Vp really delved into what he will represent in media.  

3 Examples of Racial Bias in Animation Storytelling

When someone didn’t like how Vaggie was treated in the pilot, I watched the episode again if what they are saying is true... and you know what? Vaggie deserved better.

(I’m also happy to announce that Medium has made this a Recommended article to their readers.)

What I found out after writing the article? The more prone-to-violence dark-skinned girl (Vaggie) to the light-skinned ingenue (Charlie) gave me an impression that Vp isn’t aware of the plight of dark-skinned women who aren’t allowed to be vulnerable and delicate as their white counterparts. 

If a character is going to represent women of color, shouldn’t she have done research on their experiences? Or interview them?

How did it all come to this? 

That’s when I realized Vp’s compulsive character building from Zoophobia may have seeped through into Hazbin Hotel.

Vp and her Artistic Compulsiveness

I have first read about Vp’s artistic compulsiveness from @zpredraws.

Their blog gives fair feedback and critique of Vp’s art works including Zoophobia and Hazbin Hotel.

Here is what they said about her artistic compulsiveness:

“Viv tends to exaggerate way too much in her designs that it causes a lot of anatomy problems, coupled with her habit of not reviewing her sketches, and sketching impulsively.”

This compulsiveness goes beyond sketching from what I have noticed in my research and writing: 

Her habit of thinking character traits from the top of her head makes her dependent on stereotypes, tropes and her other preconceived biases with no to little effort of developing them. 

Coupled with her habit of not reviewing sketches is parallel to her not reviewing the writing of her own characters. 

Compulsive Representation

 @zpredraws​ mentioned about her character representation in Zoophobia (paraphrased):

She wants a diverse representation of minor groups them adds them compulsively in the story. But because not much thought was given to them, there is not much passion felt for them either. 

The characters then end up as token characters with no direction for their stories. Thus, nullifying the point of representing them.

@zpredraws​ also commented on her compulsive adding of characters (paraphrased):

She has a habit of compulsively adding a character because she liked an aspect of it from an animated film without developing it much. 

This is a common mistake of young artists who haven’t matured enough into making a good story. But Vp has graduated years ago and still has this habit.

It’s okay to be inspired but they need to be developed enough to be unique.

With her habit on grabbing only the aesthetics but none of the histories beneath them (which I have observed in my research), the misrepresentation through characters in media continue:

Alastor being similar to Dr. Facilier whose personality traits are misconceptions on Vodou such as cannibalism.

Nifty being similar to the cute genki girl  with the yellow-skinned othering of anti-East Asian propaganda and Asian house-keeper stereotype while being fluent in Japanese. 

Mimzy having anti-Semite features and being money-greedy -a common antisemitic stereotype. 

Vaggie’s valid anger being played as comedy as the aggressive angry Latina (which is a negative stereotype of dark-skinned women of color). 

Angel Dust as a gay sex worker represented as a horny sex worker stereotype in and out of his profession. 

However, Vp did say she developed Angel Dust the most, but for @zpredraws , she’s overdeveloping him.

“If Viv wants Angel to be a drag-queen, a gay pornstar, a mobster, a stripper, Angel will conform to that personality. Viv is focusing and developing Angel so much that she is actually over-developing him. Other characters are being under-developed, while Angel is getting more and more traits stacked onto him that nobody really knows what or who he is anymore..

Lastly, Angel Dust is here not so much for being the worst design in how aesthetically nice he looks, but it’s more of “What exactly is he anymore?” Angel doesn’t have a consistent design anymore, he can be whatever Viv wants him to be. Looking at the above, few people on first impression would know that is the same character. I just don’t know what Angel is anymore, and I think many fans have that same thought too.”

@zpredraws further advised:

Vibrant colors and drawing on impulse can only carry your art that far, and won’t be able to hide mistakes for long.

And I think it’s carrying over to the writing of her characters. 

I understand that the pilot took three years to make and that a lot of work was done in it. But in that span, I have concluded in my research that most of the characters’ pre-story personality was compulsively done and not developed further beyond their stereotypes. More effort was put in their design. 

As Youtube Staxlotl had noted, the art of Hazbin Hotel pilot took over its writing:

“I do hope if VivziePop decides to continue with the series, that she looks into putting a bit more effort into the writing and dialogue to make the plot more engaging, the characters and jokes more entertaining to watch. Because honestly, if you strip these characters of their amazing voice actors and replace them with mediocre ones, the show would be much, much more boring.”

Hope for Improvement

I hope Vp would hire the people her characters are supposed to represent (queer sex worker, dark-skinned Latina, etc.) as givers of feedback or at least put them in high positions in the creation of the episodes of HH. That is, if she truly wanted an adult comedy without sacrificing a thoughtful story on redemption and tangible character growth that speaks truly of the represented people’s experiences.

Not just make it up as they go along then pat themselves on the back when they get progressive points.

Because for now, the characters with their stereotypes are just continuing the misconceptions of the minorities that they’re supposed to represent. This can negatively affect real-life minorities on how other people perceive them.

I have read that Vp has driven away artists who wants to help her with her Zoophobia. I wished she wouldn’t drive away people who have valid criticisms whose intentions are to help improve the show. 

Other Short Works:

The Intention vs Outcome of “Shipping ANYTHING You Want!”

How to avoid cultural appropriation and ableism in making Alastor content.

Angel Dust: Rooting for a Character Who Doesn’t Want to Grow… Yet

smptwt as of 04/07/2020

Right. You asked for it, so you shall recieve. Below the cut is probably one of the most thought-out, in-depth, hopefully unbiased (but probably not) and above all helpful accounts of what the fuck is happening in the smplive and lunch club fandoms right now. I will be covering everything I can- but in the case that I’ve forgotten something, please let me know so I can have a crack at making an update.

Before the cut, I’d just like to link my first three posts about this same topic, covering my thoughts and the events of the last couple of months of drama. It feels so strange that I’ve made so many of these, but as long as they help people, I’ll keep making them.

Part 1: https://crunchy-corvid.tumblr.com/post/619547090403622912/the-cscoopsmptwt-drama

Part 2: https://crunchy-corvid.tumblr.com/post/619746266158661633/more-on-smptwt-long-post

Part 3: https://crunchy-corvid.tumblr.com/post/619886809143476225/smptwt-part-3-030620

I’d like to preface this with a huge thank you to everyone who helped me collect and compile information for this post- and those who helped censor twitter handles and edit screenshots. Without you, this post would have never been made. 

Thank you to everyone on the Cancelled Heaven discord server:  https://discord.gg/emrh2u

Now, onto the thing.

So we’ll start at the beginning with the easiest ‘drama’ (I hate calling it that) to cover. Charlie (slimecicle) tweeted on his second account and it caused a little upset. It’s not much but it feeds into a greater conversation that I think is relevant here: 

We’ll start with Charlie’s original point, then move on to the reply. Obviously, this post was poorly timed, because everyone thought it was about the Cooper (cscoop) drama, when in reality it was just a general comment. I saw a lot of replies along the lines of ‘it’s okay you can @ cscoop’ and similar things. If you’ve read my previous posts you’ll know how I feel about the Cooper situation, but regardless, there are a few reasons why this is a Bad Take/poor interpretation of what Charlie said.

Charlie and Cooper are friends. They haven’t fallen out as far as we know. Charlie is left-wing, and definately doesn’t seem like the kind of person to be friends with someone who is racist/transphobic/sexist etc. So why would he be talking about Cooper in this post? 

Also, Charlie is clearly talking about people who still say slurs, not people who have said slurs in the past. This is how I read it, a jab at streamers and gamers who use ‘dark humour’ to justifty their actions. A lot of people seemed to relate this to Cooper, despite him never trying to justify his use of slurs. The people who did try to justify his actions this way were fans, not the man himself. So again, this post doesn’t relate to Cooper.

On to the reply, which sparks a different conversation all together. While I see where the commenter is coming from, and agree with them to an extent, Charlie is allowed to have his own opinion on the matter. And he is right. Using insulting language against heterosexual people does create a larger divide and doesn’t get anyone on our ‘side’. It just makes us look immature and causes a lot of straight cis people to assume that we hate them. 

On the other hand, I do think that saying things like ‘disgusting hets’ can be a funny joke if you are saying it to your friends who don’t have any issue with it. You probably shouldn’t get into the habit of saying things like that though, just in case you actually hurt someone with your words. Both sides of the argument have pros and cons, so anyone angry at Charlie for his opinion really have no reason to be.

Charlie’s reponse to this comment was reasonable, responsible, and mature, and he is clearly showing that he understands the concerns of his audience. This is all I’ll say about Charlie in this post. Honestly, he’s generally unproblematic and ‘safe’ to keep watching, if you enjoy a very drama-free environment. Have fun!

Now I’ll move on to Ted. He’s made some great points recently about cancel culture which I strongly agree with. Here’s his first tweets:

I don’t have much to add here, this is perfectly valid in my opinion- though I feel like sometimes you can tell a lot about a person by the people they follow. For example, if someone follows Trump, Ben Shapiro, and a bunch of right-wing youtubers, they probably agree with a lot of the things they say. But I think the point Ted is trying to make is that he shouldn’t be harassed about drama his friends fall into. If he isn’t involved, leave him out of it. 

Next we’ll take a look at his tweets on stans, probably sparked by the drama with Carson, which I will be talking about later. 

Again, I have no issue with what Ted is saying here. His idea is a good one, and a fun way to distinguish casual fans from people who create art, content, and (appropriate) fanfiction for the ‘flandom’! 

Basically, how I see it, is that a ‘fan’ is a casual viewer who doesn’t really get involved in the flandom, maybe posting about smplive and/or lunch club occasionally, but not being too involved. A ‘flan’ is someone who interracts a lot, creates art and fiction that respects boundaries, and posts more about the boys than a casual fan does. A ‘stan’ is a stalker-fan, creepy and obsessive, too invested, maybe creates art and fiction that crosses boundaries, and obsessively posts about the boys.

I think this new terminology is really cool and Ted is smart for coming up with it (also, probably hungry when coming up with it too). I think that the term ‘stan’ should be thrown out and used to describe the ‘bad’ side of fandoms. There is a risk that people will hide behind the term ‘flan’ to disguise the fact that they are a stan, but this is still a good step foward. 

But you’re not here to listen to me ramble about Ted or Charlie. You’re here for Carson. So let’s get on with it.

Carson made a series of tweets talking about stans, much like Ted did later. He seemed tired of stans harassing him about his friends, a sentiment shared by Ted (who faced very minimal backlash over his tweets). Here’s what he said:

Which is something I fully agree with. For big content creators like Carson and his friends, stan culture is absolutely insane. Recently they’ve been trying to ‘catch out’ many people who are part of smplive and/or lunch club, most obviously with Cooper and Schlatt but I’ve seen the others getting ‘called out’ too. Carson’s anti-stan stance is well-known in the flandom (yes I am using that word get used to it) so these tweets didn’t surprise me. 

For some reason stans seem to think that if one creator is okay with their behaviour, every other creator is too. This is not the case. Carson was within his full right to say these things about stans.

Obviously the replies got out of hand. People became horribly angry very quickly, and clearly Carson had already had enough because pretty soon he started blocking stan accounts- which only made them more mad.

Of course, there were supporters and anti-stan comments out there too, such as this fun exchange:

But a whole lot of people got angry. Carson was trending for a while, too, after he started blocking stans. Unfortunately some people did get wrongfully blocked, which sucks, sure, but use of an alt account or logging off of twitter can solve that problem (this can also be said for stan accounts. Carson didn’t stop any of them from viewing his content, just blocked them so that he didn’t have to see their tweets).

Carson did this for his own mental health. After a long conversation with older people who have been in fandoms for decades, I can tell you that being at the top is always hell. New threads created about you every day, friends you can’t trust, and people giving you shit for things other people said. I can’t imagine how someone as popular as Carson has dealt with this for so long.

People who were blocked started to claim that they were having panic attacks, that they hyperfixate so they can’t help being obsessive, and that Carson doesn’t care about mental health for these reasons. They said some pretty toxic and manipulative things and a lot of people clearly didn’t know what they were talking about:

First of all, these comments on the Katerino and Fitz situation are honestly disgusting. These people are only proving Carson’s point that stans will be super supportive one second and turn around to hate you the next. To bring up something like this, something completely unrelated and highly personal- knowing Carson will see- is disgraceful. To speculate about a relationship that Carson has explicitly stated he doesn’t want people to speculate about just to try and make a point? Horrible.

A lot of stans seem to have this ‘we made you famous so we dictate how you feel’ mentality, which I hate. Exactly as the reply says, they sound like toxic parents with these words. To think you deserve ‘respect’ from someone after accusing their friends of horrible things and harassing them to the point that they block you is so manipulative and quite frankly cruel.

Again, Carson has the right to block anyone he wants. Creators are not your friends, they are entertainment. If you are making them upset and harassing them, you shouldn’t get mad when they block you. 

Listen. It can be tough, finding out that someone you look up to has blocked you. Yes, I’m sure people had a not-so-nice time with their mental health when it happened to them. But in most cases, they were blocked for a reason. Some people were even literally asking to get blocked and then got mad when they did. But again, no one has been barred from viewing Carson’s content. He simply blocked people who he didn’t want to see in his comments section.

You have freedom of speech, but you don’t have freedom from consequence. If you say something that hurts someone else, you’re not always going to be free from their judgement. 

Carson has been very open about his own struggles with depression and imposter syndrome recently, and people are viewing his actions as... hypocritical? This is flawed logic. Carson blocked stans because they were bad for his mental health, the fact that some claim to have had ‘panic attacks’ as a result is not on him. He has the autonomy to block who he wants to block. 

Wilbur Soot made some comments about the situation, which can be found in this video from 7 minutes 30 seconds in, and goes until 10 minutes and 11 seconds in:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/667971714

What Wilbur says here is completely understandable. He doesn’t have a problem with stans, but doesn’t speak for anyone but himself. Just because one person is okay with something doesn’t mean someone else is, too. 

Also, a lot of people think that it’s okay to hate on someone like Carson or Schlatt, then turn around and stan Wilbur, which is kind of fucked up, because they’re friends in real life. How would you feel if someone was super nice to you, then turned around and harassed your friends?

A lot of people claimed to have ‘hyperfixations’ on Carson or lunch club, which they used as an excuse to be obsessive and creepy. This is bullshit, but someone else explained it a lot better than I could:

And I absolutely agree with this. You cannot use neurodivergence to explain away your creepiness. That’s just offensive to people who do hyperfixate, and leads to even more problems and misunderstandings.

Carson did a stream much later where he talked about all of these things, and boy did that go well (not). Here is a clip of him talking about hyperfixations:

https://m.twitch.tv/clip/SuaveBlushingDotterelBCWarrior

Now, here’s where my support for Carson falters. He should have done more research on what hyperfixations really are before he said things about them. He hurt some people with what he said, and just saying he’s uneducated on the topic isn’t really an excuse.

HOWEVER. Carson was given very little time to research (about 24 hours between his original tweets and his stream) and, more importantly, it is very obvious that the use of the term ‘hyperfixation’ has been warped and manipulated by stans who are misusing the term to excuse their behaviour. Carson probably saw stans using it and assumed it was something synonomous with ‘obsessions’.

What he said was poorly worded, but the point he was making is the same as the (much more researched and informative) tweet above. Anyone getting mad that he is somehow ‘invalidating mental health or autism’ with his comments clearly don’t understand the point he was trying to make in the first place.

And here’s a clip of Connor talking about it, too, as well as defending Carson’s right to block people as he wishes:

https://www.twitch.tv/connoreatspants/clip/YummySlickPlumageSpicyBoy

https://www.twitch.tv/connoreatspants/clip/JazzySpotlessMelonMoreCowbell

What he said here is completely valid, a little poorly worded in the same way as Carson’s statement, but overall something I stand behind.

Some people are claiming that Carson is being manipulative or ‘gaslighting’ fans and stans:

Carson is not against fans who create cool stuff for him and his friends. He is against the people who harass him, accuse his friends of horrible things, and try to look for every little thing they’ve said and done wrong. This is what he said, and people got mad at him for it, and so he blocked them. That is it. There is no gaslighting. There is no manipulation. I’ve seen much more manipulative things coming from the stans’ side of things.

Now we move on to Noah’s reply to Carson’s tweet. Which, yes, caused a whole new can of worms to be opened.

Now, for those like me who have trouble figuring out Noah’s way of speaking, let me translate: ‘stans are insecure people who start to feel entitled because they’ve started to view a streamer they like as a friend/someone who shares their pain.’ 

For those of you who don’t know, this is what ‘don’t negotiate with terrorists’ means:

However, almost predictably, stans saw the word ‘terrorist’ and lost their goddamn minds. That, coupled with the complicated phrasing of Noah’s words, caused a lot of stans to freak out.

This conversation is full of Bad Takes, but my main issue is that they are trying to diagnose Noah with an actual mental illness. That is not only offensive to people who have that illness (especially calling him ‘insane’ in the same sentence, as well as implying that having said illness makes you a bad person) but is also highly hypocritical since so many stans claimed to all be neurodivergent themselves. 

Also, 90% of his fans aren’t stans. They’re mostly fans or flans. You are a loud minority. You aren’t as powerful as you think you are. Noah even started to retweet hate comments, that’s how few shits he gave. He also shows that he is concerned about people making things up about him, which is understandable.

Plus he outright said that stans are not fans of him, which in most cases, they’re not. Noah’s content isn’t as widely watched as some of his friends’ stuff, and a lot of stans don’t watch his streams.

But anyway, here’s one good take I saw floating around:

After this, before his stream, Carson deleted his original tweets and spent some time with his family, which was a sensible and mature thing to do at this point. 

During Carson’s stream, someone notified him that his ‘fans’ had started to doxx stans. Here is his reaction:

https://m.twitch.tv/callmecarsonlive/clip/SpicySassyGerbilArgieB8

A lot of people got mad that he didn’t do more to stop the doxxings, but I want to raise the question: what was he supposed to do? He can’t control his ‘fans’ (another breed of stans who don’t call themselves stans were doing the doxxings, to be honest) and he said not to do it. He was streaming, he didn’t know how serious it was or even if it was true, at that moment, what was he supposed to do?

It did get serious. People I know were doxxed. Anyone posting anything (positive or negative) about lunch club, smplive, and Carson were in danger. It was not fake like some people claimed. The twt handles in this post are blurred out because of the doxxing threats. I am making this post at my own risk, but I do feel that tumblr is safer than twitter at the moment.

This being said, it is in no way Carson’s fault how out of hand this has become. He has been against doxxing in the past and his sentiments haven’t changed. He has said more about the doxxings in replies to tweets such as this one:

Also, here’s what the mods on Carson’s discord server had to say about the situation. They’ve clearly talked about this with Carson, and are strongly against anyone who is doxxing these people (especially since a lot of the people being doxxed are minors).

A similar sentiment was shared on Ted’s discord server:

Here is what ItsAsaii had to say:

So that’s basically where everything stands right now. If you want an even fuller update on everything, check out Carson’s stream ‘afternoon fellas and fellettes’ where he talks about everything.

Here’s the last tweets I have from Carson regarding the whole situation:

And I agree fully with what he has said. And again, Carson doesn’t owe stans anything. Just like what was said here, he had subs and fans before he had stans, they did not ‘make’ him, and they cannot control him.

This is all I have to say, for now. If I have missed anything or you’d like me to cover anything else, please let me know. If I have hugely missed the mark and said something super wrong/offensive, let me know. If you’d like me to talk about a streamer or youtuber not related to lunch club, throw me a DM or an ask and I’ll try to compile some things, even if I don’t watch their content or know who they are.

If you’d like up-to-date information about drama in smptwt, streamers, and youtubers, join the Cancelled Heaven discord server- which I linked at the start of the post. 

I thank you all for reading, and suggest that you reblog this so that as many people as possible can see it. If you want to risk it, go ahead and link this post in a tweet or something, but please do be careful. 

For some ‘extra reading’ (watching) I highly recommend Contrapoints’ video on cancel culture: https://youtu.be/OjMPJVmXxV8

And Philosophy Tube’s video on artists and fandoms, there’s some really insightful things about parasocial relationships: https://youtu.be/3IG0Y63LkDM

Lots of love, and have a great day <3

Subscribe! - I Want a Baby Now

Pairing: Kun x Reader (fem)

Genre: AU, romance, comedy, fluff

Word count: 2403

Summary: A YouTube inspired drabble series where you and your boyfriend upload videos catering to the couple tag.

For other members, see masterlist.

The video began with you standing very close to the camera as you adjusted it into position. Once it was sitting how you wanted it to be, you took a few steps back to check how it appeared from afar, and revealed the rest of your apartment's living room with the camera in perfect view of your couch. You smiled to yourself and clapped your hands at your handiwork. 

"Perfect!" The clip changed to you standing close to the camera again, this time so you could speak directly to your audience. "Hi and hello, everyone! Welcome back to my channel! Today I have a little treat planned for all of you. Since you keep requesting over and over for me to make another video with my boyfriend," you said. Screenshots of some of the comments you received from your viewers appeared on the screen around you, "I'm finally giving in. But why not make it fun, right? So as you can see, today," you clasped your hands together and shook them in front of you as you spoke," I'm going to prank Kun into thinking that I want to have a baby right now. I hid my camera inside my bag on this little table thing I have," you said and the accompanying picture displayed on the screen. "So it just looks like I tossed my bag here after coming home from vlogging. Totally inconspicuous." You laughed to yourself a bit maniacally, a little devil emoji appearing next to your head. "Kun's on his way over with some food and when he gets here I'm going to purposely put on a show with babies in it so it won't be random when I bring it up." You stepped away from the camera again and held your arms out wide. "Now let the show begin!"

The clip changed to your boyfriend walking in with the bag of food and then greeting you with a kiss before he set the bag down onto your coffee table. He took the seat next to you, playfully pushing you over with his butt so he could fit next to you and the arm rest. Why he couldn't just sit on the other side, you didn't know. As he took out the food and handed you your order, he asked you what you were watching. Trying to suppress the grin that was threatening to form on your face, you told him the name of the show and then began eating your food.

The video cut to a couple minutes later. You had finished eating your food fairly quickly and Kun had only a few bites left to his. Now was a good time to change the direction of your conversation. " Aw,  it must be so fun to have a house full of kids like that." You shifted in your seat and turned to face him, doing a little bounce on the cushion to add some enthusiasm to your facade. “Hey, babe?"

"Hm?" he answered you with a mouth full of food.

"How many kids do you want to have?"

He turned away from the TV to face you and smiled as he finished chewing. "This show giving you baby fever?"

You smiled back at him, but yours was underlined with mischief. "Maaaaybe," you said and a laughing emoji popped onto the screen. 

"How many kids do you want?" he asked you instead. 

"I asked you first."

Kun chuckled. "Maybe about three or four. I like the idea of having a big family."

You looked genuinely surprised. "Yes! Me, too," you said happily wrapping yourself around his arm. "It's going to be so great. Just think of all the cute family photos."

"And the college tuition."

You rolled your eyes at him, but then pressed your chest more onto his arm. "Let's start now."

"Eh?" He looked at you a bit confused. 

"Let's start our family now," you said and rubbed your hand across his chest. "Put a baby in me, Kun." You couldn't help but smile after that and three crying laughing emojis appeared on the screen. It sounded so raunchy but you needed to say it for the effect it had on your boyfriend--who of which was looking at you like you had just grown a second head. 

"Woah, there. What's gotten into you?" His brain obviously went to the direction that you were on some new bedroom kink. And although it was sudden, he wasn't opposed to playing along. 

"I want to have a baby." You let go of his arm and swung your leg over him so you could straddle his lap. His hands automatically went to hold your thighs and yours held onto his shoulders. "Will you help me?" you asked then leaned in to kiss him. 

Not fully distracted by your sex appeal, Kun was still in a rational head space. "We don't even live together yet."

"Doesn't matter." You kissed him again, it was still short but more heated than the first. 

"And we're not married," he added when you pulled back a bit. 

"Doesn't matter," you repeated. Instead of kissing his lips again, you decided to go for the weak spot on his ear. 

Kun's hands slid up and around your thighs to lay purchase on your ass. "And we're still in school. We're not financially or mentally ready."

You knew this wasn't going to be easy. You rolled your eyes again and let out a sigh as you moved away from his ear, pretending to be annoyed. "It takes months for a baby to arrive. I can move in with you and save all the money I would be paying on rent here. And we don't have to get married right away or even have a wedding."

The camera zoomed in on your boyfriend's face as it twisted into a look of absolute disbelief. "We don't have to have a wed--you have like five Pinterest boards dedicated to your future wedding!" Oh shit, you forgot about that. "And normally the baby comes after the wedding."

"Who cares if we do things a little out of order. I want to start my family with you now." You leaned to kiss him again but he dodged you at the last second by turning his head away. "Whaaat?  Come ooon," you whined and moved your hips a little bit against his. "Come in." You threw your head back in laughter at your dirty joke, but Kun didn't find it very funny at the moment.

He gripped the sides of your hip and pushed you a little further back on his lap. "This is something we seriously need to sit down and talk about."

"We can talk about it after you put the baby in me. Now, come on!" You went to undo his belt but he stopped you at lightning speed, accompanied by the sound of a whip cracking. Right afterwards the video played an instant replay of what he did in slow motion.

"Y/N stop. You might think we can handle a baby right now, but this decision isn't just yours. It's mine too and I don't want to have a baby right now."

"But baaabe--"

"No, now get off me. We can talk about this seriously if you want to but it's not going to happen until much later from now." He grabbed your wrists as your hands tried to make their way to his chest again. "And I can't talk to you properly about it like this!"

"Because your body is telling you to go and make a baby!"

"No! It's just reacting to what you're doing right now! We can go and practice but we're not going all the way until we plan this out for real."

Okay. It was time to try a different tactic. You thought that maybe tugging on his heartstrings a little bit would be able to convince him, so you put on a frown and pretended to get upset. "We don't need to practice or plan because I'm completely serious right now. I've been thinking about this for a while and I can't wait anymore. I want to start a family with you. Do you not want to have one with me?"

Kun's eyes widened in panic. "No, no, no! It's not that!" He pulled you back closer to him then wrapped his arms around your waist. "I do. But just not right now, babe. There's so much we need to accomplish before we have a baby. If we do it now then it's going to be hard trying to juggle taking care of a baby and doing everything else."

"It won't be hard cuz we'll be together and our families will be around to help us." You gasped in excitement. "Just think how excited your mom will be." Kun was quiet as he thought it over,  searching your eyes for any hint of reluctance. You knew talking about his mom would get to him. "Everyone will be so happy and we'll be the happiest." He remained silent. "You'd be an amazing father," you said softly and ran your fingers through his hair "Come on. Have a baby with me."

Your boyfriend sat there in silence for a little bit longer, his hands caressing your back as he thought through all his options. "But..," he finally said, "you're still on birth control. So it's not going to happen now even if we tried."

You smiled at him, thinking to yourself that you'd won. "I didn't take my pill today," you said and put your forehead against his. "And if it doesn't happen now then we will just have to keep trying until it works." You closed the distance between your lips and captured him in another kiss. 

He reciprocated without any hesitation, but once you broke away he had something else to say. "I want to. I really do. But I really don't think this is a good idea for right now." Dammit, Kun! 

It was time for Plan C. You pulled back away from him and scowled. "If you don't want to have a baby with me right now, then I'll go find someone else to do it," you said and got off his lap to stand up.

"WHAT?!" Kun shot up from his seat to stand next to you. "Who the hell are you going to go to?!"

You turned away from him so he would see you smiling. "I don't know. It doesn't matter. I'll take the first guy that wants to have a baby right now since you're so adamant about not having one."

"NOT HAVING ONE RIGHT NOW. NOT RIGHT NOW." Oh gosh, you wanted to laugh so badly. 

You fixed your face into looking angry again and turned back to him. "It's now or never, Kun! I really really want this!"

"You want this bad enough that you'd leave me?" He sounded a bit hurt. You were starting to feel a little bad now.

"I didn't say I was leaving you, just that I would get someone else to put a baby in me."

"THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE." Lmao, it didn't.

"Yes, it does. So if you want to be the one to do this with me, then let's go!" You pointed in the direction of your bedroom and stomped your foot.

"Fine! If you want one that badly, then come here." He grabbed you by your shirt to pull you towards him then he kissed you roughly. You giggled against him and tried to pull away, but he wasn't letting up. He curled his fingers underneath the hem of your shirt and was about to put it up, but you managed to break away from him and took a step back.

"Wait!" you yelled through your laughter.

"You just said you didn't want to wait and now I can't wait," he said and reached out his hand to pull you back. But you ran away from him and went closer towards the camera. You reached inside the bag it was in, trying to uncover it, but Kun came up behind you and captured you by the waist, pressing his body against your backside as he planted kisses along the side of your neck. 

"It's a prank!" you yelled. "This was a prank! Babe, look!"

Kun stopped his actions and looked up to see the camera out of your bag and the red light that indicated that it was currently filming. His face went slack and he slowly let go of you. You could tell he was absolutely ticked off, because he then closed his eyes and turned around while taking a deep breath. You stood beside him and continued to laugh at his expense, laughing harder when he shook his head and peered up at the ceiling in an attempt to calm himself down.

"I knew you were acting weird," he said and ran his tongue across his teeth.

"I'm sorry, baby. They really wanted to see you again." You tried to hug him but he rejected and push you away.

"You are not uploading this."

"I have to!" You went to hug him again and laughed when you got the same reaction as before. "I put so much work into it. Don't you think I was a good actor?" He answered you by looking at your face angrily, but he failed and looked away from you again as soon as his smile began to spread. He wasn't that mad at you. It probably would make an entertaining video. He was just super embarrassed that he fell for it. 

"Come find me when you're done playing tricks," he told you and walked away and out of the frame. 

"Aw, Kun! Come back!" He said something the camera's microphone didn't fully pick up, but it made you laugh before you decided to focus it on you. "Well, I hope you all liked this video. I have to go cheer up Kun and make it up to him. Follow me on all my accounts listed below, like this video, and click the subscribe button if you want to see more videos with my boyfriend. But maybe I should hold off on tricking him for a little bit, huh?" You switched the camera from holding it in one of your hands to the other. "Thanks so much for watching! And I'll see you later! Tootles!"

- D

I request: Leonardo. Please and thank you 🙏.

Idk if everyone loves Leo or if my header and avatar just remind everyone about this amazing blue boy. (This one’s super silly btw. I’m just sillier as time goes on. Character development I guess?) 

The iconic leador Leonardo (1987)

Bro idk why but I loved this Leo. I have a tiny memory, especially with this version but I clearly remember that I thought he was the funniest and the coolest. I mean, he had swords, what was I supposed to do as a 7-year-old. NOT like him??? Anyway, while Raph was the best at insult comedy, I think Leo had the best puns and punchlines. I really like how nonchalant this Leo is compared to his iterations, going along with really silly ideas and having fun along the way. But because of this, his leadership is a little forced at times, he seems like such a chill and fun dude that when he gets serious, I have to squint and ask ‘are you Leo? Or were you just putting on act a moment ago?’ Or my perception is entirely warped over time. Either way, good turtle boy, could have used some work tho. 5.7/10

Here comes grumpy lad wooo this is all read very monotone btw Fearless Leader (2003)

What. What the fuck happened. I was actually so confused when Leo turned really angry and serious and almost manic. I thought that episode when he popped into Casey’s window and was like ‘Hey bitch lets go beat the shit out of some lowlifes’ I was WOAH THERE BUDDY BACK UP BACK UP BACK TF UP. It was so sudden to me and when it was finally explained, it made some sense??? Like yeah, character development is great an’ all but this ain’t it chief. I can’t imagine what it was like having to wait for these episodes to release one at a time. Bc I watched every episode back to back on Youtube and I was genuinely bamboozled. But when you have an experience like that where guilt is weighing down on you from a situation you couldn’t control, it would’ve been HELLA HELPFUL to have at least a flashback, like a line saying ‘I was so useless!’ at BARE MINIMUM. Like right after Shredder is booted off to Planet Zula, Donnie would notice that Leo didn’t seem all that happy and would ask why and Leo would get upset and yell at Donnie saying that ‘You wouldn’t understand’, ‘You don’t know how I felt, how I feel because of that’, etc. Like you don’t even have to say he felt guilty or helpless, just give us something to grab onto. We’re merely six-year-olds who thought they could climb the YMCA rock wall in easy mode but instead the script riders harnessed us up on the hard one and wouldn’t let us come down until we rang the little bell at the top. I think that is the only problem I had with his Leo. The sudden change of calm and decisive to angry and irrational was so jarring that it felt unnatural without that crucial context. If you want a surprise reveal, at least hint at the reveal (like just about every Disney movie with their ‘twist’ villains) not wait until the very last moment. I think this might be my least favorite Leo and I think the season where he stood out the most and seemed the strongest was Fast Forward (Which was GOOD FIGHT ME), especially in scenes with Dark Leo, his clone. He sees so much of himself in Dark Leo but he also sees something he had once grasped (AKA the poorly written character arc, I CANNOT stress how bad I thought it was). Although, I honestly think he’s a really good character and he’s a pretty neat guy. However, this score is entirely held up by Fast Forward and his connection with Usagi, sword bros to the end of time. 3/10 (2 for FF and 1 for Usagi)

And now a Leo that makes me genuinely feel UWU Leo (2012)

I cannot stress how much I like this guy! Like his design is so appealing, his dedication, his obsession with Space Heroes, like I FUCKING LOVE IT. And everyone knows, that shit with Karai, at first when they didn’t realize they were related, I can let slide but kajsdflksadf what even like why did the writers feel the need to add in more ‘love interest’ implications like yuck yuck yuck. The only two interactions with Leo and Karai that I really like are when Leo defeats her using the healing hands technique and when Leo has a goth/emo/punk/idk I’m new here phase and they team up and EXPLOSIONS. He was introduced to us as being incredibly naive and his idea of leadership is from some old cartoon that’s basically star trek but ethically questionable. After his fights in season 1, to the finale with the technodrome, you can see his growth. He’s able to formulate plans and make life or death decisions. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. When Leo got hurt, I felt like the oof sound effect mixed with some tears I normally shed at some Shojo manga bs. While the episodes following were super weird, it was a nice way to help Leo recover, not only physically but spiritually (Although I don’t remember the spirit arc at all except the epic Raph vs Fishface fight, so we’re skipping that). When Master Splinter really died, you could tell there was a huge impact on Leo, but he had to remain stoic and lead the family now. A lot of heartbreaking moments in this series came from Leo and I’m glad they took at least some thought into developing him. Tiny head Leo will haunt my nightmares, but the giggly fanboy will warm my heart constantly. 6/10

I only have one word for this Leo (Heroes in a Half Shell: Blast to the Past)

This is a super crazy bad idea accent on the super crazy bad part have I mentioned it’s also a really terrible idea/10

Okay, spoiler alert, didn’t really think this Leo was that grand Leo (2014/2016)

Painfully average. He didn’t stand out that much, Raph was part of the focus and had that touching scene at the end, Donnie was ICONIC and Mikey (with his weird-ass eyes) was super lively and funny! Leo? Uh, I don’t remember a single line he said. Because he never really grabbed my attention, I don’t have too much to say on this version. The Raph and Leo fight felt forced and the whole ‘keep this stuff that could turn us human a secret’ was pretty pointless and was added just to cause drama, I don’t even remember what that Splinter and Leo conversation was about. Design-wise, really neat! You can see some more traditional Japanese clothing/style mixed with modern (I’d feel a lot better about this assumption if some could tell exactly what the heck he’s wearing, but I get traditional Japan warrior vibes from it) in his look which was super neat! Other than that, if you like him, please tell me why because I don’t get. He was just kinda eh. 5/10

AHHH MY BOY YASSS WHOOO!! Neon Leon (2018)

Okay, I loved Ben Schwarts already from Parks and Rec but like him being Sonic AND Leo, like DUDE. He’s super funny by himself but teamed up with this shows writing and animation, it makes it hilarious. I literally love this Leo so much, maybe because we’re alike but honestly, he’s amazing. I love his design with the red and yellow crescents accenting his skin and livening up his color pallet. He has a very healthy and natural dynamic with his brothers, he’s the first to know what’s wrong and tries his best to make up for his actions. This is really prominent in the most recent episodes, along with the episode portal jacked. In both, Leo is separated from his brothers. Portal Jacked is in a more literal sense, while Air Turtle handles in more of an emotional sense. While both are brief, Leo sees his error and tries his best to make it up to them. I love his dynamic so much and it’s so nice to see something like this compared to the unnecessary drama and tension between the brothers in the previous series. It’s refreshing and this is something a younger audience needs to see; instead of fighting, it’s better to work together and improve yourself along the way. Improvement is a big theme for Leo here. He’s a goofball, makes jokes at every opportunity and isn’t quite skilled at fighting or using his weapon. But he grows over time, he learns to manage his power and he’s working on mastering it. He’s trying to put aside his narcissism more and focuses on his family. I think the approach they took with him rising to leader rather than slapping it on his forehead was the goddamn best decision they could make. He’s making plans, finding loopholes, helping out and getting out of his comfort zone. I cannot stress how well this show has handled Leo, along with the other characters. I can’t wait to see more episodes about his growth and I am awarding him with one of the greatest honors I could give... 10/10

Storytime: I drew a super cute 2012 Leo, you should look at him. Shameless self-promo, but you should follow me on my main blog bc I’m nice and I draw pretty pictures. Also. I have a little 2012 Leo Happy Meal toy??? I think??? guarding my window and he’s been there for YEARS. I need to bring him in and refresh his paint job.

Wow! I didn’t expect this many requests for Leo, so the blog will be momentarily spammed with the requests, but it shouldn’t be too much! Up next should be the last turtle (Mikey) and then we can get to some REALLY great requests I’m eager to answer. As usual, please comment and reblog! I’d love to hear your opinion!

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This is entirely for @draculas-gay-daughter, because of this.

Also, the research for this has awakened in me an actual desire to learn to make candles, so thanks for that new quarantine hobby!

It's like, what do they call it, ASMR.

That's what Edward tells himself. Some people find it relaxing to watch strangers pop plastic wrap or flick dry paint brushes or whatever. He happens to find it relaxing to watch Tom Jopson talk about the intricacies of making candles.

He doesn't know how he first landed on “Brighten Your Day With Candles.” Some winding path of Youtube “recommended videos” he wouldn't be able to retrace if he tried, but the moment he found it, Edward was entranced. He watched every one of Tom's ten-to-twenty minute long videos immediately.

Nine months and thirty-four new videos later—Tom took off the weeks of Christmas and New Year's, leaving Edward bereft over the holidays—Edward understands no more about candle making than he did before. Tom, however, is endlessly fascinating.

Edward can't say exactly what it is he finds so alluring. Tom is handsome, with his flopping dark hair and his five o'clock shadow, but Edward sees handsome men all the time. He's clearly very intelligent, but Edward works with some of the biggest minds, not to mention egos, in the country.

There is something else, something which leaves Edward unable to look away. When Tom says, “Adding too much fragrance can, unfortunately, lead to curdling in soy candles” with a look of heart-wrenching empathy in his big eyes, Edward wants to gather him in his arms and give the man a good, solid hug. When he says, “I had news from viewer Jamie in Nova Scotia that they've solved their ongoing issue with wet spots!” Edward wants to kiss him in celebration. And when Tom leans forward, the V-neck of his shirt revealing a patch of dark chest hair, to confide, “Today, we're going to talk about the length of your wick,” Edward offers up a mental apology and reaches for his fly.

Edward thinks his obsession is secret, until one evening his flatmate George says, “Thanks for staying out when I had Emily over the other night.”

“It's fine.” It is in Edward's best interests not to be about when George and his girlfriend get together. There is only so much saccharine sweetness and over-the-top pet names he can handle.

“I really appreciate it. So does she. We wanted to get you a gift.” It's only then Edward notices the bag, printed with pink flowers and the words “It's a Girl!”, in George's hand. “Sorry about the bag,” he adds. “It was the only one I could find.”

Where? Is the question Edward doesn't ask. “That's not necessary, George. Really.”

“Open it!”

Edward tries not to sigh as he opens the gift bag. George's gift-giving history, while admirable in its efforts, is remarkably poor in its execution. The last thing Edward needs is another “Purrrrrfect Friend” mug with a cat’s tail as a handle, or a T-shirt with a Sasquatch on it. It's the thought that counts, he reminds himself, even if that thought is, when it comes to George, quite often incomprehensible.

This gift is just as strange. Edward stares at what appear to be squares of white wax, a roll of string, and several tiny bottles, until George, still smiling, explains, “It was Emily's idea. I told her how you're always watching that candle making channel on Youtube, and she said you're probably dying to give it a go yourself.” He looks at Edward, his expression expectant. “It's great, right?”

“Right.” Edward smiles. “It is. Great. Thanks, mate.”

The next day, Edward buys a pair of headphones.

***

One Wednesday nearly a year after Edward first found him, Tom finishes a talk about gel wax, then leans back on his stool. All of his videos are filmed in the same kitchen, with several little cactus pots on the windowsill and a gleaming sink, spotlessly clean, in the background. Edward wonders if it's Tom's own kitchen. If the rest of the room, or the house or flat, is as tidy as what he shows. If he lives with anybody. No one else is ever on the videos, although that doesn't mean Tom doesn't have a friend or a flatmate or a partner behind the camera.

“I'm really going to miss you,” Tom says, putting the gel candles aside. Edward's heart seizes. “But I won't be making any new videos for the next little while, because I'm going on a book tour!” He holds up the book, also entitled “Brighten Your Day With Candles”, he's been showing for the last few weeks. Edward ordered it the first time he saw it. He feels like he owes Tom at least that much. “I am so excited,” Tom says. He looks it, but Edward has never seen him be anything but sincere. “Unfortunately, it's just in south east England at the moment—sorry Jen in San Luis Obispo, I can't make it out to California this time, although I would love to someday—but I would really like to meet as many of you as possible. My complete schedule is below. See you soon!” He waves. Edward is about to scroll down to the comments, then hesitates.

What would he say if he met Tom in person? That he thinks Tom is the most incredible man he's ever seen? That he's watched every one of Tom's videos multiple times, and still knows nothing about making candles? That he often pictures Tom talking authoritatively about long burn times and multiple layers while Edward blows him? It's disgusting, inappropriate, probably illegal.

With a shake of his head, Edward puts the thought of meeting Tom Jopson entirely out of his mind.

***

At one time, Edward loved his career. That was before the company president died suddenly and his role was taken over by two co-presidents, promoted from within, who have a long history of conflict and have used Edward as a go-between, the miserable child of an unfriendly divorce, for months now.

It saps Edward's energy to the point that he doesn't have the will to look for another job. He just goes to work every day, suffers, and comes home to brighten his day with candles. Until one night, when George meets him at the door.

“Don't take your coat off,” he tells Edward. “We're going out.”

“I really don't feel like...”

“You will. Trust me.” Edward doesn't. They're great friends, but Edward doesn't trust him a bit. The feeling is vindicated when they arrive at the local Waterstone's, and George pushes him inside.

Tom is even more beautiful in person. His stubble looks like it's deliberate rather than the result of a long day, although Edward has always found that very charming in itself. He's wearing a smart white button-up shirt, and the smile he directs at the woman in front of him is so brilliant, Edward feels weak.

“No.” Edward turns to go.

George stops him. “Why not? It's the guy you like, isn't it?”

“It's...I don't...What am I going to say?”

“That you're a big fan? Even though you still haven't used that candle stuff Emily and I got you?” George looks at him pointedly. “Get him to sign your book.”

“I don't have it with...”

George reaches into his satchel and presses “Brighten Your Day With Candles” on him. “Get in the queue,” he says, in that imperious tone he sometimes has. “I'll wait in the café.”

Edward's stomach churns, but he follows George's direction, joining the queue behind a middle-aged woman and her teenage daughter. There are two other people ahead of them. It’s long enough for Edward to regret his entire life up to this point, not long enough to gather the wherewithal to walk away.

When Edward reaches the table, Tom's smile becomes even more brilliant. “You're Edward, right?”

Edward's carefully thought out opening words—“Good work”—disappear. “How did you...”

“Your friend George sent me a message.” Of course he fucking did. Edward is going to kill him. Is actually going to put his hands around his throat and...“He told me you'd be here.”

“Hm.” Edward has no idea what to say. His mind is entirely blank. He searches desperately, a quest which eventually arrives at, “Yes.”

“You like my videos?” Tom holds out his hand. Edward shakes it, then, face burning, realizes Tom was reaching for the book. Edward drops it onto the table. It thunks loudly.

“Yes,” Edward repeats.

“Do you have a favourite type of candle?” Tom opens the book and turns to the title page.  

“Wax ,” Edward replies, because his brain has apparently given up on this situation as entirely unsalvageable.

Tom laughs, as if that was a joke. He scrawls something in the book, then closes it and hands it back to Edward. “Thanks for watching, Edward. I really appreciate a loyal viewer like you.” He holds Edward's gaze as he says it.

Edward swallows around the lump in his throat. Edward has never done well in front of others. If he and Tom were alone, Edward might be able to come up something halfway coherent. Maybe. They're not.

“Thanks,” he says. He could swear Tom throws him a wink as he walks away.

It's that, along with the general humiliation, that leads Edward to duck out of view between Interior Design and Gardening. He opens the book to see what Tom wrote.

The words “For Edward” and a scribble that could be Tom's signature lie across the title page. Beneath that is a series of numbers. It takes Edward a moment longer than he wants to admit to realize it’s a phone number. He's not that lucky, usually. But he's also not this stupid.

His heart still hammering, Edward takes out his phone. I'm not really an idiot, Edward types, then sends the text before he can think twice. He glances at Tom, deep in conversation with a young woman in denim overalls, and goes to murder George.

Two hours later, Edward is sitting on the sofa at home when his phone trills. You don't seem like one. It's too kind. Just like he expected Tom would be. Can I buy you a coffee? Or better yet a drink?

“Who's that?” George asks, without looking up from his laptop. He doesn't need to. His entire body exudes smugness.

“Mind your own business,” Edward says. But, he adds silently, thank God you never do.

***

The rest of Tom's flat is as tidy as the kitchen he shows on his videos. It's also, amazingly, less than half an hour's drive from Edward's place. In addition to that, Tom has a day job at a shop Edward has passed hundreds of times, which he's always derogatorily classified as “candles, crystals and shit” and avoided.

“So if you hadn't been such a snob, darling,” Tom tells him, with a smile and a kiss, “we might have met a long time ago.”

Edward can't deny that. He can, however, deny that it's a good idea for him to join Tom on screen.

“Don't worry.” Tom sets up his phone on its tripod and comes back around the counter. “Just pretend it's not even there.” He kisses Edward again, on the cheek, then turns to the camera. “Welcome back, everyone! We have a very special guest today. This is my gorgeous boyfriend Edward, and we're going to help him make his very first candle!”

Tom posts the video later that evening. Not long afterwards, the comments start appearing. Normally, Edward would avoid them—he knows what Youtube commenters are like, and he never wants to see any criticism of Tom—but this time, he looks. To his surprise, there are several remarks about him. “Edward's so cute!” “OMG ur bf is the sweetest!” And, “That Edward guy really is great. I think you should have him on every episode.” The username beside that one is “PianoMan86” and the picture is the same one George uses on Instagram.

Bloody George. Fortunately, Edward thinks, looking at the slightly lumpy candle he produced with his own two hands, he has the perfect gift for him.

“Edward!” Tom calls, from his room down the hall. “Are you coming?”

Before they met, Edward assumed Tom would be the kind of guy who lights a million candles in the bedroom. In fact, he only ever lights one, but it never fails to have the perfect luminosity and fragrance for the mood.

“Yes.” Edward puts down his phone and hurries to join him. As amazing as he is on Youtube, Tom is unspeakably better offline.  

is there any pieces of art you can think of personally where youd go "theyd definitely get a place in the bureau"??? id love to see more of baron's hypothetical community lmao (again, by no means am i asking you to write a thing) and, for bonus funsies if you want, is there any art thing that comes to mind that youd be interested in seeing Haru be?? i think shed be dope as a china doll, like in Oz The Great And Powerful's only real good scene, to parallel how ♀️ and dainty the cats treated her

[cont.] (also im sorry if youve already written about that Art With A Soul idea and your opinion of it and etc-- im still slowly sifting through your content lmao)

Firstly, never worry about asking me something I’ve already answered/covered/discussed. I’m just always delighted to get asks. (Also I’m in the UK, and now on at least a 3-week lockdown due to covid19. So, uh, I now have time. Apologies for the essay you’re about to recieve.) 

Part A: Art Creations. 

Okay, so, the first thing that comes to mind is the game Ib, a free horror game where you play as a girl trapped in an art gallery in which all the art comes to life (and attacks you). In fact, I did go on to use it in a Bureau Files case (Series 3; Case 2: The Living Gallery), but I don’t believe I’ve ever really thought about it much since, BUT art creations are certainly something that would exist and thank you for reminding me.

ALSO Confession time: I am woefully uncultured when it comes to art galleries and suchlike so, uh, I don’t have any ready answers for pieces of art that have Creation energy. However,if you’re part of the Cat Returns Discord sever (or want to be: https://discord.gg/DbJ3PG6) I’d highly recommend askingaround in the #penny-for-your-thoughts channel, because I’m sureother folk will have lots of great ideas!

I do think, that said, that Creations can come in many forms - books, music, films, statues, art, etc (I think there was even a discussion over whether websites might have the potential and what form it would come in) and there are no wrong answers in how you think they’d work. (Heck, I think I even wrote a case where a taxidermied creature became a Creation.) 

(Also, now you’ve brought up art Creations, I almost certainly will end up writing a ficlet sometime with one in. It’s a fun concept to explore! I’m just sorry I dont’ have a neater answer to your first question.)

Part B: Haru as a Creation.

Oh boy, there are so many directions you can take this in and I want to play in ALL of them. 

And, hey, great minds think alike! I actually do have a story where Haru is trapped in the form of a china doll (not specifically a Creation, but still): it’s my Christmas Nutcracker AU: A Little Ballerina. I do love the idea of Haru starting off being delicate and dainty, and then pushing her boundaries and growing, like she does in the move, so a china doll form works really well for that! 

There have been a few stories by others where Haru is the Creation and Baron is the human, in a role-reversal, so she usually ends up being wooden to make it an easy swap. 

Creation’s Lament by YarningChick (both Haru and Baron are wooden Creations; AU; not role reversal; multichaptered)

Snippets by Casandravas (Haru a wooden Creation; Baron a human; role reversal AU based on letterstoathens’ art; oneshot)

Role Reversal art by letterstoathens (see above) 

(if I’ve missed any, please tell me, folks) 

(I did have a story (inspired by the YouTube series: Emara) where Haru was part Creation, specifically clockwork/mechanical, but that’s been put onto permanent hiatus for the time being. I still like that idea though.)

Thanks for asking, and I hope you didn’t mind the essay! If anyone else has any ideas, please feel free to add your comments :)

Scourge the Hedgehog: The Bad Fanfic Apotheosis

Y’all are gonna hate me for this one.

This is something of a followup to my previous post, Fiona Fox: Depth vs. Prominence, and inspired directly by the discussion I had with a friend in the comments section of the DA upload of it.

Part 1: Fanfic vs. Canon- Genesis of the Recolour Elements of the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic have long been compared to a bad fanfiction, particularly the parts of the story written by Ken Penders, though other writers like Bollers, Chacon, and Flynn have drawn that label too. I'm one of the people that's done it, and that's largely because I hold fanfic and official material to very different standards. There are certain things you can do in fanfic that you can't do in official material, especially with franchises like Sonic, and especially with more niche parts of said franchise, like a comic series. Of course, there are also certain things you can do in both, but you probably shouldn't. And Scourge is one of them. What exactly the process behind Scourge's creation was is something that's been debated. For a lot of people, he's considered to be a parody of the then-rampant "Sonic Recolour" fad, wherein fans would take screenshots of Sonic X, and other official artwork, and then edit it in Microsoft Paint, or another similar program, to create their own characters and stories. Now, this was long decried by other fans, myself included, as incredibly lacking in creativity and originality. It also had an "Ew, cringe" reaction, due to the often-shoddy editing, text-to-speech voices, and usually some top-tier mid-2000s Nu Metal for the music. These days, it's much easier to look back and say "These were mostly made by kids who were just having fun, and it's completely harmless", and it becomes apparent that a lot of the people that were making fun of them and criticising them were grown men, at which point you kinda realise that this "internet fad" was basically just bullying a bunch of children for not being up to the creative standards of some adults. Everybody was looking for the next Chris-Chan, but Chris-Chan is a near-unique entity, as only one other person alive has ever managed to combine that sheer void of talent with a monumentally repulsive personality, and that person is Ken Penders. But Sonichu is the least interesting thing about Chris, and Chris became the laughingstock that he is because of his inability to avoid posting his entire life on the Internet, which was something of a rarity in those halcyon days before the rise of modern social media. Sonichu was a gateway to the actually interesting content also on his channels, whereas these recolour-creators didn't have anything like that, just endless Windows Movie Maker slideshows. And, like, Chris was in his 20s when he became the Internet's punching bag for the first time, and while he's a horrible person, so were the people that dedicated their time and effort to trolling him- His story is fascinating, but it has no heroes. And into this collective cocktail of grown men shitting on preteens, so Ian Flynn introduced Scourge the Hedgehog. Is Scourge a parody of Sonic recolours? I sincerely hope not. The reason for that is twofold, and I'll discuss how his portrayal generally doesn't seem to be mocking those tropes further down the page, but the second issue with the idea that he is a parody is best explained by Sir Terry.

Parody can never punch down, and as a then-24 year old man writing official canon for a franchise, mocking a bunch of 10 year olds on the Internet for making bad stories would definitely be punching down. And, as I said, nothing about the way Scourge is written is in any way poking fun at the tropes of these fancharacters and stories. It's pretty much all played completely straight. So not only do I hope Ian wasn't trying to mock these fancharacters, but there's also little reason to believe that he actually was.   He's not a parody, he is a send-up. And on the one hand, it's kinda nice to throw a bone to those kids. But on the other hand... is Scourge really the character you want to represent your part of the fandom in official material? A cruel, violent, abusive, vicious monster that spends his time palling around with a girlfriend that the writer reforged to be the most unlikable character in the entire comic? Yeah, can't say that's what I'd want if I were one of those people, but he seems to be popular enough, so maybe I'm in the minority there. But now we get to the meat of the problem. You see, the way Scourge is written is one of those things that you can do in fanfic, but you shouldn't do in canon. Part 2: What is a Mary-Sue? The term "Mary-Sue" gets thrown around a lot these days. It's gradually lost all meaning, and has slowly become a term for "Female character that I don't like," mainly used by whiny, easily-offended Broflake Youtubers, who get all pissy that Star Wars films aren't specifically catering to them, to the point that you only have to make a girl be good at something in a movie and these pissbabies lose their shit. I liked Episode VII and VIII more than I, II, or VI, get fucked. But what, then, is a Mary-Sue? And why is it relevant to Scourge? The answer to that first question is a lot more complicated than it might seem. Not just because there are now several different varieties of the trope, but also because the trope itself evolved as it began to be applied to non-fanworks, and additionally because the name itself is somewhat non-indicative. A male Mary-Sue can exist, though these are normally referred to as "Marty-Stue" or "Gary-Stue", or more cynically "The Protagonist". Check out the average Batman comic these days and you'll see what I mean. Originally, the term applied only to a self-insert character in a fanfic, that was an overly-idealised version of the author, dramatically overpowered, hugely popular, normally dating whichever member of the cast the author wanted to bone, or sometimes multiple partners at the same time, along with a few other traits. It's actually pre-Internet term, originating in a Star Trek fanzine when "Mary-Sue" was created as a parody of other fans' similar characters. Over time, the trope evolved to the point that, while the "author avatar" feature is still a pretty big indicator, it's not really necessary. So while there are probably plenty of people out there who want to be Batman, not every character that is a Mary-Sue is someone for the author to project themselves onto, and not every author avatar is a Mary-Sue. Generally, the important features of a Mary-Sue are now: 1) Receives a great deal of favouritism from the author 2) More powerful than the rest of the cast, often to the point of absurdity 3) Faces zero consequences for their actions. 4) Liked by characters that have no reason to do so 5) In a relationship with a character that has no reason to date them, previous relationships be damned. 6) Most importantly, the story will bend over backwards to give them easy wins, even in situations where they logically should struggle. You're probably starting to get where I'm going with this, and if you're not... Part 3: Creator's Pet Scourge is a Creator's Pet. He gets shown a fair bit of favouritism from Ian Flynn, primarily the guise of how much focus he gets. Scourge is the most prolific villain in Ian's run, aside from Eggman himself. While other, better villains like Mogul and Naugus were being imprisoned repeatedly until one retired and the other became a dog, and a huge chunk of the comic's remaining antagonists were being subsumed into the Eggman Empire, Scourge was only moving up, not only being the villain of Ian's first two issues on the book, but continuing to make sporadic appearances for the next twenty issues, before appearing as the new leader of the Destructix under Finitevus in the Enerjak Reborn arc, followed swiftly by a stint as the Big Bad in Bold New Moebius. Does he actually deserve this level of importance? You be the judge, but personally, I don't think so. Even within those stories, Scourge gets special treatment, the biggest and most obvious being Metal Scourge. Now, personally, I think Metal Scourge was a better character than Scourge himself, but the fact that, of all people, Scourge got a Metal counterpart before anyone else, including Knuckles, who had such a counterpart in the games for over a decade by that point.  Especially since, well... Metal and Mettle is a fun story, but it doesn't really do anything for Bold New Moebius as a whole, does it? It's basically pure filler, only really serving to add another dead Metal Sonic to Ian's list and stall the plot out for a bit longer. And, of course, the most clear indicator of Scourge's favouritism is that he was he first Archie character to receive his own Sonic Universe arc, and the only one to do so without needing two or three SEGA characters also making up the rest of the lead cast. "Lockdown" isn't a particularly good story, but its existence speaks to not just the insane popularity that such an unworthy character received, but also Archie's willingness to indulge that. Sonic Universe was largely intended to tell stories revolving around the members of the SEGA cast that, for whatever reason, weren't able to regularly appear in the main book. This... frequently got broken, with Sonic, Tails, Sally, Bunnie, Antoine, and Amy all taking centre-stage in the book before obvious candidates like the Chaotix got a look in, some of them twice over, but Scourge was the only time they were willing to try a story based entirely around one of their characters, and they gave it to the already extremely prominent Scourge. It's pretty clear that Ian loved using this character, and did so as much as possible. YMMV on whether that's good or not. Part 4: Scourge OP plz nerf Let's be real, he's overpowered as fuck. Now, overpowered characters aren't necessarily bad, but it's significantly harder to write an OP character than an on-average one, and Scourge didn't work out so well. From the moment he turns green, he's basically unstoppable. The one time he actually seems to remotely struggle is actually in 161, where he looks ever-so-slightly winded after curbstomping Sonic and Shadow at the same time. From then on, while he does start to slowly even out with Sonic, he also continues to utterly demolish basically everyone else, especially his easy conquest of Moebius. It's been suggested that conquering Moebius should be easy, because the big threats are all good, kind people there, but that somewhat ignores that there are anti-versions of the heroes kicking about too. All the (Mostly) benevolent rulers of the Primeverse should be tyrannical despots there, and there are excessively powerful entities like the Anti-versions of Merlin and the Guardians, not to mention whatever horrors Anti-Gerald would've unleashed on the world, and that's without the Suppression Squad themselves. While the comic has generally treated Sonic as being able to stomp the entire rest of the FF, well, who says it has to be a fight? Why the fuck doesn't Patch just poison him? I mean, the obvious answer is "Because then Bold New Moebius won't have a main villain", and sometimes contractual villain immortality has to be a thing, but a good writer should be able to avoid putting the characters in that position. Following on from that, Scourge gets to fight basically the entire FF and Suppression Squad at the same time, (Sonic and Amy are absent and Fiona is on his side), and he's winning until Sonic shows up. Then directly after that is the hedgehog brawl, and despite Sonic managing to get everyone against Scourge, he easily manages to escape and break out his Super form. Even after spending his time in the No-Zone completely powerless, Scourge manages to break out the moment he gets his powers back, despite the prison being full of characters who should be equally or more powerful than him, and the police force that caught them all, basically unchallenged. Scourge never faces an actual challenge in the comic. He never struggles, and the one time he actually loses? Ian makes up some new lore on the spot, which is contradictory to SEGA lore from the same year, and then uses that to have Sonic trick Scourge into depowering himself. Not only does Scourge never struggle with anything, but he also never actually loses a fight. Part 5: When will you learn, that your actions have consequences?! Probably never, because Scourge's actions never have consequences. Throughout his entire run, Scourge gets to go wherever he wants, do what he wants, with or to whomever he wants, and he never has to deal with the fallout of the decisions he makes. Absorbs the energy of a matter world into his antimatter body? He's better than fine, it only made him stronger. Turns up in Knothole with his secret girlfriend's hated arch rival by his side? Never mentioned again. Blows Fiona's connection to him, costing Finitevus' operation a potential spy in Knothole, where Knuckles is? Not even considered a factor. Ditches Finitevus to go and make Moebius into an egopolis? Finitevus isn't bothered, and supports Fiona's efforts to rescue him later down the line after than plan backfired on him. Blinds Patch in one eye out of jealousy/spite? The guy that poisoned Armand and Max, took a torch to Antoine's personal life, took advantage of Sally's frayed mental state, emotionally damaged Bunnie, and tried to assassinate Elias to get what he wanted lets him get away with it. Openly announces that he's going to destroy both worlds? Conveniently does it when he's alone with Sonic so nobody can tell Fiona what she's letting herself in for. He eventually does get sent to jail, but he breaks out with ease the next time he turns up. Because, y'know, that's just what we want to see. Villains never having to deal with karma. Part 6: What does anyone see in him? Scourge doesn't quite get the "everyone loves him" treatment, but he still gets a whole lot more respect than he's ever earned. Both Sonic and Zobotnik are portrayed arbitrarily deciding that maybe there's a shred of good in this monster, and this is the part where I stress that he's abusive again. Maybe if I repeat that enough it'll sink in. Despite knowing full-well the sort of person Scourge is, Sonic's response to Scourge's crappy cribbing of the "One Bad Day" speech is to try and turn it around and claim that Scourge only needs a tiny bit of decency to be a good person, and this is outright untrue, and given what we see of Scourge later, I'm frankly disgusted that Ian tried to pull this with a character he'll pretty much unambiguously portray as an abuser. Zobotnik's case is even more baffling. We're introduced to the guy in the Lockdown arc, and it's implied that he's effectively a tyrannical warden, ruling over the No-Zone with an iron fist, taking an almost sadistic delight in punishing the inmates. But yet, for whatever reason, he decides that it's a good idea to try and rehabilitate Scourge, for no adequately established reason. Even on the other side of the morality line, we have Finitevus, who apparently respects Scourge enough to not just make him leader of the Destructix during the Enerjak Reborn arc, despite him very clearly not being a leader, and not being liked by any of his comrades except Fiona, but then when he promptly ditches the whole plan toward the end, Finitevus apparently decides that he not only wants to get him back, but is willing to go to great lengths and risk losing the only team of mercenaries dumb enough to work for a guy who is quite open about his intentions to "purify the world with Chaos fire" in order to do it. And speaking of, the most egregious case of this comes again in Lockdown, where the Destructix all end up siding with Scourge. Across the second half of the arc, Scourge learns his new team's backstories, and despite them clearly showing traits and beliefs that should make them respect him less, this somehow works in his favour, and he manages to wrest leadership of the team from Fiona. Especially galling is that it appears that Fiona loses their respect early on because of her faith in Scourge, who to them, looks pathetic, but then they end up supporting him anyway, despite doing nothing to earn it. But wait, one's missing... Looks like it's that time again. Part 7: Oh right, he's an abuser. It's time to talk about Fiona. Fiona's heel turn is really, really effective at selling you on the idea that Fiona is a vile, cruel, and selfish person. It's a dramatic, "big bang" moment that, in basically a single panel, got an entire fandom to hate a character. Now for some it was more of a "Love to hate" thing, but there are plenty of people out there who just really hate Fiona for this single moment. And when you're introducing a new major villain, maybe that's what you want to accomplish. What it doesn't do, however, is sell you on her motives for taking that course of action. Fiona, for the rest of her existence, mainly antagonises Sally, whom she has no worthwhile connection to on either side of her turn, other than being the evil  Sally to Scourge's Evil Sonic, and stands around or clings to Scourge's arm, looking smug about her abusive relationship. And yes, it is abusive, verbal abuse is still abuse, and the implications that he's physically abusive are present too. I know this is something that Scourge's fans don't really want to accept, but it's true, and we're going to get into that later. For now, what matters is that this character's run as a villain mainly consists of: Fiona: "Hey Sugar-Queen, look at how much my boyfriend yells at me and insults me, and probably beats me when he's angry. I make smart decisions and you suck." We never come to understand why this character, who is so motivated by her belief that everyone will eventually double-cross her that she has decided to start lashing out at people before they can turn on her, is willing to put her faith 100% in someone so repeatedly deceptive that he first approached her by pretending to be someone else. Like, in terms of bad first impressions, that's up there with arriving at a job interview in full clown regalia. The comic makes no effort to show why these characters like each other. Scourge allegedly likes her because she chooses to turn evil and join him, rather than being born evil, but this clashes with not only the fact that Fiona is a genuinely good person before this, who makes a solid effort to stay loyal to her friends first, and is lured into villainy by him, but also the fact that she blames everyone but herself for her current situation, but especially with the fact that all of the foreshadowing for Fiona turning evil consists of people not trusting her because she has a shady history. Scourge claims to appreciate that Fiona is a good person that chooses to be evil, but the narrative has a clear message of "If you started evil, it doesn't matter if you try to become good, you will always revert to type." Which isn't exactly a good message, Ian. In return, all we get from Fiona's side is that Scourge "has no expectations of her and just wants to have fun", which clashes entirely with how we see them interact in subsequent arcs, where Fiona frequently looks disturbed or apprehensive, or just bored, while Scourge yells at her and threatens her for not meeting his standards. Seriously, why do people ship this? But okay, okay. Scourge is a good liar, and Fiona's established paranoia and history do make her vulnerable to manipulators like him, so maybe she falls for his lies and gets taken for a ride. That could happen, sure. Doesn't really explain why she becomes a horrendous person all of a sudden, but whatever. Maybe he convinced her to do it as a sort of hazing, and a means of ensuring she couldn't go back. That fits with his abusive nature (You might also notice that this the explanation I used in Revival). But why does she stay? And why does she refuse every out she's given? Why, after everything that pulled her to his side has turned out to be bullshit, does she remain devoted to him? Now, you can argue that due to the abuse and the manipulation she's suffered, she believes she has to stay with him, and that's a fair shout, but her appearance in Journey to the East is kind of a stumbling block for that theory, because we're shown a Fiona who is fully capable of functioning without him, and even after making efforts to establish herself... the next time we see her she's gone back for him. And now... well, it's time to talk about that "A" word I've been bringing up a lot in this section. Scourge is abusive. I've frequently referenced that he verbally abuses Fiona every time she displeases him across the book, but the most telling scene is this one from Issue 190.

"You do not want to be sent back with me." Translation: "If I get sent back, and you're sent back too, I'm going to beat the shit out of you." Fiona (With her invisible left arm) isn't excluded from this threat. Fiona isn't surprised by this threat either. Nor does she not take the threat seriously. She looks like she's expecting to be struck. He beats her. And please, nobody say that "he's just angry", that's apologism. Now, I dunno if this was in the script, or if Fiona's face was something Yardley did on his own, but given that this arc ends with Super Scourge announcing his intention to destroy both Mobius and Moebius, simply because he can, regardless of the collateral, I'm willing to bet that this relationship wasn't a happy, stable one. But, unfortunately, this element was never made clear enough. Now, your mileage may vary on whether you think Sonic the Hedgehog comics are the appropriate place to discuss abusive relationships or not, but we've got one now, and Ian dropped the ball. This wasn't a Joker/Harley, where the pairing was clearly abusive but also sold DC/Warner millions of dollars worth of merch, this wasn't a RWBY, where Adam took three years to show up and had already won a huge number of fans from his admittedly cool design and powers, so people already liked him before they even knew what his personality was like. Ian had full control over this, no merch to worry about, and Scourge's prolific appearances gave him plenty of opportunity to make it clear that this was an ugly, repulsive thing that Fiona needed to get out of ASAP. And he didn't. Because panels like this, and all the yelling, clearly weren't enough for the fandom. No, you point this detail out to them and they'll make excuses, try to pretend it didn't happen, or just get offended, or worst of all, outright say they don't care and still ship it. We have fanartists who became real official artists creating stories where this garbage-fire pairing is used for sad feels, not because Fiona got stuck in a relationship with a controlling, violent monster, but because oh no they really loved each other and now Fiona's dead isn't it tragic don't you feel sorry for Scourge? No. No I don't. I feel sorry for the thousands of teenagers who support an abusive relationship because Ian was too cowardly to make it clear that the relationship in question was just that. Now, do I think that Ian is an intentional abuse apologist? No. Do I think he wimped out of taking the necessary steps to make it clear that this was bad because he didn't want people to dislike his shitty pet villain? Oh yeah, I do. Scourge's reputation was more important to Flynn than appropriately and sensitively portraying a destructive, damaging relationship between a woman and her monstrous partner. Well, I say "Woman", let's not forget that Fiona was meant to be sixteen, and realistically if you take her timeline into account she's more likely to be about fourteen. Real fucking classy. Part 8: Effort? What effort? So, now we get to our final criteria. And frankly, it's the easiest one to cover. From the moment, Scourge turns green, his life becomes a cakewalk. Everything he ever wants is handed to him with zero actual struggle on his part. Wants to be stronger than Sonic? He is. Zero side-effects to using a Chaos energy form from a mirror universe, or having a Super transformation interrupted, he just seemingly gets to be half-Super forever. Wants another leg-up on Sonic? Here's Fiona, sans personality. Sonic says he's just a lame ripoff of himself? He conquered a planet in a week, look at how cool he is. Also his team all roll over and make him their leader even though they hate him and they could easily kill him. He gets to walk through the entire FF/Squad teamup, and the Hedgehog teamup, and then when he gets to the No-Zone, Zobotnik, who has kept far smarter and more dangerous characters locked up for decades arbitrarily decides to reform him and gets completely suckered by him. The Destructix fully throw in with him, despite him never actually earning their respect. He never loses a fight where he wasn't depowered first. You know what the irony of this is? Ian has a character whom he is contractually obligated to never have lose for longer than an issue or two. And honestly, he wasn't awful at disguising that. Sonic gets a few wins that feel too easy, but for the most part, the issues with this rule mainly manifest in Sonic's limp responses to the tragedies happening around him, and a sprinkling of minor failures and pyrrhic victories ensure that the rule looks more like shoddy writing in a few places unless you're explicitly told about it. And even then, he still manages to make it look like Sonic struggles to attain those victories, that he has to actually put his back into it every time. He is challenged. Scourge isn't allowed to be challenged. That's the irony. Ian has a protagonist who he is not allowed to have lose, and Sonic still manages to be avoid looking like a boring invincible hero, while Scourge just never faces anything that can actually pose a threat to him. Powerful opponents crumple before him. Characters' personalities and development shift to suit his needs. The plot warps to benefit him. Because heaven forbid Scourge actually have to work for his wins. Who needs stakes when you can have the writer on your side! Part 9: In summation... I think you should've all twigged where this is going by now, so let's wrap up. 1) Does Scourge receive a great deal of favouritism from the author? Yes. 2) Is Scourge more powerful than the rest of the cast, often to the point of absurdity? Yes. 3) Does Scourge face zero consequences for his actions? Yes. 4) Is Scourge liked or respected by characters that have no reason to do so? Yes. 5) Is Scourge in a relationship with a character that has no reason to date him? Yes. 6) Most importantly, does the story will bend over backwards to give Scourge easy wins, even in situations where he logically should struggle? Yes. According to these criteria, Scourge the Hedgehog is almost a textbook example of a Mary-Sue. Which is probably why something as disgusting as him got away with so much. I guess, then, that his role in Revival, and a lot of the stuff before that, is the unfortunate reality of a Mary-Sue who suddenly has to deal with the fact that they're no longer getting that special treatment from the writer. That now their actions have consequences, that now the universe doesn't shape itself to their desires.

Music From Bounty and The Red Machete - Seriously Awesome! ;D

Okay guys, this won’t be terribly long today. Erm—at least not compared to my Details post on Wednesday, which was a monster. This is something I’ve been trying to get to since last week, and I’m super excited to share it, because it’s a pretty big deal. It has to do with three musical aspects of Bounty, 9x11. 

First, let me say there were two songs featured in this episode. It’s All Right Now, by Eddie Harris (this is the song Ezekiel played on the boombox to distract the walkers so they could go into the theater; it’s also the one we saw Jerry lip syncing and dancing to) 

and All My Dreaming by Emma Russack. This was played at the end when it showed everyone being happy together because the exchange went well. It’s still playing when Daryl realizes Henry has gone and goes to find him, and Connie goes with him.

It’s actually hard to find lyrics to either of these songs online, though there are youtube videos where you can just listen to them. Neither is difficult to hear and decipher.

I don’t have tons to say about the first song, It’s All Right Now. This is one of those songs where that line “It’s all right now,” is literally sung over and over and over again for the entire song. You hear the singers making other, extraneous comments (“Come on girl,” and Jerry’s “whoo!”) but there aren’t any other actual lyrics. So it’s a fairly happy, positive song, right? And I think it works for the Kingdomers at the theater because things go well for them. They had to fight a little harder than they’d planned to get the bulb, but they got it and nobody dies, which doesn’t happen all that often on the show.

But the one thing that really jumps out at me is when Diane comes into tell them that they have to hurry because the “boombox died” and the walkers will be coming back toward them. As in, the music died? And the music was the “it’s all right now” song. So that means it’s no longer all right.

Again, I think that works well for the Carzekiel in particular because, everything’s okay for them right now. Going better than expected, actually, since Alexandria will now be attending the fair. But if you’ve read spoilers, you know things are about to go terribly, terribly wrong.

But… we also know Beth was the song bird so I really think we can relate this back to her as well. Everything was all right, then the song bird died (compare to Henry spoilers) and then everything wasn’t all right. Also remember, this was the episode with the prisoner exchange, which had some ridiculous parallels to Grady. So yeah. That’s all I have to say about that.

Emma Russack’s All My Dreaming we can read into a little more. This song really only has one verse and we heard all of it in the show. (The rest of the song is just all the “oohs” we also heard in the show to tranquil music.) It’s really a very beautiful, calming song.

So here’s what it says:

All my dreaming, all my wishing

It hasn’t come through. Life’s just like that

And I don’t know what I am looking for

But when I find it, it will feel right.

I’ve dreamt of loving, I’ve wished for control.

It hasn’t come through, but I won’t push that

Maybe all that I’ve ever wanted

Is what I have now. That is all right.

Does that sound like Daryl or what? Especially the dreaming of love bit. And it works well with what he told Henry. He’s really not happy and doesn’t have what he wants, but life’s just shit sometimes and you live with it.

The other interesting thing is that everyone it shows during the playing of this song is fairly happy: Carzekiel, Magna’s group who are happy to have Luke back, Enid and Alden, Tammy and Earl with the baby, etc. The only unhappy ones are Daryl 

and Henry.

(Quick aside about the above pic of Daryl. Someone in my group (forget who) something very interesting. It looks similar to this pic from Still, 

Even if the light is a different color, it’s still behind him, silhouetting him. We also know that Beth was Daryl’s light (confirmed by Norman). So between that, and the prisoner exchange that just happened, you know he has to be thinking about her right here. Meanwhile, this song is playing…) 

So what does this mean? More than just a reminder of her, I think it shows the Whisperers and this whole thing with Henry will lead to her. More on that in a minute, but I’m once again going to argue the “domino shit” card here. Henry couldn’t live with the results of the prisoner exchange, which lead to Daryl going out after him, and that will lead to what happens the rest of the season. And I think it will lead to Beth in some way.

Okay, one final thing to talk about, which I actually this is the MOST exciting of the three. You guys are gonna love this. Again, I have to credit @wdway with this because I wouldn’t have thought of it. If you listen to the music that plays when Daryl takes Lydia outside the gates for the prisoner exchange, it’s very distinctive music. I think it’s a mixture of drums and some kind of horn, but it sounds like a very ominous drum roll.

@wdway said she thought it was the same music from The Red Machete. (Again, I wouldn’t have remembered that at all or thought to check.) But she’s right. If you want to compare, listen to the music playing specifically when Daryl takes Lydia out and has her by the arm. It only lasts a few seconds and then stops. 

Then get on Youtube and find The Red Machete. Listen to the last two minutes or so when it shows Legs come out and claim the red machete. It’s the EXACT same music. I think the Red Machete one has a faster tempo and sounds bolder (might just be a volume thing) but it’s still the same music.

So we discussed what this meant. Does it mean Lydia is Legs? Well, we already discussed how Cassidy McClincy (who plays Lydia) has a body type a lot like Emily’s, so it’s possible. But I really don’t think so. For two reasons:

1. I think if she or even Alpha or Beta had the red machete, we’d have seen it by now. We would have seen it really early on because that would be a big deal to have one of them wielding Rick’s red machete. I doubt they’d wait so many episodes to be like, “oh, by the way…” It’d be more epic than that. I actually thought, from the trailer, that when it showed Alpha in the woods, obviously hiding a weapon behind her leg (it was when Luke and Alden saw her just before being captured) it might be the red machete. But it wasn’t. It was a double-barreled shot gun. So yeah, we really haven’t seen it yet and that’s important.

2. There’s still the fact that they hid Legs’s face/identity. We didn’t know who Lydia was back when the Red Machete aired. There was no reason to hide her face. It would have been better to show it so that when she showed up in the show, the audience would have been like, *gasp* “she has the red machete!” (gasp gif) In fact, they used that exact tactic with an earlier mini series that had to do with Fear. The first one they did showed the virus breaking out on a plane at the beginning. One woman survived and later showed up in Fear. They got that exact reaction. Audience: *gasp* “She was the lady on the plane!!!” So I think if Legs was Lydia, th ey would have done something similar to this. Instead, they hid Legs’s identity, and there’s just no reason to do that unless she’s someone we already know and would recognize.

So what does this mean? Well, I still believe Legs is Beth, but even putting that aside for a moment, the parallel music shows that something about this prisoner exchange will, as I said above about dominoes and leading to the rest of the season, also lead to Legs/the red machete.

But then we HAVE to circle back around to the parallels during the prisoner exchange, what Daryl says, this song that’s playing, all the Beth/Henry parallels this season, and of course the same ole stuff about how we saw her image twice in 9a. For me, it all still points very obviously to Beth being Legs—it kinda has to be—and this sequence leading to her in some way.

I don’t think Alpha or Beta has the red machete. I think Beth has it and will show up at some point in some way that has to do with the Whisperers.

Thoughts?

***Last minute addition: So this morning, before I got this posted, I noticed a post in my FB group. I didn’t want to add onto this because it would have taken longer (probably wouldn’t have posted until tomorrow) and it would have made it too long. But let’s just say @wdway found something that really has nothing to do with this Red Machete music parallel, but, in my mind, pretty much confirms what I’ve said here. It deserves it’s own post, and I’ll try to get to it next week. ;D ***

Making Critical and Analytical Content

2 years ago I started making critical content on my YouTube channel for RWBY. Since then, I’ve wanted to take the time to go over how I started, what I have learned and how I have changed my approach to make these types of videos.

(If you choose to read this, know that it is long and the videos I link to accumulate to around 2 hours)

           Let’s start with the why. I’ve been wanting to make a series of videos expressing my thoughts and opinions on various topics for a good while before I actually started. I did have some videos talking about Titanfall (before it released) and how I wanted a change of pace with the games I played. But, these videos weren’t fully what I wanted, and were really not all that good.  I wanted to officially start my “Thoughts” series by making a video called, “Why am I Here?” I still want to make that video. Then, I wanted to make a video talking about Destiny, which would’ve ended up as a Rant. I think I still have the footage I recorded to make that video. *Checks saved video files* NOPE, it’s gone now… WAIT! I actually do still have the 3 hour video recording. Anyway, I never actually went through with making those videos. Said I would through an Update video, never did.

           Then, RWBY Volume 4 happened, and there was heated discussion. This was when I first noticed the RWDE tag. Reading and watching other’s posts and videos about the show, I decided that I would make my own videos talking about RWBY Vol. 4, but it would be in a much different format compared to how I handled videos like this before. No more rambling about a topic just trying to get through my points while on camera! (I would later break that streak) With a new goal set, RWBY Vol. 4 became the first official topic of my new “Thoughts” video series.

           I also went out in search of other opinions by reading and watching other people’s videos and posts once more. This is to see what people are talking about and what it is they are saying. I don’t really trust myself, so by going to see what other’s are saying helped me feel more confident about what I would end up writing. That’s not because I was looking for validation in the things I was going to say. It was so I could find new things to bring up that others weren’t, and find things I could either add onto or explain why I don’t agree in an indirect way. This is why I added the “Other reviewers I watched” at the bottom of the description for my videos. These were people I looked into and felt that they made good points and good videos that I either agreed or disagreed with. I don’t think I’m going to be including that going forward. (I’m still going to watch and get informed. I’m just not going to say who I watched anymore)

           I then went to write my video with the intent to have it look like I hadn’t seen or read any outside material about RWBY. No commentary, interviews, tweets, etc. Write it so I had just finished watching the Volume and am giving my critique and analysis as though it is based just on that.

           The rest of my initial approach to this was, also, SO NAÏVE. I planned to talk about the Volume and all its parts in ONE VIDEO.  Oh, how foolish I was. I seriously thought I could do this in 30 to 40 minutes (The Story video ended up being 40 minutes long). Wrote almost the entire script of the video before I actually timed how long it could take (Story, Animation, Design, and parts of Final Thoughts). I then realized my mistake when the Story section, in testing, was around 30 minutes.

           With that, I realized that I ABSOLUTELY had to split this video into parts. I also went straight into recording my Story video (https://youtu.be/GHQpfMdGAE0). And dumb me also had to include a live recorded portion of me talking for another 5 minutes after I had finished recording and was in the middle of editing it. Making the video EVEN longer than before!

           The lesson I learned after making that video is to CUT. This doesn’t just apply to making a shorter video. This also applies to making a more concise and stronger video. In order to make good, strong arguments, you got to cut the fat. Not only that, but you also have to rework your ideas/points if you really want to keep and present them. This new approach is what I applied to the next video, which would go on to become the most viewed and well liked video that I have put out to this day. If I hadn’t learned that lesson, my “Animation & Editing” video for RWBY Vol. 4 would’ve become the most hated thing I ever put out. I’m not exaggerating. You think my approach to these videos overall was bad at first? Keep reading.

           For my Animation video, I planned to make it in the style of Digibro’s “Your Anime Sucks”. I wrote it like I was live-tweeting about it. WHAT A FUCKING STUPID IDEA!!

Here are my problems:

1.    I’m not funny (shocker).

2.    I don’t have the respect and clout to make this and not get destroyed for it.

3.    It was such a change in tone compared to how I did the Story video.

4.    I DON’T KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT.

I still have the original script that I wrote for that video. Here are some excerpts from that:

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

“More like activate the heavy cannon because it doesn’t need anyone operating or loading it.”

“You seriously need to follow the biggest thing you’ve ever seen with a telescope?”

“Jaune stating something really stupid, because it doesn’t matter if you’re not when he is. At least Ren asks a decent question.”

“I’m shocked that this projectile we can see didn’t curve around Tyrian in order to hit Nora.”

“You guys had to throw in pointless movement, didn’t you?”

“That was easy. How are they going to help Qrow and make it to Mistral now?

Oh, what the fuck?!”

Not really well thought out and put together now are they? Not even on topic!

           So, I had every action scene of Volume 4 written out like this. It was already clear I had to cut and rework EVERY. SINGLE. THING. What I ended up doing is take the points I felt strongly about and re-adjust them into a new script, which became the “Animation & Editing” video I put out (https://youtu.be/Dxvu8QaV60g). That video now sits at 2,913 views and 106 likes. Just imagine the reception it would’ve got if I hadn’t changed my approach and stuck with my original plan.

           The lesson I learned from making that is to keep cutting and don’t write based off of one’s own memory. I still cut things from the video, even after recording and editing it. I learned that I don’t have to talk about everything. I just need to focus on what I know and what I feel the strongest about. I also had to completely rewrite one section of the video and get a new example. That was the part of the video where I talked about the Line of Action. The original example was Blake and Sun clipping the wings of the Sea Dragon Grimm. What I originally wrote was incorrect for how the scene actually went and was shot, and it ended up as a poor example for what I was talking about.

           With this new mindset, I continued to rewrite my script and make my last two videos, “The New Look” and “Final Thoughts”. (The New Look: https://youtu.be/PVNObGIzCSI) The new look video went great, but my Final Thoughts video got really long, so I had to cut that into two more parts, “Miscellaneous” and “Final Thoughts”. (Miscellaneous: https://youtu.be/8do0dT86IWY ) Miscellaneous still went ok, but I made two more mistakes with the Final Thoughts video.

           In the Final Thoughts video (https://youtu.be/78UeP6BkRxI), I decided to include some of the stuff I cut from the original Animation and Editing video, among others. I also came to realize that I didn’t actually accomplish my goal of writing the scripts for these videos as though I hadn’t seen or read any outside sources or drama. I responded to one of the people who commented, who felt I was being unfair in my judgment, by admitting that Shane Newville’s Open Letter may have had an influence on me. That was an immediate sign of failure and regret on my part. Going forward, I had to do better.

And do better I did.

           I continued on by talking about the RWBY Character Shorts, which I split into two parts. One for the Ruby, Weiss, and Yang Shorts (https://youtu.be/rXjujR6p8Rs), and  another for the Blake Short (https://youtu.be/x9TvfssSmxI). The Blake short was the big one because it was the most negative video I had created up to that point. The reason for this is due to the fact that I just didn’t like the Blake Character Short.

           After that came RWBY Volume 5. I absolutely had to do better this time; especially, because I was going to say Volume 5 is worse than Volume 4. I had to be sure to write and show how Volume 4 did things better than Volume 5. I did this by showing and detailing specific scenes, stories, and moments of action.

Thoughts - RWBY Vol. 5

Story: https://youtu.be/KTptl7o9hVw

Animation & Editing: https://youtu.be/ndjxOBrBvQU

Design: https://youtu.be/FdSTf2iHHXU

Final Thoughts: https://youtu.be/09Rp88xEovo

           I think my Volume 5 videos are the best of the series so far. I continued to apply the lessons I learned. I even added little skits to the videos. I did have a really hard time writing the Final Thoughts video for Volume 5. The big one I spent the most time on was the issues with the last 4 episodes of the Volume. Almost every point I wrote had a caveat.

“So, it’s like this”, I would write.

“Wait, this here goes against that and thus makes my argument weak”, I would think soon after.

           It wasn’t going well for me due to also having to deal with school at the same time. I got really behind because of things like that. I ended up settling on just getting the basic fundamentals of the episodes and what I wanted to be sure I brought up as a way of talking about the episodes’ issues in general. I think it turned out fine, but I ended up skipping on the stuff with Blake and the White Fang as a result. I really wish I could’ve included talking about the action and editing for two of those scenes.

           With that, I have detailed the journey I have taken in making Critical RWBY content. The thing I think matters the most when creating critical content is to make sure that where you are coming from and what you value is made clear or evident by your criticisms and analysis. This gives your audience a basis to judge whether your arguments and point of view are sound and understandable. I did this with my “Design” video for Volume 5 by making it clear right from the get go that I don’t have a lot of knowledge on the subjects I talk about for the video and that what I say is based on that limited knowledge and understanding.

           I think that is why I don’t get much or any negative feedback about my videos. I have had people say my videos are a breath of fresh air compared to other “critics” (Their words not mine). Another was just astounded at how little attention I get. Wondering why my video they watched doesn’t get more views. Not a big deal. I’m recent, small, and don’t upload frequently.

           The thing with my “Thoughts” videos is that I don’t want to be definitive. I want to be a jumping off point. A place where there can be further discussion, even off my platform. I was worried at first cause I didn’t know how well my videos would be received and how I would handle any form of negative feedback, both minor and major. I think I have handled things well, but that’s probably cause of how little attention I have gotten so far. Either way, I remain motivated to keep making more videos.

           Going forward, I want to talk about more than just RWBY. I still have a lot to say in regards to the series. I just have other things I am passionate about that I want to express my thoughts on. I have already made a video on Avengers Infinity War to get started.

Before I end this, I want to list out my main influences when making these videos.

Mother’s Basement (The one I try to emulate the most)

Kaptainkristian (editing and presentation)

Every Frame a Painting (editing, writing and much more. Seriously, read this: https://medium.com/@tonyszhou/postmortem-1b338537fabc)

Chris Stuckmann (how to construct criticism)

Jeremy Jahns (how to focus and be concise)

Mauler (The amount of detail this guy gets into for what he talks about is insane)

Glass Reflection (Just good, plain, honest criticism)

Digibro (Harsh and unapologetic criticism)

Game Maker’s Toolkit (Design)

Extra Credits (Design and intent)

New Frame Plus (Animation techniques)

The Cartoon Cipher (What they do with music and their editing fascinates and amazes me)

Movies with Mikey (Fun and amazingly presented)

           Each of these teaches me how to construct my videos, and what to look for when I analyze and critique media. This is also why I seek out other opinions by other reviewers and people who discuss what I plan on talking about. It’s all about getting that extra perspective that can help build, expand and construct my own.

As I continue to make these videos, I will continue to learn and grow.

Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC Rate Their Chances #1

Hi! This is a new thingy I’m trying based on the RTC series by Smash youtuber Billybo10k where I’m gonna take 5 characters, weigh up whether or not they’d potentially make into Smash as DLC and then give them a chance and a want score out of 100. Hoping to make this a regular thing so if you’re reading this and want me to rate a character, drop me a comment!

The characters I’ll be rating in this post are:

Geno (Super Mario RPG)

Sora (Kingdom Hearts)

Bandana Waddle Dee (Kirby series)

Rex (Xenoblade Chronicles 2)

Rayman (Rayman series)

Hope u enjoy!

Geno

Okay so, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months (or depending how long you’ve been into Smash, the past 12 years or so), you probably know all about Geno by now. Geno is a character who gained an unprecedented amount of fan support after only appearing and having a major role in one game that was made over 20 years ago, Super Mario RPG.

In terms of his moveset, Geno, as far as I’m aware, is a puppet who ended up harnessing the power of a star. His main sort of ‘thing’ in his home game is the gun on the end of his hand, so Geno would likely end up being similar to Mega Man in some regards, though obviously not with the powers Mega Man uses from the various bosses in his home series.

And I won’t beat around the bush. Geno has a very, very good shot of making it in. For lots of reasons. First off, we’re now aware that the Smash ballot from Smash 4′s DLC had a direct influence on the newcomers for this game, with the likes of Ridley and King K. Rool, both major fan requests, joining the roster. There is no doubt in my mind that Geno did extremely well on the ballot and, on top of this, Sakurai has actively tried to negotiate Geno into the game before back in Brawl, but Square Enix (the current owners of Geno, considering they were the developers of Super Mario RPG) were unwilling to play ball. But now? We have CLOUD from Final Fantasy in Smash, not to mention Geno’s mii costume from Smash 4, who was the only mii costume to get his own splash screen. Sakurai knows how much people want Geno.

The only potential sticking points for Geno I can see are more on Square’s end than Nintendo’s. Geno’s inclusion all hinges on whether or not Square is going to want to hand over the rights to a dead character. That is, Square Enix could be so unwilling to hand over Geno because they want to include more marketable characters that still have relevance. For example, Sora, as Kingdom Hearts III is just around the corner. And if Ultimate is all about the most requested characters making the cut, why wasn’t Geno in the base roster? Not saying this drops his chances hugely, it’s just a thing to note, as it’s not as if Geno had the problem other characters such as Spring Man had where they came into existence too late to be considered.

With all of this in mind, I’m going to give Geno a 65% chance of making it into DLC. All of the factors in Geno’s favour, as well as credible leaker Vergeben repeatedly mentioning a new Square Enix rep, put Geno in a very good position. But hey, nothing’s certain. And Sakurai has confirmed on Twitter that Nintendo made the selections for this game’s DLC line-up, so it’s really down to both Nintendo and Square whether or not they’d want to include a character that isn’t marketable to people outside of the core Smash fanbase.  But as for a want score, I’m going to give Geno a 35%. Nothing against this wooden boi, I’d just rather see Sora or a Dragon Quest character make it over Geno in terms of Square reps. Plus, I have no real attachment to the character.

Sora

Now onto the other Square Enix rep in this post, as well as my third most wanted character, Sora from Kingdom Hearts, the big strange crossover between Disney and Final Fantasy. Is he a good fit for Smash? Well, he’s got his huge freakin keyblade and a whole host of spells he could utilise in his moveset, so the answer is very easily a yes. And the thing is that Sora has one big leg up over Geno in terms of chances; relevancy. But I suppose it all depends on what is being taken into consideration when characters are chosen for DLC. For the base roster, it seemed to be all about fan demand, specifically drawing popular picks from the Smash ballot. But now that Nintendo as a whole is choosing who joins the fight, I’d say we’re much more likely to get marketable characters such as Sora (Basically what I’m saying here is, don’t expect another character like Piranha Plant. As much as I love Piranha Plant). And in terms of Nintendo history, Sora’s home series has made its way onto several of Nintendo’s handhelds over the years in the form of spin-off titles.

Sora, like every character, has a couple of hurdles though. The moveset potential, the Nintendo history and the fan demand are all there, but at the end of the day, it’s all down to whether or not Disney want to play ball. Because, contrary to what some people are saying, Sora is in fact owned by Disney and not Square Enix, as Disney hold the rights to all Kingdom Hearts characters that are original to the series. While Disney are notoriously stingy when it comes to their properties, I have little doubt that they would hand over Sora if it benefited them directly. Right now, we know that Kingdom Hearts III is not scheduled to appear on the Switch, but with a sort of ‘Switch Pro’ rumoured to be around the corner, KH3 could feasibly be ported over. And with Sora being exclusively a video game character, they really aren’t going to be saving him for anything else, are they?

For me, there’s a hell of a lot of factors going either way for Sora for me to be convinced either way, as Sora is a very difficult character to speculate on when Disney is involved. But he has a good chance. Right now, with things as they stand, I’m going to give Sora a 50% chance of appearing in DLC. It honestly could go either way. But as my third most wanted character, Sora gets a 95% want score. Kingdom Hearts made up a lot of my childhood and I’d love to see him included.

Bandana Waddle Dee

The bias is alive and well in this post as we take a look at our third character, and my second most wanted character, Bandana Waddle Dee from the Kirby series. At first glance, Bandana Dee could be dismissed as a weird side character or generic ‘mook’ character that has no place in Smash among the other iconic characters in the series. But this is very, very wrong. Bandana Dee has cemented himself in the Kirby series as the fundamental player 4 in the series, making regular appearances as the fourth protagonist of most of the modern Kirby games, most recently appearing as one of the three main dream friends in Kirby Star Allies alongside King Dedede and Meta Knight. And boy, does he have a lot of fan support. In Japan especially, Bandana Dee has an INSANE amount of support and this undoubtedly would’ve shown up on the ballot. And I have no doubt that Sakurai would be able to create a moveset for this perfect boi, especially considering we’ve never had a spear user in Smash before.

However, Bandana Dee’s issues come with what Nintendo’s priorities are in this latest cycle of DLC. We aren’t sure on what goes into consideration when picking these characters but my best guess, as I have stated above, is how marketable the character is, not just to the hardcore Smash fans, but to the casual players as well. Nintendo are likely going to be looking at what characters are most likely to sell as DLC, as well as what characters are going to promote their other titles. And I’m not entirely sure Bandana Dee fits this. Sure, Kirby Star Allies recently was released and, if he came with a Star Allies stage (yes pls), this could be a good promotional push for that game and there’s no doubt that Bandana Dee would sell well as DLC considering how many people love him. But with a new Fire Emblem game coming next year, alongside other potential first party reps Nintendo could’ve prioritised, it could be that my poor lil Bandana boy fell by the wayside this time.

Overall, I’m giving Bandana Dee a 60% chance of appearing. I’m fairly confident in his chances, as he’s a well-loved first party rep with a unique moveset potential and unquestionable marketability (I mean come on, tell me you wouldn’t buy him). But it’s all down to what Nintendo wants to promote in this cycle of DLC and whether they’ll want to keep their focus on upcoming titles or try and sell more of preexisting ones. But my want score for Bandana Dee is honestly a 100%. I love Bandana Dee and his design so, so much and I really want to see the Kirby set completed. Pls let it happen Nintnondo.

Rex

Rex is the main protagonist of the recent and extremely popular Xenoblade Chronicles 2. The character has a lot of fan support, is from a relevant franchise and is a Nintendo owned series that they’re going to want to promote. So why don’t I think he’s getting in?

Let’s break it down. I can see Rex being an obvious choice for DLC, especially if Nintendo themselves are choosing who gets in this time, as first party reps with a good amount of relevancy are more likely to take precedence. But after this last Smash direct, his chances are slim to say the least. Sakurai stated during this direct’s reveal of Rex’s mii costume: ‘We decided which fighters to include when we started planning, so we couldn’t add characters from titles like Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which was announced after planning had started. I hope this outfit will help you feel like you’re playing as Rex.’ So basically, I think this is an instant death sentence for Rex. Sakurai recognised how popular Rex was, so wanted to make sure the Xenoblade fans knew he wasn’t getting in so they wouldn’t be disappointed further down the line. And yet, I’ve still seen people all over the internet saying that Rex is a ‘guaranteed lock’ and he’s the most likely character n everything. And I don’t wanna kill these people’s hype but the proof is right there in that sentence. I feel like the people who are still predicting and asking for Rex didn’t see that part of the direct, or at least didn’t fully understand what Sakurai was saying. Rex isn’t getting in.

So with this in mind, Rex gets a 1% chance of appearing in DLC. While I’m confident he won’t be one of the 5 announced, the 1% is on the slim offchance we get a second season of DLC, which I don’t see happening either, as this cycle would bring us up to early 2020, which is almost exactly how long Smash 4′s DLC cycle lasted, as the game released 2014 and the last two DLC characters, Corrin and Bayonetta, were added in early 2016. On top of this, I’d say 5 more characters is plausibly our final roster for this game, considering Smash 4 had 7 DLC fighters and three of those were returning veterans. So yeah, I’m really not holding out hope for a season 2 and, in turn, Rex. But for a want score, Rex gets a 70%. Shulk is one of my mains and I love the look of the Xenoblade series, even though I haven’t gotten around to playing it yet. Rex is someone I’d like to see, though there’s another Xenoblade character I would much prefer that I’ll cover in a future post.

Rayman

And here we are, at my most wanted character, Rayman. With Rayman at the top of my want list, I have put a lot more research into him than I would other characters, but I promise I will avoid bias in my final rating. Lessgo.

Rayman is an iconic third party gaming mascot owned by Ubisoft. And bias aside, he has a hell of a lot going for him. His moveset basically writes itself, as he could utilise items and attacks from his various mainline games and, as much as I wouldn’t be too hot on this, the Rabbid spin-off games too. I have no doubt in my mind that Rayman would be a perfect fit for Smash and would blend in well among the other third party mascots in the game, as he has a notable Nintendo history considering the majority of his games have appeared on Nintendo consoles. On top of this, he’s been a fan request for some time. After the infamous ArtsyOmni leak during Smash 4′s development cycle that falsely revealed Rayman would be in the game, he surely would’ve received a huge boost in support that definitely would show up on the ballot. While this is just speculation on my part, I think it’s pretty safe speculation. But would Nintendo and Ubisoft be able to negotiate Rayman for the game? I think the answer is very easily a yes. Nintendo and Ubisoft were already working on Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle back in 2015, showing a partnership between the two companies that has continued all the way through Ultimate’s development cycle. As well as this, Nintendo recently lended Ubisoft one of their characters, Fox from Star Fox, to appear in the Switch edition of Starlink: Battle For Atlas. Nintendo lending characters like this isn’t exactly common and I think it’s extremely likely that Ubisoft will return the favour by lending one of their characters to a Nintendo IP. And where better to put him than Smash? As a final lil thing, the Rabbids have been included in Smash Ultimate as spirits, while Rayman himself appeared in Smash 4 as a trophy when he had no other content in the game. So Ubisoft already have a presence in Smash.

As for what’s standing in Rayman’s way, a lot of his hurdles can be very easily worked around. Some people have been citing Rayman’s recent inclusion into Brawlhalla as a reason why he won’t make it into Smash. But Ubisoft bought out the company that makes Brawlhalla, Blue Mammoth Games, making Brawlhalla their property. So of course they’re going to put their own character into their own game. And if Ryu can be in Marvel vs Capcom whilst also joining Smash 4 in DLC, Rayman can likely do the same. And it isn’t as if his inclusion would ‘sabotage’ Brawlhalla, as he likely wouldn’t even be announced until 2019, giving Ubisoft an ample amount of time to build hype for Brawlhalla. But now we know Nintendo are choosing who joins the fight in DLC this time around, is it likely that they’d have chosen Rayman? Honestly, it could go either way. We have no way of knowing if there will even be third party characters in DLC, though my best guess is that there will be, as I think Nintendo is well aware that characters like Rayman would sell extremely well. And like I’ve already stated, Nintendo and Ubisoft are on really good terms and Ubisoft have yet to lend a character to Nintendo in the same way that Nintendo lended Fox. So with this in mind, Rayman could very easily be one of the five characters negotiated.

I promised I’d keep my bias aside for my final rating, but without considering what I want, the amount of evidence for Rayman’s inclusion is compelling. However, nothing is certain and it’s just as likely that Rayman could’ve been skipped over altogether. We have no idea how these negotiations take place or what Nintendo is looking for in bringing new characters to the roster. But taking all of this into consideration, Rayman gets a 70% chance of joining the roster. I know that’s high, but I’m confident in this rating. He’s got everything lined up in his favour, so it all depends on how the chips fall. But as for a want score, Rayman of course gets a 100%. Nothing really matches Rayman in terms of wanted characters for me so here’s hoping he makes the cut.

Thanks so much for reading! As I said, if you’d like me to rate a character, go ahead and drop a suggestion in the comments and I’ll rate them in the next post that should go out within a week or so. I’ll also be logging each character that I rate in a lil spreadsheet that you can check out here to keep track of all the ratings or whatever. Stay hydrated my dudes.

Les Amis Webshows - Reviews!

So! There’s been a whole two new Amis webshows premiering this January! However, I’ve noticed not that many people are actually talking about them! New content, and we’re not yelling??

So, I’ve decided to give short reviews on their debut pilot episodes, as well as the first episodes of some other Les Amis webshows (I probably missed so many, feel free to add more if you know of them!) in order to maybe spread the word about some cool creators online as well as give y’all a lil more content to consume that isn’t just grim BBC Les Mis discourse atm

(I’ve reviewed them in the order they premiered)

1. Stories From Les Amies

This is a vlog story of the les amis with all the genders purposefully changed! Now this one has an awful lot of content to make up its plot, having premiered in 2013 and wrapped up with an HOUR LENGTH FILM at the end of 2014, so there’s a hell of a lot to digest here! The Enjolras behind this is actually also the author of TextingEnjolras/EnjolrasRising so the plot does bear some resemblance to that also! (Another piece of content I’d highly recommend if you’ve not read yet).

But, to keep it fair, I’m going to stick with just the pilot episode! It’s set up like a big group skype call with our amis introducing themselves, where we are first introduced to their personalities, mostly led by Enjolras although Combeferre acts a beautifully sarcastic arbiter. The video quality isn’t excellent, but surprisingly, the audio quality is pretty great (for every character except Marius), with almost no background noise or fuzz.

Enjolras: All of us make up a society that we call the Friends of the ABC

Enjolras: *awkwardly nods and grins*

Enjolras: Which is actually a pun, because... ABC pronounced together sounds like the word abaissés, which means “lowly” or “abased...

Enjolras: So... it’s... it’s a pun.

I know I’m only reviewing pilot episodes to keep it fair, but I will say yes, the quality of the series absolutely does improve over time, and I would highly recommend giving it a go if you’ve never seen it before! You can find the whole series here.

2. Official Les Amis Vlog

Premiering at almost exactly the same time as number 2 on this list, the Les Amis Vlog is similar in terms of quality but different in style. This is as it says - a vlog channel, with divided playlists for each character in the Amis. Every character uploaded vlogs between 2013 and 2015 introducing themselves, answering questions, and making content on certain themes. 

This one took me by surprise - I was very much underwhelmed by the camera quality and lack of plot, but once I started watching, I realised why the Les Amis vlog doesn’t have plot - it’s because instead of making up political issues and action, they actually discuss real politics - in the pilot episode, Enjolras actually talks about a real news article from Reuters and then goes on into an impassioned rant on public surveillance  - it’s kind of amazing.

Enjolras: I mean, you wanna hide your face for whatever reason? Well, congratulations! You’re now a potential t*rror*st for having stood in the way of the observational machine!

Obviously this one is much more about the characters than it is any sort of plot like we’ll see in some of our later series, but... these characters are by far some of the most convincing Les Amis I’ve seen! Particularly Enjolars - wow. So if that sounds like your kinda thing, check it out here!

3. Vines de l'ABC

A multimedia webseries that ran from 2016-2018, but mostly confined to Vines, this one in essence is similar to the Les Amis Vlog in that it is more character driven than plot driven - the different characters were all cast and then separately uploaded Vines (and occasionally YouTube videos) as well as answering questions to the main blog.

The first “episode” is, as common for these webseries, a video of our Enjolras introducing Les Amis and his character, then being interrupted by a phone call. The quality is webcam quality, the sound pretty fuzzy, but I do think Dorian here makes a great Enjolras... more on that shortly! Overall, the quality of this first episode isn’t super relevant to the rest of the series though, because as is obvious by the name, it’s mostly comprised of amusing little vines.

*Tik Tok by Ke$ha plays*

Enjolras: Hello? Did you change my ring tone again? ...Again? Well, I mean, I'm trying to do the video... No, I mean, I'm actually in the middle of doing the video right now, you're on camera... No, no I don't know how to edit it out... I mean, does he have a concussion, or..? *sighs* ...How did I know he had a concussion.

Obviously vine is dead, but everything is available here - if this sounds like your kind of thing, definitely go check it out! There is TONS of content for your consumption here.

4. Barricade Boys

Next up is a comedy/parody show from NyxRising, an already established group of YouTube cosplayers who’ve made lots of similar shows previously. This means, for a start, that the production quality here is some of the best you’ll see - great audio and video quality, basic but good set design, great costumes.

Now, let’s make it clear: if you’re looking for a brick accurate show, this is not the one for you. It’s a pretty ludicrous parody, with an unbelievably arsehole Enjolras with no notion of personal space, a Grantaire with weird sideburns and a crush so obvious it’s hilarious, a Marius so dumb he thinks he’s joining a “lonely hearts club” and a Courfeyrac so OOC that I don’t even know where to begin. 

But god damn, did this make me laugh out loud a good few times.

Enjolras: You do you, Grantaire. Nobody else will.

This one has a couple episodes out already, and I’d highly recommend if you want some laughs! You can find it here.

5. The Downtrodden

Aaaand... onto our January debuts! I’m super excited to give a review of the pilot episode of Shadow of the Tor’s “The Downtrodden”! 

One thing that stuck out to me immediately is that this might be the most diverse cast yet - we have multiple POC, and also a trans Enjolras - in both cases, there’s no self-congratulatory back-patting, but it’s made very clear and very casual, and it’s wonderful. Another point worth mentioning is that our Enjolras is the same Enjolras seen in Vines de l’ABC - and as I mentioned, I think Dorian is great at the role.

The Downtrodden seems to be going for an enjoyable line between plotty and humorous, and so far I’m super excited to see where they take it. The audio and video quality is outstanding, though the cafe background noises could do with being toned down just a tiny bit (as there are occasionally character lines in the background that are a little drowned out), but overall it’s by far the most professional looking alongside Barricade Boys (which had to contend with far less characters!). One comment I will make, though nitpicky, is that unlike Barricade Boys, which moves extremely swiftly through its jokes, The Downtrodden is edited just a pace too slow in one or two scenes, meaning the comic timing falls a little off and the jokes don’t quite get the reaction they really deserve.

Grantaire: You get free coffee refills here if you’re part of a student group. I gotta make that loan last.

Cosette: Do you consider yourself a politically motivated person?

R: I barely even consider myself a person.

C: Oh. Are you alright?

R: Is anyone?

Surprisingly, one of my favourite characters in the pilot episode was Marius! I often find he’s overplayed to death, but in this he appears a little dim but genuinely charming, and he got some of the best laughs out of me. I’d be interested to know how well all the jokes landed with someone who isn’t a Brit, however, since I’m super sold on all these characters being British uni students (student poverty aesthetic and Oxfam shopping bags, goddamn!), and also love Courfeyrac for the same reason - he seems like your typical friendly but laddish uni type, which works perfectly for his character. Also, I own that mug he has.

One of the strongest points, and a very common issue I have with Les Amis webshows (and the 2012 movie NOT GONNA LIE), is losing track of who is supposed to be who - I had no such problem with The Downtrodden - everyone is introduced naturally, gets at LEAST a line or two, and is beautifully acted - go check out the pilot here!

6. The Les Amis Webshow

The last one on our list - the Les Amis Webshow premiered on the last day of January!

First impressions of this webshow are: the most enticing hook yet straight from the beginning, and some of the worst sound quality.

After the introduction - structured as Marius speaking to us from the future - the pilot episode actually centers around a random film student coming up to Marius and asking if they can film him. Is this Cosette? Will we ever find out? Who knows, but for some reason Marius just takes it in his stride and lets this person follow him around, in what I can’t decide is a very weird move, or a very Marius move.

Jehan: Are you wearing your lanyard?

Marius: Yeah. Why? That’s what it’s for.

Jehan: (laughing) You simple little freshman!

Marius: *long pause*

Also Marius: We’re gonna get along great!

The editing is actually fun and a few shots seem to be going for something quite adventurous - I just wish the audio quality were better.

I like Enjolras so far - he seems very confident in himself and a little bit of a rich boy, and I’m really interested to see what they do with Marius, since this is the only webshow so far where Marius has been front and center instead of Enjolras - in that snippet at the start, he seems very anxious and weary - it’s very Empty Chairs at Empty Tables! Overall, this has the most “plot-y” vibe to its initial episode so far, and reminds me a lot of Stories from Les Amies, honestly. I’m very excited to see what they do with it, and am also euphoric at a REGULAR UPLOAD SCHEDULE unlike the other two which are currently running - Barricade Boys and The Downtrodden. Keep up with it every Thursday here!

Thank you so much to @starberry-cupcake for helping me compile this list!

highlight reel: @/SFLA who the fuck makes a feature length movie oh my god, the sheer levels of gay in BB, Marius’ super poshboy accent in TD (sorry if thats just how u speak Ethan), and best of all the German flag taking centre stage in tLAW - the european cynic in me is desperate to know why its there and hopes that you didn’t just mix up French and German flags lmao