#lilli

Christmas Commission for @benledessineux

Here's Lilli, one of Kim's closest friend. She does seems cool, kinda sassy in a way, but cool.

She have her own cookie's recipe ! They're darker, probably dark chocolate kind.

Still on the "Wario Land" kind of power up for Rakuna, and this time, she's frozen ! Don't worry, aside of getting cold, she'll be fine.

Lilli and Rakuna (c) Benledessineux

There is so much I genuinely loved. The art style is stunning. The way light, colour, and painting are woven into the emotional landscape is beautiful. The melancholy and the longing works. As a story about art and fragile dreams, it really touched me.

But my history-obsessed brain could not fully relax.

The London we are shown feels almost like a romantic utopia. Cosmopolitan. Refined. Artistically enlightened. A space where talent transcends class, where foreigners are warmly integrated, where friendships flourish without friction. And yet this is early 1900s Britain. The Empire is at its peak. Colonial domination is not peripheral to this setting, it is central to it.

Framing London as a soft aesthetic heaven while completely detaching it from imperial violence feels deeply unsettling.

It becomes even more uncomfortable when you think about Peter, the Indian character in the friend group. We never learn where he comes from, what his position is, or how he navigates imperial hierarchies. In a period structured by racial domination, his presence feels symbolic rather than historical. The near absence of racism within this cosmopolitan circle of friends reads less like harmony and more like erasure.

The same applies to the Japanese heroine studying abroad. Historically, it is not impossible during the Meiji or Taishō era. Art was becoming professionalised, and some mobility through talent did exist. But the academy in the show feels almost utopian in how easily class and gender barriers dissolve. Structural racism, institutional sexism, and the exclusion of many women artists are barely touched.

Even World War I follows this pattern. The focus remains on romantic sorrow rather than on the brutality of trench warfare or the mass deaths of working-class men and racialised soldiers. I was also uncomfortable with the subtle romanticisation of aristocracy. The idea that nobles “lost something” during the war feels uneasy when we remember who was actually sent to die in overwhelming numbers.

Honestly, I think the story might have worked better in a fictionalised setting. A made-up England and a made-up Japan would have allowed all that beauty and emotional depth to exist without brushing up against very real imperial histories.

Tabaluga Tangled AU doodle dump because it's my favorite movie and I haven't seen it yet in the fandom! I also took inspiration from the Tabaluga and Leo Christmas Special for this.

In this AU Lilli is the princess kept locked away in the Ice Castle and Arktos is her Mother Gothel. Although Lilli doesn't know a lot about Greenland, she is fascinated by its culture and festivals and dreams of going there someday. One day, on her birthday, she asks Arktos if she can visit Greenland but he refuses like always which disappoints her. To make her feel better, Arktos steals the Jewel of Greenland to give to her as a birthday gift. Without the jewel, the super important one in a thousand years celebration can't happen so Tabaluga breaks into the Ice Castle to get it back and that's when he meets Lilli. Because Arktos fed her a lot of "scary dragon" propaganda she freaks out initially and whacks him on the head with a pan, but then she realizes he isn't a threat and they are able to have a talk. When Tabaluga explains the importance of the jewel, she promises to give it back if Tabaluga takes her to the festival. And of course they end up falling in love ❤️