April's Dream House (Patreon)

Looks like I have not posted this previously (if I did, I didn't tag it and now I can't find it.)

Back when Aqua Teen Hunger Force was on the air, I thought about  how to create a sardonic animated comedy for adults that centered around  female characters, possibly even having no male characters, the way that ATHF had no female characters. My high concept was a Barbie  doll who has to open up her home to an assortment of other toys, where behind the scenes presumably a little girl with a very dark sense of  humor was telling these stories. Since I don't want to run afoul of any toy company's Standards and Practices division, and I don't want to have to memorize lore I don't need, I renamed all the characters and franchises. The Barbie-based main character became April because as a very young child, I had a toy called Sweet April's Playland, and that somehow merged with Barbie's Malibu Dream House in my head.

Eventually I added a few male characters, and gave up on the dream of making it an animation, since I  can’t draw and I don’t really have access to people who can who have  time to do something like this. I still kind of hope to make it a comic  book or something like that, though, because this would be funnier if  it’s visual.

Since #37 of the 52 Project is set in this universe, I've decided to post this background before posting the story.

Cast:

April (April and Friends) (Based on Barbie): Meet April. One of America’s most beloved celebrities, April has been, over the course of her lengthy career, a nurse, a neurosurgeon, an astronaut, a firefighter, a rocket scientist, CEO of a company, owner of a restaurant, a police detective, a model, a rock star, and an actress. Also, a mother figure to her three younger sisters, Betty, Courtney and Madison. (One wonders where her mom is.) But the sad secret to April’s incredibly varied career is that she is too big of an asshole to keep a job. She’s incredibly smart, sarcastic, and cruel to anyone she thinks is intellectually or socially beneath her, which is everyone. She’s also addicted to uppers, and doesn’t sleep, like, ever.

Though she’s remarkably talented, her equal talent for pissing people off has gotten her blacklisted from several industries lately, and so, facing foreclosure on her magnificent Dream House mansion, April is forced to… ugh… take in housemates.  Thus, the plot of April’s Dream House begins with April reluctantly inviting others into her home to help her pay the mortgage. 

Appearance: White, tall, long blonde hair, blue eyes. Wears a lot of classic fashion, rich white lady from old money type stuff. Also a lot of things like sparkling white tennis outfits and the like. Huge boobs, tiny waist.

Housemates:

Sheonte (Divazz) (based on Bratz): Part of the Divazz team of fashion designers, journalists and adventurers, but the Divazz have broken up recently, the result of internal lawsuits and sexual shenanigans involving each other’s husbands. The Divazz and April’s entourage considered each other top competitors ten years ago, to the point of being at “war”, so Sheonte and April kind of low-key hate each other, but Sheonte needs a place to live ever since she caught her husband Jax having sex with her best friend Vivi, attacked them both brutally with her shoes and then ran into the night screaming. Jax has chosen not to press charges but has a restraining order against Sheonte, so she’s sort of stuck looking for a place to live, and all her other friends have taken Vivi’s side.

Appearance: Black, shorter than April, has a big beautiful fro that she occasionally does up in dreads. Very urban style, hip-hop  look, also wears shoes with absolutely ridiculous spiked heels. Does not have  as exaggerated a figure as April. When she is first introduced, she has no feet, since she attacked her friend and her husband with her shoes and  Divazz’s shoes are part of their feet, but she acquires a wide assortment of feet very quickly.

Catrina (Weargirls) (Based on Monster High): The Weargirls were top fashion models who all happened to be animal shapeshifters. Catrina, to no one’s surprise, is a cat. She thinks she’s supposed to live up to this, frequently making cat puns and throwing random meows into her conversation. Catrina thinks she’s tough, but really isn’t. Tries to start shit with her housemates. April and Sheonte bond over how immature she is and how the Weargirls are total ripoffs of their own thing. The Weargirls had to break up and move to different places when they faced legal and community opprobrium for being a group of "monsters". Catrina decided to move in with April because April's ad for housemates turned up at the right time. She often complains that April's house is not as good as her friend Batrice’s creepy mansion (Batrice being a bat shapeshifter, and also a vampire. With vampire parents.)

Appearance: Long, straight black hair. Body and face design is “race-coded” to look Latina, but she has tabby markings on her skin and cat eyes and ears. She is supposed to be Mexican. Yes, la Catrina is a Mexican representation of death. Did the toy companies know this? No, they just had some dim understanding that Catrina is a Mexican name. Will the little girl telling the story know this? Oh hell yeah.

Kerry Kitty/Kelly Kitty (Japanese mascot character, Kerry/Kelly Kitty and Friends) (Based on Hello Kitty) Kelly herself refers to herself as Kerry and Kelly interchangeably. Kerry is a Japanese mascot character who is a cat. She is a white cat with a smile who is often seen doing the maneki neko beckon thing with her paw; is only vaguely anthro in that she is bipedal and has a much bigger head in comparison to body than a cat (or than a human, or a human doll). Kelly is very amiable and friendly, but is tired of having her life micromanaged by her agents. She is a huge celebrity in Japan, but less well known in the US, and is thrilled that sometimes people don’t know who she is. Has a pet named Chibineko, which she freely admits is a ridiculous name (it means “little cat”; apparently her American agents stuck her with the name. She wanted to name it Unagi, because it squirms out of her vaguely anthro arms like a little eel.) Catrina often tries to pick fights with her because “catfight”, but Kerry just laughs.

Appearance: Is a bipedal white cat with a  really big head. Mostly dresses in a very casual style but has a bunch of kimonos from  home she likes to wear around the house when she feels like being comfy. Never  wears shoes. Has cat feet and paws, but somehow manages opposable thumb tasks.  Unlike the real Hello Kitty, Kelly does in fact have a mouth.

Cherry Blossom (Best Pony Friends) (Based on My Little Pony): Is a pony. Pink, with a white mane that’s tied up with a big pink flower hair clip. Cherry Blossom comes from a land of friendship and sharing, and is a bit miffed that in this new world she has to give pony rides and act in stupid Disney movies to make a living. She’s kind of bitter because she was flung into another dimension years ago and none of her so called friends have come to rescue her. And by kind of bitter, I mean she’s a giant bitch.

Doktor Zapp (Playstuf mad scientist lab set) (based on Playmobil): Rents the basement, which he’s converted into his new lab. Doktor Zapp is rather resentful that he’s been cast as some sort of malevolent mad scientist, performing horrible experiments on the human body, when all he wants to do is create the perfect cyborg. His previous lab got trashed by a twenty-foot-tall dog that chewed on most of the lab equipment; he barely got away with his life by hiding under a gigantic couch. Now he’s trying to rebuild his life. He does government contracting for a living.Appearance: Smaller than all the others because he’s a playset action figure. White hair in a bowl cut, pale skin, dark glasses he never takes off. Always seen in a lab coat, green shirt and black pants.

Lovey (an elderly, non-franchised, stuffed puppy): Is a hound dog. A stuffed puppy that was adorable once, but now she’s elderly, her coat patchy and fraying, stuffing leaking, one eye pointing in a different direction than the other. Lovey’s kind of perpetually sad because her owner went to high school and started ignoring her, and then went away to college and never came back. Also, because she's a hound dog.

Emily Egg (Emily Egg, line of small baby dolls with furniture) (based on Penelope Peapod): Is a baby doll, but close to the same size as the fashion dolls, just proportioned like a baby. Emily doesn’t talk much, and when she does, it’s kind of baby babble, but she is friendly and cheerful. Has sort of latched onto April as a quasi mother figure. Is also great friends with Lovey. Emily sleeps in an egg-shaped basket.

April's Love Interests:

Chad (April and Friends) (Based on Ken from Barbie): Is April’s “boyfriend”. He’s handsome, stylish and romantic, and very gentlemanly; he’s never pushed her to have sex. He’s a model, an actor, and the lead singer of a teen-beloved boyband. He’s also completely and totally gay, and April is the only one who doesn’t know it, but he is afraid of ruining his career if he comes out because he works for Disney-esque child-friendly networks

Steve (Real American Heroes) (based on GI Joe): Is April’s other boyfriend, the one she is cheating on Chad with. Steve is an ex-Marine, smart, tough and rugged. He’s also bi. He knows of Chad’s existence but thinks Chad is a jerk for not coming out to April and breaking up with her, because he, like everyone on the planet but April, knows that Chad is gay. 

When Steve actually meets Chad, he finds to his shock that he actually likes the guy. Steve and Chad both end up breaking up with April and marrying each other; she gets to be Best Woman. April remains friends with them both but cries a lot about the whole thing.