not a clever title

it's hard to pick out all the individual Influences; I think overall it's kind of...an unholy mishmash of late 90s/early 2000s anime and western animation? for specifics though I usually cite Sailor Moon, Batman Beyond, and Ciné si/Princes et Princesses (which itself is a visual homage to the The Adventures of Prince Achmed). plus everything else that just gets picked up and unconsciously absorbed into my brain. :B

my love of whackadoodle style shifting in particular I think I can trace (at least mostly) back to Sailor Moon...I aspire to someday be as fucking funny as the animation in that show was. 😔

you gotta wonder what exactly he thought was going to happen...

honestly, I feel like any attempts at a Swing origin story should answer nothing and raise more questions. the only concrete part is that it involves a lot of bugs...somewhere...in there. the rest? maybe it's better we don't find out.

"bring to me your goodest boys," they said. and the boys were brought, and sunshine and sweetness spread throughout the land.

"no wait," they said, "now it's too good. we need some balance here. you got any spare weird little freaks hanging around?"

re-emerging from the underworld like a Cerberus 🐾

no shade to Mr. Burton, I just needed a name and his was right there for the taking! 🤷 and isn't taking things thematically appropriate for them anyway?

...so to heck with it. they fell through a time portal or something. it's not important, don't worry about it ⏳

the squeakquel

out of all of them? I am of course extremely biased towards Malleus' card story, in which he very proudly shows off to his tsum that he knows how to use this arcane tool the humans call a (each syllable carefully pronounced) "mi-cro-wave", almost drops it in the washing machine, and then throws it a big special party where everyone fights over who gets to dance with Malletsum. I still don't know how exactly they were dancing with a six-inch blob. it's magical.

however, it's hard to top "Jadetsum helps Jade hide a body except the twist is that it was actually setting him up to take the fall". watch out, you little bean, Jade'll get you back someday...

happy pride!! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 the Twst Yuri niche may be small, but we are determined (and also kind of lowkey thinking about Georgina and Dylla 24/7 anyway) (...or that might just be me) (regardless!)

Alexandria's gotta be in full Tournament Mode by now, so I like to imagine her juuuuust offscreen in every scene, shouting furiously at the RSA boys to Chin Up and Gird Those Loins and Stiffen Those Upper Lips! if you don't know her then she probably sounds like a weirdly Enid Blyton-esque drill instructor, but they all know that actually she's being very supportive and encouraging (and of course Dorothy is there to encourage her :)

bear with me here, because this actually ties into something else I've been thinking about: between the Knight, Leia, and Henrik, Silver is basically the last remaining heir to all the land the Silver Owls stole, yes? but what with all the global territory disputes and treaties and general drama, it'd probably just be a huge mess that would get tied up in red tape for centuries if he, you know, tried to just give it back. however, for times like this, there is the traditional solution...

what I'm saying is, 99% of Briar Valley's political issues could be instantly solved if Silver marries Maleficia.

okay I admit I've been pretty unfair about those, because it IS difficult to encapsulate...(gestures to the huge emotional mess that is NRC) in just a couple of sentences each. and in particular because some of them ARE meant to be surprising; like, for example, Epel being such an angry little scrungle despite looking Like That. so I will eat crow here! (sorry headmaster) (though to be fair I will say that my issue is less the descriptions themselves being terrible, and more that they make all the characters sound like terrible people...which, to be even fairer, they kinda are. just, uh, more entertainingly so.) but yeah, I must fully admit to my hubris, because the only way I can think of to be more accurate is just to add the same exact label to everyone:

IM SO HYPEDDDDD

OH YEAH THE HYPE IS VERY REAL!!!! it was on the schedule for after Kalim's birthday, so it's probably not going to be until. the very end of the month. 🫠 but at least we know it's coming now!