A line I wrote about Vector in a recent chapter of my big fic made me think of this oneshot.

Tails said, "Vector's quite a wordsmith. I doubt I'd have the energy to talk with that many idioms in my casual speech."

I do that! I do the same bloody thing! Nowhere near as good as Vector does, but my speech patterns contain a lot of idioms. Most are western, but I occasionally adopt other cultures idioms. ;P (Thanks Germany, I love eggs! lol)

I dressed it up a bit for the story, but this situation took place in my Mum's Cape Breton kitchen, this past summer.

I'm putting me as Vector and Cream as my daughter.

~Children and Idioms~

Cream walked into the kitchen where Vector was doing dishes. She held up her tablet and showed her step-dad the animation she'd been working on all morning. "Daddy Vec, I managed to get it to work. Look," she held her device to view.

Vector dried his hands and turned away from the sink. He took the tablet and looked at the small gif she'd made of her Chao, Cheese. It winked, then smiled with a wave. The animation was around thirty frames. He watched through the whole thing a few times, taking note of all the detail gone into the piece. "Excellent. It's always great to see you expanding your talents beyond paint programs."

She smiled and hugged her tablet close. "I want to do a whole series on my Chao. I've got a bunch of characters lined up, scenery planned out and music I'm adding in. Then I'll post it to social media to see what people think."

Vector was shocked. "Are you sure that's not too much work for one person?"

Cream shook her head. "I'll work on it a little bit at a time and it'll get done."

"Best to put your nose to the grindstone, then," he said and turned back to the dishes.

"What?" she was confused.

"Oh," Vector thought about another way to word it. "You need to give it your all."

"O-okay," she said with uncertainty and flipped to another image. She held it next to Vector so he didn't need to turn. "This is a picture of the cast so far," she said and showed him a lineup of very colorful characters of all shapes, sizes, creeds and colours. "I want to try and get an episode done every couple of weeks."

"Do you have a script?"

She shook her head.

"You should probably make one."

"Nah," she said dismissively. "I can make it up as I go."

Vector was persistent, "Improvisation, or, making it up as you go, isn't as easy as you think. At least make notes of how you want your cartoon to go, before you start. It'll get away from you if you don't."

"...get away? How?" Cream was confused again.

Vector sighed and laughed at himself. He went full tilt. "As baller as it would be to see you knock one out of the park, let's try to keep things on the level for the time being. If people don't pick up what you're putting down, the whole thing goes belly up. Keep it in the back of your head, that you reap what you sow. Ya dig?"

She stared harder through squinted eyes. "What in the...maybe? No?"

He grinned wide. "What I mean is: It would be very fulfilling if you made something huge and amazing, but you should stick to your skill level for now. If others have a difficult time understanding your art because it's rushed and sloppy, they aren't going to respond in a way that'll help you grow. Dont' forget, take your time to learn your art and you'll get better results. Do you understand now?"

She looked like a light came on. "Ooooh! Yep, now I do," she said and gave him a hug.

He kissed her forehead, "Heh, there you go, sweetie. Have fun."

Cream ran off to create, "I will."

I have one other story I wrote years ago that I'm going to repurpose in a fic later on too. My daughter says some hilarious things that I never want to forget. XD

(Also, I know I should follow my own advice...but shush, notes are for the weak! DX)