#Wren Answers

[rememberwren]

Catholic Guilt!Johnny who desperately bucks his hips into reader, trying to ignore how much his skin is crawling just at the sheer notion that Simon is there too-watching, holding him. It’s against his will of course-he wishes it didn’t-but when he pulls out of Reader and instead has Simon’s hand slide down his body and wrap around his cock-he meets God. And He’s got stupidly inexpressive eyes and a skull mask.

By God I will have him unlearn it. I swear I will. It will start with the way he can taste Ghost on your tongue when he’s kissing you and it will end with you pressing both their heads together, smiling mouths meeting, not a bit of guilt or shame in Johnny’s heart

[wr3n-th3-4n1m4t0r]

Hey Wren, can I borrow your bomb?

Totally not gonna do anything crazy with it :3

what do you plan to do with it bloomie.

BLOOMIE.

WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO WITH THE BOMB.

[hermitcraft-my-beloved]

psst i have some POC-friendly picrews with proper hair styles and stuff like that if you ever want any by the way

I WOULD LOVE THAT ACTUALLY

!!!!!!

[dragonwhisper23]

tell me about a fun bird please

Oh do I have the fun bird for you!

So in my local area we have a few different large parrot species, but the two relevant to this story are Sulfur Crested Cockatoos and Long Billed Corellas. They’re temperamental destructive birds that I absolutely adore.

Now the theory I have goes, is that during nesting time, there’s a limited amount of hollows in my area (less old growth trees nowadays, more urbanisation of the rural area I live in) and as such they’re in high demand and fiercely competed over.

And sometimes you can get one of the species chasing the other out and off their eggs and then laying their eggs in the nest, eventually raising both their young and the orphaned eggs. And when this happens the resulting adult is more interested in a mate from their adoptive flock rather than they own species. Which is what leads us to our Fun Bird.

A wild Hybrid of the two!

This guy has a weird mixed phenotype of the two original species, with the markings, blue eye ring, and crest shape of a long billed corella and the beak, crest colour and size of a Sulfur crested cockatoo, and a mix of the red and yellow in colouration that results in this lovely orange. They follow the local migration of the Sulfur Crested Cockatoo and Long Bill Corella flock and as spring starts, they arrive in my backyard.

As such, I have a number of photos of them, and even watched one year when they had a mate with another Sulfur Crested Cockatoo.

Now before you say, “Are you sure this isn’t some stray citron crested cockatoo?” Believe me that was my first guess when this unusual bird appeared in our backyard. But the hybrid only resembles that species in crest colouration and otherwise none of their markings, size or body shape match up with otherwise described species. And it’s also too far south for a Citron, so the current explanation for their unique appearance is a hybrid.

I would love to have the chance to actually study them up close, perhaps even testing to see if they are truly a hybrid and where they go when they’re not hanging out in my backyard but alas I’m not a bird scientist (yet) just a big bird enthusiast. I’ve even painted this unique visitor to my backyard

Photo credits to both me and Nora Peters, my Nana

[dragonmarquise]

I was reading through some of your tags for the post and some of them caught my eye, specifically when you were talking Abt the ref and Felix thing. Why do you get angry Abt it????/gen I'm not trying to be rude, I'm generally all around New to the fandom and I wanna know why-

Okay so!! Honestly this is a fair question to ask, because anyone particularly new to the fandom or even the game in general isn’t going to know the whole context about this situation.

Short(ish) summary (also spoilers of course!): In the postgame, Red still appears at cypher spots, even though going by the story Red and Felix are the same person, and the red cyberhead was destroyed by the end of the game. Taking it at face value, some people interpret it as Red somehow coming back as a separate person from Felix. Which is a cool AU idea imo!

Unfortunately, a decent amount of people have a heavy preference towards Red over Felix, usually either because they’re too used to Red from playing as him for most of the game, or even because they see Felix as ugly/unattractive in comparison.

So then those people tend to use that AU as a way to replace Felix, basically (in my mind at least) throwing out Felix’s character development from the game in favor of Red. When from the canon story’s perspective, they’re the same damn person anyways. And like, I just find that really rude towards him, and I say this as a person who enjoys that AU too, though evidently in a different way from what other people are doing. D:

Longer rant with more details/complaints under the cut:

There are a few different variants of this AU, just to list a few scenarios:

Red is actually a somehow revived Faux, basically using the red cyberhead to hide his identity. Why he does this can vary: him wanting to actual repent for what happened and trying to start doing so by hiding his real identity, or even just hiding himself as he plots to get revenge on Felix and the rest of BRC.

Red is a copy (either complete or partial) of Felix’s mind during the time he spent stuck in the red cyberhead. Basically that converting the red cyberhead to preserve Felix’s head didn’t remove all of the systems/internals related to a normal cyberhead’s functions. The idea being maybe the Flesh Prince had to do a rush job due to needing to keep Felix’s head preserved as quickly as possible to prevent too much rotting/memory loss. Thus some systems are still there, reading Felix’s mind and later result in Red once the red cyberhead is put back together. I will admit I did talk about this scenario in a previous post of mine!

A fun one from a friend of mine: Red still existing turns out to be because a player of the actual BRC game managed to get isekai’d into the world, with them somehow getting put into a newly revived Red as his new "AI" mind. Then having to navigate the world and maybe even befriend BRC, trying to also convince them that he’s not suspicious (especially given his knowledge of the events of the game). Also dealing with how actually moving around and doing things as a writer firsthand is WAY different from just doing it in a video game, lol

Another one from a different friend: Red is “revived” by the Flesh Prince as a new lacky. Though it’s not “Red” from the game, he just found Faux’s old body and then put a completely new cyberhead on it with a basic AI, declaring it his new minion. Shenanigans ensue, probably. :P

But the one that a decent amount of people seem to prefer: Red being the one to experience most if not all of the game, connecting with the rest of BRC and becoming friends. Felix recovering his memories is still a thing here, and him basically taking the reigns once the endgame starts to defeat Faux for good. But then after that it’s revealed Felix still doesn’t have much of a friendship with the others, because it turned out that was all Red, as a separate mind/AI/etc. from Felix. So then in this version of the AU, Red is part of BRC because of the connections he made, while Felix leaves and goes back to being a solo writer because his only connection to BRC was them helping him recover his memories. It’s using Red as a complete replacement for Felix, even though canonically they’re the same person anyways.

And like… ultimately people will do whatever they want with AUs and stuff like this, I can’t force people to stop what they’re doing or agree with the criticisms I have here. And I will admit, I used to like the last point in a “WHOA that’d be a pretty cool twist!!” way, but then later thinking on it more, and realizing… no, actually, this feels like a shitty thing to do to the narrative, especially to poor Felix.

His whole thing is like!! He was friends but also rivals with DJ Cyber and Faux, until eventually going solo for All City, and even admitting he prefers to work alone. We don’t get details on why he feels that way, but we can imagine a ton of ideas for it: he has more of an ego than he lets on? He didn’t want DJ Cyber or Faux to get hurt during the path to All City, so he decides to just go for it by himself? He still genuinely thinks of them as his friends, but overall he’s generally a more aloof loner kind of person and that’s why he went solo? There’s a bunch of options!

Regardless of his reasons, he went solo for All City. He had a one night graffiti session with Faux afterwards, maybe to just check on him and catch up. But otherwise to me it implies there weren’t going to be too many more sessions like these in the future, be it with Faux or anyone else.

And then, Faux kills him. Faux’s own motivations for that are also another fascinating potential for cool fics/AUs/etc. But that’s maybe for another post. :P

Anyways! Felix is dead, but manages to get preserved and eventually revived as Red. Early on in the game, I believe right at the beginning of Chapter 2, Red decides to go up against DJ Cyber in order to find out about his own forgotten roots. And he actually starts to go off by himself, until Tryce stops him! Then Tryce tells him they’re doing this together as a crew, and the way I see it, Red is probably going, “Wait, you… want to still help me? Even if it means fighting against a guy like DJ Cyber? Really??”

Because! Again, my own interpretation, Red doesn’t have all his memories back, but I think Felix’s personality is still there, just subconsciously, y’know? “I gotta do this on my own, can’t rely on anyone else, don’t want others to get hurt because of me” etc. So this is imo one of the first big steps in Felix’s character development that I feel is going on throughout the game: learning that it’s okay to have your friends help you, and to help them out in return, sticking together until the very end and even beyond that!

I mean, just saying, Tryce and Bel join in with Vinyl and DJ Cyber to keep Mech!Faux open for a final attack during his boss fight. That’s some serious friendship right there, willing to put yourself on the line for a friend!!

So then, to basically say, “No, most/all of that was actually just Red, and Red and Felix are separate people so Felix doesn’t need to stick around with BRC anymore” is like…

Okay, pardon my language here, but it’s effectively throwing out Felix’s whole character arc, and frankly it’s fucking insulting towards him!! Guy has the power of badass friendship and hella illegal graffiti on his side, and some people wanna rip that away from him?! Come the fuck on!!

And to emphasize, I used to like this idea as like, an amazing didn’t-see-it-coming twist. But then thinking on it more, it just really isn’t fair to Felix! At all! Especially since I really do think he has an interesting character arc, going from insisting on doing things solo, to gaining new friends and going All City a second time with, in his words, “a whole crew of the best homies around”.

Literally, he says that at the hideout in the postgame! I’m kinda paraphrasing based on memories, but that’s actually what he says more or less.

Also, a lot of people in the fandom seem to really enjoy this AU specifically as a way to replace Felix with Red in their minds/headcanons/stories. Some of them just ended up very attached to Red because of playing as him for most of the game anyways. Which, y’know, that’s reasonable at least! But then for others, they latch onto this AU because of having a genuine dislike (and in some cases, outright hatred) towards Felix.

From my observations and experiences, if it’s not because they got too attached to Red, it’s mostly rooted in people not finding Felix “attractive”. That’s it, possibly the most selfish fucking reason a person could have for wanting to forcefully throw out a character’s development, like what the hell man.

imo it also reeks of a problem that some other fandoms tend to have: dissing more masculine men in the cast, in favor of the more feminine/twink men. Some people may debate on whether Red/Faux would count as a twink, especially with how the term has been watered down recently (fun fact, it was meant to be mainly used in an LGBT+ context, so specifically for LGBT+ men who fit the appearance!!). But, I hope people reading this get the idea of what I’m trying to point out here. :/

Another thing about how people are trying to use Red to replace Felix: they treat this AU like it’s canon, or that they think it should be canon. Even though it’s not, that’s the point of calling it an AU!! Like I mentioned way earlier, I’m not going to stop anyone from going into this sort of AU, even if I personally have criticism for it if it’s handled in a certain way. But what I’m not going to let slide is people trying to force an AU to be considered canon and the way it should be.

The point of an AU is to have fun with possibilities, not try to reject and replace the original canon completely!! D:

Anyways, this is uh. Pretty long as is. So I want to wrap up with at least what I personally like about the potential for a “Red comes back as a separate person” AU. Which is evidently very different from what most people enjoy about that kind of AU.

I mentioned this in my old post I linked to earlier in this post, but basically: Red is not used as a replacement for Felix, but he exists alongside him and the rest of BRC. They could even become like brothers to one another. Red being the “younger” brother who is (quite literally) new to life and wants to go out there and explore and experience all the good stuff, even in a chaotic way. And then Felix being the “older” brother, still being chill like he was before, yet also more responsible and cautious because of what he went through, thus wanting to make sure Red is safe and sort of be his mentor through these things. Felix maybe even feels like he's the main reason Red is here at all, so then he feels responsible with guiding Red and making sure he turns out alright, y'know?

… At least, that’s more or less what I would want to aim for. Them coexisting and even getting more character development for the both of them! I would take more about the specifics of how this would all work. But I do have fan fics and other stuff I want to do someday to share those ideas more. Thus I will stop here for today, hopefully I will be able to get around to those fan fics and stuff in the future! Maybe.

So yeah, that about wraps up my thoughts on this topic? I probably came off as too hostile at some points, sorry about that. It’s just, I think this particular version of the AU is especially frustrating when it’s coming from people who are clearly only using it to replace the “ugly” Felix with the more “attractive” Red. Sometimes it’s subtle, other times it’s more obvious, but either way it’s just damn annoying for me at this point. :(

[ask-wren-zhang]

You need to stop, Wren... You need to stop being such an adorable cutie patootie!

Or what?

[wren-beowulf]

i kinda wanna go ta a good theatre movie or smth. would be a nice date. cmon plz take me ouuutttttt

PLZ

((omg this kid. needs guidance. *facepalms))

The movies? Oh geez it's been so long since I've actually went out t' see a movie. Like, almost a year now, yikes. Guess that's what happens when ya throw yourself into your work haha.

Did ya see a movie ya liked Jay? Should I get us some tickets?

[words-with-wren]

AHHHHHHH! I'm not sure how to put my feelings into words, but Some Sunny Day is driving me INSANE. I don't mean to offend you, as I know that you have a life and have stuff going on, but I check Ao3 CONSTANTLY to see when the next rendition is going to be. I can't describe my joy when I see that it has been updated. As a whole, THANK YOU for this masterpeice.

AAAAHH THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I love hearing from people who enjoy what I create ❤️❤️❤️ I'm not at all offended--and I'm going to try get the next chapter up soon! Had a crazy week at work and also a paper I was finishing up so haven't had time or energy to write but. Hopefully today ^-^

Again, thank you for this ask! Seeing people excited about my writing is always wild and I love hearing from you ❤️

[redeemed-wren]

hey! You keep posting stuff about Tintin and I thought you’d appreciate that my dog looks exactly like Snowy!

He(/she?) DOES!!! What a gorgeous guy!!!! ❤️❤️

[cuddlycryptid]

America is definitely a colonization state, but you can’t say the same thing about Israel

That’s erasing thousands of years of Jewish history

imagine saying the state literally committing a genocide in order to colonize and ethnically cleanse an entire civilization and history is. not engaging in violent colonialism

the government is not the same entity as everyone who has ever lived there or ever contributed to the culture and history of judaism. the israeli state is committing atrocities and some of its population contributes obviously (idf). but you need to separate the israeli state from people who are jewish and ppl who happen to have been born there but disagree with the genocide. pretending like critiquing the state automatically includes these groups, or has anything to do with jewish history or culture, is a tool used to deflect accusations of the war crimes israel is actively committing. please think critically

[rememberwren]

Feeling so fluffy right now.

Just thinking of Soap, Ghost, and you lazing around on a Sunday morning. You have a cup of tea and are playing some fun little game on your switch or laptop. Messy hair, Ghost's massive T-shirt, and your ugly sweatpants that are ten years old.

Ghost is outside having a smoke or something and comes back inside. Treated to the sweet scene of Johnny silently sketching you on the first page of his new journal.

Ghost can tell it's a new book because Soap is fucking hard on his notebooks, his work one is dog eared and every single page is filled with notes, maps, sketches and diagrams. All usually relating to their missions.

But this new book... He can tell it's not coming into the field with them... Ever. As Ghost patters over silently and looks over Soap's shoulder he can see that he's drawn little hearts around the sketch of you. A large heart in the bottom corner with both Simon and the reader's names in it. It's so highschool but also the cutest shit he's ever seen. The Scot's head over heels for both of you.

This is so fucking precious, everyone needs to read it. 🥹

[wr3n-th3-4n1m4t0r]

gently pushes open the door hi can i put yīngwǔ in a microwave? i want to watch him spin around

UHHH HELLO???? WHAT 😭😭😭

GO AHEAD IF YOU WANT TO BUT I’M NOT DRAWING POOR BRO IN A MICROWAVE

YOU DO IT

COWARD /silly /nm

[wof-inbox]

To Wren. What do you know about Earth? The planet, not the Ground which you are standing on by the way.

(GUYS I CANT DRAW PEOPLE DONT JUDGE 😭😭)

“Never heard of it.” -Wren

[dragonmarquise]

Y'know what I feel like the BRC community lacks? Solace appreciatation!!! Can I pls have all your hcs on this pathetic wet cat of a man pls?

Okay! This is gonna be hopefully shorter than some of my other headcanon posts, but I guess only because it's just one character this time, lol

Nevertheless! Gonna put a Read More here since it probably still counts as a long post.

Tryce is still weirded out by Solace to a degree (especially, y'know, because of the claustrophobic masochist thing) but after a while he just accepts that that's how Solace is. "He's a weirdo, yeah, but he's our weirdo now I guess." Kinda like a cat that chooses to adopt you, instead of the other way around, so it's like "Welp, I guess I have a cat now!" lol

Solace mostly learned how to skate in order to run from the cops Basically they would hassle him whenever he was hanging out in tight places, even if it was far from the public eye. Later on, he decided to try out being a writer, but he doesn't really do graffiti art that often. Even after joining BRC, that hasn't changed much!

Solace really likes sweaters! Mostly during the colder months of course, even wearing them in layers to help stay warm. He tends to get colder more easily than other people.

Heck, in general he seems to have sensitivity to temperature in both directions. Gets cold very easily and thus has to wear more layers than other people would. But also gets hot very easily in the warmer months, and even goes shirtless most of the time during summer. Hence his appearance during the game imo!

I like to think the dummy markings on his face is just face paint, while the ones on his chest/torso are actually tattoos. The idea being if the cops are after him, he can hide somewhere, wipe off his face paint, then just throw on a shirt and (hopefully) the cops won't recognize him. Unfortunately with his luck, it's kind of a coin toss if it works or not, lol

On that note, in general I think Solace tends to have bad luck. He's joked in the past about possibly being cursed, but the rest of BRC wonder if it might actually be true... at the least, Eclipse has confirmed that Solace has some pretty damn unlucky star signs going on, so that's something.

Solace sleeps with a weighted blanket! Not as part of his claustrophobic masochist kink (though a lot of people assume it is anyways, which he finds irritating). It just genuinely helps him sleep better.

Also in general he has problems with getting enough sleep! Besides the weight blanket, he also sleeps with a white noise machine. It helps "block" outside noises, and given he lives in a big city like New Amsterdam, there's probably a ton of city noises he has to block out before he can get any sleep!

He likes to feed stray cats near his apartment, though he also carries treats with him to feed any cats he meets while he's out and about!

He also does the same with birds, with food that's safe/healthy for them to eat (mostly just seeds instead of stuff like bread or chips). There's a couple of crows who are actively friendly with him too!

Meanwhile dogs don't seem to like him very much. They tend to at least growl at him, even if they're normally friendly otherwise.

I imagine a guy as pale as him is careful to put on sunscreen when he goes out, especially during the times of the year where he's out shirtless. Stuff like skin cancer is no joke! Though even besides that he probably tends to get sunburnt easily without the sunscreen.

He's a bit of a doormat, but he's gaining confidence now that he's with BRC! It's still a work in progress though, sometimes also a "one step forward, two steps back" kind of thing.

And finally, separating this out from the list, since it's going to take a couple of paragraphs:

He has the respect of Devil Theory! This might seem out of left field, but basically they ended up really respecting Solace after he was willing to step between them and frickin' Faux in a walking tank. Most other people would have let Devil Theory get thrashed in that situation, which would have been seen as deserved because of all the snitching, nevermind them making a deal with Faux against other writers.

So now because of Solace's bravery, Devil Theory consider him an honorary member! They also sometimes act as his bodyguards, even though he insists they don't have to. But now anyone has to think twice if they try to bully Solace, lmao

Also, Devil Theory have been trying to teach him how to be more confident and stand up for himself! But again, it's a work in progress.

Example, at one point he manages to actually stand up to Tryce on calling him a degenerate… but then almost immediately apologizes for being "rude" to Tryce.

Meanwhile the DT guys are in the background going, "NO! Dude, you almost fuckin' had it!!" lol

Annnnd, yeah, I think that's about all I got for Solace! :>

[ask-wren-zhang]

*Eagerly waves at you during class.*

*hides Charlie*

[wren-beowulf]

woah. i saw whatcha did!! i was on a rooftop. saw tha whole thin. it looked so pretty. made tha pattern o a heart. did ya do that on purpose?

fa me?

awe an an when ya gon tell ya brotha bout us datin?

I told ya that I was gonna take care of it, and I did. I just want ya 't be safe. Don't think the heroes are gonna like me now though. Might have accidentally upgraded myself to big time villain.

I don't think my brother is ever gonna wanna speak 't me again after this... I'll call him later when I'm healed up more, but I dunno. Might not end well.