#Sometimes I get a bit fixated on my own lore

[ne0nwithazero]

Simulate Sunlight

[idolomantises]

ngl, the more I think about it, the more I feel conflicted over how people sexualize my characters.

On the one hand, it would be silly to deny that I don't go out of my way to create aesthetically pleasing/attractive characters because I love to draw what I enjoy, and I love it when people simp for them.

But on the other hand, sometimes it does bother me that people are so fixated on sex and their own arousal that they miss important lore/plot information that I get a bit frustrated

[vidavalor]

hi again! rewatched the 1st season now. so first off thanks again for the excuse i appreciate it lol. but secondly hoping you wouldn't mind explaining the satan's obssession with crowley thing? cos he's obvs creepy as all hell pun not intended in the 11 years ago scene but i haven't found the bit that confirms it's a fixation on crowley and not just satan being satan. tysm!

Hi! Thanks for the ask. I can try and we can see what you think after, yeah? :) Christmas cookie? *passes plate and pours some tea*

TWs: discussion of PTSD, sexual assault, including rape, intimate partner abuse, anxiety, depression. We're looking at Crowley as an assault survivor here so it's a bit dark. Lindsay's abuse of Nina is also mentioned here. This will wind up having a companion meta at some point soon as I was also asked in comments on another post to talk about Crowley and intimacy issues which is then really also talking about Aziraphale as a trauma-informed partner so a less intense Part 2 at some point soon...

If you're the anon who asked me this (or anybody else) and you can't read something with these warnings but you'd like to see what I'm saying, PM me or throw something in my Asks and I'll see if I can do a version of this that gets the points across while omitting the darker aspects.

Meta on Lucifer and Crowley under the cut.

The Ask here was about why I see Lucifer as fixating on Crowley, in particular, and not just being generally evil as, ya know, he's Satan. It's a fair question since Satan's evil isn't exactly something that anyone would consider restrained as he's the devil. Some of this is inference here when it comes to Lucifer, since the show intentionally holds the character back a bit... but I also think that holding Lucifer back is by design to help illustrate some things that we'll look at here.

The first clue to me that Lucifer has a bit of a fixation on Crowley comes from Crowley's gigs in Hell. Before the end of S1, Crowley was high-ranked in Hell. He seems to go by quite a few names in his demonic world. By making himself Nanny Astoreth when he's looking after Warlock, it alludes the idea that Crowley is also the demon of that name, who is considered part of the "evil trinity" of Hell, along with Lucifer and Beezlebub, with whom Crowley used to spend time with pre-Fall and with whom he has history.

Astoreth is a genderbent serpent goddess in lore with an abundance of other Crowley traits so safe to say that Crowley is meant to be Astoreth as well. Aziraphale proposed in 33 AD that Crowley is also Mephistopheles and Asmodeus, which Crowley didn't exactly deny. Mephistopheles is one of the most famous demons to ever exist-- he of the Faustian bargain-- and Asmodeus is the demonic prince of lust. Crowley's already been shown to be a Bible figure in disguise-- Bildad the Shuite being a Biblical character-- so the idea that we are at the 2/3rds mark of the show and we've met all the high-ranking demons in Hell but several famous ones appear to not exist in Good Omens, despite more minor ones (Shax, Furfur) making appearances, implies that we probably actually have met demons like Mephistopheles and Asmodeus because they're all really Crowley.

Crowley retained power in Hell because it allows him what little freedom he can have in damnation. It means he likely won't be removed from Earth if he proves he's "good" at being a demon and that means he won't get stuffed in some cluttered, dark, cubicle in Hell for millennia. (Or destroyed.) More importantly, it means he'll be able to be on Earth with Aziraphale. That's easily worth taking credit for a bunch of human wars to fool Hell into thinking he's evil.

While we see that Crowley, when forced to come up with a demonic plot of his own, picks more annoying things than evil things and sells them as evil-- the M-25 design, taking down mobile phone networks, he's sometimes forced into doing things he doesn't want to do in order to not be outed as a demon who isn't super jazzed about being a demon and is really, secretly, a free-flying crow. He doesn't live to serve their Master Satan like some of the other demons do. He's going along with Hell as best he can and sometimes, he finds himself in a situation where he has to get creative because he's been tasked with something he disagrees with-- like we saw in the Job minisode. Other times, he might be forced into something he can't find a way out of, which is implied a little to be at the root of his terrible mood when he and Aziraphale meet up in Ancient Rome. He's wearing military garb that implies the temptations he's saying he's in Rome to accomplish are tied to Caligula, who wasn't exactly a swell guy.

What's interesting, though, is that Crowley is in this position of power in the first place. Other demons are shown in both seasons so far to be jealous of Crowley. He gets all the good gigs. Satan makes a bet with God that has both Upstairs and Downstairs in a tizzy for weeks and who is sent to whack the kids? Crowley. Who was sent on the first ever really Earth mission-- to get up into the Garden of Eden and "make some trouble"? Crowley, long before he'd cemented his big reputation. Who gets to deliver the antichrist baby and so kick off Armageddon, the thing that angels and demons basically "live" for? Crowley...

Across both seasons so far, Hastur, Ligur and Furfur are all given scenes of showing that they're jealous of Crowley being a favorite of Satan's and given the best assignments while they slum it in middle-management at best. What Crowley never says or admits to with other demons is that they actually don't want to be the favorite of Lucifer over here because he's the actual fucking devil and it's an absolute horror show. Crowley isn't about to admit that to them because he's supposed to want nothing more than to be Satan's slave and to express anything else is not demonic.

The other demons who are antagonistic towards Crowley are invasive and creepy but they stop short long before what we've seen Lucifer do. Hastur and Ligur pop up unannounced in Crowley's electronics-- the tv in his flat, on the screen at the movies-- and that's already disturbing. Imagine having your evil coworkers able to interrupt your r&r tv time in your own apartment... let alone the fact that Shax and even Beezlebub both pop up into The Bentley unannounced in S2. There's no evidence so far that Satan is out here "delivering instructions" like this to others in Hell the way he does to Crowley in 1.01 (and there's actually a scene in S2 that we'll talk about that suggests that he's not or, at least, that it's uncommon, which we'll get to in a second.)

He might well be but when you combine assaulting Crowley with giving him all the prime gigs in Hell and the other demons' jealousy of their Master's attention towards Crowley, you wind up with the impression that Satan is a bit fixated on Crowley.

The Bentley scene with Lucifer in 1.01 is analogous to rape. Crowley's sense of personal autonomy is violated. He doesn't consent to Lucifer forcibly entering his body. Lucifer does so by first penetrating through Crowley's two foremost metaphorical defenses-- The Bentley (enters through the radio and uses it to invade Crowley) and his sunglasses, which cannot shield his eyes/himself from Lucifer. Crowley already has these signature defenses mechanisms on in the attack scene and the horror in the scene is actually watching neither of them protect him. The scene is so early in the show that it's only the second scene we've ever seen Crowley wearing his glasses (and it's pitch black dark out, to add to it) so the glasses are basically introduced to us by showing us a situation that motivates Crowley's desire to hide his eyes from people he doesn't trust, even if they aren't human and know what his eyes look like. This is Crowley's third scene in the series itself and it's really arguably the second half of his second scene (the Hastur & Ligur in the graveyard one.) It's part of our introduction to Crowley in the modern era, with only Eden preceding it. Armageddon is new but the rest of this hell-- faking being evil, suffering violating attacks-- is thousands of years old for him at this point.

Crowley is driving when this happens.

Driving is the ultimate symbol of self-control because you're literally behind the wheel, navigating yourself through the world, in control of where you are going and the decisions you need to make to get you there, trusting yourself to make decisions that protect others on the road around you. Lucifer rips that from him by rendering him unable to drive while "delivering instructions" to his mind. Crowley-- a very powerful, magical being-- is unable to fight him off. When Lucifer leaves his body, Crowley had to grab the wheel and steer The Bentley away from hitting an oncoming truck with about three seconds to spare from a head-on collision. Crowley, The Bentley and the antichrist baby all would have likely survived that crash without issue because of their magic-- but the human driving the truck likely would not have. Obviously, Crowley would prefer not to kill anybody but Satan nearly made him against his will and rendered him unable to fight him, the powerlessness of which is then interesting when tied into things like Crowley essentially drugging himself to save Elspeth, trusting the present Aziraphale to help protect him while he did, etc..

As the attack happens, parts of "Bohemian Rhapsody" are underscoring it, picking up on a musical cue from when Crowley rolled up in The Bentley to see Hastur and Ligur in the graveyard. The graveyard scene sees Crowley arrive at the big crescendo of the song and what is it but the lyrics Beezlebub, has the devil put aside for me? and, prior to that, the eerie lyrics, especially on rewatch when you know what happens as a result of this scene: we will not let you go (let him go) x a million, not to mention the no no no no no no... bit.

By the time we're back in The Bentley and Lucifer has shown up, parts of the song play through it. I see a little silhouetto of a man plays as Crowley is literally seeing the driver of the oncoming truck in front of him, just as he loses the ability to control The Bentley. When Lucifer leaves him and Crowley grabs the wheel, we hear thunderbolts and lightning/very, very frightening/me and the Galileo segment of the song. Thunderbolts and lightning is interesting since God makes it a point to point out that this night is not dark and stormy but then that type of weather is what Crowley does in S2 that causes the power to go out and his parallel, Nina, to be trapped. It's also what demons in general can do so you could say sending a storm-- like in the Job minisode-- to be demonic and of Satan. (If it's not Crowley doing it to play Cupid, anyway.) The thunderbolts and lightning of Satan/Hell is very, very frightening to Crowley...

...Me/Galileo/Galileo/Galileo/Figaro... Galileo is arguably the most famous astronomer to ever live. He was a polymath, really, like Crowley was. Crowley, as an angel, made the stars and invented gravity. The scene with Hastur and Ligur that precedes this and ties into it has Hastur mistranslate the Italian Crowley spoke during it. Crowley said "ciao", meaning "goodbye", which Hastur correctly said was Italian but he claimed it meant "food" (mistaking it for "chow" because he's an idiot.) So a scene that ends with Crowley speaking Italian then connects directly into the scene of this attack, where Italian is spoken in the song scoring it, as Galileo was Italian and figaro in Italian is "fig tree".

While Eve does eat an apple in Good Omens, the Biblical 'fruits of knowledge' that tie to the Serpent tempting Eve in Eden are interpreted in different ways throughout different religions and at different periods in history. In Good Omens, Crowley got Eve to eat an apple and the pleasure of food opened a door to sexual pleasure. Eve shared the apple with Adam and they were *Aziraphale's hilariously judgemental voice* "expecting already" with Eve about 8 months pregnant later a day later because Eve's biology is atypical of other humans and all that. It's debated as an apple, with other different fruits and sometimes even wheat mentioned as possible things Eve ate-- if she ate food at all, as some people take the entire thing as a sexual metaphor. Figs are one fruit that some people believe it was instead of an apple, so this is a reference to Crowley as the Serpent of Eden.

Me/Galileo/Galileo/Galileo/Figaro... Crowley holding onto himself while under attack and just after it, which speaks to activation of a plan, which speaks to this not being the first time he's endured something like this. Galileo and Figaro = The Starmaker and the Serpent of Eden. The things he's done that he is proud of, that make him not evil, in his mind, and not deserving of this. Things he likes about himself. Things Aziraphale loves about him.

The song is narrating for us Crowley through the attack as he's basically frozen there enduring it, seeing the driver of the truck coming at him and Scaramouche/Scaramouche/Will you do The Fandango?

A scaramouche is a kind of mischievous scamp-- so, Crowley; The Fandango is a Spanish couple dance. Historically, one version of it is done between a pair of men who try to outdo one another with skill, in a kind of homoerotic competition. It's also slang for fucking during a concert and I have the feeling that Crowley would probably enjoying doing that Fandango a lot more as that would be consenting with a partner of his choice at a live concert rather than being mind-raped to Queen by the devil in his car. Regardless, it's another allusion to sex in the scene, adding to the rape overtones.

There's also something that is pretty horrifying about the fact that these scenes of Crowley and Aziraphale being separately reintroduced to us in 2008 after we first met them both together in Eden are intercut so that Lucifer's attack on Crowley scored by "Bohemian Rhapsody" ends with the Italian sung and cuts directly into Aziraphale speaking Japanese to the chef at the sushi restaurant.

He'll try to explain to Gabriel that eating sushi is "what humans do", which is the same phrase he'll use to try to explain to Michael and Uriel in S2 what falling in love is. During the bookshop attack, Shax will bully Aziraphale about his humanity-- about the same two things (food and love) in the two previous, connected scenes. (Gabriel, initially the one repulsed by tea in 1.01, leaves the scene after Aziraphale tells him to hide by asking if anyone wants a hot chocolate, in a pretty hilarious turnabout.) Shax calls back to the food-related and the love-related "it's what humans do" moments for Aziraphale by asking if she should "send up the sushi" and by mocking his relationship with Crowley ("What are you? Crowley's emotional support angel?"). Crowley and Aziraphale are the ones in love and it's tied together throughout multiple scenes in both seasons to sushi, in reference to the night Armageddon began in 2008.

The point then is that, making this all even worse, Crowley is actually supposed to be at a back corner table in a dark sushi restaurant sneaking a date with Aziraphale when he's attacked by Lucifer in The Bentley-- and then forced into helping start Armageddon, which could bring about the end of his and Aziraphale's relationship... and that's our grim introduction to his world in the modern part of the story.

As we go learn what Aziraphale is like in the modern era and contrast him with his head office's mentality via Gabriel's arrival, we also are given clues in the scene that suggest that Aziraphale was actually expecting Crowley, as he looks to the side Crowley comes up on when he hears the miracle sound that actually signals Gabriel's arrival instead. Aziraphale will then explain that he's there, doing "what humans do" and enjoying it, to Gabriel, and it will be only eating sushi in this moment, just as Crowley will not be present when Aziraphale explains that falling in love is "what humans do" while objectively talking about Maggie & Nina but, ultimately, talking about himself and Crowley beneath it-- his real motivation for keeping Heaven off their backs is Crowley. The writers then have Shax combine the two "it's what humans do" scenes around love and sushi and throw them back at Aziraphale while Crowley is once again not with him because of Heaven/Hell but is present in his absence in the moment.

All of this happens in the first scenes of Crowley in the modern era, all the way back in the first episode, and it's done to give us an understanding that he is a survivor of attacks like this and how that impacts his behavior, his choices, his relationship with Aziraphale. It's to give us a finer appreciation for his strength and his humor and his capacity to love in the face of it. It's to show that while some of the demons are just kind of amusing idiots, if dangerous, and that there's a lot of humor to mine there, some aspects of being a demon are not at all amusing. Crowley is really just doing the best he can to survive the absolute horror show that is an eternity of damnation as Satan's favorite over here because there are very dark, very violent aspects of it that he cannot permanently avoid.

While the attack we are shown is a mercifully short, if horrifying, scene, the implications of it are even worse. The assault we are shown had a plot purpose in that moment-- Satan giving instructions on delivering the antichrist baby to the satanic nunnery-- and since everything was in motion, that was the extent of it. Armageddon took precedence. What we are left with, though, is the impression that this type of demonic assault with its massive rape overtones is something that Crowley's experienced before and that the implication is that Lucifer attacking him is not always just to deliver a message related to an assignment but to deliver one of forcible control over him and that this is something that Crowley has been dealing with periodically for the 6,000 years he's been on Earth. It's akin to a kind of rape in 1.01 and that is already way more than enough to see how that would affect Crowley in the story... but then S2 takes this scene and both alludes to it in a key moment and gives it a whole paralleling subplot, highlighting its importance and continuing to expand upon the meaning of it. Both things together then suggest that while we saw a rape-coded assault in 1.01, the feeling that the scene was alluding to other instances where it was rape itself was definitely the implication of it.

In S2, in the group scene at the end, Crowley is out of the bookshop taking Maggie and Nina away from the angels for their safety when the subject of Satan comes up for the only direct time that season. Shax demands that Gabriel and Beezlebub be taken to Hell to be given "as gifts for Satan, our Master" and Head of the Dark Council Dagon replies that "he wouldn't want them-- maybe as hors d'ouerves." On the show obsessed with food symbolism and that codes different types of food with relation to sex-- in particular, because of Serpent of Eden Crowley-- and with the brothel owner named "Mrs. Sandwich", to say someone would want a being as a "hors d'ouerves" implies sex and if we're talking about Lucifer, then we've already established that consent isn't exactly a priority. Rape isn't about sex-- it's about power-- but the show is coding Lucifer's behavior in line with its coding of sex to highlight that his violation of Crowley isn't just of the heavily rape-coded variety that we saw in 1.01 but has actually, at other times, been rape.

Dagon's most significant line in S2 is essentially to point out that Satan's a rapist-- but it's also to point out that not everyone in Hell has been through that horror. Satan's choosy. Satan's a bit fixated. Dagon's comment is actually surprising. Your first thought when Shax suggests giving Gabriel and Beez to Lucifer is that he's the devil so they'd be in danger and what you've seen of what he's done to Crowley was skin-crawling and you don't want that to happen to Gabriel and Beezlebub. You assume that it might because we're talking about Satan but then Dagon puts a check on that and says-- to not a single bit of even implied disagreement in the room-- that Satan wouldn't really care that much about getting Gabriel and Beez.

Think about how truly kind of crazy that is.

Satan would not be that interested in being handed over his old friend and the Grand Duke of Hell who betrayed him and the Supreme Archangel of Heaven? He'd maybe rape 'em, sure, possibly, casually posits Dagon, but they aren't what he's really after. They'd just be hors d'ouerves.

Not a single being in the room even so much as signals disagreement with that assessment that the not terribly subtle Dagon chose to voice aloud, which means they all agree with her. They all know who Lucifer's fixated on.

*Gabriel* and *Beezlebub* would only be fucking *appetizers* to Satan.

That implies the existence of *a main course*, does it not?

Who else but Crowley (and Aziraphale) could be on that menu? No one.

We also have that Crowley is conveniently out of the bookshop for the moment that Shax and Dagon have this exchange about Lucifer. He comes back in on Dagon saying "hors d'ouerves" but was outside when Shax was referencing Satan so he didn't hear any of it. This seems very deliberate on the part of the writers, as if Crowley had been in the room, it would have prompted some kind of response and changed what happened in the scene afterwards. Instead, the only reference to Lucifer is specifically when Crowley isn't in the room, probably because this conflict is on-going and going to continue into S3.

Prior to Dagon's line, the show also paralleled Lucifer assaulting Crowley in The Bentley in 1.01 with Lindsay abusing Nina, which adds another layer into this. You could even make an argument that one of the reasons why we never see Lindsay and we just see their abuse of Nina via the text messages they send Nina is to draw an intentional parallel to how little we've seen to date of Lucifer/Satan in the series.

It directly ties to the 1.01 scene in The Bentley because, prior to Lucifer coming through the radio and assaulting Crowley, Crowley was trying to call Aziraphale (the Maggie to his Nina in this parallel, though obviously much further along in that relationship) to tell him about Armageddon but he'd taken out the mobile phone networks earlier in the night to have something demonic to share with Hastur and Ligur. This parallels Crowley knocking out the power in S2 accidentally and Nina getting locked in the coffee shop with Maggie. Lucifer and Lindsay both attack through electronic communication devices-- The Bentley's radio and Nina's phone-- and unleash a torrent of abuse. The difference is that Nina might be more easily able to escape Lindsay and live a more peaceful life after S2 while Crowley has yet to be truly able to evade Lucifer.

While Lindsay's abuse of Nina is at least psychological and emotional in what we are shown and Lucifer's abuse of Crowley is that with physical and sexual aspects that may or may not be present in Nina's relationship with Lindsay, the type of abuse doesn't matter to the parallel as it's all terrible and that's the point. Lucifer's abuse of Crowley is paralleled with the intimate partner abuse Nina is suffering in her relationship. This is objectively pretty interesting since it sort of suggests that Lucifer is Crowley's Lindsay, in the sense that they might have once been involved pre-Fall, which might add another element to why Lucifer is fixated on Crowley.

So, while Crowley can encourage his parallel Nina all he wants to take a risk and trust more and to trust him when he promises that it will be worth it, Crowley himself can't really extract himself from his own Lindsay-ish situation yet. He does know how to survive it, though, and it's not all about the defenses he and Nina put up-- it's about learning to shed some of those defenses enough to have a sense of intimacy with a kind person you can trust to love you and help you feel safe.

[arithmonym]

20 questions for 20 writers!

thanks to @accidentallyadorable for tagging me! this was fun. :3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

30! only 20 are visible from my profile, though. my older fics and drabbles are quarantined to a separate account, and a few things are posted anonymously.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

113,190 words.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

it’s mostly the locked tomb these days. i also have a few old works for the penumbra podcast, the magnus archives, and the adventure zone—and a few even older works for harry potter and percy jackson, but those are on ff.net so i can pretend they don’t exist.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

it’s familiar (but not too familiar) - fluffy griddlehark time travel fic. this was my first attempt at writing them and i could definitely do a better job now, but the prose still holds up.

alive, barely breathing - post-canon griddlehark first time fic that’s fucked-up and sad. sometimes i look at the comments when i want to feel good about my writing. :3

bring your hunger - post-canon griddlehark grief/relationship study. also a WIP. (honestly, this one might go on anon for a bit—it’s vulnerable in ways i don’t want to explain, and i’m shying away from writing the next chapter because the Fear of Being Known got to me a little.)

it’s not unusual - fluffy modern AU where team 69 go to a bar and play catan. palamedes has an oral fixation, because of course he does. this one is campal with background griddlehark getting-together, but i might write a sequel from harrow’s POV someday.

bad idea right? - modern AU chatfic inspired by this post by eskildit. it’s about camilla dealing with the paldulcie situationship™️ & enduring so much dyke drama thanks to the nature of her friend group. it received a podfic recently, which is fun!

(… i also want to write a camdulcie sequel for this one. i’ve been rotating the idea frequently.)

5. Do you respond to comments?

almost always. there are a few scattered comments i haven’t replied to yet, but i like responding! it’s an excuse to drop more lore about the fic and the writing process, IMO.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angiest ending?

the ace cam fic i haven’t finished yet, which will probably be posted on anon. (i feel like people are going to attack me for poor representation or something, but it’s inspired by my own experiences, so. can’t win them all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

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

something sweet is pure, uncomplicated fluff, so i guess i’ll go with that!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not really. i’ve blocked a few people for being rude, but i haven’t gotten hate in years.

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

occasionally. i’ve only posted 4 explicit fics, but so far it’s a pretty even mix of f/f, f/m, and other.

10. Do you write crossovers?

i have a tlt/w359 fusion AU i want to pick up again! i need to untangle some threads of the metaplot, though.

(also, the first fic i published on ff.net was a harry potter/rise of the guardians crossover. yes. it was cringe. yes, it’s probably still posted on the internet if you want to find it.)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

nope.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, actually! a few of my old hp fics were translated into spanish or chinese.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i wrote a round-robin fic with the campal server once. i also started co-writing a fic with quinn a while ago (before we both got busy with school) that i’d like to return to at some point, because the concept still makes me vibrate with glee.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

i’m not sure that i have one, actually? i’m a multishipper to my core.

15. What's one WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i have so many WIPs in my google docs that i’ll probably never finish.

i’d like to revisit my fic about necromancers & dysautonomia some day, but my writing style has changed so much since then. i might have to rewrite what i’ve posted.

16. What are your writing strengths?

i’m frequently complimented on my worldbuilding. i’m good at examining the implications of things that other people might not think about, so my plots are original even when i’m writing a fandom trope. (i can’t wait to post my harrow nova AU for this exact reason.)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

sigh. pacing. i write from very close POVs, but sometimes i get too far into the character’s head, and it drags the story down. i’m trying to write sharper prose, but i’m going through an awkward growth phase as a writer—i know the structure i want, but it’s a struggle to get there concisely.

also, i over-edit instead of writing new words, which does me no favors.

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

i guess it depends on context? i have a pretty good grasp on code-switching from being bilingual but not quite fluent, but the memory of that one klance fic haunts me.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

i mentioned my first published fic earlier, but the first fic i wrote was a percy jackson self-insert fic when i was twelve.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

indelible! cam and pal figure out that dulcinea isn’t who she says she is at the fifth’s anniversary party, but it doesn’t change anything. <3

///

tagging @harrowharkwife @friendamedes @cindthia @logicbutton @thewinterstale @sluggydrabbles & anyone else who wants to participate!

[huntinglove]

Can I ask about your Indide Out OC? They're so cute! -Zee

Hi hi!! Thank you so much!! Also, to explain their lore and personality I have to point out a few things:

In my selfship with Ennui, all the emotions are my own, not Riley's! In this universe there are way more emotions, considering that I'm an adult, the main nine stay in the control room and the others can take a teleporter if needed! Also, my self insert themselves are not an emotion! With that out of the way...

They're obsession! A little worker that manages and tweaks the personality islands' contents. Something starts getting out of hand and they get sent to the control room, to monitor and administrate whichever trait is being overwhelming to the mind

Obsession isn't a naturally occurring mind phenomenon, and they start off as a small little soot sprite looking creature and can eventually grow into a hulking monster, if not kept on check!

They have a little drawing tablet where they can manage the islands while they're away, doodling whichever adjustments need to be made (like in Shelter from Porter Robinson!)

When it comes to personality, Obsession is very fixated on the big and the small, they're a perfectionist that usually ends up blaming themselves if something doesn't look right or go according to plan

All their emotions are extremes, they can't balance themselves out. If they're sad they can barely keep themselves up, if they're happy they're bouncing across the room and so on!

If we're talking relationships, they have very strong feelings towards each of the emotions!

They're completely and madly in love with Ennui, the second they look at her! They always have their eyes on her and they're always trying to show themselves off to get her attention, which usually leads to them being cluttery and clumsy, which makes Ennui find them endearing and entertaining. They're polar opposites but they love and care deeply about one another!

They're Anxiety's best friend and they can just loop all the projections she shares with them in their mind for hours.

They're scared of Anger but they resonate with him, having them both in control can be extremely dangerous and unhealthy, like an awful influence on each other. Anger fuels their fiery mentality and Obsession puts him on all the wrong directions, which makes them impulsive, jealous, possessive, assertive, etc.

They are overwhelmed by Joy but sometimes they share the same wavelength, Joy doesn't notice that sometimes having both of them in control can be overwhelming for everyone involved, including in the outside world...

They're terrified of Disgust considering that they themselves do not have self esteem (not the sense of self esteem, they genuinely don't see anything positive about themselves until Ennui or the others point it out to them) and they're terrified of being judged so they usually avoid her as much as possible

They find Fear entertaining and will sometimes mess with him just to have him and Anxiety take control and follow their own personal judgement of a situation. This usually gets Obsession sent to time out by Joy...

They love doting on Sadness, they find her very cute and sweet and they try their best to cheer her up in their own twisted little way. They have "fun" facts about the contents of the personality islands to tell her whenever she's feeling down, though it either leaves her confused or even more upset

They're very caring of Embarrassment, which feels a bit overwhelming for him. They take on a caretaker role and point out little things that he needs to pay attention to to feel better, which usually just makes him even more nervous or shy, but he appreciates them looking out for him!

They're like an aunt/uncle to Envy and they love to gossip together, they rant about everything that makes them jealous about the things/people around them. Envy usually boosts their mood by praising them and making comments about how she wishes she was similar to them!

And last but not least, their abilities consist of:

Living hair: It changes shape and consistency based on their own emotions! It can be soft and smooth while they're pleased, raggedy and sharp when they're upset and silky and gentle when they're infatuated or flustered! They also work as extra arms and/or legs for when they need to move around quickly

Interests: Making and managing all changes in the personality islands! They're the one who points out when something needs to be demolished, reconstructed, augmented or remade! Sometimes, if they feel too intensely about something, they'll override the workers' orders and map things out on their tablet themselves instead

Fixation: Having them take over the control panel. Usually the brain's sense of self joins them for assistance, which makes the situation manageable and safe! It's usually what happens when engaging with long lasting hobbies or activities that require a lot of focus!

Hyperfixation: When they take over the control panel by suppressing the other emotions, keeping them pinned/tied using their hair and working themselves out until the panel short circuits or the body exhausts itself. This is usually what happens when they feel the need to prove themselves to an extreme (i.e.: drawing for extremely long amounts of time without taking care of themselves)

O.L.D. aka Obsessive Love Disorder: When the body becomes overly infatuated with someone, this causes Obsession to create their own projections about said person. It can be positive (like thinking about a future together and listing off everything that they love about someone) or negative (insane bursts of jealousy and/or paranoia). Having them focus so much on somebody else makes Ennui insanely jealous, even if she won't ever admit it, so she usually teases them to snap them out of it and just allow love or joy to take over!

Ennui also likes calling them old when they behave like this, because they don't understand the meaning behind what she's saying, so they keep pouting and reminding her that they're way younger than her

[ch3rr13zk1n]

Alright its introduction time

Im CHERRIEZKIN! PHILIPINES RGAHHHHHHHHHH ‼️‼️‼️🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥

Why the fuck am i so currently fixated on regretevator

I like memes and things i enjoy, like art! Also if you catch me being an awful person PLEASE tell me.

I tend to also get sorta uncomfortable with people being confused by my stuff or someone seemingly not in the same fandoms as me liking my fandom content as it sorta makes my brain explode and PANIK!!! Not like you can't enjoy my stuff when you don't know shit about the stuff i like but it sorta makes me think some random person just came across my stuff out of nowhere

And i occasionally make weird jokes about fictional characters (sorry about that I'm possibly hypersexual.) but i don't wanna see NSFW TOO often so purely NSFW accounts.... don't even like a single post of mine at all plz :3 (unless you make NSFW of characters i like like..... Heheh. Not really but really)

Also I'm a minor!!!!!!! Never forget that! (Or do if you make Wallter ns- IM JOKING IM JOKINF I DON'T MEAN THAT)

Sorry about the suggestive and NSFW jokes i have no idea why but sometimes i just have the urge to say that publicly on the internet. Maybe that furry fetish game i found when i was nine really did fuck me up badly. Also i password locked cherrysimpingtime for the sanity of the Regretevator fans. D:

Anyways i got like.. 2763 interests like Solarballs, Shovelwares brain game, Captain underpants, The youtube shorts arg, Vocaloid (Ish), Undertale , SMG4, DHMIS, Alphabet lore, OMORI, Bugbo, The amazing digital circus, Pretty blood, Art, BFDI, Object shows in general, REGRETEVATOR, Tally hall (ish), Vs Bob and etc (The ones highlighted in green are the ones that are fixations as of the time of editing this and the ones in purple are dying/dead interests or got pushed aside by the others. The amount of purple is crazy)

though i post about some fandoms more than others but it doesn't mean i don't like/don't know any fandom on this list that isn't mainly being posted about here

its just that i draw Wallter from REGRETEVATOR pregnant instead of talking about how Rinny from Pretty Blood is a fucking bitch because my fixations are in a constant war

i also have a Tiktok and a mostly abandoned Youtube account (don't look at certain posts on my tiktok you'll go blind)

Also this account is mostly full of shitposts, Memes, Reblogs and doodles so good luck finding high quality art here!! I don't put my own tags a majority of the time and don't even tag some of my posts with the art tag since I'm insecure and stuff. I do create a bunch of dumb shit like Wood Noise~ Bark Bark Dog Mannequins so maybe you can check stuff like that out if you like my shitposts.

Also Wallter is my favorite character and my heart cannot be put on a leash so i have a crush(?) on that gayass (whoops)

Though the crush part is debatable as i still question if i really do feel romantic attraction.

I'm also a bit of a shipper and i ship SnowBoots, Glecctor, Wallmark, Walljim/Jimwall, SlimJim and etc. If you are uncomfy with any of the ships listed or literally want shippers to get the fuck off your page then block me or tell to to leave your page

Also sometimes i don't read people's pinned posts and generally just reblog because that's sorta like a secondary more useful like button to me (this has resulted in BAD consequences..)

i also had a bit of a tier list showing my opinions on the regret characters but that's kinda outdated and may not be fully reliable on my actual opinions on those characters however you should know that Wallter is.. According to my moots and other people... My comfort character, My favorite character and my "fictional crush" currently. He sorta means a bunch to me rn so don't potray them as an abuser or rapist.. Please. If you violate these boundaries then i may not hesitate to block you.

Actually.. Not just Wallter. ANY of my favorite characters.. Or maybe just any character in general unless its canon or smth and NOT romanticized. However i may not be able to tell which one is spreading awareness, a vent or just literal fetish/kink shit.

But i am more forgiving towards vents and spreading awareness now (don't ask why i dunno I'm sorry)

anyways that's all you need to know i guess! uhh have a weird image and stan Wallter on my page! (Not forcing dw)

glevil x mannequin mark shippers dni.

[phantomofthehoepera]

I love your 2023 Repo the Genetic Opera art... Please... Please I'm desperate I need to know the lore... Please...

HAIIII SORRY I'M SO LATE TO THIS idk if you meant any lore in specific so I'm gonna take this as an opportunity to just dump all the shit I made up in my brain peace and love <333333

so like the main stuff I made up I guess would be the repomums which again was a cocreation with my darling precious @slydiddledeedee the lore is very basically they were all in an opera troupe with mag and marni and were cursed by god to die if they ever slept with an italian man. they also all left rotti for nathan, rotti kind of picked them off one by one like he'd marry one of them she'd leave him and die and he'd get a new one. no one present recognised the pattern of this. they're all colour coordinated which is a thing I like to do for the largo kids when I draw them so I guess it's genetic idk. important fun fact is that luigi personally killed his mum and was then lobotomised just a little bit which is why I keep drawing him with that big ole head scar.

other thing I made up was lore for the random zydrate lady as part of a larger effort to make shit up abt graverobber. most of my ideas for her are vague also not at all based in the movie I need to stress this is basically just an oc that I borrowed a character from the movie for. n ee way the story kind of goes she and graves start off in the drug dealer/drug addict business at the same time and they're roomies sometimes when they can afford it. she'll usually be more involved in whatever post movie ideas are floating around in my head at the moment bc I do feel like it's important to get a perspective that more like. on the ground if that makes sense?? bc like no one in the movie is super affected by the repossession system as much as I would like to see so she's my hero she's my class struggle queen.

speaking of graves I have so many ideas abt him in my head like the way I cope with the existence of scary scary evil wicked terrence is I just completely redesign him like moreseo than any of the other characters. to ME he's a freaky evil little dyke he probably was on whatever supercharged t repoworld has for a week or two but couldn't afford any more than that but like I said the t was supercharged so he can still sing his parts peace and love. I like to personally give him an actual concrete geneco debt bc like obv he has to have one but I would like it spelled out please just to have gramber relationship drama. think it would be funny if his heart gave out on him and he has a synthetic one, once again this is all for gramber relationship drama. in my brain he has been kind of fixated on her ever since he was a kid (see this piece). I also do like to give him and shilo kind of a sibling thing going on for literally no other reason than I like sibling dynamics I think they're delightful. I think post movie shilo should start an awful band and he should peddle her cds to his customers.

I have sooo many thoughts on the largo siblings like I said luigi straight up murdered his mother probably when he was very young. the way I picture it he's always been pretty unstable and wouldn't have been made as much of a public figure, unlike amber and pavi who I picture as having been like legit child stars at some point. like idk the way I picture it rotti would almost publicise them more after having to keep luigi that much out of the public eye since he's yknow. insane. I like to lean more into the opera vibes and give them little ballet shoes and shit like for some reason I always picture them as dancers. n ee way I think growing out of child stardom hit amber the hardest, not that would have coped super well either. pavi at least in the movie seems to have kind of a place at the table when they talk abt who's to inherent and like we usually see him at rotti's side while amber is usually out on her own and like idk it's kind of impossible not to read it as gendered to ME. also I always need to stress I don't make their backstories sad to make them sympathetic I do it bc I'm thoroughly successionpilled thank you and goodnight.

don't have that many thoughts on shilo and nathan, esp on nathan I moreso just have critiques of how he's written like icl I find the jekyll and hyde routine sooo uninspired. like idk I just think he becomes that much more horrifying of a character if you picture him as more calculated in his violence. I also just think it's kind of lame how little talk there seems to be abt the fact that he is like severely abusive to shilo like it's such a huge part of the movie I feel like it maybe becomes a bit too obvious to talk abt if that makes sense? like it's such a fact of life but whenever I start thinking about it for too long I want to scream like beyond the poison thing which like would be enough on its own the way he gaslights and hits her is literally scary and I just feel like a lot of that horror gets lost when he's depicted as like. sometimes not being in full control like it sort of takes away his agency and in turn a lot of the impact of his character, at least to me.

as for shilo like I said not many thoughts I'm mostly just interested in where she'd go post movie like I said I want her to start a shitty band I feel like that could heal her. also want her to lose the wig like idk could be symbolic maybe 👍

[suffarustuffaru]

What is your opinion on arc 8? For me its such a mess (probably bc tappei improvised arc 7 and 8, they werent in the original plan), i hope it will end soon

i do agree with you there on otto development but im definitelyyy biased *sweats in becoming an otto blog someone save me from the hyperfixation* but in my defense otto arc 8 development was the result of a slow burn since arc 3-4 and otto's various side stories but even without the side stories it feels like the logical conclusion that his arc was leading up to, which feels pretty solid to me for the most part (side eyes otto apologizing to the girl who sent assassins after him.... side eyes tappei's fixation on shipping otto's brothers and then not even elaborating on how that'd even work as dynamics) but. anyway i digress

arc 7-8 ive followed since their conception via reading it chapter by chapter. unfortunately i did also get kinda busy with irl stuff while the middle of arc 7 was happening so i had to do catchup and also my memory is Pretty Bad. if youre wondering how i remember certain lore so well its only bc i have to reread/rewatch/use that info for writing things a lot which is the only reason why i remember it HAH. so. all in all. my memory of arc 7-8 is pretty shaky. i did read the beginnings of arc 7 and 8 via the polished translations though on WCT a while back while the rest was mostly like as each chapter came out.

rn ive started rereading arc 6 and i have several side stories i need to finish (ana camp side stories, the wilhelm-theresia trilogy, and ex 5 are top of my list right now). and then eventually ill get to reading arc 7-8 in their entirety so that i can 1. have more knowledge of it and 2. so i can have more fully formed opinions on it. so definitely i could try answering this question again once im done with that. no idea when that is bc im kinda a slow reader but ill do my best HAH. but i do have some thoughts now!!

(arc 7-8 stuff under cut + a single arc 9 mention)

arc 7-8 i do have a few mixed feelings about, namely louis's arc so far, but im really trusting the process here bc tappeis writing is just like that sometimes. you really need to be patient and definitely while i have things to criticize about louis's arc particularly i do hope that the catharsis of her character kicks in hard later so !! im interested in that.

but generally like. arc 7-8 are pretty solid. as expected of tappei. there were a lot of really really fascinating stuff brought up, a lot of interesting characters that we got to know (and im a really big fan of how much love tappei puts into a lot of the side characters, it really makes the world of rezero fleshed out). subarus arc continues to be interesting even if i personally really dont like that he adopts louis as spica While he looks like hes the exact same age as her, it really broke my immersion a bit.

but anyway yeah like. arc 7-8 was pretty good. like objectively, in my opinion, theres a lot to love, even though personally it did take me a bit to warm up to it in the beginning. i definitely think though that they do feel a bit messy as arcs. with arcs 1-6 they flow really nicely into each other - you can tell they were really planned out and tightly knit. arc 7-8 does something really new - throwing us right into vollachia - which is interesting, but i do think it does feel a bit less planned out, which makes sense bc according to tappei vollachia was a change in his original plans. this isnt bad on its own and we got two giant arcs out of it that were pretty fun. but there are points i feel that you can kinda Tell that it wasnt planned out. the slight reliance on the teleportation throughout arc 7 was like the first thing i noticed haah.

and my big worry after arc 8 is that like. tappei doesnt strike that perfect balance of still keeping vollachia and its cast relevant but like not letting them overshadow other matters that tappei needs to get to before finishing rezero. like i want vollachia to continue to matter after we've spent two really big and complex and busy arcs with vollachia, but i do want the focus to shift a little away from them gradually / bring up vollachia again later.

arc 9 so far in its 2 chapters at the time of me answering this ask has been really really good so far with wrapping up arc 7-8 while building up future conflicts. i do think however that since we spent time with vollachia this now comes with the expectation of branching out into kararagi and gusteko possibly - just bc we already know we're gonna spend a Lot of time in lugunica, as we have for a lot of rezero already, and we've spent a lot of time with vollachia, so narratively there probably needs to be some equality in that we should at least get a glimpse of other nations in the main route. so !! im interested in that possibility too and i think it would fit rezero well.

so yeah thats like. my personal opinion on arc 7-8 and i think reading through the whole entire thing wont change much of my opinions on the above besides me probably falling in love some more with the cast and understanding the story during this time period more deeply (and probably having more thoughts on louis and rem). i do hope that you reconsider your stance on arc 7-8 though anon!!! but if not thats totally fair too.

[onesunofagun]

You know, I'm going to put a thought down because I'm thinking about this again because of the post earlier.

It might be a vent? I think it's more just me trying to describe a feeling so it's outside me and I can look at it.

I've seen a lotta discourse and a lot of theories and different takes out there. There's always gonna be some stuff that's frustrating because it's something Sus being widely normalised, but generally speaking, I think the varied perspective and ideas are always good thing in a fandom.

I've seen all sorts of ideas be explored-- in fics, in doujins and art, in roleplay, in lore essays-- over the years. I like to think I have a pretty good map on the fandoms I've been online and present in since the early 00s. I can usually remember context about how certain stuff came about, like what tropes or ideas got popular when and how, whether through shipping or fanon or mangas or general knowledge about the development process.

When you've been in a fandom a long time-- especially if you have made a lot of contributions to it, at any point-- sometimes you even have a part in shaping certain idea flows within it, yourself.

So I have had the chance to see and contribute to a lot of conversations that have happened over and over and over again, in a kind of generational way. I have seen certain discussions from old forums, translate to fics. I've seen them pop up on tumblr, then tumble to Reddit, then YouTube. I have watched the spread through the general sphere of things, get added to and turned over and re-examined.

For the record: I love watching that process, and I like being part of that process! Mentally tracking the grandfathered in fandom history has also become its own kinda hobby for me.

I've always found it interesting mapping where new fans come in, seeing how they orient themselves and what they pick up-- how and why and what they do with it, whether I appreciate it or not (I highlight biases that are related to harmful ideas when I see them to illuminate them).

Seeing certain concepts be repeatedly rediscovered and watching how certain waves of fans digest them is fascinating. Sometimes with surprising results, sometimes with disappointing results, but it's fascinating either way. That's kind of part of the appeal having been here so long and why I came back into (mild) activity-- I get to study and dissect the fandom behaviours as well.

But despite all of that, I've found I don't really appreciate a good number of the popular YouTubers who focus on Zelda as their channel topic.

I think I've developed a bit of a distaste for a few of them in particular, actually--the big number Zeldatuber channels. Mostly the ones that seem to be the theorycrafters that kinda followed on from a MatPat style format. All of my love to well researched videos analysing the themes and meta, and all the silly boundary breaks and speedruns, mind. But I found I got really disillusioned with the handful of channels that rose to prominence and how their content shifted with that growth.

With the potential to monetise their discussions and discords worth of people and patrons driving this kinda content, I do think a lot about things that have been discussed in the fandom in the past that get taken up and regurgitated as part of that grind. I have lost track of how many videos that have come out of a few big Zeldatubers of this vein gave me a really weird slimy feeling and I am trying to work out what it is.

I'm not super invested in watching much of Zeldatube at large, mostly because I've seen most popular subjects covered in many variations. I'm a lot more personally interested in analysis, rather than theorycraft, so take it with a grain of salt that I may have a bias too (The popular Zonai fixation really doesn't interest me at all, and Zeldatube burnt out on that hard).

A lot of the channels like this seem to present their stuff like it is brand new and never been seen before, and like it's a great achievement in sleuthing or that they've cracked a code-- but not in a fun feeling way. Not in an exciting personal discovery way, but in a way that feels like it's propping up an exclusivity around that channel, and its validity as a leading authority on Zeldadom. There's something vaguely newsfeed-like, or sensationalist about it to me, with tight knit associations to other big channels making the same type of content (and about the same types of subjects as far as I ever noticed, and widely overlapping perspectives).

I wonder if that's a cynical feeling that I have where I'm just being an old man yelling at clouds, but there's really something that rubs me wrong about the handful of top channels like this. Something about the way they generate and present, and potentially profit from, often long running fandom concepts and otherwise freely shared ideas that have had many contributions feels off.

Maybe it's also me struggling to understand the closed off nature of how a lot of people just absorb the series secondhand now, and how normal it is to have the most popular Zeldatube channels setting the tones and assumptions around lore for large swatches of the newer fans. And not because old guard gatekeeping, but because there's an obvious chasm there between new and old fans of the same media that now exists that's seemingly getting wider.

I do sometimes worry about the trend of recycled old fanon staples presented as brand new takes, because of that-- or worse, sold as the definitive take, especially when a lot of people do just accept them and then go off and start arguments because 'big Zeldatube said so' and they must know best.

Sometimes I wonder if the trend is actually adding to issues with consumption vs engagement, in terms of media literacy and fandom interaction. There's certainly some theories, because of these channels, widely taken as a kind of gospel from the 'zelda experts' like the discussion is already closed; mystery solved. I've legit seen smaller youtubers be accused of stealing or copying theories from the larger channels, when making detailed and well researched videos about canon lore. I have had multiple interactions with fans who just link to a popular video and be like 'here watch this, it'll explain it' like they can't even be bothered to have their own take, but they're also not interested in yours.

The way big Zeldatube presents itself and gets consumed at large, though, I guess I just don't recognise that as the same as seeing a new fan have a joyful discovery of something from their own interactions with the franchise and fandom. I realise that the channel runners are fans themselves, but I suppose I mean that the platform feels more like a degree of professional separation that's very closed. It's become 'Zelda is my job now' thing that's focused on interest trends and news.

Something something, decades of fandom interaction and discussion and archiving getting scraped and haphazardly slapped together again for the content grind because clout and profit??

That feels mean to say but--

"Like and subscribe and join my patreon for more content, often mined from various thoughts around the fandom to make up a new video to schedule" is how it often tastes to me and that's not a flavour I enjoy.

Again, by all means, not applicable to the whole of Zeldatube or many fans who do watch the big channels. But this kinda thing does feel like a pervasive and popular part of the theorycrafter channels. Commodification of theory, and exploitative platforms built off a community's back, leave a lot of the big Zeldatubers without my support or endearment. I feel incredibly conflicted about them.

Is that anything?

[clefclefairy]

for that ask game 🔥 gimme your absolute pettiest pokemon opinion(s) i'm talking that shit that no one else has even thought about yet it Compels you 🔥

okay here goes. one of the broadest hot takes i have is: there IS no pokemon fandom, in a singular, unified sense. this is literally the most sprawling multimedia franchise conglomerate on the planet earth. i can literally spend tens of hours explaining glitch pokemon but if you ask me the basic rules of the TCG i will throw up and cry. I have played and finished literal dozens of Pokemon romhacks that have their own separate fandoms that will never be touched by 90% of the pokemon fanbase and that STILL gives them an audience of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. i havent played pokemon ranger for more than fifteen minutes. i can tell you about ADV OU and RBY OU and weather wars and aldarons proposal and etc etc etc but i only play VGC sparingly. pokemon masters is an entire separate continuity of lore that i refuse to touch bc i can't do gacha for my own sanity. i do still need to watch some story cutscenes, though. Pokemon collosseum and gale of darkness were incredibly important to the era of fandom i flourished as a BNF in; now they are like ancient, weathered scrolls in a language modern players do not speak.

a horrifying amount of 20 year olds only started during the DS era of games. there's an entire spate of time that, to me, is so crucial to my experience and embrace of pokemon that literally millions of people did not and can not experience in the same way. What does pokemon feel like to them? It can't feel the same way that it does to me. maybe that's true of everything. there are literal millions of pokemon go players who haven't touched a mainline game in 20 years or more. to say nothing of its own hideous vile wretched PVP meta. there are people who consider themselves pokemon fans and can only recognize like 500 of them. max. and yet they are pokemon fans, right? they enjoy the series? because after a certain point what can you ask of people? To be in this fandom is to grab at a few of Arceus' thousand arms and shape your universe therein. how can I even begin to understand this as a fandom when it's just this part of my life and has been almost since I was born? What about people who play Mystery Dungeon? What about Pokemon Conquest?

Also people were and are super fucking weird about Kieran, holy shit. This is a slightly less underdiscussed point but I was genuinely stunned by the amount of people calling him an incel or comparing him to a school shooter because, as related to my point above, i don't really participate in broader "pokemon fandom" because how can you? girl he is a 15 year old with an anxiety disorder and you stole his horse girl movie plot right out from underneath him. I think he's allowed to be a bit of a bitch about it! It is also really annoying that a satisfying conclusion to that plot was and is impossible because it would break away from one of Pokemon's core, integral mechanics, which is that Everything Important Is Yours. Is that mechanic as a core element worth discussing? I'd say so. Not even necessarily getting rid of, just reckoning with how it is going to inevitably leave certain plots frustrated because like. By all rights Kieran should've gotten Terapagos, right? Since we got Ogrepon? Parallels? And it would've felt a little less like I did just steal some kid's sacred relic slash autistic fixation if he also stole mine? And then I stop and think, does this feel that way to the children playing it?

I will never be a child playing Pokemon again. What does that change in perspective keep me from understanding now? What do I know and interpret and learn now from my experience of Pokemon that I couldn't possibly then? is it inevitably lesser? sometimes it feels that way. like the beats of my life are tied less tight to the Pokemon games I played and the Pokemon I cared for when I did. is that a bad thing? probably not. that's just life. but...do I miss it?

doesn't everyone?

[vampstel]

Hi Vampstel, I hope you are doing well!

This is gonna be a bit all over the place and I am so so sorry.

What inspired you to start making art? And what influenced your art style?

I can’t remember if you have said this anywhere but I’ve been a long time fan of yours and you are why I’m now posting my own work on tumblr instead of crappy Twitter (No offense to anyone uses it it’s just really mean to smaller artist like myself and it’s hard to get stuff out there especially original work)

I cannot wait for your next video. I love your Draw with me series. I’ve been enjoying watching your work every time I need a helping hand with lore or just general background noise to keep me entertained

You have no idea how much I inspired to be like a inkcreable artist like you (Yes the pun is intended I think you would know what the ink is referring to. (For anyone who doesn’t know it’s Bendy and the ink machine. I love Alice Angel so that’s how I kinda know that franchise)

I remember when you made your oc Laurence Winters? I think that’s the character inspired by Sammy Laurence. I am so sorry I can’t rewatch to correct myself I have terrible memory. As soon as you had said you were into demonology I was shocked when you grabbed the Bendy reference. It isn’t often I find an artist that likes the same stuff I do. So that was cool to know!

I am so sorry that this makes no sense and it’s all over the place. I really love your work and I really hope I can learn more on how to story write from you in future draw with me video. I really hope you will keep going (Make sure you rest and take care of yourself don’t overwork yourself!)

Hi Katie!! I’m doing very well actually, and I hope you’re doing the same too ^_^

No need to apologize about the messy ask hehe I don’t mind at all!! But to answer your questions…

A lot of things have inspired me to start drawing. It’s mainly my passion for cartoons that drove me to pursue art. I was really into Spongebob and Tom & Jerry as a kid and would regularly draw them whenever I could during school. I started interacting with fandoms pretty early on in my childhood and seeing so many big artists (specifically those on Tumblr, Deviantart, and Amino) made me really interested in learning digital art.

I think I started drawing digitally around 2016 but only took it seriously during 2018. I wasn’t all that good with drawing so I used Gacha Life as a base to help during my first years. Which… I guess you could say my art style is inspired by it? I don’t know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s really hard to say what influences my style since I don’t have heavy inspo you can point out. Honestly, any artist I follow or talk about is someone I’m inspired by. LavenderTowne and Dreamalgia are the ones that come to mind first though since I adore their work :P

I’m really glad my content’s entertaining and helpful to you!! It’s always a delight when people say that especially since I doubt my own capabilities with content creation sometimes lol. After all, I kinda just throw crap at the wall and see what sticks. I’m the most unprofessional YouTuber ever 😭

But yes, Lawrence is my OC that’s inspired by Sammy!! I think it’s very obvious since they’re basically the same person, but just in a different font. Bendy has been a longtime special interest of mine, actually. I’ve been fixating on it ever since the first chapter of the first game came out. A lottt of my characters are inspired by the characters in Bendy. Joseph Sinclair, for example (and I’m sure you can tell from the name alone), is inspired by Joey Drew. Especially when he used to be a sleazy villain archetype until I changed him into a dorky mess.

I have another character by the name of Thomas Huxley (again, obvious name) who’s sort of inspired by Thomas Connor. I’ve shown him on Twitter before but here he is since I’ve never shown him on here before!!

Honestly, most of my characters are just inspired by other existing characters lol. But Bendy is definitely the biggest influence I have on my work. Literally love that franchise so much I could ramble about it all day if I wanted to.

Other than that, thank you so much!! I won’t overwork myself but hopefully (fingers crossed) that Draw With Me will come back soon. I have tons of ideas for the comeback of that series and I can’t wait to show it all soon :3c

[dongpound]

i demand to know more of your oc's (also im trying to catch up on your space au fic its been so long since i last read it)

OH MY GOD IT DIDNT GET EATEN BY TUMBLR

Anon™️ I’m using your ask as like a sticky note of oc ideas specifically Tundra dude there’s SO much I’m so sorry I got into the hyper focus zone

Tundra’s name is actually Alejandra Citlali Osorio-Cruz and through the series she’s just about to turn 16 in season 1 and roughly 19-20 by Season 5 (give or take how the fuck you think time works in 2012 bc I think it takes place over 3-4 years season 5 included)

Tundra came about as a nickname when she was a kid and got super hyper-fixated on professional wrestling and like. She made an entire persona and lore. Alec started using her wrestling name as a silly nickname and it stuck.

Yes I did come up with a stupid cute reason behind the name Tundra bc I can not handle the fact I chose such a BAD oc name for a LION but like I can’t change it NOW!! I MADE HER IN LIKE 2015 SHES TOO OLD TO CHANGE IT

Xever did just think for the longest time Tundra WAS her name. He also just assumed that Alec and Chris adopted a child for fun.

Her bio parents Ixchel and Alejandro were really good friends of Alec and Chris for like. Well over a decade. Ixchel and Alec especially. Ixchel was an actress (like I would say their worlds equivalent of Selma Hayek) and Alejandro worked in music production.

They didn’t have a ton of family they kept in contact with, so Alec and Chris were named Alejandra’s legal guardians if anything happened to them. They sadly died in a plane crash when Tundra was around 1.

This feels like SOOOO edgy and silly to me now but like I literally can’t see Alec and Chris adopting a kid any other way than the guilt of losing their friends pushing them to do it. WHICH SOUNDS BAD. AND LIKE IT IS. However they still love and raise Alejandra as their own, if anything Chris is like. Somewhat distant bc he still has his career but Alec’s like “fuck yeah I get to raise a kid again” and kinda slips from the spotlight. Which is fine by them , they’re like 600 years old they can just have messy fun in the public eye another time

Tundra goes fucking THROUGH IT emotionally through the series. Like goes from would do anything for Chris and Alec (especially Chris who. Again. Was distant and she desperately wanted his approval) to the point where like. She’s yknow. Mutated, to growing resentful of them when Hachi enters the picture (especially when she has to take care of him) to like. Low key betraying the foot and joining the mutanimals in season 3. And then having to deal w Chris being resurrected temporarily in season 5 after a really chill and happy 2 years with her mom and little brother like it’s a LOT.

In season 1 she’s very much a “mean girl” stereotype and slowly evolves into Cool And Gay (but still a little better than you)(she. She gets that from her upbringing.)

Tundra and Karai are seen as like a duo/bffs up until season 2 after the whole “I’m not shredders daughter” thing happens. They grow distant (obviously) until season 4.

So like Alec and Chris are NOT the best parents and like. They did totally just let Tundra take Hachi to live w her and the Mutanimals in season 4. She’d already been in space w him for 6 months and the poor kid really didn’t want to go live in the woods. I have such a specific scene in mind for this and I want to write it out so bad. Anyway tundra basically becomes a teen mom for a little bit. Eldest daughters am I right? *plays class of 2013 by mitski*

Tundra has a modified mini van which she does haul all of her friends who can fit in. Apologies to leatherhead and slash . No she doesn’t have a license

She also has a bike. These two vehicles she did canonically find on the side of the highway and she convinced Donnie and Casey to help her fix them

Tundras in a punk (? Maybe more Pop punk ) band called The Muties (my other characters Jack and Spinstra are in it. also Mondo. Sometimes Raph fills in on drums if Spinstra can’t make it). Tundra and Jack switch off on vocals, she’s usually on bass. They started up in the down time between seasons 4 and 5. They play in Moira’s Menagerie (a mutants only bar and hall) every week on Fridays. Alec comes to nearly all of their shows and also they bring Hachi sometimes when they practice and he’ll play his DS.

Alec will also force their friends (I.e. Apep, Anton, Ivan and Xever) to come watch Tundra w the promise of drinks and she thinks it’s embarrassing every fucking time bc they’re SO LOUD and OBVIOUS and god she could just DIE (but also. Having the support makes her happy)

Alec WILL slam back 3 tequila shots and go on about how talented their daughter is.

Chris got to see her play once. And it was when he was resurrected. And Tundra, frankly, was not thrilled. Another one I wanna write

[thefirstknife]

ok tbh it is not really a question but one thing that really bothers me about the destiny fandom is people's hatred of Drifter. Like I get it and i am not claiming anyone is being racist by hating drifter but it makes me uncomfortable that one of the only visible chinese character in destiny gets a ton of hate from the community. And like It is trend i've noticed where a piece of media will only ever make their chinese or chinese coded characters evil, or horrible, like the caplean confederation in battletech being a bunch of evil genocide commiting war crimers that are in universe stated to be wrost than everyone else, Kai Leng being the evil assassin antagonist in mass effect, just to name a few, and s IDK that just makes me uncomfortable. Drifter is def the best out of these, seeing as despite him being shadey and a criminal, he is ultimately a good guy who has humanity's best interest at heart and isn't going to sell us out to the witness (i hope), but still aside from maybe Shaw Han, who a lot of people also don't like in the d2 community, there's really no other visibly chinese characters in destiny 2 period let alone heroic or straight forwardly good ones. IDk it is just one of those things that makes me uncomfortable and i won't say like bungie is purposely being racist or anything.

Oh yeah I've noticed that as well. Obviously, as you said, we can't really claim that people who dislike him are necessarily racist or that they dislike him for that reason. But there's definitely a trend and Drifter gets a lot of shit and a lot of derogatory nicknames and negative fandom interpretations that make me really uncomfortable. Especially the memes about him being gross or dirty. Like, there's a limit to that after which those memes just end up being straight up racist. And it's obviously upsetting to Chinese fans.

I think a part of it definitely is on Bungie, because of how he was characterised and how he's presented in most accesible lore: the majority will only remember what they hear him saying as part of Gambit lines so if his Gambit lines are just him being weird or gross, people will only remember that. There's plenty of really good lore about him out there, but you know. Most players don't really read that.

I'm very glad that he's gotten more screentime since Arrivals and that he's become fully accepted as our ally. In the early days, it was kinda ambiguous. But Drifter was always a person driven by hope and all of his pretense that he's a tough guy who doesn't care pretty much instantly shattered the moment YW became his friend. I really like all the stuff he's done since, especially with how involved he is with helping the Eliksni settle. One of my favourite things is from Splicer when he sent supplies to the Eliksni free of charge, at no benefit to himself (because he told us not to tell anyone it's from him).

So I absolutely appreciate that he's firmly a good guy, as he always wanted to be, but had to suffer through the Dark Age to be able to get there. In that sense, he avoided some of the really bad trends in media. I definitely do not think he will ever side with the Witness in any capacity! His only options were always that he is either going to leave or help us. And he decided to help us because he trusts us and we have shown to trust him.

But yeah, despite all the details and the nuance, there are always people who are just uninformed. This isn't a bad thing on its own, nobody is born with knowledge. We all have to learn! But sometimes it crosses into really weird fixation on just calling a character names and memeing about things that, if you stop to think at least a little bit, can be kinda too much. I'm not surprised that the fandom will sometimes leave some fans feeling uncomfortable or even unsafe.

I definitely want the fandom to think a little bit more about how they treat Drifter. I want memers to rethink how they frame jokes about him. I want writers to rethink how they're gonna write him and about him. I definitely want artists to get better at drawing him without whitewashing. I have seen... A LOT... of Drifter art that just... Straight up is not him. His face is not elongated, his nose is not straight and pointy, his eyes are NOT blue (despite being blue in the early days, Bungie has fixed that since). I've seen similar with Shaw as well, who also often gets the short end of the stick from fans.

It would also be incredibly good if the fandom reacted normally to being told that they may have whitewashed characters in their art or written something that may have racist connotations. It costs zero dollars to respond "thank you for letting me know, I will do better" and to even ask for advice if needed. If art is whitewashed, people will let you know so you can fix it. It's not the end of the world.

Yeah, I've seen some increase in that speculation. Also paired with Eris being more prominent in lore so she gets more attention from fans which results in more fandom content creation with her.

I think it would be really cool if Eris was Chinese, but I definitely don't trust people who only talk about that when someone brings up the slur. Like, if someone genuinely cares about Eris being Chinese, that interest should be visible even when we're not discussing whether Eris is allowed to say slurs.

Also, unfortunately, this is also limited with Eris' VA who is white so even if Eris, the character, is Chinese, it's kinda weird to have a white person saying those slurs when voicing her. Eris is also not a real person so she doesn't really have any say in this. I really hope that this slur business with Drifter gets addressed.

Also did people really use "she cooked rice" as proof? That's... a really weird thing to say! Cooking something as broad as rice is not proof. Fenchurch also cooked rice. I would assume that post-Collapse with the limited resources, rice is a pretty ubiquitous food source. It's possibly maybe because she cooks in a wok, but again, that's something that is pretty ubiquitous these days. I think her armour is a much more solid evidence, though if we combine several of these things together, then it works better in a group.

Either way, it's a good head canon! I hope people talk about it more on its own and not just when they want to justify the usage of slurs. It gives a bad vibe.

In general, the fandom needs to learn how to treat characters of colour better. And Bungie as well to be honest!

[flushedmusings]

————————— ୨•୧—————————

sometimes my eyes water and i think about how gingerly you hold my heart.

you hold it so gently in your hands, to keep me away from the truth, you don’t like me like i like you.

but what would you say if i showed you these poems?

the endless stream of playlists, letters, every morsel of time and energy that i poured into you.

what would you say if i stood atop a roof and lost my voice just yelling about you, and your calamitous hold on my heart.

so delicate, so fake. you hold it to protect me, not to love me.

what would you think if i just deserted you and spent my life in a self-induced solitude.

how could i release your chokehold on my soul? could i hide from your radiant sun, away from the burn of my cheeks and back into the cool rain from my own eyes?

could i stay in that cave and watch you from afar? admire your radiance away from the burn?

would you notice if i stayed locked in this cold tomb of my construction?

or would you still be so fixated on him?

he who i can’t resent due to the joy he brings you, but i cant exactly enjoy his company either. he who you brag about while i string these together about you.

what if i were to rip my heart out of your hands? and squish it myself, watch my hopes and delusions spill out on the carpet. because you won’t.

why don’t you watch me? watch my love for you leak out of my eyes and ruin the ink on the pages i filled in your honor. wouldn’t it be romantic? to watch me free myself from your ginger grasp on my heart?

could you stand it? stand to know how long i’ve been burning in your gentle warmth? how long i’ve waited for you? how many tears i’ve perspired in your name? i certainly can’t.

and sometimes my eyes water when i think about that.

————————— ୨•୧—————————

this one is more of a true journal entry than actual girlfailure poetry™️

it’s a bit manic and disorganized sorry, but hey at least you get some silly lore ?? idk man i’m loosing it:3

anywhosies i hope ur doing better than me and i love you guys have a great day 💯

-🍒

[autisticempathydaemon]

For the RedactedAudios match-up!

What song are you fixated on at the moment? 

Cease Cesse by Clou and Slim Pickins Does The Right Thing And Rides The Bomb To Hell by The Offspring, maybe True Trans Soul Rebel (classic lol) by Against Me!

What lyric or verse, and why?

From Promiseland by MIKA- "I kept my promise, man, show me the promiseland"

What is your Enneagram type?

Type 8, followed closely by 3.

Do you love gargantuan Youtube video essays, and if so, which is your favorite and why?

Occasionally, if I'm interested in the topic. I like to learn about things. Personal preference is to watch video essays about the process to make something (eg. Weaving, crocheting, sewing) or about history.

Tell me about your childhood imaginary friend.

I had a fox as my imaginary friend, but barely remember it.

What is your go-to way to fall asleep?

On my front with one pillow. If it isn't silent I'll put headphones in to listen to rain noises.

If you had to change your name, what would it be, and why? (In tandem, if you have changed your name, why did you pick that one?)

I've changed mine for Trans Reasons! If I changed it again I'd like to choose something more adventurous though.

What is your favorite of Redacted’s audios, and why?

Comforted By an Arrogant Incubus and Your Owner Takes Matters Into His Own Hands [Project Meridian]. Gavin's comfort audio is a go-to when I feel down and overwhelmed but I think my favorite lore and audio wise is the latter of my two choices due to the copious metaphors and grey morality of everyone involved.

What Redacted boy holds no appeal to you, and why? Like, not the one you hate but the one who you don’t get the hype for. (I won’t judge, I promise.)

Caelum, if he counts. He's just not my type of character. If not, probably Elliott and Vincent, mostly because their storylines don't interest me.

Tell me about that one book/movie/tv show you know all the words to.

LOTR probably, or maybe I, Robot? For TV it's definitely Hannibal though.

Which Redacted boy are you platonically attracted to? Like- forget dating, which dude do you want to be your best friend?

Mannn, Damien and I would be overachiever besties. I think he'd push me to be my best self and encourage me in my studies.

Do you have a go-to thing you ramble about when you’re tired, and if so, what is it? (For example, my boyfriend knows I’m ready to sleep when I start talking about space.)

Not sure– I don't think so. 

Tell me your go-to gas station and drink combo.

I don't really have a go-to but I like Speedway and 7/11. When I buy drinks (rarely) I usually buy lemonade or fizzy water. If I'm sharing it, I'll get a slushie, and if I'm tired I'll buy a coke but I often find both of those too sweet otherwise.

Tell me about your favorite playlist at the moment. 

Cannot link them for anonymity purposes but it's a chronological playlist for a character's morality change arc over the course of their story.

What’s your guilty pleasure media, and why?

Mmm, maybe Criminal Minds or reality TV (usually cooking shows, occasionally survivalist ones). I find both of them a bit abhorrent in terms of what they stand for (copaganda, individualism, unexamined colonial co-opting of native aesthetics) but occasionally watch them when I need something which doesn't require a lot of mental energy.

Anything else: I'd consider myself chronically unable to take a break, extroverted, a bit blunt and flirty on accident. Probably socialist or other leftist leanings politically and often fired up about social issues. I care a lot about looks and am always looking to help people around me (unfortunately, sometimes at my own expense). Going into a STEM career. I have a lot of creative hobbies and like working with my hands in my free time.

Thanks for doing this, it's very fun! :)

I’ve said it before, and I’ve said it again. I love to pair a Type Eight with a Type Nine, an extrovert with an introvert, and you know who’s an introverted Type Nine? Lasko heckin’ Moore.

There’s lots of similarities between the two of you that I think makes it work, both big and little things. You’re both trans. (Lasko’s storyline is inherently trans, and Erik himself could not tell me otherwise.) You both love Lord of the Rings and Hannibal. (It’s fun to imagine Lasko having a surprisingly strong mind and stomach for gore despite his nervousness.) You’re both relentlessly passionate about social justice.

In tandem with that, your differences are also why you work so well. Where Lasko hedges and obfuscates, you get straight to the point and speak your mind. Where you, as a Type Eight, might confront and face head on, Lasko mediates and diplomacizes. It’s a wonderfully balanced pair that would keep y’all in check with one another.

Song:

I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop I love so much/ All of the while I never knew/ All of the while, all of the while/ It was you

I can’t tell you what it is about Lasko, but I just love imagining coffee-shop meet cutes for him. He’d be writing lesson plans or taking notes for his next DnD session. You’d be doing… cool STEM stuff. (I’m a baker; all my science is of the applied, edible kind.) A barista mixes up your drinks, and then boom! Love.

Runner-Ups:

Both you and Aaron have workaholic tendencies, but I could imagine you showing him a creative hobby of your, something handy, would be a lovely bonding experience for the two of you. He seems the type who’d relax better if his hands weren’t idle, you know? Anton, I like because there’s nothing better than a beautiful couple tackling the STEM world together. (I’ve read a lot of Ali Hazelwood; we love a power couple.)

Note: those copaganda shows are surprisingly enjoyable I know

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌

[brokentoys]

About Elaine, what are some of her favourite things like food, drinks, snacks and so on? Is she very faddy about some things and does that change as she gets older? I'm curious since Eddie doesn't eat very much himself so I wonder how he handles that and whether or not looking after Elaine helps him manage his own dietry needs.

Nothing can have anything in it which "doesn't belong." Meaning ice cream can't have nuts/fruit/cookies, and Mac 'n' Cheese CAN'T have bacon bits, and yogurts can't have fruits either. She'll refuse to eat anything if it has something like that put in it - if that makes sense.

Elaine's favorite drinks are juices! Particularly orange juice (NO PULP) or fruit juice. She'll even drink V8, though, and highly enjoy it. She doesn't drink carbonated sodas often 'cos carbonation makes her feel unwell. Elaine, unfortunately, refuses to drink plain water. Currently, Elaine's favorite food is Mac 'N' Cheese (may not share her dad's fixation on cheese - but he does love the Mac. Which makes Ed happy her fav food happens to be something cheesy). When she grows up, she'll probably have a distaste for Mac 'N' Cheese thanks to how often Eddie prepared it for her. Too much. She's sick of it. Dunno what her new favorite food would be, but probably also something pasta related.

Eddie doesn't eat simply because he feels no appetite for himself, and thus foods are unappealing. He'll still remember that Elaine has to eat, at least! SOMETIMES he'll not eat anything but still feed her. Other times he'll grab a small portion of food just to join her. Fortunately, once Elaine's a lil older - Eddie gets clean (from the drugs, of course,) and well... his appetite returns because of that lol. Technically, Eddie's mostly clean in the reformed verse. (At least off the super hard drugs such as coke and meth) Even though in my own lore, it takes a little bit longer after having Elaine around for Eddie to get clean (as having her around made him realize he has to be.) Buuuut since RP blogs work differently - I just speed up that process to give him the Character Development, and also help make his reform verse Different from the Main Verse.