#I don't think I've ever posted about penny on here... this is penny! they're a new-ish stuffie but my biggest comfort atm :))

[polkadotplayhouse]

Penny loves my new water bottle- almost as much as I do!

[asgardian--angels]

Talking on the phone with my mom I finally broke down and cried thoroughly about the cancellation. I think I'd been holding it in for the last two days, or two months. And honestly I've been wondering all along why this show means so much to me. I am not queer, I am not neurodivergent, I am not POC or disabled or any of the groups that this show has been so important for in terms of representation and being treated with respect and dignity. I understand and completely empathize with all of you, and fight for this show and your rights worldwide alongside you, but it still left me wondering why I myself have latched onto Our Flag Means Death. I suppose part of it is that despite being white and cishet and the privileges that have always come with that, I have been treated like an outsider and ostracized my entire childhood and teenage years, for being ugly and having "disgusting" interests (primarily liking insects, reptiles, other creepy-crawlies - aka the thing I literally do for my career now). I was bullied relentlessly from preschool through early college and became a very lonely introverted person - I still am. Undoubtedly Our Flag Means Death gave me renewed hope that I haven't missed some key window for finding love or relationships of any kind that matter, as I sit here typing this at age 28 having never dated anyone.

But it had to be more than that. And with everything that's happened the past couple of months, and the last few days, I think it finally clicked for me.

Followers of my blog may or may not know that I am a conservation biologist, or pollinator ecologist, whichever hat fits best on a given day, they're quite close. I don't make many original posts like this anymore on here because my job is so busy. Basically, I do a variety of things - academic research, habitat management & restoration, and public outreach - to try and preserve biodiversity and ecosystems on our planet. I'm just going to say it: it's a thankless job. Nothing we do ever feels like it's enough, and burnout is common in our field because we sit with the guilt of feeling like we are the only thing between survival and utter destruction of planet Earth, and work ourselves to exhaustion. It's one of those jobs where your work is your life, and your passion is your work, and it's inseparable from who you are on a molecular level. We are often faced, on a large scale, with hostility, from people that don't believe in science and are more than happy to pull a shotgun on us, or rich old men in power who are content to watch the world burn for another penny in their bank account. There are days when sometimes it sinks in just how bad things are, and it's terrifying, and I feel like we will never be able to do enough, to change enough, before it gets catastrophic. It's paralyzing.

My ability to do my job is dependent on hope. Unwavering, unrelenting hope. Hope beyond hope. We have to believe what we're doing matters, otherwise we'd fall down and never get back up again. I'm no big-shot, I give talks to a few hundred people at a time, and make urban pollinator habitat on a local scale. Is any of that going to make a difference compared to the ramifications of a single oil mogul deciding to cut corners and cause an oil spill that kills millions of seabirds and damages ocean food chains for decades to come? If people in my field let thoughts like that linger, we'd be paralyzed to inaction. I have to hope that the people I teach choose to do something good with that knowledge, and go on to inspire others, or that the patch of habitat I make allows a declining species to maintain a foothold instead of going locally extinct. You just have to keep going.

And Our Flag Means Death got wrapped up in that for me. The Stede Bonnet effect, if you will. He set out to do pirating differently, treating his crew with respect and helping them grow. In return, they internalized that mindset, and it spread to how they interacted with others. It changed the trajectory of individual lives, and also at least began to change how the society of pirates operated as a whole. It was a beacon of hope that choosing small acts of kindness did matter, even if you yourself could not see the ripples it made. It renewed my faith that love persevered and would win. That we could all make life a little better for each other and ourselves through kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and mutual support. I think a good chunk of that is from Taika - these are running themes in his projects, and his films move me deeply for that. This show became in some, perhaps subconscious way, a source of strength for me to keep putting myself out there in my line of work to do whatever I was capable of to help the cause.

The cancellation was devastating, but the second cancellation (turbohell cancelation?) was even more so. Because now it's so clear that this is largely the work of David Zaslav and the regime he's built. It's petty, it's greedy, and more than anything, it's cruel. Indifferently, indiscriminately cruel, when one person at the top can have such power to make or break the lives of thousands, millions, beneath them, and though it would have been barely a drop in the bucket, a hand wave, to renew our show or let it pass to another streamer, he actively chose to shackle it to this sinking Titanic of a company WBD has become. I have always operated on the belief that you can do anything if you work hard enough at it, and believed deep down that there was some order, some justice in the universe, atheist though I be. We as a fandom did everything we possibly could, we loved this show harder than anything. The numbers were there, the awards nominations were there, the critic praise was there, and we were loud and loyal every single day. I felt like we could do this - how could we not win when we've done so much, and the show deserves it so much? Surely cause and effect will prevail.

This fight seemed small, though really it wasn't; we fought for the right of artists and creators to make quality, original stories and have them told to their natural end, we fought for diversity representation to be more than a token character - OFMD raised the bar so much higher on all fronts, we fought to shed light on the chaos and impending collapse of this industry silencing art and exploiting writers, actors, and all manner of production workers. It was a small fight from the outside, one that I really felt we could win. And I put my heart and soul into it, because if we could win this, if we could save this simple, kind love story about two guys on a boat, then maybe there was hope for the bigger, badder stuff too. It shouldn't seem an insurmountable task for several thousand fans to convince a streaming service that they'd turn a tidy profit to give our show one more season.

Yet we lost - through no fault of our own. I am so proud of us. But that really struck deep for me. If one peabrained CEO of a media company wouldn't budge on greenlighting a show that was in his every best interest business-wise - perhaps enough to even save Max from going under in the not-too-distant future - my god, what hope was there for changing anything bigger? The 'real' problems of the world? When no amount of ethos, logos, or pathos can penetrate these men at the top, where's that hope to fight? Lately the world seems like it's just going belly up all over. If we gave everything we could, and it still wasn't enough - if it could never be enough - what hope is there? It's like chaining yourself to a tree and the bulldozer plowing right on ahead. And I think that broke something in me. It shook me to my foundations because it broke my rules of how things are supposed to work. We believed hard enough, we worked tirelessly, and we deserved it for how important this show was to so many people. And it didn't matter. Our best wasn't enough. And that caused an avalanche of all of the horrible, scary things piled on my shoulders - we're losing the Amazon rainforest too fast to save, climate change is going to turn the corn belt into a dustbowl by mid-century, a border wall is going to devastate imperiled wildlife in Texas, deforestation and hurricanes on songbird wintering grounds could lead to entire species extinctions, saltmarshes are our lifeline and they're shrinking and we're still building stupid concrete stormwalls, invasive diseases will completely alter the composition of our forests to be unrecognizable to our children, and if you don't make every slide of this powerpoint utterly perfect and you fail to convince every single person in attendance to get rid of their lawn then you've failed and the world is doomed.

I've struggled with being a perfectionist my whole life. This didn't help.

That's where I was a couple hours ago. But I took some deep breaths. I know the world isn't fair. But I really thought if we could win this one battle, then we could win the war.

But here's what I realized. Everything we did mattered. It mattered so much. Because there's the show, and then there's everything that was birthed out of that show. The community, so many of us around the world who have been uplifted by Our Flag Means Death in a real and lasting way that we will take with us and spread to affect those around us. The Stede Bonnet effect goes global. We raised thousands and thousands of dollars for charities around the world, real people whose lives have been improved, or maybe even saved, because of us and this silly pirate show. We brought a hell of a lot of attention to WBD and their shitty practices, keeping the momentum going in a way that I think is only going to build - and I sure hope it leads to Zaslav getting deposed. We have demanded more queer stories, more BIPOC stories, more disabled and autistic and middle-aged stories, stories with exquisite costumes and award-worthy wigs, dear lord, and we are being heard. We have expressed such love and support for the cast and crew, showing them that we appreciate their hard work and that we will be behind them in their future projects. So many of them have told us how the show and its fans have changed their lives. We convinced Rhys that his career isn't winding down but winding up, and to be unapologetic about his wonderful weirdness - we've proven to everyone through this show that your weirdness is what someone out there is going to love you for, not in spite of. We rallied to help writers and actors during the strikes in a way that was taken to heart and remembered. We have been out here talking it through as a crew, and turning poison into positivity, for over two years now, and that impact is permanent. They can cancel our show, they can try and slap copyright notices on our fan merch, and spew bullshit excuses about the numbers not being there. But Our Flag Means Death sparked a movement, the biggest pirate crew the world has ever seen, using our power for good.

We may not have any more new material for our show for a while, or ever. But I maintain hope that when the dust has settled and streaming has entered its 'new era' that they'll remember us and throw us a lifeline. Because hope is a part of my genetic makeup, and even in cancellation my hope has been renewed that the fight is worth fighting, that our individual choices of kindness are having an effect, and making the world a little easier to live in bit by bit. No one can take from us what we have built out of this show. And thanks to pirating, they can't take the actual show from us either. Despite this, no matter the outcome, I am so happy we got two seasons of this wonderful series. That was more than almost anyone expected. The story belongs to all of us, and it will always live on. We did not truly lose this battle, because in the process we gained more than we could have ever imagined. And I know there's still so much more to come. That gives me the strength to keep doing what I do, every day.

To me, Our Flag Means Hope.

[sanddusted-wisteria]

Doodle Dump, 4/2024 - Now (part 2)

I hit the image limit on the last part, so here's the rest of my doodling lol.

[Another long post below]

Qi needs to be bridal/princess carried. idk what else to say aldkfjlakdr

I seriously doubt that the builder's able to get off completely psychologically unscathed from all the spoiler events, especially if they're anything like Wis and just wanted to live their silly simple lil builder life :( This idea and others like it are being shelved for the moment bc her longfic is already a ton to think about and that only takes us to the end of the spoiler arc...

Tears prickled at Qi’s own eyes as his heart swelled. The lump in his throat stoppered any words he could have said. He held her tighter, feeling an ache with every one of her sobs. “I’m just…e-exhausted,” Wisteria whispered as her tears subsided enough for her to speak. She sniffed, taking another shaky breath in. “I-I…I never asked for any of this. This…this ‘hero’ bullshit. I just w-w… I never— I-I-I…” She gasped a few shallow breaths. “I’m just a builder…”

Mel (@/illusidy) introduced me to this great pencil brush on CSP (SU cream pencil) and I've been using it ever since :>

Another outfit for Wis <3

Since Wis is a clone, she and the others would make for a sick blind box/gacha series asldkrlakj

Also, underneath all the heavyhanded emotions and symbolism I'm writing for her, Wis always exists like this in my brain.

What a nerd. <3

We were thinking up genderbends over on OTAS, and the only name I could come up with for M!Wis was "Winston" 💀 It sounded like a butler name, so his story is that he was hired by Yan to make him look all cool and rich lol. What he really wants is to open his own hotel, but that's expensive, so he has to do other bit work he can with a hospitality degree. Probably bonds with Qi in that both of them have big dreams and an interest in relics, until oops, they're crushing on each other. Qi'll probably offer Winston an assistant position so he can earn more than the pennies that Yan gives him...totally not bc he likes him and hates watching him toil for nothing...

Some silly doodles with Duvos!Wis, ft. @/spookemsdukems 's "Builder", @/florisam 's Lev, and @peenuttg 's Saran :> (don't worry, she's got a newer prosthetic elsewhere...she's just keeping "Builder" occupied)

I just needed to see them in lab coats :>

And that's it for now! Hopefully I'll be better about posting stuff here in the future lol. Thanks for reading if you've made it all the way down both posts. <3

[sohardlovingyou]

in honor of midnight's two year anniversary, do you have a list of how you'd divide the album into john-songs and paul-songs? would love to know your thoughts! <3

Oh, I don't have a list but I can make one right now! I don't care about my job that much, lol

This is interesting because I think Midnights (alongside Rep) is the least mclennon Taylor album, buuuuuut it does have songs that individually are a lot like both of them so let's see

John songs:

Maroon: this is one of the few songs that I think are mclennon, but specifically I think it's very John pov re: 1968 NYC Apple trip. (heartbreaking, I know)

Anti-Hero: This one is self-explanatory, really. I cried on a train the first time I listened to it because it was so John-coded that it made me sad he was never going to hear it ):

The Great War: this is like Jealous Guy 2.0 (with the caveat that he was an idiot and Taylor is a princess)

Dear Reader: As my beloved @idontwanttospoiltheparty once told me, John was not self-aware enough to write something this intimate BUT I can't hear "you wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking" and "You should find another guiding light, but I shine so bright" without thinking about him, so #JohnCoded

Hits Different: Again, self-explanatory. Probably top 3 most John coded Taylor songs. "I picture you with other girls in love, and threw up on the street" is sooooo baby mclennon it makes me giggle. And "Dreams of your hair and your stare and sense of belief in the good in the world, you once believed in me" is SO SO SO John thinking about Paul that it makes me want to rip my heart out of my chest. But then she says "or have they come to take me away?" and i get sad for both of them.

Paul songs:

You're On Your Own, Kid: If I didn't find looking for video clips so tedious, I would have made a post-breakup Paul edit with that bridge because o m g. "I gave my blood sweat and tears for this" It's literally Get Bak Paul, and it makes me go insane thinking about it. "I looked around in a blood-soaked gown and I saw something they can't take away" they're both thinking about music, aren't they? Anyway, he was on his own and he DID face it.

Question...?: Taylor is so nonchalant and chill in this song that the fact that she's fucking furious almost flies right above your head. And Idk, it reminds me of the way Paul wrote Too Many People and Dear Boy. I wish I was better at explaining this but hopefully, you'll get it. "Does it feel like everything is second best after that meteor strike?" is so petty, lmao, it just gives: you'll NEVER replace me as your soulmate, cry about it (it works both ways tho).

Vigilante Shit: I just think he should have sung it about Klein doing the Eras Tour choreography.

Karma: I'm just adding it for the same reason as Vigilante Shit. "My pennies made your crown". "Ask me why so many fade and I'm still here", it's also self-explanatory.

Mastermind: The first time I heard "I've been scheming like a criminal ever since to make them love me and make it seem effortless" and "I'm only cryptic and Machiavellian 'cause I care" I gasped and went "PAUL!", so make of that what you will. Like, it's just him in song form. Also, baby Paul following John around before they officially met, and then pretending he has to think about being in his band lmao. "Checkmate, I couldn't lose" indeed.

✨MCLENNON BONUS✨

I couldn't finish this without mentioning that Midnights has a song that's literally called PARIS!!! And I have said this before but I think it's just John trapped in a hotel room in 1966 thinking about them going back there, and then THEY DID! (Paul ruined it but whatever).

[chaikachi]

ok ok - so you've mentioned Oscar's absence is just starkly obvious in Ever After. How so? Or more specific, how much different do you think things would have been if he was there? Especially in light of....... that recent event.

Thank you so much for your patience @skynapple! I knew this would be a long answer so it took me a bit to gather everything.

I think I've mentioned it in different ways across a few posts by now, but I'll try and summarize it all here!!

How Oscar's Absence Has Been Emphasized Throughout V9 (Specifically Through Ruby's Attachment to Him)

The first thing that clues us into this is actually how v8 is set up. When the teams are split, they're split by pairings. Or at the very least, foils (I will be referring to ship names just for conveniences sake).

Yang vs. Blake Ren vs. Nora Jaune vs. Weiss Oscar vs. Ruby

And we have multiple examples of who is supposed to foil who by the orders they're standing in the opening specifically. Which, as we all know, is full of symbolism and foreshadowing for the volume as a whole.

Example 1: We have the Bees at the center followed by Renora, Whiteknight, and Rosegarden left to right on either side of them.

Example 2: We have Ruby and Yang set as foils here with where they're positioned in proximity to the camera as the 'leaders' of each group. But if you look at them in a lineup order again from the outside in, it starts with Renora followed by RG, then WK and BB are flipped.

Example 3: Technically these are the first shots focused on division in the entire opening... and it's literally who mirrors who. Bees at the far left and right. Renora the next ones in. Then Whiteknight. And Rosegarden again.

Beyond the symbolism in the opening, this is reinforced by what happens over the course of the volume.

The divide that starts in the first episode is brought on by a disagreement between Ruby and Yang... but where Ruby worries about Yang, Yang worries more about Blake than her sister.

Yang: Do you... think she thinks less of me? For not helping out with Amity? (she asks while looking at a piece of purple machinery) Jaune: Ruby is your sister, she's always going to love you. Even if you disagree with each other. Yang: Yeah... Ruby...

And Blake, by extension, is worrying about Yang.

Ruby: I hope everyone is doing alright...* Blake: If you're worried about Yang, you could always try calling her? *flashback to when Ruby said "I'm just glad you're alright." when she found Oscar in the crater only to be separated from him again.

Ren and Nora's arcs and clash of ideals are clearly in focus as well, especially after their 'confession' in Risk.

Nora: I don't actually know who I am... without Ren... - Nora: When my mom ran from the grimm and left me behind... you found me. We became "Ren and Nora". But I realized on this mission apart... I don't know who just "Nora" is.

Jaune and Weiss is more subtle because they don't have as much character focus that volume, but they are the last two people left standing after Cinder's attack and were the only two present when Penny died. We instead see how that relationship is focused on throughout v9 in light of that shared experience.

That focus is exactly what happens with Ruby and Oscar's relationship as well, not just in spite of Oscar's absence, but because of it.

All the pairings I just mentioned? They all finished Volume 8 'reunited'. Or I guess a better description would be 'in the same place'.

Yang and Blake in the Ever After. Jaune and Weiss too. Ren and Nora back in Vacuo.

But Ruby and Oscar? They were the only two established foils that were split up in v8 that didn't get an actual reunion. And that's shown plain and clear in Ultimatum where we see everyone come back together only for RG's hug to be focused on and then interrupted. Foreshadowing to say they weren't quite there yet and to build up to a bigger reunion later on.

Part of the reason why I say his absence is so strongly felt is because RG is a ship built on absences. I am once again going to talk about other volumes first, I PROMISE i will get to v9 in a second, please bare with me ahaha.

In the v5 finale, we have focus on Oscar's reaction over everyone else when Ruby is knocked out of commission.

In v6, we have focus on Ruby when Oscar disappears and a focus on the two of them again when he returns in the following episode. (Not pictured in this gif is Ruby's eyes shaking in fear when she's told Oscar is missing, Ruby gasping when he opens the door, Ruby laughing when they tackle him to the floor, and Ruby helping him up afterwards).

In v7, it's established from episode 2 that they're having conflict which is elaborated on further in the following episode and further still by them being apart and in disagreement for the following few episodes. Until they both come to trust each other again during The Fumble in episode 9.

And I already spoke about the divide in v8.

But then v9? Where literally the first thing Ruby sees at the beginning of the volume is an illusion of Oscar? Not Yang first. Not Penny first. But Oscar?? And that illusion is one of him beaten and covered in bruises to really hurt Ruby more?

The scene where Neo flips between those people establishes three things that all get explored throughout the rest of the season.

Ruby's grief over Penny

Ruby's conflict and connection with her sister

Ruby's attachment to Oscar

The focus on her grief with Penny ties back into the Dojo Scene in volume 5. Where Oscar was the first and only person she actually talked to about that grief.

Ruby: When Beacon fell, I lost two of my friends. Penny Polendina and Pyrrha Nikos.

The focus on her connection to Yang in this volume, one where her sister finally enters a relationship with Blake, leaves Ruby feeling left behind by one of the few people she thought she had left. Even if it is irrational and not an actual loss, that distance feels stronger to Ruby here because she's already grieving so many other losses she hasn't processed yet.

I've gone over the above scene before, but part of what clues us into her thinking of Oscar, or at least the emphasis on his absence, is the symbolism used. Throughout the volumes, Oscar has been associated very strongly with sunlight, fire, and warmth that drives away the cold of Ruby's grief. This is most specifically and consistently shown with him being framed by lamps and lanterns.

So when she is placed in a room with her team, furthest from the fire (warmth), next to a lantern, across from an empty chair with a green/teal cloth on it? It's pretty easy to assume who she's thinking about. Weiss could have sat there. Or Jaune. But neither did. Because they wanted us to see how alone Ruby felt.

And then the focus on her attachment to Oscar with his death being the last illusion Neo uses against her. The illusion that breaks her to the point of reaching for the tea the first time and would have been the final straw had the Curious Cat not interrupted them.

Not only does this volume highlight what Oscar's absence in the Ever After does to Ruby... It also focuses on what the meaning of losing him in general would do to her. Because Oscar, above all else, is a symbol of exactly what motivates her to keep fighting.

In her letter in v4, she starts to tell Yang that they have to keep fighting for the people they've already lost... but then she hesitates. Crosses it out. Corrects that who they actually need to fight for is the people they haven't lost yet.

And Neo's personally tailored torture chamber starts by haunting Ruby with the memory of all those she has lost, or those whose deaths she feels responsible for...

...only to deal the finishing blow by telling her that if she keeps down the path she's headed, she will lose those she still has left. And she drives that point home with Oscar. Once again, not her sister Yang, not her friend Penny, not her team partner Weiss, not her Uncle Qrow, or any of their other friends.

Neo. Uses. Oscar.

Because he is who Ruby is closest to. And his loss is the one that would hit her the hardest.

As for the second portion of your question (I promise this section will be shorter) of how the volume might have been different had Oscar been around it's... really hard to say.

I truly believe his absence made this volume possible given how they structured it, and I really don't think it would have worked in the ways they needed it to had he been there.

That being said, I am down to speculate.

Oscar's always been very tuned into how Ruby is feeling or noticing when she's struggling and jumping to help when he can. There's a possibility he would have tried to do so had he been there. He may have had an approach like "No, enough of the moving forward nonsense, you are not okay and we are going to address that before we keep going". If he had and it had worked, then much of the conflict of that volume just wouldn't have happened, would have been postponed, or would have been resolved without Ruby ascending, which she needed to do in order to move the plot forward.

At the very least, Oscar would have snapped at both Weiss and Jaune for talking to Ruby the ways they had been before that boiled over. But I don't know that he would have actually been able to help with what little time they had... as well as some other factors.

Ruby was at a very low point, Yang was trying to get her to open up and Ruby wouldn't. Weiss and Blake also tried to offer support or reassurances but fell short.

One of the interactions with WBY that happens after Ruby snaps and storms off clues us into this:

Yang: Dammit! How could she just run off like that? Blake: She was clearly upset. Yang: That wasn't upset, that was... UGH! She could have just talked to us. Weiss: Maybe she didn't feel like she could.

I feel like this is a double edged sword. On one hand, with Oscar's absence being focused on, it implies that maybe Ruby didn't feel like she could talk to her team... but she might have been able to talk to Oscar because we know she felt safe enough to do that before. Both the dojo scene, and the fumble are great examples of this.

But there reaches a certain point for everyone struggling with mental health where community support doesn't cut it. Ruby may have been at too low of a point to even talk to him of all people. And Oscar trying to force her to open up when she didn't have it in her could have very well done more harm than good.

One other thing that's said in the volume after Ruby has begun ascending is this:

Weiss: We've done everything we can. Now it's up to Ruby.

I think Weiss of all people did more harm to Ruby's mental state than any good, but I digress.

The point of this line is that friends and family can offer support as best they can, but sometimes you have to fight your own battles. This was a journey Ruby had to do alone. Which as a side note, is a very nice parallel to Nora's current arc.

I think with enough time and support, that maybe Ruby would have been able to avoid locking it all away until she burst... But stories are driven by conflict and their subsequent resolution. Ruby's breakdown needed to happen one way or another and was a long time coming.

And I think they way they used Oscar - and specifically, his absence - to contribute to that breaking point was executed brilliantly.

Even if it hurt like hell 😭

[allwaswell16]

Hi lovely and thank for your sharing and caring in this fandom!

A bit finicky question, I'm here with. Don't know if I managed to mention different perspectives enough and contextualize it the way I wanted to, but anyway, do feel free to ignore or maybe just leave some tags:

What are your thoughts, your two pennies and just today (tomorrow is another day and maybe a new perspective), about the conversation going on about the commenting culture (nowadays in AO3):

the lack and/or decline of it

the urgent need for community, engagement, participation and positive feedback loop for authors

but also the growing and changing audience for fanfic

the growing idea that a fic is not a gift (it most certainly is) but some "factory produced and guaranteed content that keeps on coming and you are entitled to it"

the lack of reading comprehension skills

and the lack of skills to figure out the appropriate time and place for giving critique

but also the small but growing portion of authors who demand only certain kind of praise, worded in a certain kind of way and if not delivered accordingly attack brutally on everything and everyone

the cultural differencies as a player in participating, giving positive feedback and even using foreign language words

and of course the ever growing and spreading comment anxiety on "both sides"

and so on...

So how do you see it? What's your perspective? You are both an author and a reader. But then again, you are a reader who writes, so you actually know, what a writer likes to see in their comment field...

Hi, anon! Whew, well this is a lot, but I'm going to answer as much as I can haha. As you said, this is just my own perspective on things. I'd say I also have a little added perspective of being a writer who reads and writes in more than one popular fanfic fandom. So I can't help but compare my experiences in both.

I don't think the One Direction fandom has ever been overly generous with the kudos and comments to be perfectly honest. I think if you talk to writers who are active in other fic fandoms of similar sizes/popularity, they'd likely agree with that.

I want to be clear to start with here that I feel like readers have been very kind to me over the years. I've been here a long time now though, so I get the benefit of the doubt with some long time readers and those who subscribe to my ao3. But I also think that in part I have encouraged comments in a way that not every writer can or wants to do.

I answer every single comment. I answer them in a way that mirrors back the comment that was made. If you leave a long comment, I answer back in detail. If you send me something shorter, (which is fine and I love any and all comments!) I will answer back in a similar way. I also answer back pretty quickly. There are times I get behind, but I rarely get behind more than a month or so. And the day my fic posts, I try to answer every comment that gets posted on that first day.

Am I saying everyone needs to do what I do? Absolutely not! It takes a lot of time and energy to do that! But I do think there's a correlation to be made there. Readers see all the comments, see they're being answered quickly, and feel comfortable or like it's okay to leave one, too. OH, and also I want to say that me answering back (maybe obsessively) quickly is something that probably isn't possible for people who have a fic explode in popularity. I might have some popular fics but none of them were like overnight explosions in popularity. They've all been slow burners lol.

As for concrit with fic...I think it depends on the fandom. It is not something that is looked upon kindly in ours. There are definitely writers out there who ask for it which is fine, but the etiquette in our fandom is not to offer it unless asked for it. In my opinion, this makes a lot of sense for our fandom. Since writers are not getting the numbers of kudos and comments that are given more freely in other fandoms, it's a bit of a hard pill to swallow that we'd then expect them to also take unsolicited writing critiques.

Just using my own fics as an example, by the time I publish a fic multiple other writers have already read it. It's been proofread and betad by a writer with an MFA in creative writing. I'm not going to be taking concrit seriously from someone whose background in writing I don't know. When I publish the fic, it's done, I'm happy with the result, and I'm not going back to it to make changes. So there's not much point in telling me what I should have done differently with it.

Your point about some writers being perhaps overly sensitive about some comments...I wanted to say a few things about. There are a few common comments that immediately came to mind that writers have differing views on, and I think it's worthwhile for readers to think about.

One is something like I wish this was longer or please write more of this. If you comment this on any of my fics, I'll smile and consider it a compliment that you enjoyed it enough to want more. If you go through my comments, you'll see this is indeed what I've replied back to comments like that. There are other writers that are going to be exasperated by that comment or even offended by it. And even though I'm not one of them, I would say try to see it from their perspective.

What if that writer has spent months on that fic the reader considers "short"? I think readers sometimes forget just how much TIME goes into these fics. Just because a fic is 10k, 5k, whatever doesn't mean it didn't take a long time to write. And someone who spent months of time on something who likely didn't receive a whole lot of comments in the first place, and then one of the few comments they get could be interpreted as this wasn't enough. That's disheartening, you know? I think if you have the urge to leave that comment, maybe think first about the writer you're leaving that comment for. Or even think of a different way to say it like, "I could have lived in this fic forever" which is what I like to think is what most readers are trying to convey with comments like that.

Another one is who tops? Just don't, I'd say for that comment. I simply don't answer ones like that. But I'd say check the tags. If it's not tagged, either choose to move on if you have to know to read it or ctrl+F the fic yourself for the word "cock" or whatever. If the writer doesn't tag it, it means they didn't care about that. Or they got annoyed with their fics being reduced to that too often. PWP eh fine, but my 80k amnesia au I had a nervous breakdown writing that has one sex scene...eff off that's not what the fic is about. I once wrote a fic about grief. GRIEF! (well, and Antarctic scientists) that people argued over whether it was bottom Louis. And I resolved to never tag it again after that.

As for the fic as a gift vs not a gift I agree with you...I don't know what else you'd call something that is given for free. That's the definition of "gift." If someone reads the fic, a kudos is like a verbal thank you and a comment would be like a thank you card.

The comment anxiety thing I don't have an issue with myself, but I know writers who do and can't bring themselves to answer their comments. One of my friends feels so badly for not answering but when she tries she says her replies don't feel like enough. It's too bad that she can't answer due to actually loving her comments TOO much! Anxiety is a bitch for sure. For anyone who wants to leave a comment but is worried about it, I promise that super short ones or even keysmashes or emojis are very welcome! I have a mutual on tumblr who leaves the same comment on every one of my fics that simply says she loved the fic and I promise it makes me happy every single time because now I know she read it and enjoyed it whereas I might have missed whether or not she left a kudos. And when I see her on my dash, I think that's the one who loves my fics! :)

I swear I'm gonna stop rambling, but I want to end with one more thing. I think it would be interesting for readers and writers to experience a different fandom sometime if they're only in this one. It's not always a better/worse thing, but it might make people more open to trying new things like commenting/replying more or in different ways.

[tabletofruination]

Ohhh, wonderful! It looks like I've got this thing working, finally.

I did tell you that reading up would prove helpful...

Yeah, I probably could've done that. But, well, here we are, partner! I'll go first on the introductions!

You guys can call me Juliana--or Juli, for short! I've been a student at Naranja Academy for a year and a half now--and it turns out you can do a lot in that time! I wound up accomplishing a lot! Champion, beater of Team Star, a-and other stuff... Though you'll find I'm waaay more interested in learning about history, nowadays. I think I've got all of Naranja's library read by now...alright, your turn, partner!

Really? Must I? ...I suppose I've little choice. My name is of no importance, but you may call me 'Green' if you wish to designate a name for me. As Miss Juliana has stated, I am something of a partner to her research into the legends of Paldea. It is a pleasure, I suppose.

We'll be talking a lot about our findings and hopefully posting a lot about what we can find--we're especially interested in finding out more about the Treasures of Ruin in this region, and finding out more about their history! But we're also down to battle! So feel free to talk to us!

HELLO welcome to another ~bad sable decision~, this time presenting: an AU Juliana who has been living rent free in my head for months! Time to pay-up and become an actual blog girliepop.

Anyway. As for how this Juliana is AU? It's very simple: girlie here got fused with Wo-Chien after shit went VERY decidedly awry during The Way Home. I'm going to hopefully reveal the details very slowly, but this Juliana is actually a little more villainous in nature, though in a very innocent sort of way. She's already freed Wo-Chien and I'm sure you can all figure out what's going to be the gimmick of this blog a bit. :3c

Some ground rules!

Juliana is a minor. If I see even a singular anon getting weird I will utilize the block button liberally, so don't be weird.

Juliana's circumstances are...I'll be honest, they're a fair amount darker because she did technically fail to stop the Paradise Protection Protocol herself and basically told her world's version of Nemona/Arven/Penny to run for their lives. And it haunts her. Oh does it haunt her. But while she technically lost, Wo-Chien basically won the rest of the fight and got Juliana out, though nobody is really aware of the whole. Fusion situation. As a result, some things have changed--particularly the Teal Mask, it plays out VERY differently here, and Juliana received no invitation to go to Blueberry as a result. And yes, she's basically kind of a villain now. :3c

Any description of the fusion and stuff will be kept minimal but uh. Just a general warning for body horror if you do decide to ask. Please do not fuck around and find out without proper prep. 🙏

More details of her canon circumstances will come out in time as she answers asks, and I ask simply for no godmodding! I may let some details slip OOC early but don't bring them up until I feel the time is right please!

Let me know if you're not okay with Juliana or Green interacting! Green is going to be keeping up a facade as a Totally Normal Human, but I imagine it's not going to take rocket science to figure out what Green is hiding. But I am treating canon like silly putty here, and Green will interact with people of their own accord. If you're not cool with that, let me know. Or if you want Green and not Juliana, or neither, just let me know!

Yes there are two Koraidon on the trainer card. Juliana does not fight with either of them despite Bitey basically being that one meme with the cat on the stairs going "FATHER I CRAVE VIOLENCE". And Buddy is basically still scared shitless of battle! So she basically only fights with three of her Pokemon, but she is pretty strong despite the handicap.

Juliana herself can tap into Wo-Chien's moveset. She absolutely HATES doing so, though. She pretty much only ever uses Protect in a panic, usually, but uh. I figured I'd bring that up in case anyone asked!

Pelipper Mail/Malice on, as is Musharna Mail/Malice! Please just fuck the girliepop up.

I. May also do some regular RP on here? I do not know how tumblr RP works but I have brainworms and want to RP the girl. If anyone wants to RP I guess hmu???

idk what else to put here. i'll think as i go??? but yes. this'll mostly be juliana's daily life stuff and expedition logging to try and find more stakes and more research!

[coldslaws-gear-station]

I wanna know what happened after Alder caught up with bn in that one comic, I remember being really confused why it wasn't continued till I saw the pole from ages ago

Also yeah, roaches suck ass. Hate spring and summer cuz of them they scare the shit outta me

- 💌

scared of roaches gang ❤️ im lowkey so infuriated rn because i was legit about to turn over and go to sleep but i caught this one out of the corner of my eye and then it fell on my bed. so im definitely awake now

anyways woes aside. i still actually want to finish that comic and did make a bit of progress on it beyond whats been posted. problem is i don't have much motivation to finish the dream characters info (nero and gio jr) either because the person who i was developing them with left the fandom, and it sorta spurred me into losing interest in them except for penny. so im in this weird limbo zone of like "aughh i wanna finish the bau comic" "but i should finish the dream kids' info before i do that" "but i don't wanna work on them" if that makes sense u_u

but besides that, here are two unposted pages (theres an unfinished 3rd, but it's in too much of a messy state for me to post it without being embarrassed LMAO)

and then spoilers for the rest below

alder attempts to negotiate with n, but n just keeps refusing. alder knows he slipped up here in even mentioning prison, probably making n's stubborn refusal to cooperate even worse right now. he's just exhausted and frustrated, and admittedly, n has been one of the most difficult people he's ever worked with. he's given everything he can manage to try and help this man- he took hydreigon's blast to save his life, he's given him shelter and food, an opportunity at freedom, and n absolutely will not let his guard down even an inch. so alder is at his wits end.

"Natural... If you want to get off of house arrest, you have to stay here for two years. After that, you can just... lie to everyone, tell them you're better now. Then run off to wherever it is you wanna be so badly. I've given you as much freedom as I'm legally allowed, and still, it's just not enough for you."

Alder continues. "You can still come back in and go to bed. I'll do whatever I can to keep this infraction off your record, and we'll keep trying to figure out how to make this transition easier for you- but you need to be open with us. You can't be angry at a world that never wronged you. The only one to blame is Ghetsis."

N struggles to find words for most of Alder's rebuking, but at the mention of Ghetsis, of course, he snaps. "Do-- do you think it was only Ghetsis who hurt me? Do you think Ghetsis is the only human who I've seen cause pain? That man isn't even my real father- I-- I was born to a village that cast me out! Left me to starve- wanted me to die so I couldn't curse them with my presence!" This is the most N has even spoken to Alder his entire stay. He's out of breath. "And even once I was able to leave the castle-- everywhere I went, I heard- heard stories of humans mistreating each other, mistreating others. Constantly. Everyone turns at some point. Do you expect me to stay around you, just waiting for the day you show your true colors? Waiting for you to use me?"

Alder falters a bit. His heart hurts, his anger wanes. But he did what he intended to do; he got N distracted.

"S-so I have to run. I need to escape from you people before it.. it's too.. late." N's voice tapers into a breathless whisper as he bumps into something behind him. They realize what just happened immediately, but they dont get time to react- they're restrained by a move from venomoth, which then uses sleep powder on them as they thrash and scream at Alder. N crumples to the ground after just a moment, and Alder trudges over to collect them.

Alder knows it was a dirty move. It was just a last resort to keep the man from tearing off further into the woods and causing even more of a disaster for both of them. "I'm sorry, son. Just.. rest, okay." He whispers. "I'm not going to let anyone else hurt you. You have my word." N probably doesn't even hear it, they're out like a light within moments. But Alder could see plain on N's face, as he rapidly faded from consciousness, the look of a man that is terrified and trapped and desperate, utterly hurt to his core. And his will to keep working with N is renewed.

N wakes up at home, finding themself uninjured and tucked into bed rather than waking up on a prison floor, much to their surprise. Alder's kept this whole thing under wraps, like he said he would try to. They have one more chance.

[nellie-elizabeth]

tagged by @awildwickedslip, thank you!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

103.

2. What’s your total AO3 wordcount?

1,825,148

3. What fandoms do you write for?

magicians and roswell, new mexico primarily! Also wrote a good omens fic recently but that might be a one and done for now.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

tales from a bookshop (good omens post season 2, fairly sure I'll never write anything this popular ever again because holy shit)

Lover's Touch - Queliot fic!

Promises - Queliot fic!

Maybe This Time - Queliot fic!

Fragments - Queliot fic!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! I didn't used to in my earlier fandom days but now I'm pretty consistent about it.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I once wrote a major character death fic for Queer as Folk where Justin died. Not really my style anymore. Back in my ff.net days I also wrote Merthur major character death fic, I'm just remembering.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I always try and do happily ever afters! A lot of my stories end with a sense of "and then they continue on their adventures, and life isn't always simple or easy", so in terms of the most pure, joyful ending? I guess I'll go living proof, which is the end of my episode series for Roswell, NM, which is just a "now they're married and happy forever" fic.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have before, but not as a rule. Once got called an abuse apologist & incest support (oh the horror /s) for exploring the canonical close friendship (not even a romantic relationship!) between two dudes from Shadowhunters lmao. And there's a troll in the Roswell fandom who writes hilarious and idiotic unhinged rants and I've been hit by her before, but she's got a scatter-shot approach and attacks a lot of people, so, at least I know it's nothing personal.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Yep! What is meant by "what kind" here? lol. I'm pretty vanilla. Mostly m/m, but I usually don't pass over the chance for m/m/f. I actually recently wrote my very first m/f full-on sex scene ever for a little Magicians snippet, Kady/Penny lol.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

No, I don't wrote crossovers in the sense that characters from various worlds don't meet each other in my fics. HOWEVER, two of my favorite things I've ever written have been Magicians AUs that crossed over the characters from that show with the full plot from other films. One is The Old Guard (A Comet Pulled From Orbit), and one is When Harry Met Sally (When Quentin Met Eliot).

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah, a few times! Used to happen a lot back with old ff.net stuff, and I recently had my good omens fic translated.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

I'm co-writing a series right now! First time I've ever done it and it's a blast.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

uhhhhh don't make me choose? lmao. In terms of fandom engagement and longevity I guess Queliot at this point. But in terms of... the ships that made me discover and appreciate and explore fandom in the first place? Kirk/Spock and Brian/Justin. Classics.

16. What are your writing strengths?

dialogue and tone setting, I think?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

plot details (I get bored and distracted mapping things out)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

tbh I usually wince when I see it in fic? I'm not a fan. It always feels a little silly. Maybe very very sparingly if there's like a singular phrase or term of endearment or something but I'd rather just indicate that someone is speaking another language rather than write it out. I feel like it can often be tokenizing if you just have one character who's bilingual and you give them little one-liners in a different language. Idk. If the author is bilingual and doing a thing, then that's awesome. But I can usually tell when someone's just using google translate for stuff lol.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Gilmore Girls!

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

I'm gonna cheat and name one each for my two big fandoms. Also idk if these are my favorites but they're two I really love that aren't my most popular:

Regrets, or the Absence Thereof (Magicians)

all the roads that lead you there (Roswell)

tagging @portraitofemmy @spiders-hth-is-an-outlier @orchardsinsnow @r-dtoblack and YOU if you're reading this and want to play!

[skrub-dubs]

Don't think too hard 'bout the pfp, it's an old photo-

Heya there, I'm.. Skrub. Seriously. No, I don't want a name change, I can't even think of what I'd change it to

Born and raised in Orre, scraping by as comfortably as I can, decided to try out Rotumblr after fleeing from a significantly worse social media. Hope I can make some buds here!

Current pokemon:

Medicham, my oldest teammate. Has no official nickname but I tend to call them gramps or "Cham-Chams". Retired old fart <3

Bowler, my Golem. Wonderful fella. A lot smaller than usual golems! Raised him from an egg, really popular around town because he likes to nap about the Agate zen garden whenever I let him out on a roll.

Baps Jr., A goofy wobbafett. No thoughts behind his eyes. Got them from a friend in the past, and has been with me ever since. Loves pretending to be a bunch of things, loves rain.

The Baby, a shiny baby Cacnea nub I almost tripped on out in the desert. Name is not subject to change. She's grown out of her pot and now has nubs to take her every which way.

Luna, an incredibly tiny, pitch black Skitty with some odd features. First pokemon I've caught in a long while. Very sweet and awfully feisty.

Han, a Clamperl that was sent to me unwillingly, but kept very willingly. Very round. Very sleepy. Very shiny shell. He's been improving greatly with his health.

Morticia, Gomez, and the Tiktaks. Morticia and Gomez are two joltik that used to belong to my buddy @/iheartnimbassacity. They decided they wanted to move in and have kids. Holding onto them and their 7 hatchlings. They love bein in my hair and raiding my battery stash.

Menace the Carnivine, a Purple Haze Carnivine adopted from @/corkycare of team phobia. He's a mischievous lil fella and I love him. Likes spinning on ceiling fans and chewing on me.

Greenie the Sunflora, a greenburst variant Sunflora adopted from the goldenrod ecological society after Luvdisc day. She's an absolute cuddle bug and the team accepted her immediately. Has started to join Chams during his meditation sessions.

Pippin the Applin, an Applin adopted also from the GES, as they were a rejected Luvdisc Day gift. They're a bit more on the weary side, but when they relax they've got quite a big personality with some unique tastes. Bowler's terrified of the lil dragon though.

Caprisun the Orrish Delibird, caught her after she happened to save my life for the second time. She's a real sweetheart. Always tryin her best to help people around her. She's been getting along great with the team - especially with Chams. The two of them have been meditation buds.

Yuri the Palossand/Arbok fusion. Almost killed me. Now it just sleeps in my bed a lot. Been feeling a lot less existential dread. Also I didn't come up with that name. Blame the wizard.

Jupiter the Unown, "🪐 form"???? M' gonna need to document a lot about this fella. Seems to be a feathery guy. Can spin and whip up some real strong wind. Wonder how strong...

//ooc under cut!

(// HI LMAO THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN FOREVER THAT IVE DONE A BLOG LIKE THIS SO GO EASY!! Blog name and this intro post is very much subject to change lmao

My main is @star-aether and so I follow from there! I go by Penny or whatever else you wanna call me and I'm a minor, so please keep that in mind. Keep ask nsfw down to jokes for my sanity and yours! Skrub (here's his Bulbapedia page btw) is just some random ass ex-cypher peon in his 30's now, was 19 when he got beaten into the ground by Wes and he's still getting shit for his name. People recognize it that well djdhdjdb

Was very much inspired by blogs like @realpokemon, @triple-aaa-batteries-pkm, @nerdpokemonheadcanons, and a buncha others ehehe))

[soapofbar]

so I am a little scared to air out my spicy (probably lukewarm) takes without the guise of anonymity to keep people from telling me to unalive myself, but at the same time there are lots of thoughts that roam around in my head and I want to get them out in some fashion, so consider this sort of like, a public journal, of sorts? idk. my posts will probably be very rambly and expect me to hop from media to media as I post about whatever hot vomit is swirling in my mind.

anyway the brainrot currently going through my head right now is about RWBY, and specifically about power-ups in RWBY, and sort of how they relate to the show's action. More specifically, how the show (and fandom) is weirdly averse to them, how it kinda makes development less exciting, and stuff like that.

CRWBY have gone on record multiple times I think stating that none or at least the majority of the main 4 will not gain the power of the maidens, mostly because it is "too predictable". And like, I disagree on that heavily. Yes, if you did them all getting maiden powers in one fell swoop it would be trite and predictable, but like, Yang and Raven having an arc where it ends with Yang getting Raven's maidenhood (that sounds really bad out of context), or same with Weiss and Winter, or Penny and Ruby, etc. I don't think those would've been predictable, or trite or anything. Hell I think even if you did have literally all of them become maidens, you could still make it without being "predictable" because stories aren't really about the destination, but the journey, because the destination is usually obvious.

I think early readers of Dragon Ball Z, reading the Namek Saga in real time, expected somebody to become a Super Saiyan at one point. I think they probably knew that Goku would become a Super Saiyan. I don't think they were able to predict Krillin dying for it, or Frieza surviving the Spirit Bomb, or any of the little details that still make that ascension really fun to watch even years later. I think any arc about any of Team RWBY getting wizard powers could be written in a similar manner, where them getting the power in the end is very obviously likely to the viewer but still interesting to watch.

But fine, you don't want RWBY to become Maidens. Maybe the powers just put the team too out of balance, or their written too vague/powerful to make that member of the team anything other than invincible (you can make this interesting too, by the way, Jotaro in JoJo's Part 4 and 6 comes to mind) and you want to avoid that. Fine.

But why can't any of Team RWBY's semblances evolve?

Ever since the concept was introduced in V7, I kinda expected at least one of the girls to get a semblance power-up, but instead the idea has mostly been used for plot convenience, such as Ren's Character Development Locator and Neo's sudden power boost in V9. And it's kind of baffling to me because V7 also has the RWBY vs. Ace-Ops fight, which to me and several others I've seen at least was very narratively unsatisfying because RWBY's victory is very flimsily justified with stuff like "Then you trained us" "they lost their cool because Clover isn't here to restrain them" "marrow just ain't feelin it chief", all of which feel very easy to rebuke especially if you've got a more critical eye to the show.

But imagine instead like, Weiss, who should've been going through an arc the entirety of V7 but didn't, undergoes a semblance evolution while dealing with all her SDC and family trauma stuff. Imagine if Blake, while fighting against racism and classism in Atlas, or coming to terms with defending herself against Adam, evolves her semblance in some way. And then, because these were deeply personal developments that never happened in training, they pull them out in the fight against the Ace-Ops and they're completely caught off guard. It would make their victory in that fight feel like the consequences of narrative development "These characters have learned an important lesson and are able to defeat an otherwise superior set of foes due to abilities that evolved and subsequently surprised them because of that lesson."

And look, the obvious response here is "you're getting angry/sad/disappointed simply because thing didn't happen the way you wanted it to" and yeah if you're intellectually dishonest you can apply that to just about any criticism anyone ever makes about anything, so to highlight why I personally find it a problem

a) It makes the fights themselves less interesting since characters powers appear static and the powers themselves aren't versatile enough or aren't used creatively enough to make fight scenes interesting beyond raw spectacle (which wears off quickly if not done masterfully) and the writing behind the fight (which has never been of the best quality). The example here is most of the fights in V8, which I feel lacked in both the majority of the time.

b) it makes it feel as though the girls aren't really being narratively rewarded for making realizations/learning lessons beyond the immediate situation. That while yes, this development might help them out in the now it has no real lasting impacts. The example to use here is Yang, who goes a bunch of development in V4/V5 about dealing with trauma from getting her arm cut off, and needing to be more cool and collected in and out of battle. She has these beats and then the only fight I think she really shows off that development is the bandits in V5. Despite "coming back stronger", she doesn't feel it. And of course, outside of fights, she doesn't really show that at all, as it feels like she's the first one to lose her shit the majority of the time in recent volumes.

c) RWBY is, or at least started as, an action show. The original four trailers for each character, which are all collectively the most viewed piece of media for the show, are entirely about fighting, with minimal dialogue. I think for a show like this, which has that kind of heritage and is only occasionally good at writing subtlety, using fights as a way to showcase character development would be a really smart thing to do. It's only worked for every shounen manga ever produced, and I think RWBY taking tropes from a traditionally male-dominated industry and inserting them into a show about 4 women would do wonders, especially considering how much inspiration RWBY takes from anime already.

d) despite rising stakes and our main big bad finally taking an active role in the plot, the level of spectacle, as well as the abilities of our main characters, feels stagnant or even lesser than it was before. This is probably the most personal feeling of all and I imagine many will disagree. It's also not one I can really point to any example and articulate on.

the final word I'll leave off on is that I'm not gonna go into V9 because a) Penny and the way she was treated in V8 really made me uninterested in watching it and b) I've heard about the suicide tea and I will agree that having Ruby come out of the suicide dimension with a power-up would be uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[monty-glasses-roxy]

💜

Chica and Roxy

💜 (Purple heart) for a dealers choice!

AHAAA MY BEANS!!! The Pupcakes ship! One of my favourites! I'm doing all the options again because I've had them in literally every one of those relationships before so I got plenty to talk about! I'm so sorry mobile users this may end up a long post for you.

Okay so starting with friendship, they would both be surprisingly physically affectionate with each other. Hugs, and linking arms are just the norm for them. They also have the most fun with their animal bases, trying to figure out what each other are saying via barks and clucks. The pair of them have the wildest girl's nights ever. Like, Roxy turned the bumber cars into a hyped up waltzer so the two tried to see how fast they could get it to go before either it couldn't go any faster or they both fell off. Chica likes to try and start prank wars with Roxy but whenever she's been got, Roxy just fucking trumps her with the most over the top mousetrap style contraption ever and the best Chica can retaliate with is drawing a massive dick on the wall of Roxy's room. Like Freddy, Roxy is also pretty big on parallel play as well as every other type of play, so the two also have spent many a night vibing in one of their rooms or Roxy's garage with Roxy playing some sort of game or working on fixing something while Chica talks nonstop for like three hours or practices her guitar or something. They have the occasional playfight but they usually settle their differences with a game of Uno... which yeah, solves the problem technically but it also starts an all out war so really, it's not doing them any favours.

As siblings? Hm okay gonna be honest, I haven't played with that idea as much but it would be much the same as their friendship except with less boundaries. Chica will just randomly burst into Roxy's room out of nowhere and never leave ever again. Roxy's room is Chica's room and Chica's room is Roxy's room. Oh my god don't ever let them play Monopoly. As general family, they can be much sweeter than that though. They vibe and bounce off each other really well and can typically tell when the other one is having a hard time a mile off. They share pretty much everything and will do the odd little thing for each other if the opportunity presents itself, and of course they're ride or die for each other. Chica would kill for Roxy and Roxy would heavily intimidate and maybe throw a few punches for Chica, whatever's necessary.

As romantic partners, the sweetness is amped up but also so is the nonsense. I like to think that Chica, knowing that Roxy loves attention and big grand gestures, tries really hard to ask her out in just as big and flashy a gesture as Roxy typically admires. And on the flip side, if Roxy does try and ask Chica out, she knows that Chica prefers the smaller, more personal ways to ask someone something important like that and thus, tries to ask her out like that. Which means you could easily have Chica get cold feet and back out of asking Roxy out because her idea was big or grand enough for her, and Roxy showing up afterwards with a bowl of love heart sweets that all read 'DATE ME' on them and sits there with her until the penny drops and they're a thing. I may have planned for that to be a thing in a fic but that's neither here or there, it's sugary sweet okay? They were both wrong anyway. Roxy talks about hijacking shows to show someone you love them but she honestly implodes on the spot every single time Chica does something small like drawing a picture for her or replacing the stickers on the windows the staff keep cleaning off so Roxy can see there's a wall there. Chica is the opposite, always talking about the little things but the moment Roxy performs a love song for her, in front of all of their friends, Chica is on cloud nine.

In terms of their chaos amping up? Chica made titty shaped chocolate for her one Valentines and Roxy wrote 'I ♥ Chica' in literal fire. Date night? It's fucking roulette. Are they gonna watch a movie together or are they going to add another six pages to the rule book and break a hole in the wall? Who knows! Not them! It always ends on sweet and soft cuddles though. The amount of physical affection only increased when they got together and now they're practically joined at the hip. They're so in love too! Roxy's tail just wagging constantly when they're together and Chica's eyes going heart shaped whenever she zones out thinking about her... they could be so sweet!

And now the reverse. Oh boy the reverse. Listen, these two? At each other's throats? All the time? The only time they're in the same room with each other is during rehearsals, group photoshoots with kids or when on stage together. Believe me, you do not want to get between these two when they're fighting. A truce?? From these two?? Incredibly rare. They've done it maybe twice ever and only in the most dire of situations. Left unattended, they will rip each other to shreds. Roxy will be pissed off about it for like a month and many of staffbots will die to her over it while Chica will just rant and rave the moment someone mentions Roxy's name in her presence for a while. One of the big things they fight over? Well, their animal bases have very different ways of treating people. Roxy being on the side of 'look out for your pack' and Chica being on the side of 'know your place'. Yeah it doesn't end well very often. Chica comparing her to Foxy and invading Roxy's space on purpose when she knows it stresses her out and makes her mad while Roxy has fun sabotaging the music players in Mazercise to piss her off and getting Mapbot to haunt her for weeks at a time. Getting them to get along is Bonnie's life work and it's not going very well. They were on the same team in Fazerblast once and they currently hold the joint record for most points lost to friendly fire. They both have some S tier roasts though. They can absolutely obliterate each other whenever they get the chance.

They have so much potential!! They could be funny besties or they could be madly in love or chaotic siblings or lifelong enemies! They're very versatile! I love them!

[freakattack]

kind of obsessed with the wariowAre diy lore.

Favrorite things about this shit show:

what the FUCK did wario do this time. Like yeah he doesn't do any work but he's never done any work. he had to have pissed everyone off somehow. And BOTH mona and jimmy t jumped ship so you know it's bad, these are all of his OG's but jimmy is his childhood bff and mona is mona. If those guys jumped ship you know wario fucked up big time.

9-volt and 18-volt split over this. This is crazy because 9-volt is another kid that absolutely idolizes wario so again, major fuckup, but also 18-volt is willing to stick it out and they're both stubborn enough to split up with their best friend over it. 18-volt even alludes to his damaged friendship with 9-volt in his game. Chaos.

Dr. crygor is totally coasting on all this drama because both diamond software and the newly minted wario man software use his game engine and as the ever eloquent blobmob observes "his labcoat must be made of money lol". He is not taking a side he is just cashing in, in true wario fashion. i've said it before but all wario's friends get pissed at him all the time despite having the exact same flaws its so funny. but anyways. Penny gets caught in the crossfire and has to coach wario on grand-dad's user interface in the most tedious yet mildly amusing tutorial known to man. I dont even think she works here yet this is purely out of the goodness of her heart.

Speaking of people who don't work here yet. The reason I included the assembly dojo post is because this is the assembly dojo:

he does not work here either. He is just in the ground.

5. They all come back anyways by the next wario game. This is because none of this matters and is simply a framing device for the premise of making your own wario game. However. I thrive on framing devices in a wario game. So MY game theory is that joe, being the nice guy he is, was a better manager overall but that also meant that he made them do actual work. Lord knows he puts mona through the wringer when she works for him. Meanwhile this is what a workday at warioware inc looks like:

So because all of wario's friends value the creative freedom he gives them, and because they value the freedom to do fuck all, they eventually got tired of working for an actual game company and came back around. Its kind of a toxic workplace environment but hey it's home. Despite wario being kind of a dick sometimes they all genuinely enjoy his company when he's not actively exploiting their labor so it kind of sucks that he lets his pursuit of capital interfere with what would otherwise be a fun and chill friend group but thats wario for you.

[eartheats]

so while i keep thinking about Things and Stuff, i wanna talk more about my lovely lulu!! because it's always a good time to talk about the best boy :) rambling underneath this cut!!

tada! from the pc box! :) so, like i said, i've had lulu for a very very long time, but he was only officially mine when my parents got me a poke ball for him when i was younger! i keep thinking about changing it to a cool luxury ball in the future, but there's a lot of nostalgia attached to that ball so i think i'll just keep it :)

but! he's pretty high level, as you can see! we um. outside of the other pokemon the academy shoved onto me (...i feel kinda bad because she was a sweetie but she reminded me of a lot of bad times), we actually took on a lot of things by ourselves! with miss sprigs who helped us sometimes, but while i've always said lulu's super strong, this is even more proof of it!! but oh, interesting story - we took on some gyms together, but he actually didn't listen to me a bit at first! when we took on miss katy's gym, we actually hadn't battled as a team before, and it was kinda...starting to get hairy because we didn't know what we were doing, even though we knew each other real well. we got it together enough to get her badge, though, and three other ones too!!

and as you can see, lulu's tera typing is different!! so, um, it turns out in medali, there's a really nice lady there who's an amaaaaazing cook, and she can also help your pokemon change their tera type!! heehee, you'd be surprised how this trips people up a lot! lotsa people would wanna use fighting type moves on him, so i'd whip out my ol' tera crystal and tada! another immunity for my lovely boy! :D i don't use my tera orb a lot nowadays but i still do have it, and it's kinda funny to watch trainers adapt sometimes~

his moves are mostly just stuff he learned naturally, but we definitely tried to strategize too! iron defense was good for making lulu even tougher to smack around, while smack down helped bring some of the flying types that'd give him trouble down to the ground so he could beat 'em even easier! that's mostly what we do, though he does have some trouble with more flashy attackers...if i could afford some TMs, i'd love to teach him some moves to help with that, but he does pretty well on his own, yup yup.

it isn't all sunshine and rainbows for lulu, though :( from, um, what the center ladies have told me, they think that he was originally what they called a 'breeding reject'--some people apparently breed a lotta pokemon just to breed a super perfect one, and then just release the others out into the wild! without a care in the world for how they'll live!! it makes me so so mad >:( lulu managed to make it out in the wild, but it's due to that that he has some health problems

namely, that iron deficiency. but that's okay!! while he has a harder time than most orthworm at absorbing iron from dirt and the ground (he actually weighs a lil more than most orthworm as a result but i've been trying to help with that!!), that's where all of his iron supplements come in! they're easier for him to absorb and help keep him nice and healthy :) they cost a pretty penny but i would give that up and more to ensure that my best buddy gets the lead the kind of life he deserves to!! because i love him lots, and i know he loves me too <3

but yeah!! lulu is the best partner i could ever ask for :) i dunno why i just felt like rambling about him, but if anyone's managed to make it this far, kudos!! i really, really hope that one day we can find some people who'll give us a strong challenge, but for now...i think we're mostly fine just going into town and trying our best to live life as we always have in zapapico. :) and we can get our energy out on those weird crystal caves, random students who ask for battles, and any pesky outbreaks that mess with the miners!! we'll always be here to save the day for those yep yep!!

maybe one of these days, i can try to make a post about the things i've also learned raising lulu...i know orthworm can be tough for trainers to raise, but i've had a lotta experience with taking care of lulu. but that's a post for another day!!

[the-firebird69]

CAROLINA VAYDOR

And a much rather prefer to be respected then loved or feared and then respected and they have that line in the movie and no it's not from the Bronx tale and I know the character well help design it and it's a guy's name that's fine you're a guy's name that makes no sense we're having a fight he's not fighting me though he wants me to be happy I'm upset he is going to print it and he printed it and before I could post that I left him a millisecond anyways I didn't leave him enough time it happens all the time. I want to say this

This is our car it's our design it's for our people and wouldn't want to use it for our cause they stole it from he and I and it's our idea. It should be our money but they didn't do that either and we should get money from it and that didn't happen either this should pass for it and they didn't pass a dime not one penny and I don't think that we should do anything but Sue and build it ourselves and we need to sue these people it is our money and we don't have anything in life and it's not fair you don't have any money at all you can't even escape a disaster so if you try to cause one and I don't think that's right I don't think that these people need anything at all but our people need assist in the works so I don't know what to say we're getting things together I don't know if this should be a component of it but it's our car and we deserve something from it these people are a bunch of schmucks and losers this guy next door is the dumbest person I've ever heard of and he needs to be taken away away from my husband who's a beautiful person

Hera

We didn't tell you we're doing it we are doing it it is on schedule we're telling you right now we told you before but we're telling you right now in writing with this guy is planned to be removed and not only by us it's by the Mac proper and the pseudo empire and bja and others foreigners want him out. But we are planning on it means it's in process and we know about the Vader and what to do with it and we're going to build them at some point I understand what you're saying we're not building any we don't know what the job deal is and we're acting like the sky is falling in the sky might fall off the act that way absolutely true if they're going to come and attack it and put it somewhere and try and have them come and attack it and we'll just get rid of them and they don't have to know it's the Vader plant or not it's not like it's going to go out to the New York times everyone on Earth will say there's the beta plant and survive 45 days of assault they don't talk about it and you know what you kids are right and we're not doing it and he's saying we should it's an aggressive stance and if it goes the other way and we can make it that's fine but right now we have an emergency it's called people who are almost primates are everywhere and we have to do this I understand what you're saying this is insanity okay the hard knock kicker 5150 should be up and running because they know what Harley Davidson means and they're they're nuts okay these people are lost wanted to sit there staring like mental patients and that's wrong and we're not doing the right thing that's when I started to think about it

Lobo and Proxima Midnight we're going to have to change our name now these people are so rude and you find out that they're very stupid and we need to have a program for it this is the program he says you're not going to catch me getting out of bed at 11:00 p.m. to drive 2 hours to go to the Arizona desert or 4 hours to try and attack people who move stupid buildings there and I do understand what he's saying oh here's your old house you might drive by and look at it quietly maybe if it was moved to this town try and see who lives there you understand what we're saying these people will be attracted to it and we need it even though it seem like there's so many it's a military objective

Proxima Midnight

Well we can't move those shops yet it'll be worth three but really it is so here's a great idea to move them North get them out of the Midwest they just simply a city there it's gross even in the south now we get them down south would be to start making Vader and then secretly go down there first for quite a while he wants to test out something like that we think we should. Especially the Northern hemisphere we can move a bunch of stuff that'll go running up there and probably get killed by other people if we move the vader plant up there and Mac could buy tons of them

Frank Castle hardcastle

There's a few things that we have concerned about drawing them off why would we not want to do that who cares what they have with them we have ships theirs can't get here and we've been using it to gather theirs and we don't want them to have any shifts to be able to attack us with and doing it slowly you're going to get ready and still try and take them when she started doing it and not as fierce right away I know look at doing this it's not a bad idea yeah hell of a factory

Mac daddy

I think we just discovered something if we do it up there they'll be using heavy to try and hit us so people don't want to do it so we can do it up there and put up some armor and the wall works very well against almost anything need a good way to test stuff so let's go ahead and do that and I know what I'm saying and we'll get rid of some of his dumb chassis but it's for above the Great lakes

Thor Freya

Olympus

And our r son said it earlier and you're saying you're leading us there but I kind of like the idea you said that you're in the wall and inspire your area where you were attacking a while ago and there's a bunch of walls in the midwest still and she says we should move them so they can't get in and cordon off areas that have less people in them I'm going to start that tonight it works very well just want to sit there and leave them in the harder for them to get back but this is a good idea they can't touch the wall the wall has them in it.

Thor Freya again

Olympus okay we see the ideas we like the one we move walls around the places to get them the hell out they take forever I'm going to start doing it and around the cities again and we are also going to put a citadel up there and probably like I said we're going to before building stuff you know what we're doing too

We can do our son and daughters idea we like that they're saying you just put it up there and it's like going to be not that thick but fairly thick if they bring heavy stuff out we have to leave and it would look like the Vader car it'll be a factory for the kit. But it'll be made out of the clay and they'll think we're Max so we're up to that

Frank Castle hardcastle

We're going to start making that thing I'm going to put in for permission they like the idea and a whole bunch of factories might sprout up and it's a good place not really but we should have a presence we'll get a lot of talk he needs it to happen and I'll get rid of a lot of roof raft that's the idea

Duke Nukem Blockbuster

The idea is a little different you're making weird looking buildings that look like cars and things like that and they might have fly cars coming out and these guys might think they can purchase them or steal them. And you might make it possible. There's a place to sell them and it's in Detroit and it's an upscale place and we would sell them there and they would buy them and we would sell our own version and we would sell the kit online and the real one okay later car and it's a Vader car and when you can turn into a fly car it's a great idea it'll keep it around we will get attacked by idiots and we want to do that to get rid of them

Olympus

[qwertzze]

ASAOP dump time !

This is the first drawing I did of Cadell (the can) and crew. Originally, they were a silly little objectsona for me, but I can't help but add lore to anything I make, so now they're a host for a show!

The show itself is completely in my head, I don't plan on ever making it a reality as I don't have the animation skills or voice acting for it,, but I'm going to talk about it oresent tense as though it did exist from here on out.

The only reason Cadell has a name is because I couldn't take 'Canny' seriously. Cadell competed in season one of ASAOP (As Soon As Objectly Possible), which was probably rigged in their favor seeing as they won. The original host had an unspecified prize, and once Cadell won, they got the curse the previous host had! That curse be(e)ing the Bee seen in most drawings with them

I imagine it to be a Ghost and Molly Mcgee situation, where technically Cadell is the one that's cursed, but Bee is just as much stuck with them as they are with it.

As above, Cadell likes watching the tapes from season one of ASAOP, all of which have been corrupted to static. Cadell still likes watching them, and talks about the plot to the Bee like it was their first time watching.

The Bee isn't too fond of this, mainly just opting to sleep inside of Cadell while they binge the tapes

The others in the cast! They hang out a lot, seeing as the Pouch/Handbag thing carries them around. Small notes on each of them so I don't forget, though they are mainly stereotypes right now.

Pouch/Handbag/Purse - bigender, parental nervous role for the others. Button is kind of like a nose! Bigger on the inside. His name is a joke in and of itself, as noone knows what object she really is and every time she tries to say it she's cut off.

SAK - aargg pirate of the group. Can't resist having a pirate! She doesn't need the eyepatch, but she does need glasse/contacts. She doesn't know she needs them though, so uses the eyepatch in the alternating way because she heard it could help your eyes adjust once. Also things she's too cool for everyone else.

GUM - calm, self absorbed bitch of the group. Thinks they're better than everyone, but also thinks they're humble. Less about them and more about their object, I imagine they would either have different wrappers on different occasions, like clothing, but be very sensitive about the wrappers getting damaged. Generally quiet

Penny/Dime duo - sunshine/grump dynamic! Siblings, so everything is platonic. Penny and Dime are close, but Dime will only admit it when he's mourning Penny. That's right! Penny's gone, the season one finale was 'wild'. [ side note - objects turn inanimate when they die. This was NOT inspired by cfmot, I had the thought before I watched cfmot ]

Credit Card - by far the one I've thought about the least. Absolute prick, but only ever says the truth. Just the worst bits of the truth. I imagine deep down CC has good intentions, but has some kind of underlying insecurity that makes em bolster themselves up the only way they know how.

Cadell notes - relies on the Bee for help moving [lack of limbs], keeps rocks and other knick knacks inside of themselves, small echo to their voice, voice probably comes from inside them, they were probably a can of beans [Beans might have been a separate person, I think they try to find someone to fill that void and that person becomes Bee], stain from season one, all other damage/weathering from before that

The only reason this post wasn't out sooner is because I kept trying to upload a small animation test VERY small, to be clear; It's just Cadell blinking and saying something, and Tumblr kept being unable to upload it

That's all I can think of rn, love you all !!