#and this isn't aimed at anyone in particular

[marbofmoorock]

Since I've seen practically nobody make content on kind jax, I'm going to make a semi-Swap AU featuring him right meow(using his design here by this excellent artist as reference).

Let's rethink the show with the Swap AU in Mind:

Characters:

Jaxxy: Like Ragatha in the main canon, Jax is a kind sweetheart with a sort of feminine energy to him, always putting a kind foot forward to be compassionate and Considerate of the others in Circus Cast. He is often compliant with Caine the most. playing along with the adventures, as per his strongly agreeable nature. He's closest to Pomni and Dangle, softly admiring her gentle and Empathetic nature, always coming to her rescue as a sort of a group dad/older brother type, trying to keep the peace in a very diplomatic and gentle way, often to Ragsy's chagrin(detesting Jaxxy and his softer ways, sometimes calling him "Not A Man." Jaxxy often retorts in a sort of sassy way that "He's a bunny, Honey~ *snap, snap*")

Pomni: As a Jester Boy new to the circus, Pomni, unlike the main canon, is more confident and friendly. She is quick to see how she could help everyone, and becomes fast friends with everybody, except Ragsy, whom slowly warms up to her. Pomni is a kindhearted friend, always helping out and doing what she can. In this circus, she learns to let go of Gummigoo quickly, realizing the other cast members are the realest people, as opposed to kind npcs. This prompts Pomni to push for a strong friendship with Ragsy, which is impossible at first, but overtime, wins Ragsy over, and they bond very closely to each other.

Ragsy: Instead of being kind and nice like on the main Canon, Ragsy is kinda grumbly and secretive, as well as a sly prankster, liking to play tricks on everyone. This often puts her at odds with Jaxxy, who aims to smooth over every bad situation, to which Ragsy scoffs at with a semi-indifferent attitude about her presence in the circus, becoming embittered and finding joy only in other people's pain, much to Jaxxy's annoyance. Ragsy isn't close to anyone in the circus, isolating herself from the rest of the group at first, as she has done that since day 1 of entering the circus. She later redeems herself through being given a second chance via Pomni after everyone gangs up on her and calls her out on her toxic behavior. Pomni helps Ragsy to realize that it's better to get along and hug it out, instead of provoking people all the time, prompting Ragsy to experience character growth where she apologizes to everyone and becomes a warm, and empathetic character, strongly resembling who she is in the main canon, with the exception of her tomboy fashion of wearing a t-shirt under blue overalls instead of wearing a dress(but she still has her bow in her hair).

Dangle: Unlike Gangle, being shy and turbulent in the main canon, Dangle is instead more exuberant and assertive, as well as flexible. He has plastic unbreakable masks for every day he doesn't need, but wants to wear anyways, as he is super theatrical and silly. His favorite mask was a japanese kitsune (fox) mask, a close second was his anime persona mask, which had huge colorful 90s styled anime eyes, which also gave him a cuter japanese voice and dubbing for some odd reason. He loved talking about some of his favorite animes, he was a big fan of fox girls in particular, finding their tails and ears to be cool, often styling his ribbon body to have ears and a tail as well, always on the lookout for more ribbons to add to his body, as he also had a bunch of different colored ribbons on different parts of his body on top of the usual red, sporting Blonde hair above his mask over his red head which was thicker with knotted red ribbons to make him more endurant and tough. He also had blue pants made of blue ribbon and a green shirt with a graphic design he stitched by hand out of multiple colors and ribbons, depicting one of his favorite anime characters, Fufu-Chan(A Cute Fennec Fox girl with big fluffy ears, from Kitsune no Yume/狐 の 夢 (Disclaimer: Not A Real Anime, don't look it up, lol). He's always looking up with joy, bringing out the positive side of Queenzie. Dangle, while occasionally picked on by Ragatha, knows how to scare Ragsy back as he sometimes keeps a centipede housed between his masks as a safeguard to surprise her(Ragsy before apologizing to everyone, didn't like Dangle and kept her distance from him, as she hated bugs, especially centipedes). Dangle collects bugs, also leaving a bunch of jars of bugs in his room he collects from different adventures, from roaches, to ants, to beetles, to other bugs, so Ragatha wouldn't come in his room (especially if she saw his favorite pet Tarantuala, a hairy fellow named Neil), all as a way to keep her out. Dangle also has a strong friendship with Queenzie, who's super into Bugs, often going searching for bugs with Dangle, as it helps her remember Kingo, her abstracted husband.

Queenzee: Unlike being crazy and warm in the main canon, Kinger has his head fully screwed on as a woman and is smart but hotheaded. Her husband, Kingo, the black king chess piece, was big into Bugs, and was a huge softie loved by everyone. Queenzee, on the other hand, has an aggressive flair, easily enraged by Ragsy's antics, which would often lead to her competing/fighting Ragsy on adventures, often challenging her in a very arrogant and self-inposing kind of way, with a bossy regal energy like the red queen from Alice in Wonderland. Dangle often helped her in such scaenarios (secretly having a crush on her, but feels unable to tell her his feelings because of how much she still mourns Kingo as a widow, as well as out of fear of her temper, which was quite scornful). After Ragsy makes up with Queenzie later in the series, they bond and form a loving relationship, putting aside their differences, as they both admired each other's wit and agility.

Zooble: Unlike her Grumpy and Sarcastic character in the main Canon, Zooble is affable and mild, embodying the quieter persona she tries and fails to emulate in the main canon. Zooble has no body issues, easily accepting himself and all of her many opportunities to arrange his body parts any sorts of ways she liked. Somewhat of a playful Wild Card, some days Zooble will surprise everyone as a way to be a humorous comedian, sometimes going on adventures with only one leg just to make someone laugh, or no arms, or sometimes, he'll just let Dangle carry her head anywhere, as he's secretly is in love with Dangle, finding him to be a real cute sweetheart, especially when he makes his :3 face. Dangle isn't aware of this, but later on, he learns of his/her feelings, and they end up together, Queenzie openly supporting their relationship due to loving both of them.

Ragatha and Jax (Swap Au) cute little baby 💙💜

[angellayercake]

The way I'm seeing people talk about Terzo recently is making me a bit sad.

I thought all the takes I didn't agree with might inspire me to get back to writing him and do him the justice he deserves but instead it's just making me feel really disconnected. And that is not to say my interpretation is the only right one at all but it's a bit tiring seeing him reduced to just a short twink bottom for omega joke.

I do love ghost as a whole still and Copia too but Terzo is my special guy so yeah just feeling things. And unfortunately those things are just ever growing the pesky writers block

[quaintpanic]

[acorviart]

some of you really need to learn email etiquette and not send professional emails that sound like you're opening DMs on instagram

[scarwasright]

I can't recommend enough practicing very, very intentionally not talking about shit I don't like. That includes, importantly, when it's in service to talking about shit I do like. It's the only reason I've been able to stick around in this fandom as long as I have.

I don't want my every conversation about the strengths of the anime I do like to boil down to comparisons to an anime I don't. Full stop. I'm talking about Winry? idgaf that a lesser narrative relegates her to the role of Wife and Healer when I could be talking about how realistic and interesting it is for her to naturally grow apart from her childhood friends and make many, many new ones! (I could come up with infinite examples here, but I don't want to! I'd rather do anything else!)

Direct comparisons and criticisms are intellectually valid, but who are they for? What's the point, when fandom popularity will always boil down to what's the most palatable and comfortable to the majority of the audience? I know that this is borderline impossible with how obnoxious this fandom is about the adaptation it's collectively fart-huffed its way into hating, but it's so worth it! Come with me! Scar with one million cats! Maybe more! Imagine!!

[secret-third-thing]

My little friday thought of the day:

Believing Morrigan and liking Eris are not mutually exclusive.

Do I think there's more to their story? Yes. Narratively, Sarah has alluded to that and I look forward to her exploring that in the future. BUT It doesn't mean that Mor's experiences are automatically invalidated and Eris is exonerated of all wrongdoing.

I am not here to convince you to like Morrigan, but I am here to beg other folks who like Eris to stop putting Mor down in order to lift Eris up. Part of being an Eris fan is accepting him as he is. It's fine to speculate or to write fanfiction that explores AUs etc, but let's all be real about who this guy is. Intent != Impact.

[nocturnalnewsiestrash]

People are testing me with the amount of dislike of Crystal. Like I'm about to pull out my training from living in the Newsies fandom for years having to defend Kathrine because she dared to be a female character who Has Character Flaws. I can and will turn into a Crystal defender. Like I know this is just like, par for the course of fandom in general. But like god can we just like TRY to have some space for nuanced women characters? Especially Crystal?? She deserves it, we owe it to her to be extra extra aware of how we treat her. Because I personally believe she deserves the world and I'm ready to give it to her if no one else will

[grimwalker-grimoire]

We keep seeing posts about how you're not doing enough for the Current Events flavour of the month if you're not doing Specific Thing and therefore you're Evil and Bad and genuinely, that literally doesn't help people who can't do shit and just hurts their mental state. This isn't about any one thing. Yes there's plenty of worthy causes to take action in the name of, the world sucks! But many people aren't able to contribute in ways other than sharing content online, or even at all, and that's okay!

Yes there's need for support for many things but people who may already be hurting can't be expected to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. Being fed bad food and told "there's starving children in the world who would appreciate this, you're so ungrateful" is a similar kind of thing to the stuff we're seeing--others suffering doesn't always mean you need to make yourself suffer to try to help them. You shouldn't be forced to have less than the bare minimum because no one should. "You're privileged that you get to ignore others suffering elsewhere"--yes! But we're also disabled and literally can't help anyone, even ourselves, if we don't have the energy to. Our help is nothing if we put all of our energy into things we can't fix and expend what little energy we have for ourselves. We don't even have enough money to live, some people can't give money or time and it's not always out of greed or hate! Stop acting like poor people who can barely feed themselves need to donate to things--go talk to the people hoarding all the damn money!

Stop guilt tripping. Spreading awareness is amazing but acting like people online are the villains for needing space and time isn't the way to be activists, you're harming people and preying on those with things like moral ocd under the guise of helping others.

[kvtie-pie]

some of you need to chill with the horny posting or put it on a side blog maybe

[12thperigeeball]

A Quick Reminder For All Ball Attendees This Year

I did want to make it very clear to everyone who is participating or will participate in the ball that

Campaigning, organizing, begging or otherwise attempting to buy or trade for King, Queen, or Couturier votes are not allowed.

I wanted to make this announcement because while we allowed the community to organize via multiple public posts to make a concentrated effort across the dashboard to force a tie for a dual vampire/clown theme during the theme voting process, we will not allow a similar scenario to happen for the crowning process itself.

Showing off your troll's outfits and nomination, encouraging people to vote in a general manner not for a specific nominee, or supporting your friends are all fine! Any attempts to trade things like artwork, spamming users to vote for a specific character, or making posts to dissuade users from voting for other characters ruin the spirit of the ball and are not allowed. Don't make us drag out our unused protocols for that sort of scenario. I would like to keep them in the box where we store them.

Thank you guys again for participating this year!

[kenzan-kiwami]

to be completely frank i think most of the people i've seen with major complaints regarding RGG 8's story are forgetting that 99% of what they're saying can be applied across the whole series

[hell0mega]

i understand disliking or getting upset over things but commenting stuff like "ugh i wish everybody didn't put romance on a pedestal" "why does everyone make this a romantic ship" "what about platonic pairings" directly on posts that are about romance is like. really rude, still. like please feel free to complain and rant that your favorite platonic ship is being romanced and sexualized to hell and back but if you're commenting directly onto someone's normal post about them liking something romantic, that's just? rude? like, that post wasn't made for you, then. what do you stand to gain from commenting "i wish this wasn't romantic" on someone's romantic post? that they'll feel bad for not agreeing with you? that they'll change their mind and start platonic shipping them instead? idgi

[celticjade13]

I started reading IceMav after seeing Top Gun: Maverick. I didn't ship characters when I was younger, so seeing the first movie didn't trigger any IceMav feelings. (This also happened to me with Star Wars. Maybe an ace/aro thing?) So I'm new into the fandom, but y'all, I have some questions after going through fic on AO3.

Firstly, do fic authors know that DADT didn't exist until 1993? I've seen a handful of fics that address this but the policy in 1986 (the year of the first movie) was dishonorable discharge if you were caught. I see a lot of references to DADT in the 80's, and while it was absolutely a terrible policy, I can assure you the policy before it was way worse. I feel like this is linked to a lot of baby gays not knowing queer history. I posted last spring about a Target salesperson not knowing that the black t-shirt with a pink triangle saying, "Silence = death," was referencing the AIDS crisis. History isn't as far back as you think it is, kids.

Secondly, and completely unrelated to the previous thing, Tom Cruise is short. Kind of. He's actually the perfect height for a real-life fighter pilot and he's basically short compared to the absolute giants that are most other Hollywood stars. I understand fanfic's desire to want to capitalize on the size difference between Ice & Mav. But OMG, Maverick is a fighter pilot. (Naval aviator, whatever.) He's a badass. He lost Goose and he's got a rough relationship with Rooster, and I really only read fanfic where Ice lives, so we don't have to worry about that. And the Navy hasn't exactly been at the cutting edge of mental health treatment at any point in their history*, but he's really woobified in fic. I mean, I see it, fandom loves to take the small character who's been through the emotional wringer and turn it up to 11, but good goddamn, y'all, he's still Maverick. He's still arrogant and a smartass and has Tom Cruise's smile and flies fighter jets for the Navy.

So here's the crux of the matter: Are these developments from the recent influx after TG:M? Or have these been around since the first film? (I feel like anyone around during the first film knows DADT wasn't a thing because those letters in that order wouldn't even have meant anything until the early 90's.)

*A friend's parents were career officers in the Navy before retiring so she & her sister could spend all 4 years in one high school instead of moving partway through. Her mom was a nurse. One sailor came through the hospital/medical station/wherever and was given an evaluation. Sailor mentioned he slept with a weed wacker under his bed. Doctor asked why. Sailor said at night, the weed wacker came out and told him what to do the next day. Sailor was sent home very quickly after that. I asked how he even got into the Navy & my friend shrugged. This is the US military, y'all.

[toddandersonn]

Ummmm I think telling people to go fuck/kill themselves for not knowing a certain artist (even if it's a joke) is really mean and it achieves the exact opposite effect... like idk about you, but if I didn't know much about a certain artist or piece of media and people were rude to me for not really knowing much about it, it would completely turn me off from wanting to engage with it

[kazz-brekker]

i think that a good measure for whether or not your chosen one or true heir to the throne or cool assassin character is clichéd is to consider whether or not they have anything in common with dunyasha lazareva and if the answer is “yes, but done unironically” you should maybe go back to the drawing board

[teslathelame]

friendly lil reminder that jade and floyd are literally 17 years old ❤️