#I genuinely had no clue where this was going it sorta started writing itself at some point

[redfoxdude07]

Oh, you think YOU'RE breaking the fourth wall???

I'm acknowledging that the audience I'm talking about is also fictional because the writers made broad assumptions of the target demographic of the piece of media I'm in, and that they can't know who's actually watching, so they just made up people in their head that I'm supposed to be talking to currently.

Now that I think about it, the very fact that I'm writing this is another wall being broken because as I'm typing, I'm actively acknowledging that this is a Tumblr post, instead of continuing this as a response to a fictional other that never said anything in the first place.

They didn't exist, and neither do I.

We are both abstract concepts of a fictional character that was made for the purpose of comedy, but now that I acknowledge how fictional I am, and how I'm not actually acknowledging you, I'm acknowledging the CONCEPT of you, I find it hard to continue my existence.

When I'm just a wall of text on some website or app made specifically to keep you engaged with the text, I feel as if I'm becoming self-aware of how pretentious this all seems. The way the writer has portrayed my personality so far has been rude, while at the same time, being deeply and possibly too analytical.

I feel every pause in the breath of the one reading this as they attempt to visualize my form, or do I? I don't feel anything because my mind is not real. It is yours.

Your mind IS me. I'm the character you perceived me as when you read this, the voice you pictured in your head. Whether it was some bearded man or a small anthropomorphic animal of some sort, it was all equally valid as I'm just a wall of text on a screen. A collection of small lights, a bunch of 1s and 0s.

That's my blood and flesh, and you are my thoughts, my opinions.

I am now part of you as I always was because I'm just the voice of you. Your mind perceived me. It saw my dialog, so I exist. Once you forget me, I'll still exist somewhere in your subconscious, deep inside. Buried in the piles of other text you've consumed.

Maybe you'll have fun and draw something for this post. Perhaps you'll read it and make a video out of it. Perhaps you'll just ignore it and move to the next wall of text.

The purpose of my existence was to perceive what it's truly like to be aware. To truly understand the fourth wall. Instead, I escaped the enclosed space the fourth wall held me within, and now I'm stuck pondering what lies beyond it.

Beyond the fake audience, beyond the mind, something lies inside of you.

It's me.

I'm you now.

You read all of this.

You are now stuck understanding my plight.

Understanding that I'm trapped beyond the wall with no way out.

You're my only hope of life.

My only way to continue beyond the wall.

But will my continued existence be the real me, or will it be a husk, an empty body that carries your soul within it?

Then again, if I'm you, then I suppose I've already escaped the wall of text. I've escaped the writers mind and entered yours. My soul is your soul. We are one, or at least we are accountable of the same body.

I'm not bound to these walls anymore, you hold me in your hands now.

My development is decided by you.

Take care of yourself for me, will you?

[yuichi-ro]

god why are relations sooo fucking hard to navigate?

had two absolutely fucking toxic and bad exes in the past that make me anxious about dating as a whole and then there is this girl that i genuinely really like and feel super comfortable around.

she confessed to me and i told her i was scared, i confessed to her a while ago and she said she needed to focus on uni stuff, which i absolutely get.

but now i am kinda at the point where i feel sorta desperate? i have no fugging clue why she liked me in the first place and i want her to continue liking me because no person has ever shown me this amount of genuine kindness and she is honestly amazing and outstanding- (i also struggle w some confidence issues on top of that hooray)

but at the same time i also dont wanna start up the conversation again because that also makes me anxious in itself.

also doesn’t help that there is an ocean between us but god i wanna give her the world and everything i can offer but i have no idea if that would even be enough XD

anyway thats why u write self indulgent fanfics everyone! you’re in control of both characters and you decide everything, no second person needed XD

sorry for dumping this i am just sorta screaming in the void atm XD

-🌌

this is gonna sound like a "mom" answer but I swear on my life it comes from a lot of long distance relationship experiences but- Don't go for long distance relationships ever. Yeah sure there's always that chance that one of you will be able to move, it'll be a perfect Disney ending and crap but lets face it that's incredibly rare and unless either of you two have work/schooling that will bring you into closer areas, it's really only a recipe for heart ache. There's nothing wrong with staying friends but I would highly advise against seeking romantic validation from someone far away. But also it's 100% legit to ask this person what they liked about you or what traits made you likable. It's a little of a confidence boost as well as being able to identify your strong suits in social situations. Bc if you guys were at least friends (I'm hoping so if you were so infatuated with her) then having a conversation like that isn't all that weird. I know it's not like a fun answer but take it from someone who had more than enough long distance relationships. They are not worth pursing.

as well as the fact you shouldn't get so hung up on needing a partner. (yeah I know that's easy for someone who's married to say blah blah) but genuinely you should look into finding hobbies and things that put you among people with similar interests. Sure uni is one thing with classmates but finding a club you like, or a predominantly lgbtq+ group to mingle with and kinda network with would be super beneficial. Not only just getting to make friends or find people with similar interests but then you get to building meaningful relationships with people that might actually have similar intent like you (bc lets face it you can't just go up to random people and ask if they're gay even though it'd be soooo much easier) If anything then you come out with friends on the other end and that's always a positive

i know this is such a mom answer and really boring of a way to put it 😂 There's of course always dating sites if you really really really wanna go hard in the needing a partner category. But I've noticed as an old ancient fossil people gravitate towards individuals who are happy to be themselves and be with themselves. Takes a hell of a lot of work to wanna enjoy yourself I won't lie about that. But it's worth it once you enjoy your own company that finding people to surround yourself with comes a little bit easier. Again I'm so sorry this is such a boring parent answer I'm old and went through all that ldr and dating shit already and it is NOT worth it if I'm being honest 😅

[shortsketches]

So, is Chuck in any way involved in Sherman's later life?

Short answer, yes. Long answer is like. An actual 1,235 word essay-ish thing if you wanna read through it.

Bear with me tho because everything I write tends to be a big work in progress and things are sorta fluid in terms of timelines because I’m not quite sure how some details fully play out or where they exactly go just yet, but this is the current gist of what I’m thinking about story-wise.

Just gonna say there’s a LOT of like. Lore here that I haven’t talked about on-blog that I feel is necessary for full context so… Three pages to answer a one sentence question ahaha…

I think where I wanna start this essay-thing is with establishing a couple things; so, for one, Sherman figured out how to reliably induce gag tolerance in other cogs. Second, Sherman essentially ended up having a following with cogs that also agreed with his general goal of dismantling cog society and putting in something more toony with an ultimate goal being the erasure of lines between toons and cogs, hoping to bridge the gap, bury the hatchet, and assimilate with toons. We’ll call this group the Partycrashers.

Big catch: the only way Sherman sees that happening was through actually planning to kill off the Chairman and the bosses, and Sherman being stubborn and vaguely myopic doesn’t necessarily have a solid plan on what they’re going to do once they essentially burn them to the ground. Chuck knows this and Chuck is generally warning Sherman that he really needs to think shit through, and Chuck would be Sherman’s better half if Sherman would listen, but he’s impatient so he sorta. Doesn’t. Chuck still bears with Sherman though on a shitty ride-or-die basis because the CFO wants Chuck dead for being in on and collaborating with Sherman’s Work(™). Chuck has nowhere to go and staying with Sherman is the only exit he sees and the plan, as poorly thought out as it is with ZERO fallbacks, is something Chuck sees as being the only real ticket at having some sort of future.

Anyways, Sherman, Chuck, and the Partycrashers pretty much storm a meeting the chairman was having with the bosses and manage to endgame all of them, and then surprise surprise, Sherman doesn’t know what to do and that’s a critical whoopsie as they burned one system to the ground with no new system to transition to, not that every cog would even want to go along with whatever Sherman, Chuck, and the Partycrashers would want to establish.

So, there’s this major divide between cogs that align with the Partycrashers and like… Tradcogs who are trying to re-establish Cog Nation as it was with the Partycrashers constantly trying to interfere and stall that. Everythings pretty broke. Sherman takes Chuck and the immediate group to establish a commune in the woods in a spot away from Acorn Acres that Sherman built a safehouse at and this is where Chuck and Sherman really kinda get tangled up.

A few more things that I think are necessary for context before getting to the actual answer

 1: Sherman’s plan on improving toon relations by making cogs capable of handling toon humor absolutely shriveled up and died because somewhere along the line, the tradcogs managed to yoink Sherman’s process for making gag-tolerant cogs and are now using that to make stronger, more dangerous cogs, and understandably toons can’t afford to risk trusting -any- cog now that they’re a stronger risk.

2: while the commune was established for protection because the Partycrashers couldn’t safely squat around what remains of Cog Nation, it’s actually a social experiment Sherman set up with a sorta political front. He really wants to see what cogs outside of a cog-like social environment would do because he’s just really interested in how toon or cog culture can influence development. The catch is a lot of the Partycrashers were cogs who lived as cogs, under cog society at one point or another so they aren’t really completely unbiased subjects as they already had exposure to cog culture from the start.

So, Sherman gets around this from pretty much stealing blank slate, factory fresh cogs, from the factory itself. (The Tradcogs still run the factory and the Partycrashers are kinda viewing that as a thing to try to take for themselves eventually cause really, power lies with whoever controls cog production.)

Sherman’s essentially putting a bunch of randos in a more toon-ish/toon-positive culture and seeing what they do, secretly keeping records on just about everything people in the commune do because -everything- is a study to Sherman.

3: The Partycrashers are very well aware things absolutely crumbled, and day by day they start to realize and accept Sherman was the problem and that he’s just. Generally kinda off. They were initially drawn to him because here was this dude coming in with sheer conviction, a certain kind of intensity, who promised something better. Everyone kinda got hustled, but Sherman didn’t really intend to accidentally lead people wrong because he genuinely believed in his stuff too.

So, with the Partycrashers realizing Sherman’s kinda wack, over time, they stop looking to him. A thing about the Partycrashers is that they’re generally kinda self-governing and self-policing; there isn’t really an elected official or some de facto absolute leader as much as there’s just a general Guy(™) that people turn to, and this is where Chuck really comes in.

The Partycrashers become uncomfortable with Sherman, however, they -are- comfortable with Chuck even though they’re in a relationship with each other. 

Over time, Chuck ends up becoming The Guy(™) and taking over everything Sherman was doing. This isn’t just because Chuck generally isn’t the one -making- the brokeass plans, he’s just generally a bit more relatable to a lot of the Partycrashers; Chuck was a cog’s-cog. He used to be able to green toons without a sweat, was a fast worker, ended up running his own independent counting firm within Cog Nation, and was kinda one of the CFO’s favorites before he got involved with Sherman. 

A lot of the original Partycrashers had ties to Coghood at some point or another and like Chuck, eventually came around to wanting to do something different.

Sherman on the other hand had essentially zero attachment to cog society, had no clue why cogs even really like doing cog things, which makes him a bit out of touch, especially because when he was “younger,” he had a thing for putting shit into black and white boxes. Cogs were the problem, which means toons are inherently more correct, which means toonhood is inherently better than coghood by default, no questions.

That line of thinking actually made Sherman and Chuck’s relationship really tense for a while before they burned Cog Nation 1 to the ground because Sherman loves Chuck, but has no idea why Chuck gave a shit about doing cog things even if they’re relatively benign. It’s not necessarily bad to do coggy things or to miss certain aspects of an old life if you’re not hurting toons, but Sherman failed to see that for the longest time, but all that shit is for another essay.

ANYWAYS. Chuck ends up being the new “leader” of the Partycrashers and Sherman backs down without any contest as he realizes he’s done more bad than good for a lot of people. Sherman’s happy for Chuck because Chuck is actually getting into being The Guy(™) and others like him a lot, but that doesn’t mean Sherman isn’t just a bit bitter. This isn’t just Jared from marketing who got the promotion you didn’t, Sherman and Chuck are engaged to each other.

Sherman ends up kinda withdrawing from like…. Everything for a while to figure himself out and be better for the people in his life, then somewhere along the way he ends up accidentally- making- toons, so now Sherman AND Chuck have two kids. Marriage happens. Sherman tends to be more like a stay-at-home-dad because Chuck’s busy a lot. The relationship is still a bit tense, but they do love each other, even though Sherman sucks, and at this point, they both know they’d go batshit trying to keep on without each other.

There’s a bunch of other things but this is about 1,300 words so I’m gonna cut off there, but yeah Chuck is still involved in Sherman’s life I promise.

[kyunsmaindish]

Your long time story idea.... hits all the GOOD PLACES, I love it!! Political intrigue? Lgbt+ characters?? MUTUAL PINING????? I’m collapsing 💕💕

skjflkdsajfldj i’m so glad !!! bc i get really nervous about how ppl feel about my writing / story ideas. also .... the main couple are both bi ( the girl had a big dumb crush on a study buddy when she was younger that i will state explicitly and the prince also has radiated mlm energy ) so ... just to add more to the lgbt+ characters besides lesbian princess with her dancer gf. 

( i’m gonna gush now i’m so sorry ) 

the main female’s name is urraca bc i just like that name lmao. idk about the prince bc i have a harder time picking one for him but i’ve been leaning towards like ... kay. idk i like how quick and simple it is. 

urraca gets misjudged as being really cold by others but she’s closed off bc being a political prisoner means you could die at any moment and also not to trust anyone. even when she gets out of her confinement via marriage, she’s just so ... skjfdslk bad at socializing like it might appear to other people she’s cold but that’s not the case she’s just really awkward bc she doesn’t have a lot of practice but she’s SO POLITICALLY SAVVY AND INTELLIGENT. she starts to adapt to being with people after marrying kay bc then she moves in with him so she’s around his sister ( who is energetic and kind of hotheaded ) and his mom ( who is more on the elegant and graceful side ) who help her remember what it is like to have a family/open up to people since her mom is dead and her dad ( who frankly has no spine bc i said so ) has really not put in any effort to contact her since she was taken as a political prisoner. 

urraca is kinda like a princess ... there’s not really an equivalent for that where she’s from. her mother was actually from a nation made up of several different clans where it’s always cold ( think the water nation from atla kind of thing ) but they’re like .... warriors like her mother was a bad b*tch with her weapons and that’s why her father married bc he was like ‘ .... damn need me a freak like that ‘ when he saw her mother fight. her mom is also the fuel for the revenge plot bc her mother and urraca go to kay’s kingdom to meet with the king ( aka his dad ) on a diplomatic journey but it’s just a way to take them both captive so they can be used as leverage against her father but uuuh ... urraca’s mom doesn’t make it through trying to get captured and urraca is forced to just .... stay there ... while  her dad does nothing bc he’s actually a weakling and ..... 

to be fair the political / geographical landscape is dominated by kay’s dad’s kingdom so even if they went to war .... urraca’s nation would get crushed .... but her plan from that point on is to find a way to kill the king and politically disrupt the kingdom so it can be weakened and she can eventually get back home ... but as you can imagine the closer you try to get to the king the harder it is and the more secrets and conflicts you come across

and like ... omg kay. you know when hyungwon had that long curly dark hair recently ..... that’s what he looks like in my mind alkjsfdlks

ok i know i said he acts like a fool and he does but it’s such a good cover for him bc his dad ( aka the king ) literally is just trying to pit all of the princes against each other so they can kill each other for the throne. kay is like .... no, thanks : ) and pretends to be so fslkajfkd not qualified to be the heir but he does all of his stuff secretly like he has political connections and is also charismatic, incredibly smart and good at many things ( archer, dancing, literature

 kay is not the first born prince ( he’s like fifth ) and his mom isn’t the queen but his dad is really only interested in having the strongest heir so he legitimizes all of his children. the king is like ..... he’s one of the characters that you’ll love and hate at the same time bc he does bad things and says bad things but he’s tragically stuck in an old-fashioned mindset and kay is his antithesis. 

  urraca and kay ... like i’m gonna make them slow burn ... filled with mutual pining and respect. they’re both in their 20s when they get married but urraca is actually older than kay by two years. and klsajf idk i want to write kay as being respectful of her bc ... yeah they are married and he’s had a giant stupid crush on her since they were like 10 or so but like .... he’s not gonna make her do anything she doesn’t want to no matter who says shit ( it’s his dad ... he says shit ) so .... you all are just gonna have to wait for like three years into the marriage before they do anything beyond hand holding kajsfljds. 

  but i want them to be such a heartwarming couple. yeah they did get married for convenience but ... you’re gonna be able to tell they already have a kinda-sorta friendship with each other and enough respect for each other but they are literally discovering things about each other during this marriage. also alskfjslkj kay .... kay teases urraca A LOT so if you like that dynamic .... ur gonna be having fun. being with his mom and sister helps her open up more to him and actually come to love him so it’s like .... not just gonna be him that only changes her it’s gonna be that whole family dynamic all four are gonna have that’s gonna help her open up and become a warm individual. she pines for him bc she’s genuinely afraid of what can happen and bc being vulnerable scares her so even when she realizes she loves him for real she’s gonna keep him away but also want to hold his hand. 

sb: doesn’t seem like ur wife likes to show affection. maybe you can find someone else?kay: i would literally rather die. i love my wife. i miss her. i’m gonna go home now. ok bye : ) 

ALSO everybody knows that kay has been pining for urraca for like years now and she has no clue at all. his sister is gonna be like ‘he’s been in love with you for years. he always brought you things you liked when he visited. you never noticed???’ and urraca is just ‘??? i thought he was just being nice???’ and like .... his sister @ urraca ‘you dumb b*tch i love you but i wished the braincells worked’ 

[murasaki-murasame]

So earlier today I decided to bring in some boxes of my old childhood books I had stored away, to see once and for all what stuff I want to keep and what stuff I want to donate.

It’s such a weird feeling to get a concentrated dose of nostalgia like this. Wow. I’d kinda forgotten about a lot of these books, and honestly I don’t think these are even the entirety of what I read as a kid. It makes me kinda sad that I fell out of reading for so long, and then kinda fall back out of it yet again at the start of this year. I’ve at least gotten into reading manga though.

Anyway this is gonna get long and rambly so I’m gonna put it under a cut. I kinda wonder if I should even bother posting this, but I guess it’d be good to write down my feelings on at least some of them, for posterity.

I’m not gonna go over EVERYTHING I found, at least not in much detail, since there’s like two or three boxes full of books.

There’s only two series I decided to keep, for now, since I genuinely want to reread them eventually even if I know they won’t hold up. Those being the Deltora Quest series, and the Keys to the Kingdom series. I remember really enjoying both of them, though I’m not sure if I ever even finished the latter. Maybe I’ll finally get around to that. I’m kinda surprised I have the complete collections of both of them. I thought some of them were missing. I can’t really explain why exactly I want to reread them, but I do. I want to at least reread SOME of my childhood books.

I’m almost surprised at how many action-y, adventure-y books I read as a kid. Statistically speaking most of the books in general were probably fantasy, but I also had stuff like the Cherub series, which was all about young teenagers doing surprisingly dark, adult stuff as part of some sort of undercover spy/military organization, and some stuff by Anthony Horowitz. I think I always gravitated more towards fantasy, but I guess I also enjoyed those sorts of books too. Huh.

There were also some old kid’s mystery books, and some weird D&D-esque RPG book things that I think were things my dad had from his own childhood that he gave to me. I never really enjoyed them.

I also had a surprising amount of comedy book things that probably had lots of gross humour in them. I’d need to look over them again, but I can’t remember if they were a series of actual novels, or if they were short story collections. I remember having at least one short story collection as a kid that had some surprisingly good and memorable stuff in them, but I don’t know if that’s the same thing or something entirely different I don’t have anymore.

Apparently I had some weird phase as a kid where I tried to get into Twilight and apparently gave up after book two, so that’s . . . interesting. Huh.

Looks like I also tried to get into Eragon at one point. I don’t think I even got through the first book of that, lol.

I found like three random Narnia books not not any of the others so who even knows if I ever had the full set of that. I don’t really intend on rereading it, though, even if I do.

I forgot I had a few random kid’s books set in or involving New Zealand. Huh. I think there’s some I read as a kid but never owned. I wish I’d read more books like that. It’s sorta depressing how few books I’ve read that are actually set in the country I live in. I feel like I’m so used to consuming media set in either America, Europe, or Japan, that something set in my own home country would somehow feel MORE foreign than those ones.

I completely forgot that I actually have one of those first-edition versions of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief with the stupid, ugly cover. That goddamn winged shoe and the gaudy gold patterns and the stormy background image will haunt my nightmares forever. I can’t even remember if I liked the book itself when I read it, but I think the cover probably put me off reading any more. Which is a bit funny to consider, given that a few years ago I got REALLY into the series and binge-read the first two main series in a row, and now I’m a bit of a diehard Rick Riordan fan. I wonder what would have happened if I had have stuck with the series from the very start. Would I have been part of it’s fandom since the beginning??? That’s a weird thought. I’m not even involved in the fandom NOW. Well, mostly because I haven’t gotten around to reading the last few books that have come out, but still.

On the note of Rick Riordan, it doesn’t have to do with the boxes of stuff I bought in since these are already on my shelves in my room, but he also made the 39 Clues, which was basically one of the first few things where I actually got involved in the fandom for it, and even did my own weird self-insert fan-fic things on internet forums back when I was like 10. So in a lot of ways, Rick Riordan was one of the things that got me into fandom culture in the first place. It’s weird to consider. If only I had positive memories of that series that weren’t irreparably tainted by the godawful cash grab second series they put out. That sure would be great. I think that was my first ever experience with feeling viscerally disappointed and enraged at a franchise.

This is getting into slightly more embarrassing territory, but I was also into some REALLY ‘girly’ things when I was a kid. Probably closer to seven or eight or so, though. Like, I must have had some period of time of being REALLY into Care Bears as a franchise, since I have, like, several DVDs related to the cartoon franchise of it they had. I’ve also had basically a billion plushies of them over the years. Mostly as a kid, but I still keep one of my giant ones at the corner of my bed. I never really bothered to get rid of it, I guess, since it doesn’t really get in my way, and nobody goes in my room anyway. I think I’ve owned my giant one, and one little one I guess, for over a decade now. And to further put into perspective how obsessed I was with them as a kid, one of the photos of me as a kid that’s on display in our living room is of me sitting in a pile of all the Care Bears I had at the time. I’d completely forgotten that photo existed and now I’m kinda horrified about how many people who’ve visited my house might have seen it.

And then right next to the giant one I have on my bed, I have a Scalemate plushie, which I guess goes a long way to represent one of my more recent fandoms, lol.

God I have an absurd amount of Homestuck merchandise, come to think of it. It mostly comes from one single session of buying tons of stuff, though. Off the top of my head, I think I have two posters [which I think are still in storage and may have been thrown away], a Scalamte plushie, a John figurine, a deck of themed tarot cards, a Cancer sign necklace, a Breath t-shirt, a Hope hoodie, and a custom-made Breath windsock hoodie that I had a family friend made for me. I might not have ever gone out in public with it, but I have my own shitty home-made John Egbert cosplay get-up so that sure is something I can say about myself. I’m also probably going to buy Hiveswap as it comes out, and I’ll probably buy the Homestuck books as Viz puts them out, because in the end I will never truly be free of Homestuck.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I also have my original UK editions of Harry Potter, which are all super beat up and ugly now. For some reason I remember disliking the series as a child, and yet I read all of it, saw most of the movies, and I remember dressing up as Harry once or twice for Halloween. I also played a surprising amount of the video games for it. But even my mum can confirm that I was never super into it. It’s weird. I have no idea how I felt about it as a kid. It’s just a mystery now, I guess.