#Some things will only exist as fanworks and that's ok

[medium-bloodcrafter-scion]

Legendborn Ships 🚢

If the idea of Bree choosing Nick instead of Sel upsets you, this story is no longer about Bree.

If the idea of Bree choosing Sel instead of Nick upsets you, this story is no longer about Bree.

If the idea of Bree choosing one and not both upsets you, this story is no longer about Bree.

If the idea of Bree choosing none of the above and opting to focus on herself for a bit upsets you, this story is no longer about Bree.

If you're expending energy trying to 'prove' your ship is the right one and participating in shipping wars... this story is no longer about Bree.

I love romance. I love the way Tracy Deonn has woven love stories into the narrative. I'm not going to say the romances aren't important because they are, and given Tracy's thoughts around Bonnie's treatment in the Vampire Diaries I think Bree even having a choice is deliberate. Tracy has reiterated in several places that Bree will choose whatever is best for Bree, and given the sensitivity and thoughtfulness with which Tracy has handled the whole story (seriously, this is what puts this series a cut above the rest for me), I don't think the decision Bree makes romantically will be taken lightly or that TD will choose a thoughtless solution, because she's the kind of writer who respects the characters she has created.

But at the end of the day, this is a story about a Black girl navigating grief after losing her mother, dealing with institutional racism and systemic injustice, and being at the very heart of a centuries-old battle she never asked to participate in.

I am #TeamBree, whatever that looks like, and my wish as a reader is that Bree would find peace, hold the power that is rightfully owed to her to wield as she wishes, and have a community of people that love and support her, including Nick and Sel.

It's normal and acceptable to feel disappointment if your ship doesn't sail, but if you find yourself rating the book lower for those reasons specifically, you have lost the plot. Who Bree chooses to be in a romantic relationship with is literally not the main point of the story.

[olderthannetfic]

The yaelokre thing is reminding me of something I did when I was about seven or eight years old.

I had a bunch of toy horses and had invented extensive lore for them. It was a sprawling fantasy world, and each toy horse was a specific character in that world with specific relations to the other horses. These weren't just random toys I'd pick up when I was bored, the box of horses was an ongoing creative endevour that I had poured a lot of time and effort into (there were convoluted family trees drawn on graph paper and an in-universe newspaper I wrote with coloured pencils and handed out to my parents and siblings).

Anyway, one time a neighbour girl came over and played with the horses, which I was OK with in theory (and not sharing one's toys was some sort of high crime in my mom's book), but the neughbour girl made the pink princess pony be a bratty child instead of the adult diplomat character I'd developed her has.

I pitched a fit.

Absolute screaming meltdown. I could not tolerate someone taking my creation and doing it wrong. It genuinely hurt me to see my creation misused and twisted in that way, and the only way I had to express that was to scream at the neighbour girl for playing with a plastic toy wrong.

The difference between me and Yaelokre is that I was eight years old and Yaelokre is old enough to use twitter. And Yaelokre had the option to not post their characters on the internet, while I, because of my mom's rules, did not have the option of not sharing my horse characters with the neighbour girl.

So I undestand how Yaelorke feels and I sympathize with them, but I'm also going "dude, you had a choice here and you brought this on yourself".

--

(Anon who threw a fit at age 8 because someone played with a toy horsie wrong) I remember trying to explain to my mom, through the tears and the meltdown and an eight year old's grasp of things, that my horse characters were personal and meaningful and having someone "ruin" the story like that felt like a violation. And mom just got mad at me for being selfish and refusing to share my toys "It's just a toy horse, she didn't break it or anything". But I wasn't upset about the neighbour girl waving around a piece of plastic wrong, it wasn't the toy horse I was upset about, it was something iddy that I had created, and what upset me was my perception that I was being ignored and my thoughts and feelings were being misused, not the plastic horse. Yaelokre can probably understand and articulate their own feelings better than I could when I was eight, but they also seem to be feeling the exact same way, so if any of you are going to try to confront them about this, just know that laughing at them or getting mad at them will probably make things worse and make them feel even more trampled and violated than the fanworks existing in the first place, and will not make them go "oh well, it's just fiction, I'll learn to live with it". Because it probably isn't just fiction to them, it's an expression of their id.

I hate it when adults don't grasp this about kids' stuff. It's so common.

The more yaelokre keeps at this, the more they're going to find out the hard way how the internet treats people who regulate their emotions like a small child.

[naryrising]

3 easy things to do so you don't get locked out of your AO3 account

(Prefacing this by saying that while I am chair of the Support committee and thus handle plenty of attempted account recovery situations, this is unofficial advice based on my own observations.)

OK, ideally you would never get locked out of your AO3 account. You would keep your email address there up to date so if you ever did forget your password, you can request a reset and get right back in. Or you would use a password manager and never forget your password again. But sometimes things happen - maybe you used an older email that you no longer have access to, or you can't remember which of 27 different fannish emails you used, and now you want to get back into your account but you can't. I get it, it can happen easily enough.

Here are 3 things you can do with relatively minimal effort that would potentially make it easier to recover your account if you do get inadvertently locked out.

Put some social media links in your AO3 Profile. Add your tumblr, your twitter, your dreamwidth, your fanfiction.net or wattpad, or whatever you feel comfortable putting there. If you don't want to put your "real" social media there (for whatever reason - stalkers, nosy family, don't like mixing fannish and real life, etc.) go MAKE a fannish account somewhere else purely for the purpose of linking it on AO3. Keep those accounts active (by which I mean, don't lose the email/password there too! Maybe even use a different email address than you use on AO3, so if your email access suddenly shuts down one day, you haven't lost both accounts.)

Post a work or two! Even if you are mainly using your account for reading/bookmarking/subscribing, write a drabble or a short fic and post it. You can disable comments, make it restricted to archive users only, etc. if you don't want to deal with potential feedback. You can even post it to an anon collection if you want to keep people from knowing it was you. It doesn't have to be a masterpiece, just a valid fanwork (so don't just post some random words or something).

In conjunction with #1 and 2, cross-post a work from another site. If you have older fanfics you never imported from Livejournal or Wattpad or fanfiction.net, import them now! If you have a little series of ficlets you wrote for a prompt on tumblr or twitter once, archive those. (Yes, even if you think they're bad or embarrassing. They still deserve to be archived! See above about making a work anon or restricting access if you prefer.) If you don't have pre-existing older works posted elsewhere, write a new story, post your story somewhere else (say, on dreamwidth or tumblr), and then a day or two later, archive it on AO3.

Even doing one or two of these things would make the chances of recovering your account higher, but doing all three would be ideal!

[solena2]

thoughts/analysis of davepetasprite^2

My feelings on them are kind of mixed! On the one hand, I think they’re an incredibly interesting character with a ton of potential, especially in fanwork, but on the other hand they get barely any screentime in the comic proper and pretty much the only thing they manage to do before heading off on their suicide mission is tank any chance of Davesprite ever getting to complete his character arc in a satisfying way.

As far as canon goes, I think they were probably a poor choice to add in. They don’t get enough of an arc to justify sacrificing a character as interesting as Davesprite for them, and there are some seriously uncomfortable implications attached to their whole “I got fused with a catgirl and now my depression is cured” thing. I think they could have been great if they’d been given room to really explore those implications, but they only get a couple logs worth of characterization before collide, so it ends out pretty unsatisfying, at least on my end. The way it’s framed, it’s almost like they’re supposed to be the conclusion to Davesprite’s character arc, rather than being their own character, which is just… no. You don’t get to conclude a character’s arc by turning them into a different character, that doesn’t work. That’s the start of an arc, not the end of one. Not the last one, at least.

For fanwork, though, I love them. There’s so much about them that’s worth reading into, and they’re incredibly interesting if only because their existence has necessary and intriguing consequences for any setting they’re placed in.

They’ve got memories from two different people, without really being either of them. In Dave’s case, they were the spare already and they’ve got a fair bit of trauma about it, so becoming an even “faker” Dave is bound to have some kind of effect on them. In Nepeta’s case, they’re the only version of her left, and the fact that they can’t be her, even while she’s a huge part of them, is going to Do Things to their head.

I also think they’re lying to themself about not having depression anymore. Like, they know they’re probably going to permadie to Lord English when they head off to fight him and they do it anyway, despite literally no one asking them to. That is not the behavior of someone with a healthy attitude towards the inherent value of their own existence. I’d give even odds as to whether the constant cheer is consciously a front or if they’re repressing so hard even they don’t realize how not ok they are.

I’m genuinely surprised there isn’t more fic of them struggling with The Gender Thing. Like, they’ve got memories of being both a boy and a girl, and they decide to be neither upon entering existence? There are some implications there. Like, do Dave and Nepeta have repressed Gender Feelings? Was Davesprite an egg? Them immediately picking a new gender doesn’t necessarily indicate that at least one of their components was looking for an excuse to trans their gender, but it certainly indicates something. And honestly, that not being the case would have it’s own incredibly interesting implications. Like, is their gender an extension of their identity issues? It could be. I’d read that fic.

Speaking of identity issues… wow, am I right? They’ve got at least two different kinds of impostor syndrome, three years of getting called a fake version of themself on one end and three years spent as a ghost interacting with dozens of alternate universe versions of themself on the other, and that’s not even getting into the whole ultimate self thing.

Basically, I just… I love them. They’re wasted in canon but fandom is fully capable of realizing their potential in its stead and every time I find a fic that does it well I end up rereading it multiple times because they’re just such a delight when they’re written well. They’re also the only nonbinary character in the main body of Homestuck and I’m not about to lie and pretend that doesn’t give me a massive bias towards them.

[amemenojaku]

What about Reimu for the character ask meme....

I just did Marisa now I have to do the most important woman in the world

General opinion/How much I care about them: GIRL OF ALL TIME. My blog is a Reimu love zone ONLY and no slander will ever be tolerated. Her impact on nerd culture and on the internet as a whole is unparalleled... (ok Miku is up there too but they're sharing the throne) She embodies the series so well and I love her so much for that. It's so good how each new installment offers a different perspective on her personality... it makes me a bit emotional to think that we've never seen who Reimu "really" is. I'm particularly interested in her role both in the current setting and as the latest in a long line of shrine maidens, and how she feels about it all. Of course I also love her silly moments and her carefree side and her desire to just live :) She makes me feel happy and then when I think about her more deeply she makes me feel like there's still an endless amount of things left to do with her character and of fanworks to create which is the best part of Touhou to me!!

A ship I love: Reimari is my favorite for the reasons I wrote in the Marisa post, but in general she's the character I most easily enjoy pairings of. She bounces off others really well and there's a bit of everything for everyone, whatever the genre you prefer I think there's a good Reimu pairing for it! Some other characters I love seeing her with are Yukari (can't go wrong with a classic, the aesthetic is immaculate and it's good food for thought), Seija (this one is uhhh. a lot. don't really have the space to detail it here), Alice (either pure angst or pure fluff like there's no inbetween lol), Akyuu (they are THE SAME and IT HURTS!!!)...

A non-romantic relationship that I love: Her friendship with Shinmyoumaru is really important to me but since I already talked about it at length I'll say Aunn! It's super cute and I love to imagine doggie Aunn snuggling up to baby Reimu when she sleeps, even though Reimu isn't aware she exists... Another excellent addition to the Reimu solar system. This girl desperately needed another pet

The NOTP: Oookay the fandom's gonna burn me at the stake for this but I don't like reisana very much anymore. It's cute and I used to enjoy it quite a lot but stuff happened and now it's just there I guess. shrugs

My biggest headcanon about them: There's so many... I think there were mementos or diaries of the past shrine maidens kept somewhere in the shrine and Reimu found them. She's hidden them somewhere else so they wouldn't be taken away or damaged by anyone.

An idea for a fanwork I would like to make/see about them: I want to make a collaborative Reimu zine with other artists/writers SO badly... I definitely think it's possible to do it on tumblr but I've already ran a bunch of events for the community and it requires energy that I don't have anymore. Maybe one day!

Something that makes me think of them: Japanese indie band chouchou!! Here's a few songs I associate with Reimu specifically: dawn and sign 0

[ephemerasnape]

You post a lot of stuff that is considered dark or disturbing. Do people get frustrated about it?

I usually avoid mentioning that I'm into it and lately been thinking that it is a very unhealthy situation. Should I really be hiding a part of myself for the sake of some internet person who I don't know because they might get traumatized by the idea?

You seem very comfortable with your fantasies and preference. Is there way to do the same and still fit in the fandom?

Well consider this can of worms open!

Honestly, until recently, no, and I have been posting dark stuff since.. July or thereabouts? Since then people have mostly left me alone to do my thing.

But someone getting upset over the mere existence of my content doesn't bother me. The only thing that does bother me is when I feel blindsided by a negative response that I didn't really foresee as a possibility.

Feel free to hate my content. That shouldn't translate to hating me. Trust me - I hate a lot of other people's content too!

I understand that there is a risk of a negative response when I share something truly disturbing, so when I put my dark fiction, audios, et cetera, out there (some of which disturb even me), it doesn't surprise me that some people react badly to them. I am prepared for it to a degree. It's not ideal, but it's something I usually just laugh at. Actually, I am a little surprised it has not happened more frequently.

As far as fitting in with "the fandom," or fitting in anywhere else for that matter, I gave up on all that around the age of 12, so... it's a struggle I simply cannot relate to.

Black sheep? Who you callin' a herd animal???

I just do my own thing. It would be nice to feel more part of the fandom, but the whole "outside-looking-in" syndrome is a permanent fixture in my life.

Does it seem to an outside observer as if I fit in with the Hogwarts Legacy fandom? If so, it's probably a "fake it til you make it" type of thing. I am not in any discords except my own, none of the "big names" ever really reblog or interact with my stuff except on rare occasions.. I try to talk to people and they ignore me, and that's fine (OK IT'S NOT FINE 😭).

I do fucked up shit with characters that are far from the most popular - some of my more mainstream stuff has gotten a lot more traction. But I also know a lot of people enjoy my work who do not wish to draw attention to that fact.

I am decidedly and passionately myself, at great social cost at times. Being less authentic is something I am actually working on, in order to have a more robust social life at the very least, but it honestly requires too much emotional work from me to behave in a way that doesn't feel authentic to me.

That said, I am lucky to have a small but dedicated group of witches who are either ardent fans of my work or are otherwise supportive of the kinds of fanworks (and jokes) I make. We have a discord if anyone wants to join. No doxxing required (saw a new HL discord that makes you submit a photo ID???? Hard pass.)

This being Tumblr, indulging in degenerate fandom stuff is kind of the point.

So, let's do it!

[our-future-is-up-to-us-2]

Americans In London

I'm back on the Narcovember grind! (Mayyybeee...) Fic number 12 @narcosfandomdiscord

As the current hyperfixation is Ted Lasso, buckle up! They're gonna be everywhere >:D

Prompt #23, Book Of Just Chaos™: Fanwork with a cracked crossover/ship with characters from two very different genres 

The main crossover in question is: Dani Rojas (Ted Lasso) & Mika Camarena! (+ other Narcos: Mexico and Ted Lasso characters) 

Word Count: 1.9K

Relationships: Kiki Camarena/Mika Camarena, Mika Camarena & Dani Rojas

Warnings: None in terms of content, but just ignore the vastly different time periods of the shows... Let's just pretend that they co-exist, ok? Ok.

~ Read the fic under the cut ~

Mika walks through the streets of Guadalajara, mostly when she knows that Kiki’s out, and won’t be back for a while. 

She gets it, maybe not as entirely as she thinks, but she gets it. This job is important to him, and her husband’s always wanted to do good. For the family, for the world, or at least a portion of that world: Mexico. 

But sometimes, no, actually, most of the time, she believes it’s too much. She tells him, late at night, how dangerous things feel. How he just needs to have some time off, to recalibrate… To focus on the good things in life. 

He zones out at the barbecues hosted, sitting back with his drink and watching his companions revel about trivial things, their wives joining in on occasion. 

But there’s no victory. Not when they’re falling so far behind. When the drug lords of the world are only rising up the ladders, and they’re… Revelling. Socialising. Over nothing.  

She needs to get him out of here. Even if it means they might not come back… For a week, or two, or three– Hell, a holiday! DEA agents work so hard, of course they’re gonna need one! 

The afternoon sun bears down on Mika as she finds spaces of green, families in parks, many enjoying picnics or popsicles. 

But one particular green space catches her eye, barred off by a green wiry fence. There’s a door to this area, how else would all the boys get inside? But she’ll watch from her distance. 

She listens, keenly, to the mix of English and Spanish in the air. Young boys, lined up in jerseys and sport shirts. Black and white balls at their feet… 

A practice enclosure. A field. A training ground. 

Maybe they’ll go to a football game, Kiki and Mika, and do something else for a day… But a single day off? It’s nothing. It’s about as good as one of those barbecues, and off they all go, into regular life again. 

However, she won’t give up hope so easily. 

One young man gets pulled aside by the coach, and the coach speaks harshly to him in a flurry of Spanish. The young boy should probably be crumbling at the severity, but instead, he’s steeling himself, waiting patiently, properly– 

There’s her ticket. There’s his ticket. 

“ You’re no longer good enough for El Tigre. Only because you’re better. Tomorrow, off to Richmond. You play the big game, Dani. ”  

The boy’s eyes, Dani’s, widen in an instant. He first salutes his coach, before jumping up and down, shaking his hand. “ Gracias, Coach! ¡Muchas gracias! ” 

And it’s like the world has fallen into his hands. Like Guadalajara is now too much for him, perhaps too small for him… And this Dani fellow might not even fit into London very well, and he might come running back to the safety, the familiarity of El Tigre.  

Mika knows it’s no good to eavesdrop, to watch from the side, but then she remembers that Kiki does this every day. Around drug lords. And this? It’s a community football team, who is she kidding?! 

“Hey, you!” She calls out to the young boy, “Dani, isn’t it?!” 

“ Sí! ” He responds, his dark brown hair jumping up and down with him, “That’s me, Dani Rojas. Do you support the team?” He gestures back to his teammates, hell, they’re his friends. And he’ll miss them. 

Mika waves a so-so hand and sighs, “Look, I’m sorry if this seems weird, or rude, or something, but… My husband and I needed a getaway from Guadalajara. He’s not very keen on a holiday, but I am, so… Why don’t we join you in Richmond?” 

Dani’s foot taps against the ground, likely mulling it all over… Which is fair enough. A random woman, approaching him, basically trying to follow him to where he goes– It’s almost stalker-y, if Mika was the last thing from a stalker, and Kiki actually… Kinda stalked for his occupation. 

The smile on his face is like a ray of sun itself, bursting with life on her face. “Coach told me the flight’s for 9 o’clock tomorrow! Ooh, it’s going to be a long day, my friend!” 

She nods and brushes back a strand of her hair. This is our ticket.  

“You seem like a lot of fun, Dani.” She shrugs, “Call me Mika.” 

***

Kiki Camarena arrives home late that night. 

Not that Mika Camarena has any objections this time around. 

All the lights are on, bags are strewn on the floor, clothes everywhere– It’s like Mika’s pretending to be him when he packs for a long stakeout. 

And it’s confusing, because he hasn’t been assigned to any long stakeouts, and hasn’t had the guts to try again after last time… He’s been complacent (somewhat) working with the information that they have, sticking with the group, no crazy travel destinations! 

So why does this feel like he’s going to a crazy travel destination? And, if it’s related to anything with the DEA, why does his wife know first?  

“Hey, honey?” Kiki begins, knocking gently on their bedroom door, “Do you mind telling me what this is?” 

Mika laughs and looks up from her pile of clothes, her expression surprisingly bright. “Yeah, Kiki. We’re goin’ on a holiday tomorrow.” 

“A holiday?!” He immediately exclaims, furrowing his brows, “Mika, we’re here in Guadalajara, we don’t have time for a–” 

“Holiday.” She finishes, “Yes, we do. I’ve talked to Jaime, he’s given you time off. You’ll be back on the job the minute we get back, ok?” 

“Fine.” He resigns, gesturing to all the clothes, “So, where are we going? And when’s our flight?” 

“9 o’clock tomorrow morning, and we’re off to Richmond. It’ll be fun!” 

London, of all places? Why? What’s going on? What surprises are there?! 

“Help me out here, and do yourself a favour, sweetheart. Prepare for jet lag.” 

***

“When’s the new player, what’s-his-name–” 

“Dani.” Both Nate and Beard say in unison. 

“Yeah, him…” Ted sighs, rubbing his hands over his eyes, “When’s he comin’ in?” 

“Should be sooner or later. He’s from Mexico, remember?” Beard reminds, “But we should cut him some slack.” 

“Yeah, that’s right.” The manager stretches, looking out onto the pitch. It all reminds him of Sam, his homesickness, and his struggle for a few days. It’s not going to be fair to him to force him to play his best. 

After all, they need to figure out who Dani Rojas is, as a player and a man. It’s Ted's approach, after all: Find out one’s skills, one’s weaknesses, one’s personality… And slowly let them click into place. And whoever they click with? Well, it’s not his choice. 

As long as they fit in somewhere, the team can work with that. 

Little do they know what sort of storm is coming. 

***

Dani, Kiki and Mika step off the plane, and they each consult each other for directions, until they find taxis. 

And now, they’re on their way to Richmond AFC. 

It turns out that Dani Rojas, not unlike his new coach, Ted Lasso, talked for the majority of the flight. He didn’t seem entertained by any of the movies, games, and so on in front of him… Instead, he was enthralled by the idea of going to Richmond, of pouring himself and his life out onto Kiki and Mika. 

Mika did most of the talking in return, especially with her husband and his job. It’s because of that that he holds suspicions about everybody. 

Even this young footballer, fresh off a team in their area, and the sort of guy who’s filled the most loving personality. 

He repeats his mantra several times over to his newfound friends: “Football is life, right?! Oh, you’ll see… Football is life. ”  

Kiki tries to smile in the taxi, watching the world pass them by. A new place, new temporary accommodation, but his mind simply itches with bigger and better things: The drugs, the routes, the kingpins at the head of the game. 

He can’t switch off. At least, not for long. 

It helps to watch the young man, at times, seeing how he’s humming things to himself in Spanish… Mika clearly knew what to do, to make a strong connection with this guy, and something that would interest him enough to think about anything but the drugs. 

Maybe a part of that plan was working. 

They step out at Richmond AFC and Dani races through the front door of the club, surrounded by grey, blue and red. New colours, new themes, new surroundings… And he’s anything but fazed. 

And out the back door? That’s his ticket. The sun shining down on the gloriously green pitch, marked up in white. 

“Come on, amigos! ” He calls out to Kiki and Mika, “Let’s play!” 

The pair follow after Dani, sharing a small chuckle at that. The last thing they’ll be doing is playing, instead, just observing. Being completely honest with themselves, they would have rather headed to their accommodation first– But things are sorted out there, apparently. 

Besides, they’re here to support their new friend. 

And, in doing so, they end up beside the manager himself, Ted Lasso. 

He turns to face the newcomers with a bright smile, “Oh, hey!” He waves, “I’m only assuming you came with Dani?” 

“Yeah!” Mika smiles back, encouraged by the man’s initial reaction, “I’m Mika and this is Kiki. We’re friends of Dani’s.” 

“Well, ‘friends’ is one way to describe it.” Kiki chips in with a small frown, “It’s a long story.” 

“Perfect.” Ted says. Right off the bat, a long story connecting these two and Dani? Of course, he’s ready. “You can tell me everything, more than happy to hear it. I’m Ted, by the way, Ted Lasso.” 

From there, the woman dives into the details, with Kiki adding his own sentiments every now and then, a few sparing details about his job, because this man… Mika seems to trust him. 

And sometimes, that’s all he can believe: His own wife’s emotion and intuition. 

“Now we’re here. All because of Dani.” The DEA agent finishes, turning back to face the pitch, “Hold on… How is he not jetlagged as hell?! And he’s–” 

Really good. Is what he was going to say, and the three of them watch the young player circle around the other Richmond players, scoring a smooth and impressive goal in quick time. 

“Ooh, boy… He’s like a goshdarn puppy, that one!” Ted laughs, unable to help it. “Look, you two, you enjoy your time here. Rest is one of the best things you can get, Kiki, alright?” He pauses for a moment, but not enough to let anyone interject, “Hey, and if you need anythin’, just give me a holler, you got it? I’ve been here for a few months now, I’m not perfect, but– You’re two fellow Americans in London, so, we’re all in the same boat.” 

Kiki considers his words and sighs quietly. Rest is one of the best things you can get…  

He realises, only just then, how much his body’s been aching, how much his eyes struggle to stay awake, how the constant frustration and anger is only added to this amalgamation of things. 

God, he needs some rest. 

The minute that the pair walk away from the football scene, the man finds himself leaning his head against Mika’s shoulder, and she presses a kiss to his head. 

“Exhausted, aren’t you?”  

“Yeah…” Kiki replies slowly. 

“Well,” Mika simply laughs, “I’m glad that Ted Lasso got to you. ‘Cause it’s about damn time.” 

[cut-content-contest]

Moonjumper

The jist of his character is that he is the corpse of a prince, and his two rivals are the princes ghost and the princes ex. The 3 fuckers want to rule over the same area so competition. Also moonjumper I think only appears on the horizon, meaning he is the only 2d character in a 3d game which is pretty dope.

They were a cut character that was originally supposed to be pretty important, but all we got was gamefiles of vague information, a flat character model, a bit of dialogue, and some music. That hasn't stopped many different and wildly unique headcanons, designs, and stories from taking shape from the original scraps of this one axed character.

The third area/chapter in the game had a much different story in its concept stage, and even though the level was designed enough to be playable for a demo, the devs decided to simplify the story for that area from three central characters to one and a half. Originally, he was a prince that met with a terrible fate at the hands of his obsessively jealous princess, and he somehow got trapped on the horizon without any memories of his original life, instead going mad. He was going to offer information about the area to help to the protagonist, though he really wants to manipulate and control her and everyone else into being unable to leave the area. Mj's backstory was ultimately given to the new central character, Snatcher (who also existed but got a bit of a personality shift with his new spotlight), his musical theme (and somewhat his design) repurposed for the game's item dealer, and MJ himself was removed from the game. Bits of the original story are still scattered around (a spectral body outline on the wall, a face painted in the attic of an icy manor, the scrapped explorable area that still exists out of bounds in the final version of the game, a broken tower), but the character only exists in mods, fanworks, and the concept artist for the original level fleshing out his ideas in art. He has a lot of speculation about his full backstory, abilities, and role, but there's very little sources to have anything beyond theories.

okay. so. let me give you the basis of a hat in time's third (or second during the time moonjumper still existed) chapter. evil ghost guy steals the protag's soul and makes her do shit for him and along the way you can get Lore on why he's a ghost and turns out Another ghost-like entity that you encounter in the chapter killed him while they were both Alive. its more detailed than that but that is Not the point. ok. ghost guy who steals your soul. his name is snatcher. ghost guy who Killed snatcher. her name is vanessa. Where does moonjumper come in you may be asking. well. ORIGINALLY moonjumper was in snatcher's place. but! snatcher also existed in the game at the same time as moonjumper- just with a different backstory. eventually, moonjumper was scrapped, and snatcher filled that role. there are So many things involving moonjumper that got just outright removed because of this. However. there are also things that Didnt get removed that are still in the game that can be traced back to moonjumper, mostly through his design being different from snatchers- moonjumper's design is much, much more closer to the design of moonjumper/snatcher while he was still alive opposed to snatcher, who is just a purple ghost noodle. but even then, their human design and moonjumper's design still have quite a few differences. many people in the fandom/fan community of a hat in time like to try and incorporate moonjumper back into the story, and everyone's different takes are always fun to see :)

He was originally to be the remains of the prince, and was to haunt (and I believe attempt to take over) Subcon Forest. I’m pretty sure he was scrapped because a) there would have been too much going on in that one region and b) Snatcher was the spirit of the prince and in charge of the forest, so maybe they decided it was a little weird to have two characters come from the same dead guy. Also he would 100% have been a tumblr sexyman

Moonjumper is a cut character from A Hat In Time. Originally, they were going to live in Subcon Forest, and have puppetmaster motifs. He was also going to be the prince killed by Vanessa. The motifs and being killed by Vanessa were instead given to Snatcher, my little scrunkle doo.

Apparently originally there were supposed to be three characters for the Subcon Forest level, Moonjumper was supposed to be the Prince in the original story, but was later replaced with the Snatcher, who wasn't the Prince in original story. He still had NPC files on the full release of the game, but it wasn't a model, rather just 2D image with particle effects

He was a scrapped antagonist for the level of Subcon forest! Moon Jumper was scrapped due to the Snatcher being the main character for subcon forest, and not having room for subplots. Early developer commentary states that the Moon Jumper was stuck in the horizon and that his role throughout the level of Subcon forest was to get Hat Kid to join him in the horizon.

wiki link: https://ahatintime.fandom.com/wiki/Moon_Jumper video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mor-oR5ti9E showing off the NPC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krHXy8afF74

Yosuke romance route

persona 4 has got this friendship/romance mechanic called "social links" which is basically just 10 events that you can choose to gradually level up for each sociable character in the game where you raise your relationships with said characters, which gives you various in-game boosts. most of the women in the game are able to be romanced. however, there is cut dialogue which implies that at some point, one of the male characters was meant to be a romance option as well! yosuke hanamura, the main character's best friend, has cut dialogue for his social link rank 10 event which is voiced (VOICED!! IN ENGLISH AND JAPANESE!! WHILE PEOPLE HAVE DENIED THIS SINCE THE ENGLISH VOICE LINES HAVE HIM SAYING "I LIKE YOU," IN THE JAPANESE VOICE LINES, HE IS EXPLICITLY CONFESSING TO YOU I'M PRETTY SURE!!) that implies that there was at some point going to be an option to romance him. it's assumed that this was cut somewhere later in development due to the lines being voice acted, though i believe that the reason this was cut has not been confirmed yet (though, seeing as how persona 4 was made in the 2000s....... you can probably just guess why lol)

there were unreleased voice lines that showed what was supposed to be a gay route for Persona 4 (there ARE Japanese lines for this as well, and the way in which the "I like you" part is said is the Japanese version of confessing to someone you have a crush on) and a lot of fans do agree that the protagonist is best paired with Yosuke for character development purposes, but it was probably scrapped because of homophobia 😭

Exactly what it says. Was likely scrapped because Atlus are COWARDS who didn't wanna give us the gay romance we deserved. It would have been so cute though I'm forever pissed it was scrapped...

We know it was programmed it. Yosuke is the only male character with dialogue flags, meaning you can fail his social link. The only other characters with these flags are the female love interests. Yosuke also has recorded, in both English and Japanese, final confession lines, something unique to max rank romance social links. This means it was likely scrapped very late in development. As the game also covers (badly) gender and sexuality, we can hypothesize that Yosuke's character arc was supposed to be overcoming internalized homophobia. Instead he just kinda stays "jokingly" homophobic and never grows past it.

The player would have been able to enter a romantic relationship with the character Yosuke Hanamura— text and voice lines for this option still exist within the game, and can be activated via modding. They even have proper translations, and the English versions of the lines are voiced as well, implying that the cut was made rather far into development. While this is a sad loss in its own right, it also has devastating implications in regards to the original state of other pieces of LGBT+ representation which may have also been scrapped and/or heavily modified to appear. For example, Kanji’s attraction to men and Naoto’s gender situation were both downplayed and/or walked back in the final version of the game, but it’s highly likely that Yukiko’s arc was originally intended to include more bisexual overtones, and arguments can be made for Rise’s arc being meant to center on the struggle to come to some sort of terms with her own sexuality and presentation in an industry that keeps such a tight hold on those aspects of its workers lives.

throughout the entirety of persona 4 (+golden), yosuke is portrayed to be the best friend of the protag, but also extremely homophobic towards another male character who was hinted at being gay (before atlus fucked that narrative up too). his social link hints at him having a crush on the protag, and he was intended to have a romantic route just like the female characters, but that was cut (not sure why). the whole game is about embracing the truth, including your hidden sides that you are ashamed to show to others, and having yosuke come to terms with his repressed homosexuality (& realizing that he has internalized homophobia) would have fit perfectly within that theme, but atlus said fuck that shit and cut that entire romance out. the cut dialogue can easily be found on youtube. the thing with this being cut out is that without the romance and coming to terms with his homosexuality, the only thing left of yosuke is being very homophobic. no one condems yosuke for what he says to the other male character, and it is never addressed beyond mere gags or jokes. it's horrible to sit through and honestly it was such a missed opportunity. it's such an issue that people have made a mod implementing a romantic route for yosuke just because of this. every day i mourn thinking of what could have been

This game explores many queer themes, but lacks any explicit queer relationships. The fact that file scrapers and modders discovered an unused voice line for one of the male characters that implies a romance option for him was cut from the final game makes queer fans feel let down, regardless of how groundbreaking the other queer plot points were at the time of release. It's speculated that it was cut because devs or localizers thought that it would be too much queer content in one game, and that it would affect sales and create too much controversy. I, however, believe that anyone who manages to get through the mandatory gay sauna dungeon would have had no stones to throw about an optional mlm romance.

The first party member in Persona 4, Yosuke Hanamura, was originally going to be a viable romantic partner once the player got far enough into his Social Link. This was removed rather late in development, as voiced lines for a scene where he and the protagonist begin dating were recorded in both Japanese and English. To this day, Persona 2: Innocent Sin remains the only Persona game where the protagonist can enter a gay relationship with another boy.

In this game you can choose to romance several people. There is cut voiced dialogue for a romance route for Yosuke, the main character's best friend, but in the final game he is not a romanceable character. Some are of the opinion that taking out the romance option for Yosuke removes the complexity from his character.

https://gamerant.com/persona-4-golden-mod-yosuke-romance/

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

ok so my second semester has started in full swing, meaning i don't have time to actually make any fanworks for @mcytphysicaldisabilityweek but i WANT TO SO BAD. so today i'm telling you all about my hcs about empires!sausage and vision impairment.

so this hc spawned from a joke sausage made in jimmy's season 2 episode 13 (around the 9 minute mark) while they're searching for the warden fwhip gave as a "present". he refers to his free cam as his "detachable eye" and this offhanded joke kinda spiraled in my mind.

so s1 sausage gets into a very bad fight when he's in his late teens/early 20s. the injuries are very severe, and one particularly bad one results in the loss of his left eye. he gets a glass eye after this, but it's solely an aesthetic thing, it is not a visual prosthetic and does not supplement his vision in any way, as that technology/magic (it's weird in empires, it's inherently weird in any world where magic just Exists) either doesn't exist or isn't particularly developed yet. i haven't decided which it is but either way he does not have a bionic eye/visual prosthetic.

he only has the one glass eye, which perfectly matches his natural eye color (he's got the money to make it a really nice one, as king). when he starts to be overtaken by the corruption, however, his right eye starts turning red. this means it no longer matches the glass eye. after he gets kicked out of the wra and goes Full Evil he says "hm, fuck it" and starts wearing an eye patch instead. he thinks the red eye looks cooler if it's not offset by the blue one. once again, this man values aesthetics over all else. he could always get a red eye made, but he decides not to, he's too busy with Evil Plans and the like.

after blood sausage + good boy sausage get separated, good boy sausage goes back to wearing the glass eye immediately. in his mind, people associate the lack of it+the eye patch with him being evil, so he doesn't want to wear them (and like, people don't not associate that with blood sausage, but they also wouldn't have begrudged him for wearing it. he's just got! a lot of insecurities and issues! but i digress).

blood sausage obviously uh. can't access any tech in The Void and even when he makes his way into his own world, he sticks to the eye patch cause, like, why would he do anything different. he thinks he looks sick as fuck (he's right). in my mind he's got one of these cool decorative ones like this lady shows off on her social media:

anyways. s2 sausage also injures his eye resulting in the scar+vision impairment, though his injury happens when he's a child (like, 7-10 years old). it's not an injury from some sort of weapon like s1 sausage. i'm thinking, like, a rock or a tree branch or something else a small child is liable to get near and hurt themselves with. by the time this happens to him, however, it's been 1,000 years and something akin to the bionic eyes/visual prosthetics we have in the real world have been developed (though not exactly like the real world ones, as from what i understand, patients only qualify for them irl if the vision damage is in both eyes. which, with how different the vision is in a bionic eye than a normal eye, makes sense but. i don't care i wanna give more characters visual impairments because more characters SHOULD have cannon visual impairments. anyways.)

so he gets a visual prosthetic akin to a bionic eye but adjusted for. yknow. existing in a world where there's magic. vision in his left eye is not completely restored, ala a bionic eye in the real world, but it does help him get a limited scope of vision in that eye back.

however, when blood sausage+s2 sausage merge, this is a very big jump for blood sausage. he's never had vision in that eye before, and suddenly having it, even if it's not to the same scope as their right eye, is extremely off putting and difficult to get used to. for a while, the two of them cut a deal in order to allow blood sausage to get used to the additional sensory input. while sausage has had this for like, 30 years of his life at this point, and is used to doing everything with it, he's willing to wear an eye patch while not doing particularly strenuous or dangerous activities (during which he'd need the full extent of his vision so he doesn't hurt himself) in order to give blood sausage a break from the stimulation as he gets used to the change. he's already getting used to so much by issue of being in a different body than his own, and one that like... ages and shit too, so they work out a way to accommodate the changes. idk man i just think they're neat.

[tamelee]

Personally I don’t really get people who say they acknowledge Sasuke and Naruto’s romantic bond but still ship Sasuke with a woman… Like, they saw that he was gay (he’s shown to not be attracted to women so he’s not bi) but kinda don’t care?

Actually I don’t really understand the whole shipping culture, or even mainstream fandom culture… I don’t know, I just don’t see the point in just making up content for pre-existing characters while completely destroying what made the characters unique in the first place by ignoring canon entirely (like crack-shipping). I get why people wouldn’t like everything about canon, it’s my case too, but if they don’t like anything about canon… Why are they here in the first place?

Nooo now I sound grumpy. I must be bothering you I’m so sorry 😭😭

Anyway, you’re amazing and I hope you know it 🥰

You don't sound grumpy to me dw 🫶

Well, I don't believe such ships have much to do with Canon either way. And I doubt all of them hate Canon per se, though some change 'Canon' to like Canon, which is funny. "This is my Canon." Yeah, not how it works, but ok- have your Canon your way ofc ┐(￣ヮ￣)┌

Side-note though, I don't think Sasuke even knows who Hinata is? 😆 It's as you say; crack-shipping. (I saw that giant/small-yaoi meme here on Tumblr again. No idea what it's called, and immediately thought; a yes, Sukuna and Levi. Kinda want to draw xD Makes no sense at all.) A lot of Headcanon is derived from personal... ideas/desires/inspiration or self-inserting reasons? (Isn't that exactly what 'x-reader' fics are?) Or even trend-posting. As much as characters are used to tell a story for the original author/creator (they're essentially tools), do fans use them to create new ideas. "Ah yes, we all know this character, let's create something around it simply because I want to." Which is completely fine, right? Look at rare pairs. And to be fair, a lot of content, fictional writing and art aren't even based on canon either. The closest thing through fan-work are Manga analyses or meta's, even panel redraws- stuff like that. People adapt 'canon' into fanwork through various degrees or sometimes ditch it altogether. Nsfw/spice is by default made up and entirely Headcanon :') (Though personality can be depicted in a way ig, through expression/behavior and whatnot.)

I totally get what you mean though, although I guess I'm caught up in fandom-culture now. Personally, I do like characters as 'canon' as possible, but it really depends. For some Animanga I don't really care. I think I ship pretty much all TR/BlueLock-characters for literally no reason, but I wouldn't claim it to be Canon in any way (˚☐˚! )/

However, I don't like it when Naruto and Sasuke's characters are butchered. Made-up context or not. The originals are so special to me and it's the reason why I'm a fan, though I don't mind too much in fics, depending on the story. I find it hard to feel the same when they've practically become someone's OC's with only the same name and design. I can't even read height/age-differences because I can't imagine it xD But anyway, this all includes "official" work made for financial/marketing reasons also- especially those damn novels. Those never have anything to do with canon, nor does it align with it. No matter how passionately people claim otherwise.

I'm only a tiny bit petty about it >< u&me grumpy 🤝 And aahhww I don't actually, you should see me sitting here in giant red Christmas socks and a glittery green sweater that's kinda itchy tbh. I don't really feel anything other than those glitters annoying me every 3 seconds... which reminds me I should change -.- anw thankyou <3

[sonicenvy]

so my ao3 post, which is now at 8k notes is making me want to address some stuff from it again. So here i am posting about AO3 once again friends. In this edition, we're going to talk about content that counts as fanwork (and thus appropriate content under tos IV.H). There are a lot of awesome kinds of fanwork that you CAN and SHOULD post on your AO3.

examples of fanwork that are good to go on AO3:

drabble (a 100 word fic)

compilations of oneshots from ONE fandom/theme in a single, multi-chapter fic. This is an example of this that i posted.

fanart or fan comics, a superb example of this is this comic fic.

chat fic/social media fic (transcripts of 2 characters IMing/texting or whatever or in universe social media posts/threads/content) To get fancy with this and try out some awesome formatting, peep this work skin guide collection, or this guide or any of these guides to learn how to use HTML and AO3's workskin feature to make something that looks a lot like the real thing without resorting to images, which is worse for accessibility reasons. This is a fantastic example of an in universe social media fic.

epistolary fic (fic told in letters between characters). A fantastic example of this is this fic, which 🥰.

one shots (a single chapter, standalone fic, can be any length over 100 words)

podfic (that is, an audio recording of someone reading a fic, whether it is their own fic or someone else’s. if it’s not your fic, be sure to ask the author’s permission before posting a podfic and link back to their fic from your podfic) Here’s an example of a podfic that someone did of my fic.

AO3 workskin/site skin guides, such as this or any of the others I linked above.

Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, this is a superb example of this.

Meta, especially extended meta. This is a superb example of this.

collection of prompt fics, such as this, where the author posts a single fic, usually titled something like "tumblr prompts", puts the prompt in the author's notes of each chapter and makes the chapters the fic they wrote in response to that prompt.

script fic, that is, a mockup script for an episode or movie, which is a fic.

incomplete fic, aka wip. basically you post chapter 1/a prologue etc and continue posting as you write more. if you decide to abandon the fic, just note that in the tags or the description. you don't have to be finished with your fic to start posting!

multi chapter fic. novella length novel length, short story length whatever.

in universe media fic (that is, a fic that is like, written in things like in-universe blog posts, newspaper articles, messages, letters etc). Typically there's still some kind of story going on here.

This is not, of course a completely exhaustive list, but covers most of the allowed formats, to my knowledge. Please let me know if you think of something else!

“work” types that are NOT OK to post on AO3:

Placeholder “fic” -- A "fic" posted to AO3 that contains little to NO content, despite having a "summary" and tags. These "fics" contain only things like "a fic I will write soon," "an idea I have," or "coming soon." Some of these "fics" are also marked as complete! They do not contain any of the actual text of a fic. That is to say they are not, for example, a 100 word drabble (which is a fic), or short prologue, or the first chapter of a fic. They may contain a short description of a fic that does not exist, but are not in and of themselves a fic.

Looking for xyz fic or fic search “work” -- a “work” that is actually just a user trying to find a specific already existing fanwork. it is not, in and of itself a fanwork. Instead of doing this, learn to use filters and tags, and find fic search blogs (there are a lot of them, especially in larger fandoms) on tumblr. Alternatively ask on fandom discord servers, or fandom reddits.

A description of a fanwork that does not exist (ie: describing an undrawn comic or posting an outline of a fic that has not been written or describing a fic you plan on writing). This may also include most kinds of “bullet point” fic. This also includes “trailers” for fic. Just write and post the fucking fic. Save this kind of promotional stuff for the socials people.

Prompt Request -- the poster isn’t posting the results of prompts (ie: a my tumblr prompts compilation) but is instead asking for prompts, as though a work is a social media post. Instead of posting this, post a myPromptsComp of fics that you’ve written for prompts or challenges and ask for new prompts in the ANs (and not as a chapter).

Plagiarized work. I can’t believe I have to say this, but uh. don’t post work that isn’t yours.

Work that in ANY way implies, suggests or states that you are asking for MONEY in exchange for fic, yes even charity auction fic, yes even simply linking your Ko-fi. Don’t fucking do that on AO3. Link your socials and do that there. Don’t use AO3 for ANY commercial activity. This includes promoting the sale of any of your work, even non fanwork. This is a serious TOS IV violation.

the tdlr; here:

Use AO3 to post actual fanworks with actual content. Do not use AO3 for promotional, commercial or social posting.

[rollercoasterwords]

the uwuification of side characters is an epidemic truly, especially on tiktok. i don’t know how and why people have taken literal death eaters and erased everything about them that made them morally grey. there are characters that exist that are already not morally grey. and i completely agree that i think it’s the fact that people do not actually like the morally grey part of the characters and want them to have a redemption so bad. for example on tiktok there has been a huge rise of sirius hate and turning him into the villain for the prank or for leaving regulus, but then saying barty, evan, and regulus are the good guys and lifting them up. which again, people can dislike and like whatever (even if disliking sirius is just tasteless) but it’s strange that they erase these essential parts of the characters that are morally grey and instead turn sirius into a villain for example. it truly just shows their desperation for redemption and the fact that they fear the perception of these characters as morally grey. and i won’t get into the huge issue on how people hate on sirius and how angry that makes me bc that’s a whole other mess that i don’t need to annoy you with. but yeah basically i just wanted to say i 100% agree with you. i always love reading your posts, sometimes it seems like you’re the only person in this fandom that gets me

yeah i mean! again i want to make it clear that i don't think this is like. some Grand Moral Battleground like i don't think it's wrong of people to decide they want to turn any of these guys into their little ocs it's more just that. i personally find it confusing to select very dark characters and erase that darkness such that it is functionally nonexistent, because i'm just kind of like...why were you interested in the character in the first place? like what drew you to a character who is portrayed as a bad person if you dislike portraying them as a bad person?

and i mean. i get that a lot of it was basically just oc characterizations of these characters becoming popular fanon via the way virality works with fic + tiktok, and so i do think a lot if it is more like...these ocs that share a name with canon characters are what's becoming popular, and not the characters themselves. and again, there's nothing wrong with that--i just personally don't think i will ever really be interested in them!

but yeah the bit that i do think merits more discussion is like. whether this uwuification is indicative of a larger trend of people feeling as if they can only like characters who are Morally Good. and of course i think there is room to discuss like...the technical aspect of writing and what it means to completely divorce fanwork from the source material, whether or to what extent it flattens characters when we strip away their flaws, etc etc, but i think any conversations about the technical aspects of whether we think writing is better or worse when it comes to fanfic should only ever be had in general (i don't think it is ever ok to negatively and publicly critique specific fics, as i've talked about before) and should only ever be had with the understanding that at the end of the day it doesn't actually matter whether fanfiction is "good" by these technical measures, because you don't have to read anything you don't like and developing writers deserve a safe space to experiment and play around and have fun.

so like: on the whole, have fun doing whatever you want with the characters, but if a character you like doing Bad Things feels like a personal attack or a fundamental reflection of your own morality, that's something i think u should pause and examine for a bit. call me crazy but i think that even in our escapist feel-good hobby outlets it is sometimes worthwhile to reflect.

and the sirius stuff! i think i have seen some of the takes u are referring to and it makes me angry every time >:( which AGAIN if someone wants to make sirius the villain so that they can make regulus + his death eater sidekick friends the good guys there is nothing fundamentally morally wrong with that, people can do whatever they want, etc etc. however just on a personal level i love sirius so so so so much that anytime i see sirius slander i am overcome with a blind rage and forced to confront the fact that there are simply so many people out there who do not understand sirius like i do <3 but honestly the worst crime to me about taking something like the prank or sirius running away and deciding that sirius must be the villain in that situation is just the fact that people think there needs to be a clear villain in the first place, which goes back to the whole issue with viewing characters through these black + white moral frames and is, above all else, boring.

[ixtaek]

I know I’ll probably get killed for this but I have a theory why LU is the most popular Link Meet AU.

First off, if an AU is drawn instead of written, it’s going to be more popular, because strong visuals give people more stuff to latch onto. Especially if the art is really cool, colored, and distinctive. Each Link in LU has a distinctive design that makes them visually easy to tell apart and a unique skill-set they bring to the table. I know some folks don’t like that Wind and Four are composites of multiple games which are spread over several canonical centuries, but part of why it works is because the games they encompass have very similar looking Links (I’m sorry Spirit sweetie). Every character wears something that naturally exists in their game, but is visually distinct as “them”. Even Four, who looks the most different from his in-game sprites, is still modeled after the stained glass window from Minish Cap. An outsider to Link Meet AUs but a knowledge of Zelda games (like myself) can easily walk into the AU and say “oh ok that’s the Link from Twilight Princess and that’s the one from Skyward Sword” pretty much at a glance.

But there are lots of really cool well drawn distinctive Link Meet AUs out there, so why is this one doing numbers? I think it’s also because there’s very little extra headcanon attached to the LU boys in the comic itself. Everything about them is pretty closely tailored to their games, from appearance to skills to personalities. The only completely canon relationship in LU iirc is Malon and Time are married and Sky and Sun are dating. Most AUs I see add in some of the artists own flair or ships or identities into the Links, which is great, but it can create a more limited sandbox for others to play in. Like if an AU has RavioLi as canon or it’s definite that Link and his Zelda are related, then people who ship ZeLink can’t put their own spin on things. If you’re adding a gender identity or disability or something to your AU, then people feel uncomfortable trying to change that in fanworks, and may not engage as much because of it. And especially if you have like, a big extra non-game mechanic going on that runs how the Links are meeting that people may be intimidated by. Fandom lives in the ability to adapt and project a little. The more you make “canon” to your AU, the fewer wild ideas people will run off with linked to it.

Another reason, and I say this with all the love in my heart, is that because LU has become so intrinsically linked with the hero titles (ie the game names), some people wanna differentiate by giving their Links different names than Time/Twilight/Wind/etc. Which is totally fine and honestly really fun, but it’s not as immediately identifiable for some as the game names, which can be a barrier. And sure, if you know the lore well enough some are obvious—the one with pink hair is the one from ALttP, the one with a fairy name is probably the OG Link, the one with any sort of body of water referenced is probably Wind Waker—sometimes there are overlaps. Like OoT Link and OG Link could both be called fairy boy. Wind Waker and Link’s Awakening could both be island names. This isn’t insurmountable, but it’s a barrier that LU doesn’t really have.

This ain’t to say other Link Meets AUs aren’t great, cuz they are! I follow a few of them and enjoy them immensely, and several get a lot of engagement! This is just my theory as to why LU has become kinda the Ur example of the Link Meet AU, and why the fandom is so big compared to other options.

I’m not tagging this because I honestly don’t want to discourse. I just want to ramble.

[altean-time-traveling-volcanoes]

Ok... And I love seeing older fandom folks around, but I do not need my narcissistic bipolar, judgy, infantilizing b***** of a mother who reads trashy fetishizing romance books and then thinks she understands the queer community on AO3. I don't want her asking for me to share specifically what I am reading because, oof, I don't need her reading it and maybe, possibly, putting 2+2 together and figuring out that I am still livid with the trauma she is responsible for in my childhood that she refuses to take responsibility for and continues to guilt us (my sister and I) for wanting her to make sincere amends.

I have shared fanfic and AO3 with people my parents age who had no idea that this type of fanwork existed in any major way, who I truly think will enjoy it and be respectful of the community that surrounds it. People who understand the idea of "don't like, don't read." I regularly read fanfiction posted by people old enough to be my parents (and I am a real, proper, adult with a fully developed brain and everything).

But... I don't feel like sharing AO3 with my entitled Karen of a mother. (Also that woman uses weaponized incompetence to avoid Googling things like "rock hounding in our state" and "xyz thing native to our state" so I am definitely not introducing her to a site where she needs some minimum level of internet literacy to filter results). So yeah, when she notices me reading fanfic, I am vague and only mention certain things about it that I know she doesn't care about specifically so she won't ask me to share it with her like she does some of the published books I have read. I really don't want a repeat of the Red, White & Royal Blue discussions.

(Speaking of, I really need to find the RW&RB fanfic thats written by a guy in like his 80s who loves the polisci aspects of that book because I want to read it so bad but I don't even remember where I heard about it let alone what it's called. So if anyone knows the name of that author or fic PLEASE let me know, I just know it's on AO3)

[cut-content-contest]

Moonjumper

The jist of his character is that he is the corpse of a prince, and his two rivals are the princes ghost and the princes ex. The 3 fuckers want to rule over the same area so competition. Also moonjumper I think only appears on the horizon, meaning he is the only 2d character in a 3d game which is pretty dope.

They were a cut character that was originally supposed to be pretty important, but all we got was gamefiles of vague information, a flat character model, a bit of dialogue, and some music. That hasn't stopped many different and wildly unique headcanons, designs, and stories from taking shape from the original scraps of this one axed character.

The third area/chapter in the game had a much different story in its concept stage, and even though the level was designed enough to be playable for a demo, the devs decided to simplify the story for that area from three central characters to one and a half. Originally, he was a prince that met with a terrible fate at the hands of his obsessively jealous princess, and he somehow got trapped on the horizon without any memories of his original life, instead going mad. He was going to offer information about the area to help to the protagonist, though he really wants to manipulate and control her and everyone else into being unable to leave the area. Mj's backstory was ultimately given to the new central character, Snatcher (who also existed but got a bit of a personality shift with his new spotlight), his musical theme (and somewhat his design) repurposed for the game's item dealer, and MJ himself was removed from the game. Bits of the original story are still scattered around (a spectral body outline on the wall, a face painted in the attic of an icy manor, the scrapped explorable area that still exists out of bounds in the final version of the game, a broken tower), but the character only exists in mods, fanworks, and the concept artist for the original level fleshing out his ideas in art. He has a lot of speculation about his full backstory, abilities, and role, but there's very little sources to have anything beyond theories.

okay. so. let me give you the basis of a hat in time's third (or second during the time moonjumper still existed) chapter. evil ghost guy steals the protag's soul and makes her do shit for him and along the way you can get Lore on why he's a ghost and turns out Another ghost-like entity that you encounter in the chapter killed him while they were both Alive. its more detailed than that but that is Not the point. ok. ghost guy who steals your soul. his name is snatcher. ghost guy who Killed snatcher. her name is vanessa. Where does moonjumper come in you may be asking. well. ORIGINALLY moonjumper was in snatcher's place. but! snatcher also existed in the game at the same time as moonjumper- just with a different backstory. eventually, moonjumper was scrapped, and snatcher filled that role. there are So many things involving moonjumper that got just outright removed because of this. However. there are also things that Didnt get removed that are still in the game that can be traced back to moonjumper, mostly through his design being different from snatchers- moonjumper's design is much, much more closer to the design of moonjumper/snatcher while he was still alive opposed to snatcher, who is just a purple ghost noodle. but even then, their human design and moonjumper's design still have quite a few differences. many people in the fandom/fan community of a hat in time like to try and incorporate moonjumper back into the story, and everyone's different takes are always fun to see :)

He was originally to be the remains of the prince, and was to haunt (and I believe attempt to take over) Subcon Forest. I’m pretty sure he was scrapped because a) there would have been too much going on in that one region and b) Snatcher was the spirit of the prince and in charge of the forest, so maybe they decided it was a little weird to have two characters come from the same dead guy. Also he would 100% have been a tumblr sexyman

Moonjumper is a cut character from A Hat In Time. Originally, they were going to live in Subcon Forest, and have puppetmaster motifs. He was also going to be the prince killed by Vanessa. The motifs and being killed by Vanessa were instead given to Snatcher, my little scrunkle doo.

Apparently originally there were supposed to be three characters for the Subcon Forest level, Moonjumper was supposed to be the Prince in the original story, but was later replaced with the Snatcher, who wasn't the Prince in original story. He still had NPC files on the full release of the game, but it wasn't a model, rather just 2D image with particle effects

He was a scrapped antagonist for the level of Subcon forest! Moon Jumper was scrapped due to the Snatcher being the main character for subcon forest, and not having room for subplots. Early developer commentary states that the Moon Jumper was stuck in the horizon and that his role throughout the level of Subcon forest was to get Hat Kid to join him in the horizon.

wiki link: https://ahatintime.fandom.com/wiki/Moon_Jumper what we know and some theories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mor-oR5ti9E showing off the NPC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krHXy8afF74

Timmy

when a hat in time was in development, it had a kickstarter with stretch goals. one of these stretch goals was co-op multiplayer. we did get co-op eventually- but the character used alongside the protag wasnt always the same. the protag and main character of a hat in time is hat kid! in co-op, the second player plays as bow kid. but, originally, the second player character was going to be a boy named timmy. not much is known about him as im pretty sure he never really had much put into him before he was cut. what we do know is he is a bit older than hat kid (maybe he had an older brother dynamic with her?), and had physic powers. whether or not he would be able to Use those powers in gameplay is unknown. he's been modded back into the game by multiple people all with different interpretations of him.

[aether-writes-things]

Pinned lmao

Hello! You can call me Aether :3 My pronouns are they/them primarily, but I also use he/him. I'm queer and make queer art.

I'm 21+, live in the U.S., and am married. Yes, my husband is my beta reader lmao, I love him sm

I'm nonbinary/transmasculine/genderfluid or some kind of bs like that. Labels are hard lmfao. Sense of self? We don't know her.

I write stuff. And things. Sometimes nsfw, but not all the time lol

Current works posted: 1 (not complete)

WIPs: 3

Fandoms I write for: Legends of Zelda / Original Links Meet AU, Sometimes Sorta Linked Universe, Marvel (sometimes, lol, the Deadpool and Wolverine brainrot has a vise-like grip on my brain rn and it's distracting me from other fandom...oof)

If you want to see me spew nonsense, just look for the tag aether yaps because I do a lot of yapping.

My works will be tagged as aether's stories.

I write both short and long form fiction. My AO3 handle is AetherWritesThings.

More randomness under the cut! (You can also find DNI related inquiries, more on fandom, and what kind of tags to block if you don't want to see certain types of works on my blog, as well as general content warnings for my non-adult/YA work.)

Backstory timeeeeeee

I've been writing fanfiction since the autism really started autisming back in 2010. Yeah, I've been writing fanfic for 14 years and I haven't had an AO3 until now. Sad innit lol (Also yes, I am actually autistic, amongst other brain problems lmfao) I started in a spiral bound notebook, writing Twilight Princess fanfiction by hand as a child.

I fell off the writing wagon in 2020, when my writing buddy and best friend ghosted me for being queer. Since then, I've done a lot of growing up, changing, and deep introspection. Besides learning how to handle my mental illness, I've also learned to take my time and enjoy the process of creation, rather than just slap something on a page and hate it for the rest of my existence. I've also learned that, sometimes, it's ok to put down the original work and just enjoy some self-indulgent fanworks sometimes!

I haven't gotten his permission to tag his account here, but my lovely beta reader is my very own husband, the only person in my life that I feel comfortable sharing my works with. (It's different if it's strangers on the internet or writing buddies, which I don't have anymore, lol) Shoutout to the hubby <3

I don't really do DNIs because I don't post anything that could be DNI-able. (And by that, I mean I will avoid posting or reblogging triggering or DNI-able content, such as political or deeply controversial content). Most of my works are intended for young adult audiences, but sometimes the ship brainrot seizes me and I make adult works as well. I will tag everything appropriately. If you don't want to see NSFW content, but still want to follow, feel free to just add jeepers that's smut to your blocked tags! That's what I'll tag any and all of my adult-themed works with!

I'm also gonna tag fandom as aether writes (insert fandom) so I can organize my work. For example, if I post a Zelda fic, I'll tag aether writes Legend of Zelda :)

General content warnings DO apply to my sfw content, so as I post / think of more, I'll add to the list here. Current Content Warnings / Trigger Warnings: violence, blood, medical procedures, emeto/vomit/illness (non-graphic, I am emetophobic lol), death, strong language

And some stuff just for fun!

I have two cats, both of them orange. They're so dumb <3. My favorite color is green. I have been in the Legends of Zelda fandom for going on 15 years now (I'm old). My favorite three Legends of Zelda games in descending order are Twilight Princess (ily Midna), Skyward Sword, and Wind Waker. I have also played Majora's Mask (ITS SO HARD), Ocarina of Time (screw the Water Temple fr), Phantom Hourglass, Hyrule Warriors, Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom. I recently started Minish Cap and I adore it!

Feel free to message me or ask me stuff! I should be posting some writing soon, so be on the lookout for more silliness.

Last Updated: 10-29-2024