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fountainpenguin · 2 years ago

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Who are some of your favorite FOP characters and why? Or more specifically, what is something they character did that made you like them?

For the sake of rambling on about some of the convoluted reasons why I love these children, here's the upfront disclaimer that I'll be referencing a few of the early draft episode scripts (from Fred Seibert's Scribd); that's where the wordy screenshots are from.

[ Tagged as "long post" but same deal as usual - if I put a Read More on it, it'll crash and delete :') Sorry ]

Imaginary Gary was my first true love in terms of FOP characters. He's such a brokenhearted little 5-year-old trying to play with the big kids. His debut episode starts out so lighthearted and silly with Timmy talking about this imaginary friend who used to attend therapy with him play with him when he was 5. The tone shift you get punched with after Gary realizes Cosmo and Wanda have to grant his wishes too because "he's a part of Timmy" just hits so hard.

I also just love his debut episode because it speaks so much to me about what the show is really about at its core... Timmy got physically and emotionally wrecked by Vicky as a kid, and that's a trauma he's still recovering from. The boy is not okay.

Fanart I made the first time I watched FOP, circa 2016

"Escape from Unwish Island" is very good too, such a fantastic episode in both context and execution.

I think Mark was the second show character I fell in love with, namely around "New Squid In Town" and "Five Days of F.L.A.R.G." There's something so incredibly charming about a teenage alien prince who flees his fiancée at the altar and seeks protection from a scary rival boy... and then just, like, enjoys being human so much that sometimes Timmy shows up at his house and Mark is just hanging out in his human 10-year-old disguise. By himself. Because he likes to be 10 and human. Love that for him.

His entire character type of "surfer dude alien prince" is so funny and creative. Mark is the guy who suffers physical pain when he's hugged, but he'll hug Timmy anyway in an attempt to show Earth affection. He has such a good heart. I also enjoy his dynamic with Vicky, like how he still wants the real girl even though his parents cloned her for him in Season 2, and how he keeps making attempts to be physically affectionate with her according to American culture even though things are drastically different on Yugopotamia.

They break up at the end of "King Chang" because she finds out he's an alien, then a few episodes later in "Wishology" they're hanging out again and he tries to put his arm around her while in alien form and she's like "Don't even think about it" and he respects her rejection, and then they still get back together in Season 9 even though she blatantly knows he's an alien and she decided she was okay with it, and he just adores her so much and has ever since Season 1... he's a sweetheart.

Also this early "Foul Balled" script hits the right spot for me-

Sob... they are in LOVE, your honor.

Mark's journey to being a terrifying prince who feared a human boy to becoming Timmy's biggest fan and best friend is just really sweet. I like to imagine they become roommates later in life. Timmy has to say good-bye to Cosmo and Wanda someday, but Mark stays in touch forever.

Flappy Bob has always been a favorite of mine. The man played the perfect role of an untouchable antagonist while simultaneously doing nothing wrong. Worked hard in school, started a business, did his best to make it a pleasant place to be. Stood up for Betty when she told Gary to respect her touch boundaries, straight up chased him down to make sure he didn't cross a line... all-around great boss.

Got handed magic and wished to make the world a safe place where people could feel loved and not get hurt. After his world of peace was in effect, he walked around, did his own research, and came to his own conclusion that this wasn't working out. Apologized to Timmy for being wrong and did all he could to fix the situation. Sold his business to Gary and Betty, then left town to live his dreams.

The clown theme was a lot of fun to see in a movie, and I'm glad it was acknowledged since it would have felt weird to see him namedropped in Season 2 ("Totally Spaced Out") and then not have the clown aspect be followed through with... The Musical is my favorite episode for good reason. Absolute sweetheart, 10 out of 10. This man can do no wrong.

I don't have much to say about him beyond that, but he's a fantastic character I adore. I would have loved to have seen more of him, but he did all that he needed to do and he's perfect. Also, big shout out to Timmy for handling the interactions with Flappy with grace even though in this same season, he revealed he has a clown phobia.

H.P. is just a funny guy. He's the big boss of a race of clones who file magical paperwork and he really just wants to swing by the club and dance and hang out. Incredibly sarcastic. He'll call you "Dude." Teamed up with Anti-Cosmo and immediately dubbed him with a nickname. Successfully took over two worlds in a single day (after planning this for 37 years) and just wanted to chill in a hot tub tbh.

He's a big, sassy goofball who likes to party and he shouldn't be brushed off as "just an old guy who speaks in monotone and does dull and boring paperwork and nothing else." He is very much Not That. Fairies canonically get drunk off soda, which means we've literally seen H.P. drink on the job. Slaps high-fives and fingerguns his underlings. Smirks and snarks constantly. Respects contracts even when they don't go his way. Keeps detailed files about members of another species. Supports his employees when they join music competitions. Gave his godson a nice car and flowers and sent him on a date with a girl he'd already screwed up with.

Literally gambled all of Fairy World in a bet against a 10-year-old boy and then almost quit after like 30 seconds because he wanted to go to a rave instead. Laughs at his own jokes. Complains when his employees suck up to him. Dressed in drag to flirt with Jorgen. Straight-up lost a golf game to Timmy despite the fact he was cheating in an attempt to win. As in, like... even before Cosmo tipped the scales back into Timmy's favor, H.P. was straight-up losing slkdjfs.

He golfs in his full-on business suit. Twirls his club like a baton. His head will stick in a dartboard if you throw him hard enough, and when Jorgen used him for darts the only thing he said was "You can only imagine the joy I feel in my heart right now." He has a laser cannon in his head. Jabs his elbow into you for attention. Always being snooty with hands on his hips. Used a newborn as a yo-yo. Kidnapped a baby, then announced he wanted to name the child Bill because "Bill's a guy you'd trust with your insurance portfolio."

Went out and bought office supplies in the middle of the Fairy World Games. Won a footrace against Anti-Cosmo. Uses dollar bills as pizza toppings. Keeps chicken drumsticks in his ear. Will flap his arms and make chicken noises at you. Monotone "Go me, go me, it's my birthday." Literally makes you use enormous microscopes just to read the fine print in his contracts. Will hand you a cell phone and then call you even though you're standing in front of him. Once wore a bowler hat on top of his already existing hat.

Keeps his golf club on the table during board meetings. Likes to breakdance. Anti-Cosmo started taunting him and H.P. jumped on a scooter and said "The only thing you'll be eating today is my dust! Later dude!" and peaced out. He might be one of the oldest and most "professional" characters in the series, but in his heart he's like 21 and a total party-loving dork. He's all business on the clock and he might even pay attention to you for five minutes, but honestly he just wants to drink soda, attend raves, and do the worm. H.P. is my dear beloved and I just can't imagine not adoring this perfect man.

And he really is just Like That:

I love him so much...

I like how H.P. was totally okay with splitting the world with Sanderson when they take over... When asked WHY he wants to take over, his reply is "I'm not a hater, but I must cater, to my mission, my ambition, to be the world's administrator" and I like to interpret this as "I don't hate Fairies, but their world is disorganized and I have OCD." Oh no. His hat is also a pen.

Also the OG script shows Jorgen, Anti-Cosmo, and H.P. each choosing a contest for Timmy to judge them on so Timmy can name one of them the "best in the universe." I am obsessed with the sheer confidence of H.P. selecting one task in the universe he knew he could beat Jorgen and Anti-Cosmo at, so obviously he picks:

(Anti-Cosmo wanted to play cowboys)

This early script also depicts H.P. and Anti-Cosmo getting in a magic fight and exchanging insults like "Bring it on, meat" and "Oh no you didn't" while they shoot each other with duckzookas and magic and I need everyone to understand how much I treasure the bitter frenemy silliness that is... Them™

Idk, I feel like if H.P. had been portrayed as a younger character with the exact same personality then he'd probably be more popular in the fandom, and that's really too bad because he's freaking hilarious. He is just a guy. A dude. He's here to party and make it everybody's problem. We need way more H.P. content out there, I adore him.

Sanderson I like for many of the same reasons as H.P.- I've always loved dorky suck-up characters. Plus, Sanderson blatantly cheating at every competition he touches is funny to me. He has a similar goofy attitude to H.P. except he's also like, more vulgar and easily distracted and it's hilarious. My boy really broke a rhyme scheme to compliment his boss on the same hat he's been wearing since forever. In his mind, H.P. is just really really cool and he'll say it.

Sanderson loves music, but when he had the chance to describe himself in song form, his response was basically "Lol, I'm about to end Fairy World's whole career; bite me" and I respect that. He is just the perfect embodiment of "that suck-up who likes to drink and party with his boss, but oh wait! He also has a lot of genuine affection in his heart! But oh wait! He'll also screw you over :)" He's great.

I very much enjoy the fact that when Gary called for Pixie backup in the Musical, it was Sanderson, not H.P., who got the call. I like to think Sanderson took Gary and Betty under his wing and might be a little more attached to his dorky music-loving "godkids" than he'd like H.P. to know. H.P. gets to call the shots, but Sanderson will sneak them candy. As Gary starts sliding off the deep end in my 'fics, I think Sanderson's slowly breaking heart is one of my favorite parts of the whole arc. He really likes Gary, but his hands are tied on how much he can interfere even when his mental health comes crashing down. He's a high-up at Pixies Inc., but still can't overrule the boss's orders. It's lots of fun to play with characters who have power, badly want things, but can't take the risk to use power for the things they want.

I just love my little dynamic of Happy Peppy "I'm a pawn who can't cry in front of my godfathers" Gary and Mr. "I can't express affection in front of Gary or I'll get fired" Sanderson. There's just so much pain there to play with if you jump into FOP canon, point at Gary's call to the Pixies, and say "And I took that personally."

I also enjoy the fact that Timmy was extremely insistent that Poof needed to score "perfect 10s" on the gymnastics course in the Fairy World Games and the Pixies bribed the judges to take 1st place, which implies that it was the Pixies, not the Anti-Fairies, who scored a 10-10-9. Sanderson and H.P. are the only pixies seen on the field in that event and I would have loved to see that. Sanderson likes to be where the action is. He is hanging out.

Happy Peppy Gary and Betty are just inherently fascinating. It's pretty obvious that they know about the magical world. Even if we wave off their weird laser tech and overlook the fact that they got teleported from California to Florida, then made it back before the end of their work shifts in "Baby Face" and didn't even question it... there's a scene in the Musical where Gary picks up a phone that is blatantly labeled "Pixies" and calls Sanderson directly. My boy really went "Dad pick me up, I'm scared" slkdjf I love him.

Actually that's not true, his actual words were "Kids just being kids; they could all get hurt!" and honestly my heart. Like, I'm a full believer that the Happy Peppy duo were in on the Pixie takeover scheme even though Flappy wasn't, they are miscreants, but still... Vote Happy Peppy duo some of the sweetest and most innocent characters in FOP canon, please and thank. Ignore the times they launched babies off-screen, used lasers to cage infants, stuffed a child in a box in front of his horrified peers, and all that other stuff, that's not important. My children did nothing wrong.

I just really love thinking about all the different backstories you could write about these... extremely intense teenagers getting mixed up with magic. I favor the idea that the Pixies have always raised them the same way they raised Flappy Bob, but I think the concept of these two showing up for work one day and accidentally walking in on Pixies scheming to take over the world is equally hilarious.

I want what Gary has- I want the absolute confidence to look a crowd of kids and adults in the eye after they've just been tormented - after I'VE just been tormented - and say "Welcome back, give me money." The extent of the brand overhaul he did on the Learn-a-Torium was slapping his and Betty's names on the side and investing in giant images of their heads. He changed nothing else, not even the uniforms, and just decided to shoot his shot. I love him.

It's also VERY cute that we saw a cardboard "You must be this tall" Gary standee in "Baby Face" and I'm obsessed. This is before Gary and Betty took over, so why isn't it a Flappy standee? For some reason this cracks me up because the implication is that either Gary loves his job so much that he volunteered to be a standee model or someone else took one look at him and knew he was destined to be the smiling face of the Learn-A-Torium so they made standees of him. I love it.

I adore Gary and Betty because they make me think... To me, they're not easy to brush aside and overlook because I have a million questions, and they're cute and fun and I love them. I wonder if Vicky runs in their social circle. They probably cross paths in the babysitting field sometimes.

Also the fact that Betty is so physically affectionate with Gary on a daily basis, but the moment he turns to her for genuine comfort, she bolts out of the room, always gets me laughing. I guess it evens out, because Betty passed out in front of him once, yelling about her heart and clutching her chest, and Gary just covered his ears and screamed that the world was falling apart sdklfj. My babies.

I talk about this all the time, but Gary and Betty also have some fantastic scenes in early episode scripts that were cut from the final versions, like this gem from "Totally Spaced Out":

I love them.

Also in the early days of planning, the Musical's antagonist was actually Imaginary Gary.

While it's not confirmed that Gary and Betty sing this song since unfortunately there's no full script for the Musical available, just the first song drafts, the lyrics for the OG version of "Get Flappy" remain almost identical to the final and it's said to be sung by "Clown cheerleaders," so it seems likely that this refers to them.

I think about this a lot. I mean, if Gary and Betty are singing while Imaginary Gary reveals himself, the implication is that they found out their boss Flappy Bob was actually a 5-year-old in disguise who came out to them as an imaginary friend and they were like "Yeah, that's cool with us." For obvious reasons I don't treat the Imaginary Gary plot as canon in my 'fics, but like... They accepted him. Man.

Like... I can never express how much I enjoy the BFF dynamic that is "I'll keep working here even though our boss is 5 and imaginary, I'll run away to Mexico with you, I'll run a business with you when our boss skips town, I'll catch you when you jump in my arms, but if you want genuine comfort then BOI I'm walkin' out." Betty sdjklf

On that note, I feel like something does need to be said about Gary seeking comfort from Betty when scared and her response is "But I don't like you like that!" She obviously felt like she needed to clarify that and I have so many questions about their relationship. Ignoring for a moment the obvious need to transition to a new scene, it's just not a good look for Gary that Flappy felt the need to chase them and mediate. Is Gary okay. Does he need to be held. My son.

Anyway Gary and Betty have my heart and they know it- they fascinate me and I love them very dearly. I feel bad for the fact that literally every fanfic scene I've put them in is just a horrible downward spiral of their relationship and sanity; I'm pretty sure I've never actually been nice to them, and honestly that's terrible slkdjf

Foop will be ranked at the top of my fave characters for forever and a day. He's just a messed up little sweetheart ping-ponging between being socially awkward in school, hanging out with his loser friends, and struggling against the desire to consume the world in a black hole. He's just struggling so hard and there's, like... no one giving him actual help and it's heartbreaking, but also you don't feel too bad for him because he also has a healthy social life and he's doing okay.

There are something like... 5 or so episodes where you can see Foop's alternate personality take over and I'm just happy that the alt personality thing wasn't pushed as a reason for his destructive behavior. The alter is focused on a little when Foop is freshly out of solitary confinement, comes up again when he's going to school, but all the other appearances are a lot more subtle and just showcased in later episodes by Foop getting that extra highlight in his eyes and gushing over things ("Oh, goody! I found a spot on my body where I wasn't bitten by a spider!" which... isn't the same way Foop speaks when he's in pain any other time in the series, because usually when he's hurt, he'll moan, grump, or panic). It is interesting to me.

Anyway I'm just very happy that the alter wasn't a one-episode gag "played for laughs" who then got thrown aside like nothing happened. Rather, the alter features majorly in two episodes (or three if you want to make an argument for "Terrible Twosome"), then quietly becomes part of Foop's character in a few episodes after that.

We saw extremely valid reasons for where this alter came from. Foop was locked in solitary confinement from the day he was born, developed claustrophobia, accidentally yeeted himself into an alternate dimension for an unconfirmed amount of time while the timestream was frozen for 50 years, and although there's a certain humor in his alternate personality (like when said alter rigged the class president vote for the wrong person) there's also just... this quiet melancholy to the whole experience, this very legitimate childhood trauma that Foop is recovering from... Yikes.

Also this comes later in his life, but he also experienced other fun childhood events such as being tortured with magical shocks while trying to escape a bully and also that one time in Season 8 when the Fairy Council ripped him out of reality. Foop is not okay.

Anyway, Foop's alter is there for him while he adjusts to life outside of solitary confinement and again when he starts a stressful first day of school, and after that he becomes a smaller aspect of Foop's attitude that you can still see in later episodes when he's stressed. Like yknow, that time he literally saw the Grim Reaper and got told how he'll die, I also would probably struggle emotionally with that.

Foop is great- he'll bribe you to spare his life with a dollar bill and he'll still ask if he can keep the change. Disaster child. He's a struggling little kid who's struggling with massive amounts of trauma and doesn't seem to have much of a relationship with his parents. At least Anti-Wanda packs anti-venom in his Kelly Clarkson lunchbox, so I'm glad they're on good terms. Overall, Foop is such a goofy character with a harsh backstory, a difficult family life, a criminal record, and high political expectations and he's also a bad boy evil genius, so like... He's the best kind of character type. But he also has silly subplots where he spends hours TP'ing a house because he forgot he had magic (twice), he loves making prank phone calls, and he freaks out when Crocker doesn't invite him to a party. His dialogue is always fantastic and I really enjoy when he's onscreen.

The downward spiral of his mental state when being tortured with lightning and forced to team up with Vicky in "Scary Godcouple" to the point that he stops caring about anything, straight-up ready to let her kill Poof even though he'll ALSO die just... Man. Hits hard. This happens after "Timmy's Secret Wish" where Foop was violently yanked out of reality. He already ceased to exist once and begged for life again, and then the forced team-up with Vicky happens and he just... can't. He can't.

He screams and begs and finally surrenders to it all, right up until seconds before Poof dies. Finally he lashes out at Vicky and blasts her with magic, gets tortured because of it... This boy is not okay. My man be STRUGGLING. And then the fact that he had to face Vicky AGAIN in "Certifiable Super Sitter" and he just did not trust her for a single second... ouch. The emotional arc of Foop saying "Ooh, I really like her :D!" in his first encounter with Vicky to Foop throwing himself in front of her chainsaw to save Chloe in their last...... Love that.

The Crocker / Dark Laser / Foop friendship is important to me. I just want Foop to have adults in his life who care at least a little about his well-being. He has very few people to turn to... Chloe made him cry with a hug, the boy struggles so hard with healthy affection. He might be a destructive force of chaos but he's also just baby.

I also just really like Foop's dialogue; he's this posh British boy genius who will get extremely worked up about how "For the record, if he HAD thrown a lightning bolt, it would have been done in protest over being asked to participate in this candy-coated farce that you call theater!" but he's also like 5 so he'll just groan about how things are "Super lame" and it's adorable. He has a certain twang to his speech where he'll "spit" these single-word sentences like "Wow" and "REALLY?" and "SERIOUSLY!?!?" and I just find him both refreshing and easy to write. He's so loud and so very cute.

This kid literally runs around on the playground eating poisonous spiders while trying to pick up girls by comparing them to potassium chloride, he'll also distract his teacher by pointing at the window and yelling "A van of rich single men!!" where else can I go to experience this character type, he's the best. He booked a restaurant for Cosmo and Wanda at a black hole. When will I ever be this funny.

Also I cry over the fact that Foop corrected Goldie every time she called him by the wrong name - from the day she came to class to the day they held the play - until he finally screams that his name "isn't that difficult!" and honestly just the fact that he had to deal with that is interesting to me. Goldie knew Poof's name, she memorized her lines in a play... there's no way she "forgot" his name. She was doing that on purpose. In his debut, Foop made it clear multiple times that he hates his name, but he also stood up for himself when misnamed. Love that.

It's also extremely funny that in "Spellementary School," Foop reveals he's never been able to understand anything Poof says and he just has to guess all the time, yet he's also shown to be extremely accurate in recognizing when Poof is grumpily agreeing with him, arguing with him, or straight-up swearing at him and I love that about their relationship. The scene in "Two and a Half Babies" where Foop assures Poof that he can be trusted because he's "not a pathological liar" and Poof just looks at him sadly and says "Poof poof" and Foop backpedals with "You're right, I am; I lied about that" is v funny to me.

Nonverbal popular kid and the boy who needs someone to talk to for the absolute win. They are bonded for life... Good luck, Poof.

I also really like Poof, especially in "Love Triangle" when he screws Foop over by making him take over as understudy and then he just eats popcorn while Foop fumbles around onstage. Comedy gold. Poof is sweet and forgiving, but he's also a straight-up savage and he knew EXACTLY what he was doing. Love him for that. As good as he is, he still has that wild streak the same way that Foop has a secret soft spot for people. Poof doesn't mean to cause trouble except for the times when he definitely DOES mean to cause trouble and it's hilarious.

Poof has a certain "looks like a cinnamon roll, but could kill you" vibe. He's this kindhearted little boy who's very cautious and sweet and you can just imagine what a little gentleman he'll be when he grows up. I love how the first thing he did when he met Chloe was tip his crown at her, the sweetheart.

He'll jump into new adventures. He'll play along. He'll help you out. Yet while all of this is going on, you can see how when he's scolded - either when it's being scolded for "not forgiving people after they try to destroy you" or Timmy yelling that getting them both stuck in a spider's web is all his fault or even just Wanda telling him to calm down because he was getting so worked up when he was unable to articulate what he wanted to say......

Poof doesn't know how to stand up for himself in those situations. He holds himself to this standard of respecting authority even when he's overworked to the point of exhaustion. When he was assigned as godparent to Mrs. Crocker, he went into it with a good attitude but came home wiped out. Didn't voice a single complaint. Just exhausted. Didn't know what to say.

Meanwhile, Foop will flip the heck out if you accuse him of anything and I really enjoy that... Here are two counterparts, and you've got one kid who struggles to speak up so he usually just keeps his head down, and then you've got Captain Overshare who will outright lie and throw blame on other people and it's just... nice to see the personalities of two opposite creatures truly be opposite like that.

There's definitely something to be said about how when Poof finally started talking in sentences, it was while dueling Crocker in a magic fight. The poor kid had been been begging for others to step in and get Crocker out of Spellementary School for two days. No one was there for him. Poof got backed in a corner and had no choice but to challenge Crocker himself. Kid got blasted with magic lightning, slammed into a wall twice, and finally pushed himself off the floor and stood up for himself. Good on ya, kiddo. He WILL get in a physical fight to protect himself or others, but if he's in a situation where he needs to say "Hey, I'm struggling with this assignment" or "No, I'd rather not hug the guy who tried to kill me last time we met" then oh heck no, absolutely not, he'd rather die skldfj.

Poof finally spoke and the second sentence out of his mouth was "Your plan to absorb all the magic from my friends and Foop has failed" slkdfj. Tell us how you really feel. And then after Foop apologized for a lifetime spent trying to kill him, Poof still tried to extend the hand of friendship, my heart...

Also, the dynamic of "I blatantly do not like Foop, but I tolerate him because he's my cousin / counterpart / classmate" is very funny. Poof doesn't usually go out of his way to hurt Foop, but he absolutely sits back to watch Foop create problems for himself. If Foop launches a spiked ball at him, he'll fling it right back at him instead of eliminating it. He also accidentally pushed Foop into a garbage can one time and chose to leave him there instead of helping him. Love that.

Poof's great, I love his vibe. He's neither a brat nor a goody-goody... He's just this shy little kid who was born a celebrity and has to deal with everything that comes with that, like attracting a crowd of friends at school and being nominated class president. He's sweet with a streak of mischief... He'll go along with a plan to steal Cupid's arrows, he'll eat all your brownies, and he'll also eat 11 pounds of chocolate just because he wants it. He has his share of chaos, but he's a lot more thoughtful and controlled about it than Foop is. Needlessly dramatic and likes doing things with a flair <3

Woo... This post became much longer than intended, yikes. I'll wrap it up, but Juandissimo, Kevin, Norm, Crocker, Ed Leadly, Chester, A.J., Elmer, Sanjay, Binky, Jorgen, and Dr. Rip Studwell, are all such fantastic characters too, just to name a few off the top of my head. There's a special place in my heart for Chet Ubetcha, Mr. Bickles, Schnozmo, Chloe, Molly, Dark Laser, Cosmo, Wanda, Anti-Cosmo, Anti-Wanda, Blonda, Schnozmo, Remy, Mama Cosma, Big Daddy, and Sammy Sweetsparkle too. And Timmy himself, but I think that goes without saying.

So many funky dudes; I love them so much...

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mooifyourecows · 1 year ago

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I love the humor of your fics! I've genuinely never read a story that does it's humor so well and even after multiple rereads I find myself laughing out loud reading Open Tab for example. What tips would you give for writers who are trying to incorporate humor into the story without it being corny?

Hey, sorry for the late reply, i've been really busy lately with the holidays, womp womp 🥲

My advice is: embrace the corny. Every joke I've made will someday (if not already) be corny to somebody. Some of them have become corny even to me. But that's okay. Corny is good. Corny is funny too. Life is too short to be embarrassed about your writing. Embrace corny.

And what makes you laugh the first time might not make you laugh the fifth time. That doesn't mean it wasn't funny the first four times, right? There are tons of jokes I read back on now and I'm like "oh GOD that's lame" but when i wrote it, and when people first read it, it was HILARIOUS. Humor just wears off a little the more you expect and remember it. I mean sure, there are always going to be those jokes that you think are ALWAYS funny, but they're probably not always funny to other people. They might not have been funny ever at all for some people.

All that matters is if YOU think it's funny. Make YOURSELF laugh and giggle and snort over your stupid, corny jokes. That's what I do. I write something, and if it makes me laugh, I know it'll make someone else laugh. Maybe only one other person, but hey, me and that person are the only people in the world with taste anyway so, bombs away. Don't play to an audience unless you're trying to sell something. Play to yourself and you'll attract like minded people and those are the BEST people to have as your readers. They'll love and support you more than your own dang mom.

And then of course the usual advice i give to people about writing comedy is to consume comedy. Watch some shows/movies or read some books/comics that you personally find hilarious. Really pay attention to why they're funny. If you have to, pause and really break a joke down. Even take notes if that's helpful. Basically treat it like you're about to write a deep dive essay on why you laughed. I know it might seem unfun, explaining the joke, but if you understand comedy, you'll have an easier time writing it. Pay attention to word usage, timing, physical gags, silence, etc. It's all important. But don't be afraid to play around! Comedy is like any art and is meant to be creative and unique to every individual. There are some things out there that people find funny that I can't even pretend to laugh at. And that's okay! It's about taste. Find what you like and try it on.

Personally, I like witty banter. I like humor that is a little surprising and over the top. I like when something is so dumb that you can't help but laugh about it. I like funny characters AND funny situations, but especially funny characters in funny situations. So these are the things I try to include in my writing.

But I also really enjoy contrast, so I like to pair humor with other stuff. Sweet romance, deep emotions, sad drama, etc. If you try to be funny and only funny all the time, you're gonna come off a little desperate and the jokes will fall flat. Ever watch a long running show and have to suffer watching it slowly get less and less funny as the seasons go by because all the nuance is gradually replaced with signature character traits recycled again and again and again until every character is a husk of their former selves? That's what it feels like when you focus too hard on making everything funny. You lose the soul of the writing.

Really pay attention to the things you find funny and try and emulate that same energy. Don't use the same jokes, of course, but try and capture the general vibe of the humor in a way that suits your story/writing style. A lot of the stuff I like to consume is witty banter/outlandish situations/crass euphemisms/puns so those are the things i like to put into my own stories. And hey, sometimes it doesn't work. I've written jokes that make me laugh until I cry but nobody seems to feel the same way and HEY, that's alright. I like it. And liking the stuff you're doing is the most important thing in the end.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful in some way. If you ever want any more advice, feel free to shoot me another ask! I'll try my best 👍

Good luck! Sending you good funny vibes for your adventures into comedic writing 🌈

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rontra · 1 year ago

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@lizarr7 replied to your post “@lizarr7 replied to your post “yknow it’s...”:

The reason I think that I could not wrap my head around her is that my only exposure to Helena was in the show arrow in which she is HB aka huntress. Not related to the batfam at all. So when it appeared there were multiple versions of BOTH helenas and they didn't even have separate aliases, I just started to lose my mind.

NO BUT SERIOUSLY THOUGH.... like once i started Looking i was like "oh OK i got this, easy" BUT ITS SUPER FUNNY FROM AFAR?? theyre like "yeah so these characters look really similar and use the same alias and have the same first name but Don't get confused. they're completely different people." CAN I...PLEASE...????

@lizarr7 replied to your post “@lizarr7 replied to your post “yknow it’s...”:

Oh and um. Who the FUCK are Batgirl and Batwoman then????

(GRIPPING MY HEAD) AHH UHHHHH OH GOD WELL THEY'RE NOT HELENA WAYNE DOES THAT HELP AT ALL,

i know there's been a few different Batgirls. its a name with some Legacy Clout. but i don't actually know anything about it. if i ever get really into Batgirl comics i'll get back to you. MSDFHJBDS

im looking at this like oh i cannot explain batgirl to Myself let alone somebody else 😭 I THINK RIGHT NOW THERE'S TWO OF THEM? I THINK THERE'S BATGIRLS? THEY'RE LIKE SHARING? <- clueless

for some reason tumblr REALLY thinks i'm interested in batgirl posts specifically (maybe it's extrapolating my helena wayne posting into "you like bats and girls in general"?) so my For You is like FULL of batgirl content but i don't know or understand any of it so i just scroll past. but based on that i think there might be 2 of them.

i know barbara gordon was like famously shot by The Fucking Joker (i witnessed this when wondermagic were kissing) and switched her alias to Oracle (i think?????) so maybe she passed Batgirl to??? those two???? 🥺 (<- face of the hopelessly lost diesel) I ALSO DONT KNOW IF ANY OF THEM ARE RELATED TO BATMAN OR IF THEY JUST LIKE. KNOW HIM

i dont know my batwoman history either so she probably has a predecessor but as far as I'M concerned the only Batwoman is iconic lesbian kate kane whom i DO know by name and sight. she's cool. she's like peak "character i haven't actually read but i feel Strong Fondness towards whenever i see" because shes so fucking cool. batwoman is the one with the really strong black+red theme. you know she's the canon lesbian because her visuals radiate swag. anyway i'm willing to get into batwoman comics for the vibe alone. perhaps someday

but none of them are helena wayne. i know that much. everyone please believe in my ability to identify helena wayne, even if you believe nothing else. (dc wiki immediately reveals to me a "possible future" type au where a helena wayne uses the batwoman name) OH FUCK!!!! MY ABILITY!!!!

#i do think helena wayne is a lesbian also. dc just hasnt agreed with me yet.#anyway hypothetically if one wanted to read batwoman where would one go. asking for a friend

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pastel-rights · 10 months ago

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Call me stupid but I am confused of your family tree? I know Sam is like your brother but who is your mom and the others family members?

oooo I'm assuming you're asking about. the Pines family sona tree since that's the sona ver that has Sam as a brother to which...

it's time to introduce you to the family, anon! /j

okay so. there's me. obviously. Yasmine Pines. hi. hi!

i'm 19. i have a twin brother, their name is Dipper. Or is it Inkwell? I call them Len because it's completely unrelated to their actual name and it's funny. something something penmanship something something reference to quilled ink pens something something.

anyways this is my brother!!

they're also 19. they're older than me by 5 minutes and they always joke about how those were the best 5 minutes of their life but guess whO GETS TO PICK OUT THE ICE CREAM CAKE- /j

then there's my uncle!! they have a phone for a head. they also own freddy fazbenders and I think they've been charged with like 4 counts of arson at one point and physical assault but-

actually, correction. they USED to own freddy fazbenders. now some. half guy half girl gender unknown person named *reading smudged handwriting* ... err... Tammy something or another owns it and my uncle is just an eternal second in command. at least I still get half off the already half off pizza at

b e a r

so that's cool!

oh I also have an aunt!

sometimes we go and get ice cream while she throws cans of terrible cat food at the local people she hates and tries to summon satan but it never really works because we only ever have rainbow glitter on us and apparently satan isn't a huge fan of rainbow glitter.

oh and i

guess

there's ma and pops.

i haven't really... seen them since i moved to Oregon.

I can't really remember their faces all that well and whenever I ask Grunkle Stan, he always gets really. upset?

He doesn't like talking about them. He doesn't even like mentioning them.

...

i kind of miss them somedays.

but i'm told i shouldn't return home.

i'm used to Oregon anyways! all my friends and other family members are here!

...

yeah!

anyways have this shitpost family tree i prepared for smth in the past sooo-

#( why do you need this information anyways anon. )

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llawlieta · 11 months ago

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11, 16!

Hii, thank you!! <3

11. if you’re a writer or artist, what fic or piece of art are you proud of making?

Oh my god, a bit difficult because I'm not that proud of any of my fics now that some time has passed akjskds. Or rather, I'm not that proud of their quality but I'm still very proud of the work I put into them!! Because I had to fight demons to finish every one of those fics. And I will never stop being proud of myself for finishing any sort of piece at all.

I think I'm quite proud of all of them in that sense, except for "Stay with me, hold my hand", which I wrote in a rush and is like my least favourite child but I also don't really want to abandon it in a cardboard box (orphan it). But probably my actual favourite one is Only in my dreams which I wrote for a Secret Santa and it was excruciating and I was convinced I wouldn't make the deadline and I edited it a thousand times but I was over the moon to finish it and to have the person it was for like it <3333 And I think it's good! but I also haven't reread it in a while.....

And I'm very proud of a fic I'm writing right now!! I hope I'll post it someday!

16. a tiny detail in canon that you want more people to appreciate

I think a lot of tiny comedy moments in the manga go underappreciated! The manga is so funny and everyone should read it. I also always want more people to appreciate Sayu, if she counts as a detail (SHE'S NOT A DETAIL TO ME), and the Yagami family in general... Both because of their fun light moments and also because they're insane. The latest Yagami family Detail I have come across in my reread, and therefore the only thing I can think of, is the fact that Sayu apologizes for having been careless enough to get kidnapped (everybody think a moment about how these two kids were raised. Is anybody listening to me), and Soichiro then announces that he is going to quit his job because he is a failure as a police officer for having rescued his kidnapped daughter Right In Front of said kidnapped daughter. I guess this isn't really that underappreciated because I've seen multiple people comment on it but......

Also the conversation Soichiro and Sachiko have shortly after Sayu's kidnapping:

Wow. This family loves each other and is insane. Anyway, yeah!! Thank you for the ask!!

from this ask game

#when I said being a Sayugirl is like being a Connorgirl I WAS so right.. 😤💯#ask #lightyaoigami #ask game

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sunnyrealist · 10 months ago

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🌻 Kate Mayflower, My Adorable OC 🌻

I've been playing around a little bit with AI generated art, just getting my feet wet for now. I decided to try to get some pictures of my OC, and I felt like these came out pretty well. Are there some flaws? For sure! However, I don't really know how to edit them, and it's just for funsies anyway. 🤷‍♀�� I think they're cute!

Some quick facts about my OC, Kate Mayflower, and a few tidbits about my story, The Sun, the Moon, and All Our Stars:

Kate is NOT the MC from Hogwarts Legacy. My story takes place about a decade later. Sebastian Sallow meets Kate and falls in love with her a couple of years after he's out of Azkaban and fully immersed in working as a double-agent for the Ministry of Magic (he's assigned to take down a gang of dark wizards called the Kelpies, who broke him out of prison). The Department of Magical Law Enforcement cut a deal with Sebastian that he can stay out of Azkaban if he, in good faith, works alongside aurors to bring the Kelpies to justice.

Kate is 24 years old. Her birthday is May 19th, and she is a Taurus.

Kate is extremely wary of Sebastian once she finds out about his past. He has to work hard to win her over and prove he doesn't actually want to dabble in the dark arts anymore. He is head-over-heels for Kate, the beautiful woman who shares his sense of humor and fun and actually gave him a chance and accepted him.

She lives alone in a tiny cottage just outside of Hogsmeade and works as the assistant librarian at Hogwarts. She grows more and more frustrated with Madam Scribner, who just will not retire. Kate's goal is to take her place as Head Librarian and to someday open up her own bookshop in Hogsmeade.

Personality traits: Kind, sweet, thoughtful, bubbly, friendly, intelligent, funny, witty, mischievous (with no ill intent), romantic, passionate and wants to learn everything about/master all of her hobbies, optimistic but rational, accepting, isn't afraid of hard work. If you haven't already guessed, she was a Hufflepuff during her Hogwarts education!

Flaws: Struggles to make big decisions, often lonely now that she and her friends are now grown-up and have different lives, gullible, stubborn, cares way too much about what her family and other people think

Main conflict for Kate: How the hell she's going to explain her relationship with Sebastian to her family and get them to accept him. She knows her "high society" mother in particular is going to absolutely freak out when she finds out that her daughter's boyfriend never graduated from Hogwarts, is a murderer, and was sentenced to life in Azkaban and is only out at the Ministry's pleasure.

Hobbies: Cooking and baking, reading (especially muggle literature, which most people frown upon), gardening and tending to plants, playing piano

#hogwarts legacy fanfic #sebastian sallow x oc #hufflepuff #hufflepuff x slytherin #harry potter #original character #hogwarts legacy oc #harry potter oc

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mannatea · 1 year ago

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The World Could Be Beautiful, a Tales of Symphonia ‘fic (Chapter 7)

Word Count: 38,113 Summary: After a chance encounter in Izoold, Raine and Regal both get a lot more than they bargained for. (A one-night stand 'fic with consequences.) Chapter Summary: Married life carries on, and Regal and Raine attend the new year party together. Pairing/Characters: Regal/Raine, Genis, George, and assorted OCs as the story requires. Lloyd, Colette, and Zelos all show up later. Warnings: Blanket warnings for the entire fic: pregnancy (and all that comes with it), discussion/mention of abortion, power imbalance, fantasy racism. Rating: Explicit. (This chapter has sex in it. It's not very detailed.) Genre: Romance/angst/friendship vibes.

The title is the link to Ao3 for Chapter 7!

Notes (to be read after the chapter) under a cut:

The intro scene here is just a little glimpse into the kind of moments Regal feels will matter/help their relationship long-term. While I do think he'd be a doting father, I also imagine that he is the kind of person to be very focused on his marriage/partner if there is any affection there, so this is his way of making sure they take time for one another, too.

It is a marriage of convenience, but it doesn't have to be without care.

MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC.

A "music rest" is more commonly referred to as a music stand. You know, this:

I feel like Regal and Raine are both the kind of people to know/understand that knowledge is something that cannot be taken from you, à la the 2002 Count of Monte Cristo film adaptation:

Abbe Faria: "Freedom can be taken away, as you well know. I offer you my knowledge."

I'm vaguely obsessed with the idea that music is a language Raine can't read, but can come to understand to some degree through Regal.

The minuet is something like this.

The ballad he plays is something akin to Ballade Pour Adeline (written by Richard Clayderman for his daughter when she was born); the parent/child connection here was very intentional lol.

Music is the only connection Regal has left to his mother; she taught him to play and he loved her very much. If she had lived he imagines they would still be close. (Someday I will write a story in which she is alive as a treat for me.)

Pregnancy increases blood flow which can make sex/desire/pleasure uhhh very interesting shall we say. I usually imagine Raine is the kind of person who tends to get easily overwhelmed by physical sensations anyway, but with all this extra "help" it's honestly just kind of funny to think of how quickly this might happen to her. Works well for both of them, though. 🤣

Don't get used to it, Regal. LOL

I honestly can't imagine being Genis right now?? He has to be worried to near death over there in Palmacosta, and he can't even ask the real questions because he doesn't want to accidentally expose anything they're trying to keep quiet.

There's also something kind of sad about Raine not being able to share these little pregnancy milestones with the person who has been in her life the longest. She gets the little pregnancy bump and she can't even show it off to her brother, and has nobody to talk to about it except Regal.

Which...Regal is fine, but she needs connections and friends outside and separate from him, too. :(

PARTY! PARTY! PARTY!

We get some OCs in this chapter, several of whom will return later. I hope you like Sara and Sofia, because they'll be back. ;)

I could have split the chapter before George says anything rude, but it felt mean to consider it, so I made this a longer chapter to get through the party/afterward scenes.

The real struggle for Regal here isn't even really what George says, though it feels cruel to him. It's more about the fact that George was in a position to do a lot of harm to Regal, to Raine, to the baby, and to the company—and Regal just blindly trusted that George would do right by all of them the whole time.

After what happened to Alicia... Ugh. It's hard not to imagine that if an easy opportunity to hurt Raine presented itself (which is exactly what happened with Alicia) that George might have taken it.

Really, Regal should be grateful for George's quick and easy resignation. It wasn't pretty, but at least he didn't play the long game to hurt anybody.

I don't get the chance to really dive into George's relationship to Thaddeus Bryant here, but I really like the idea that George's loyalty was strictly to Thaddeus and to the family line, and to the ideals that Thaddeus held.

I'm more or less going with George as he's presented in the drama cd, here. He acted as the "bad cop" to make Thaddeus look nicer, he did Thad's bidding whenever asked, and he held a lot of the same ideals.

George is also the fourth or worse son of a minor noble in my mind, so working for/with Thaddeus more or less gave his life a purpose he would not otherwise have had—hence his devotion. (I also imagine he loved him.)

The Lezareno Company is a company, and the drama cd tracks for Regal imply typical company behavior, so...there is a board and that board elects the officers in the company. Sara is Regal and George's secretary, but Alvin is the company secretary, and Ernest the company treasurer.

Regal is the owner + president of the company.

Sara wouldn't normally be considered for an officer position but if she's telling the truth about doing a lot of George's work, she's capable of handling it. Also, she knows more about the company and how it works than most people there do, and that's valuable to him.

Of course, the final decision is up to the board, not Regal.

Why didn't Sara say anything to Regal about George taking advantage of her work ethic? Well, if all Regal did was talk to him about it, George would know Sara had complained and then she's on his shitlist. No thanks.

Raine is flippant about the things George said to avoid upsetting Regal further (also, she's heard it all by this point in her life).

I don't think she's very good at comforting people, but she is trying to make an effort here to be steady for Regal's sake. Her fear of him "snapping" isn't fear of his temper/anger, but rather of how it could affect his standing at work/with his employees.

Anyway, it's not that Raine doesn't feel despair and anger about the things that have happened to her, and continue to happen in the world, but those emotions won't help her or anyone else.

This part of the story was my chance to show that the events of the game changed Raine fundamentally as a person and gave her the courage to try to make a difference in the world, and part of that courage comes from knowing she's not in it alone.

(ARE YOU UNDERSTANDING THE TITLE NOW, MR. KRABBS?!)

Too bad she sucks at taking compliments. LOL.

I don't have anything to say about the end of this chapter except that when I wrote it, I knew I had to end a chapter with it. 🤍

Thanks for reading! As always feedback of any kind is welcome on my works.

#raine sage #regal bryant #regal x raine #tales of symphonia #mannafics

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palialaina · 1 year ago

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Everything is falling into place.

Well, mostly.

I have some questions I want to ask, but the town is so small, I don't want it to get around.

Maybe I'll ask Dad...

It's been calm since the ceremony, at least. People congratulated me, Najuma asked how I liked her fireworks (I loved them. Though watching them explode I got a memory of something like chalk in my mouth. Ew.), and no one's had any sort of requests or crises I needed to handle.

So I've been able to focus on what I've started calling the Sleepover Room.

Coming along quite nicely, I think. I do want to fix up the colors of the other harvest bed, maybe go purple-blue... Not sure yet. And I definitely need a rug! I've looked a few times at Zeki's, but either he doesn't have any in stock, or I'm broke!

Mostly the latter. Zeki's prices are mean... Which is funny, because for a little conman, Zeki's actually pretty nice. He says Earth type personalities like his aren't anything like Water types (re; mine), but he's softer than he wants to let on.

It's kind of nice.

Jel and I went out to Bahari again. Or rather, I told him I was going to go to Bahari because I needed some stuff, and he insisted I wait for him to get some things together.

He came back with a hat bigger and floppier than Uncle B's and his own version of a beach outfit. Honestly, he looked absolutely ridiculous, and it... it made me feel a lot better about the future for this relationship of ours. If he can wear something that makes him look super silly, and help me get a ton of oysters, then maybe me being a source of inspiration to him works out...

I hope so, anyways.

Also, he unintentionally launched himself with that geyser, and when I'd stopped laughing, he decided to call it a day. A bit more excitement than he'd bargained for, but he did well, and I appreciate every last bit of effort he put in.

I found this, and I swear it was singing to me. Sort of how the Night Sky Temple seems to sing when I step into it. (Caught a void ray! Just three more things to go! Also, Hekla told me that finishing what I did unlocked something under the water. I don't like that information Hekla.)

I wonder what it's tied to, and how it works. It's not too far from another door that looks like it needs a Flow battery, so maybe it's part of that? I wish I knew. Jina's told me a lot about these ruins, but there's so much that she doesn't know, and other people won't tell her.

And I'm no use, whatever these ruins are, they're completely unfamiliar to me. They sing to me, sure, but I don't have a clue as to why...

Oh, and my new friend Orion decided to write to me the way Lark does. So now I have two friends writing me letters!

Berry,

Thanks for explaining stuff! I would’ve been super lost without you. Well, I’m still lost, but I would’ve been double lost, or something. But it’s cool. This place is really relaxing! I’m working on getting my house set up, but there’s so much to see and do I keep getting distracted. And people to talk to! Everyone’s so nice, or neutral at best (I still say Eshe’s putting on an act, nobody can be that unpleasant in real life). Foraging, mining, fishing, even catching bugs.

I feel like someday Jina is going to write something that will be The Definite Truth About Humans and everyone will be super impressed and it’ll be taught in schools around the world. I’m honored to help however I can. Elouisa, on the other hand, is going to write a hundred books, none of which have even the slightest truth to them, and I will happily read every single one and gleefully participate in whatever crazy experiments she cooks up.

I keep trying to get Reth to involve me in his practical jokes. He swears he doesn’t do stuff like that. I don’t believe him.

Soooooooo I kinda need your advice on something. Talking to Chayne is really relaxing, and thought-provoking. Which is a problem. After talking with him I spent so long thinking about the Phoenix and Paths and whatever I didn’t pay attention to where I was going, and wandered in to an unfamiliar shop. No big deal, right? Well it wasn’t actually a shop, it was a house. When I realized I was trespassing I ran the heck out of there as fast as I could. Which is why I ran into you. Sorry again btw. Anyway, apparently that was Tish’s house. Which, I guess I’m lucky it wasn’t Hassian or Celeri, but I still need to apologize to Tish. Except if I go up to her and say “Hey, sorry I snuck into your cute house and looked at all your neat stuff” I’m pretty sure I’d die on the spot. What should I do?

-Orion

PS: Still have the carrot Nai’o gave me. First thing I got in this place, I’m never getting rid of it.

Nai'o still giving out carrots. He's gonna get in trouble again at this rate. Hehe.

I do love living in a place where there's not really locks on the doors. You can just poke your head in and look around, and no one gets bugged by that. It feels... like a novelty, I suppose, which I guess means that it wasn't common Before.

I'll see if there's anything Tish wants this week and maybe let him use that as a silent, non-specific apology so he doesn't die of mortification~

I have to visit Bahari again. Iron for sure, and once I wake up, I'll have more glow worms, so maybe I can finally catch that recipe!

Or that fish. Either one. Hekla's... concerning comments aside, I really want to know what'll happen once I finish opening this vault thing. I wonder if the door back in the hiding place next to the Phoenix temple will open? Or maybe something out in Bahari Bay?

I just need the sushi recipe, a giant goldfish, and a long-nosed unicorn fish.

And a whole lot of glow worms. Einar's probably going to induct me into his guild at this rate! Sheesh!

#palia online #palia #singularity 6 #berry plays palia #palia game #palia journaling #palia journey #palia mmo #palia roleplaying

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ninthprime · 2 years ago

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list of players who should fall onto the houston spies during fall ball (according to me)

rigby friedrich: i'm very amused by this "sporgias phenomenon" we're seeing, where two of our three falls so far have been former georgias. so i'd like to propose rigby, a player whose primary espionage skill is "oh fuck he's approaching me, oh god, oh fuck"

kaz fiasco: during the late expansion era some of the spies joked that it was inevitable we would someday receive kaz, as his pgr is "spying." perhaps now is the time.

sexton wheeler and/or mcdowell mason: look, i love sad horse man and the sasquatch captain as much as anyone, but can you imagine them learning spy skills? hysterical. i would like to see at least one of them, preferably both, in trenchcoats

phineas wormthrice: i need to see phinny interacting with nanci grackle's muppets. more importantly, it would be funny.

peanut bong: it would be funny.

lowe forbes: this might be even funnier

sutton bishop: also extremely funny

jessica telephone: though somewhat controversial, here's my reasoning: it would be, in the end, pretty funny

niq nyong'o: this one's just inevitable- now that nanci's on the team the sim is obviously going to curse niq with having to put up with hir again. the sporgias phenomenon continues. also, i like her.

mohammed picklestein: this one's cheating because mohammed was already a spies player, but 1. they're one of my favorites and 2. can you imagine noted blaseball safety expert mohammed picklestein on the same team as notoriously unethical nanci grackle?

at least one other blaseball scientist: niq and mo are the scientists i'd like the most, but really i just need at least 3 or 4 scientists/inventors/etc on this team. unfortunately the sim has already taken haruta byrd and mooney doctor from me as options but we've got a lot more. how about zion aliciakeyes? pedro davids? felix garbage? mint shupe? mullen peterson? maybe jomgy rolsenthal moves back to houston? maybe eve mcblase moves back?? whatever makes the vibes a little funky around here.

knight triumphant: last time knight was a spy they saw multiple people die and seemingly got cursed to wander the league. this time, they're going to have to put up with nanci grackle. and frankly: it's what they deserve

harriet gildehaus: i rest my case

isaac johnson: spies unionize! that's my argument. that and we need someone with defense on this team please i'm begging

tad seeth: i believe the spies always need a "spynosaurus" present somewhere on our roster

axel cardenas: imagine you were one of the worst blaseball players ever. and you've been jumping between the shadows of various teams. and you decide the best way to get a fresh start is to get onto the same team as your daughter and your younger siblings. and then you get to houston, and none of them are there, and the stadium is filled with necromanced muppets, and now you gotta learn how to read ciphers. hideous. anyway i love this guy and i'd like to see him

richmond harrison: i think richmond should be on every team, to improve the vibes of the league as a whole

commissioner vapor: this is a spy we just had again but one of the very first things i saw someone say when fall ball was announced was "it's just gonna wimdy us CV again." and frankly? yeah, probably

various other players i don't really have an argument for but it would be fun: ok here's a shortlist: miguel james. wyatt pothos. rafael davids. guy gulp. jaxon buckley. jayden wright. ronan jaylee. gerund pantheocide. mindy salad. coolname galvanic. nagomi nava. beck whitney. thomas dracaena. sandford garner. literally any crab. "crop, are you just listing random players you like now?" look if i keep listing them i'll predict at least one correctly, that's how blaseball works,

#blaseball #long post warning i guess #blaseball personal tag #georgias i don't mean for us to get all your players it's just that you have really good lore

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7ban-sama · 1 year ago

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Could you rank the covers please?

haiiiiiiii, wakaru 👏 ikimashou

let's start with least favorites and work our way up, how 'bout.

starting with... this.

i could not care less-!!! it's kinda funny. nothing about the pose or colors or anything makes me feel much. i think mitsuba's school mystery outfit is busted lol, he feels like he has a bunch of stuff glued onto him. a bit too busy and silly for me to take seriously. his bones... his, eyeballs and little mirrors. feathers kinda like, bits n pieces stuck in his hair. i know you didn't choose to look like this mitsuba but it doesn't change the fact that i'm not into it... sorry.

it probably doesn't help that every time i'm reading PP i'm like god. get these clowns out of here-!! they're interrupting the DRAMA... feel like i'm asleep for their parts of this arc. so for them to get a cover is like sigh, whatever. it ruins the flow of all the amane focused ones lol... i wish i lived in the world where every PP volume had amane and nene on it. [thinks...] i would even sooner let shijima-san take one cover tho, if it had to be interrupted. just not this. -_-

next up...

i don't like kou. kinda repulsed by his pelvis zone here. big ugly guy huge forearms. i think i look cool in this image and the bg being black / there being a lot of gold present makes it more visually appealing than the previous cover. but only by so much.

i think it's kinda funny i have fangies and crazy swirly eyes. does it have to do with what vol 4 is... about? [pause...] hm... whose to say lol. it's funny, regardless.

this is.... neutral territory. i don't feel much about it. i'd say toilet trio illusts in general are very, snzz, i sleep. they can only be so interesting... it's sorta like seeing 'stock art' of a series, the things that go on t-shirts and cut-outs. Here are the characters. yep... nothing wrong with that, but nothing to be felt, past a point. esp when everyone is just big smiles or something, facing the audience. this doesn't really convey who they are as individuals, or their dynamic, even.

a part of me almost wishes someday there wouldn't be a need for depictions like this. i'd prefer seeing these 3 in a more grounded scene, if anything. [shitty amane voice] anyways.

now here's a few that are like. nothing felt. but i don't hate them. but it's like Lol.... there's genuinely nothing to be said. hearts nene is the cutest one here? let's go with that.

*amused huff* an image like this, i get the impression that i'm not the target demographic (genuine fujoshi...) so it's pretty logical it doesn't make me feel much. not the drawing's fault, really.

also, when akane is all bishie'd out in clock keeper mode, i can't feel anything about that. but he's not as ugly as kou to me. just wearing a funny outfit ig. meanwhile, hanako looks like a crazy whore. to a degree where it's funny? this is my mental image for what it's like when i suck off my brother. in this way, it has value.

the actual composition, colors used etc. is fine. neutral.

i kinda have a funny relationship with vol 1's cover. in 2020, when the anime released, people were posting gifs etc. of the OP (you know what part of the OP.) the only other thing i saw from the series, aside from that gif, was vol 1's cover. organically, my response to seeing these things in concert, was: "uhh, no thanks lol…" dismissing the series as, perhaps, a bit too shota-yaoi-gnarsty for someone like me… i look at too much porn on pixiv also, so i'm sort of... literate. when it comes to... shotacons. and this is the sort of image pings... a certain flavor... makes me go... "hmm… no… i don't need toilet-fuck-prisoner-skank-ghost-shota, thank you..." (not a value judgment. i'm just more of an oneeshota guy. normal heterosexuality swag.)

anyways, it's purely incidental that this was all i had seen. along with tons of your run of the mill "tsukasa tormenting amane" fanarts... it gave me such a particular impression of the series.

that being said, i never found this cover bad looking or anything. in fact, the style was pretty appealing-? (the style doesn't have to be bad for you to go, that's not my genre of porno ww) now that i've actually read it and love the series, i can say that vol 1 almost has this classic stink to it. it's just so effective. it's not wrong to look at this and think: shotacon bait manga. it absolutely is, lol. & i suppose my first instincts still weren't wrong. again, i'm not the target demographic.

now this is. a bit closer to being For Me. i am now within the target demographic. but it also kinda makes me angry 💔... like i'm being bullied, a bit. you know some images are a bit too gormlessly horny... like, even for me. oooh. nene-chan's being fed this cake. mmm, open up... frosting all over us.. her ankles bound, her pussy barely not visible. and this, mysterious inexplicable knife stabbing a mini heart. it's all like. [stoically] Ok...

you hand this to a 13 yo bird though, i think he'd be spellbound. ohhhhh. what is this...? so colorful... and if he opened the volume and saw that little alice in wonderland illust of nene between the twins + nene's teaparty outfit... he'd be like mrghhh.... *sucks up gravy*

same goes for vol 2's cover.

you hand this to teen bird, it's pure catnip. though i prefer it to the last one, due to the more... noncon lean. and ofc, just being hananene...~

the way nene is posed, the rope, the frills of her uniform, her crying. hanako looking like some scary vampire captor, about to whisk her away. flanked by the knife and scissors... ohhh. what's going to happen to her...? ⬅ i'm already checking this out of the library before this thought can fully crystalize.

it's not quite as lush or impressive as some of aida-sensei's other illusts though. i think her earliest art is most charming in the manga panels themselves. illusts like this, the bodies feel a little too evened out, to me. not so strong colors. mind you, still nice looking. and again with nene's pussy so nearly visible. Well thanks.

vol 3 is always like... *smiles weakly* mmmm. aida-sensei... i accept who you are. i do... i know you kinda can't help it, in some ways. but it's a shame this isn't more... IC... on tsuchigomori's end. i think this image skews a lot of the perception of tsuchigomori's rship with amane, which i dislike, because their rship in canon is... amusing. and tsuchigomori is a weak loser. but i understand what people typically want out of teacher/student. i leave the humble fujo be.

that aside, i'm a fan of everything else. dusky colors, moody expressions. tsukasa's hands reaching out and cupping amane's face. yes... lovely. it was a fun era, when alluding to tsukasa was best done through hands reaching out. something from the past, coming to haunt. i like amane's hat being off... the glass triangles used to show memories, the ropes, the tsubaki. we love imagery, guys.

these next few are like, "i love my wife" (ignores other person.)

i like tsukasa here. a girlie that goes, nyarrrr! fun and minxy, ever the delight to see. all the pinks and reds, the rosy color of the 'seal' kanji... hi sweetie. *blows a kiss* good luck doing your job.

i really like nene in this outfit. i suppose it finally makes you go "oh" about how she has pale hair and red eyes / and how this suits the typical miko white/reds. i'm actually glad we got to see it in a cover. she's all decked out... ornate... frills, draping fabric, big bow. flanked by flowrse and bells. fancy girlie.

i'm more aligned to shoujo manga and such, actually, so an image like kinda lights up the same part of my brain. a feeling like, "i know it well"... girls posed like dolls, together. classic.

you know me, idgaf about kou. but this girl is distinctly gorgeous. i love greyyyy as a background, and how she's composed of pallid colors. her tights feel so stark black. and then the soft yellow and orange in the flowers... ooh. she's really incredible. if it was a nene-only cover, this would be probably one of my absolute favorites. for severance, too, the vibes are flawless. dreary, drained.. enervated feeling girl. she's delicate. love love love.

we're entering a notable jump in favoritism. ⬆ all these prior covers had things like, details i was indifferent towards, or entire characters i wished weren't there/found neutral. ⬇ these next ones are closer to, 'i wouldn't change this, i like who is here'

auhhh... hakusumi... we're so lucky to have a cover dedicated to them. one of my favorite volumes, too, in terms of literal events. i like this pose and the contrast of their expressions... sumire's eyes always feel like they're purposefully kinda, intense and creepy. i think hakubo is appropriately passive... below... but pawing up at her. i really love sumire's hand splayed on his chest too~ kya. vivid purbles... touches of greem... quite nice.

I like these all about the same amount. I look cool in them. Which is nice, because this arc is mostly about me.

i'm simple... i enjoy the duality of amane and hanako. i think PP does a good job at playing with this divide in living self / current ghost self, what it means to have been this. what is the authentic self? what does he really feel? it's even more convoluted when you have hanako functionally RP'ing as his past self.

i like how hanako has more of a severity to him, in these side-by-sides. amane is supposed to be the one who is just a normal boy, 'before tragedy', so he's all smiles. but isn't it funny, with how nene sees past amane as miserable and current hanako as cheery, smiley smiley...? he's a complicated guy, isn't he.

i'm a fan of the colors of vol 9. excitable telescope boy. then, the kinda, paint-splotch feeling details at the ends of his legs, fun allusion to the painting-in-progress world. for vol 11's original cover, i like the stark white bg for hanako. his expression... it's one of those expressions that makes me think aida-sensei is a wizard. how is she doing that...? he looks crazy... but it's so subtle. he also kinda feels like he's about to bite his lip? this + the fingers threaded over rope... a lot. his companion amane meanwhile just feels crazy in a different way, as a result.

handsome coolness abound. ty sensei.

hehehe. 20 is just so ffffffffun! tsukasa giving major "the puppet master that cursed your dick" energy. dark eyes and lidded gaze... seeing the ropes threading around his fingertips is just so fun. they're often off-screen, or blooming from within characters, so i like to see them so decidedly coming from tsukasa. he's orchestrating so much, it's so appropriate, isn't it-!? we owe a lot to him.

i was looking forward to sakura finally getting a feature on a cover. her listless expression and limp body works well with this all. contrast with tsukasa seated somewhat to the side, flanking her. it's cute that these are the colors that mean "spring!" in japan. and aida-sensei has put out so many spring-themed illusts featuring pinks and greens this year. so festive.

it all comes to roost then, in this cover. touches of green in tsukasa's spooky corpse fingertips. the pink all around is giving Femininity, as much as it's giving... sickness... feverishness... i like how sakura's uniform and tsukasa's hakama are a similar shade. pleats and frills... yes yes. i suppose this cover is doing more for me, in the "two pretty girls posed together like dolls" department. it's more on the unhinged side. love love.

these two... they make me stunned by aida-sensei's ability to make an image is simply so... beautiful? fills me with such yearning. i wish i could make something half this good, ahaha. i must drink in these images...

they showcase some softer feeling amanes. crazy boys in prev volumes are fun, but they're not really playing off of the right energy, to me. (not at their full potential yet...?) meanwhile, covers like these, i think the execution is perfect. here's the boy... your title boy. i'm forced to understand why my wife finds me to be handsome, ig.

the illust for the pilot release feels so sweet. like aidairo themselves are fond of their initial pitch still. to include aspects of his old design (like, no thick trim on the gakuran) within aida's more modern style is very cool. translucent... ghostie boy. you know him well. all the flowers frame him nicely.

for the far shore/severance situation, it's quite fascinating to see amane like this. amidst all the madness... i think it's a good follow up to the red house also. this... is the guy we're trying to get back to. the paper lantern he's holding is such a simple yet wonderful detail also. idk... he's really a japanese ghost. he really on "the other side"... in a procession, with the other spirits. and i love the abstract bits of buildings and vehicles floating about, representing the far shore. the sunset orange clouds and bright blue sky... sugoi.

this one makes me feel so simple. sometimes, you just have wife emotions. (i have 4 yo tsu as my bg on tumblr & my pc...💞) i love you BAY-BEEE!!! you're so special to me!! kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss.

this to me is almost like, the blessed version of "this reeks of a shotacon" lolll... cuz now we're at an age range/size that i'm like YEAH!! OOUEHH!!! FUN!!!!!!! BOLD! INTERESTING!! SHOW ME MORE!? i love to see TOYS and DOLLIES, yeahhh! a toy piano!! a robot!! lil cars!! bouncy ball!!! rocky horse! YES!! IT'S ALL THE THINGS!!

center stage, we have tsukasa preciously holding his teddybear. the ripped seams and overflowing stuffing... his lil suspenders and shorts. the thick, vibrant red socks! weewoo. i would say it's a perfectly executed piece. straightforward. welcome to the toy room! it's bright and colorful and a little ominous... don't you want to know more about this lil guy-!? don't you just wanna scoop him into your arms. yes, of course you do!! come on in...

this is probably my absolute favorite volume also... it's so concentrated... i just love this arc sf much. 9.9 the volume sleeve illusts + contents page are perfect. this random illust of hanako that the volume opens up with is very sick & twisted, he scares me. but i also love it very much. and then the first pages are tsukasa asking to play. 10/10... love the whole package. this cover is like a ribbon on top of it all.

[scuffs shoe... gets small.] [hides under my hat.]

... 💦 ... .. .. .... ..... 💦💦 ... ... ............... ..

girlfriend. emotions. (these are somehow different than wife emotions.) she's... resplendent... i don't deserve her... idk, it's hard. to talk about this one, gomen, if this comes out awkwardly.

but it's... just. really pretty. after the whole PP, hurts to look at. the biiiig moon in the sky. dreamy lil stars. the red of her eyes... and for nene to be threading both her hands over his, while red rope binds them together... wonderful. i like how the ropes perfectly kiss with 'red string of fate'... also this all gives me OT3 feels. (tsukasa often symbolized by the moon...) overall, does a great job at conveying the climax of this many-volume arc.

it's a lovely image. and the odd angle to amane's face is inspiring for me, also. i wanna be able to properly represent the huuuge eyes and lil muzzles that the characters in JSHK have. they feel like my little ponies... i must learn how to capture this...

[getting even smaller. ragged.] [sighhhhing forlornly, leaning out a window.] it's my favorite cover. but also, it's my favorite inner sleeve illust... so i must include it. hopefully, you'll understand me, as you see them side-by-side.

the cover, though... it's got it all, i guess. intimacy. atmosphere. expressions are loaded. the hand to yashiro's face... her nape visible. the stars, the lights, the summer night vibe, due to tanabta. yashiro decorated in tsubaki, in her beautiful yukata. the big fanciful bow obi. the air feels thick, humid. gorgeous... wouldn't change a thing.

i love all that tanabta encapsulates. ooh. it's the peak of it all... we're star-crossed lovers, aren't we. reaching through streams of time to meet one another. the indulgence of the age gap... nene onee-san... choosing to meet her again, over dreaming of the future. that's how it always works, right...? love always supersedes any vague wishing of a, career, or w/e... flimsy, in comparison. [i use my severe tone and lots of eye contact to convey that this alludes to the choice to die with tsukasa vs grow up and be an astronaut.]

in the chapter itself, we see that hanako vaguely has some... feeling... memory... of nene's forehead kiss. and i think that's conveyed in the cover, too~ it feels like he can't resist a pull. memories... a long-existing crush, incubating...~ how long has this girl been haunting you...

woof, the romance that oozes from it all... it makes me feel so soooo simple. i like that aidairo can be so... earnest? about it all? we're tying key romantic events with our main couple, to THE romantic festival.. yayaya... yes.... thank you...

all this. all this! and knowing the yugi are running around, eating cotton candy, playing with sparklers, late into the night... we really can have it all, can't we?

#☀️#💬

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czolgusszy · 3 months ago

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Mead Mishaps book 2- That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf, by Kimberly Lemming

I mostly picked this up so I would have something to recommend to people in the Romance section. Here are some positives:

-racial and body diversity, rare in fantasy! big beautiful protag who already likes herself pretty well, and isn't Taught About Inner Beauty by the love interest. strong black narrative voice as well.

- Despite the fact that it was the second book in the series, I was never lost. Characters explained context enough that I knew what I needed to know without reading book one, but they could've explained less tbh. At least in my experience: I'm deeply genre savvy and great at context clues.

- It was funny! It made me laugh at least a couple times. However, sometimes it was Trying To Be Funny. Cardinal sin.

- Werewolf romances have, ahem, a certain reputation. But Lemming didn't push too far in that direction. It was present but not over stressed, so I think someone who likes those tropes would be pleased they're present (the protagonist even pays a lot of homage to that romance sub-genre), but it doesn't get so hardcore that a newcomer would be intimidated or squicked. But like. They didn't even fuck while he was a werewolf. What's the point? Lemming was ALMOST onto something, because one time they were going at it and the werewolf was trying so hard not to transform. An edgier author could've made that scary and much hotter.

I have two complaints:

- All the men were talking about "finding a mate" ALL the time, and I get that they're all like werewolves and dragons and orcs. But that is such an uninteresting and sexist way to look at romance and partnership IMO. That really bugged me. Plus while many of these male characters were confirmed to be bisexual in practice, they all gave this primacy to a "mate" that was honestly homophobic. Like, not hateful, but very much that like "bisexuals will someday settle down with a Real Partner" energy.

- There's this plot about women disappearing going on in the background, and the characters keep being like "Oh my gosh another woman disappeared from the village?? Scary. Anyway back to our hyjinx." But then this deus ex machina TALKING SWORD shows up to be like "by the way, the women who are disappearing? I have all the answers you've been too busy gettin' busy to find." I know that this was to inject a little action at the story's climax, but it felt like trying to have it both ways. I thought, either let the stakes be big the whole time, let these characters get really deeply involved in solving this mystery, OR let the stakes stay small and just emotional between these two characters, trying to figure out what's real between them and what's the effects of the love potion mentioned in the title.

I didn't hate this book. No, rather, this book wasn't bad enough to deserve how much I hated it. But I read the first half, then put it down to pick up a different book that was honestly REALLY good. and THEN i picked this one back up. the inherent comparison did not do this book any favors. Plus I watched a really good erotic thriller saturday night, and honestly? romance novels can't hold a candle to the honest to goodness horniness of willem defoe and madonna fucking reverse cowgirl style on shattered glass in a darkened parking garage. PLUS she was a murderer! This is a WEREWOLF who is less threatening than size 4 Madonna with a pair of handcuffs. smh

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gettingbyy · 8 months ago

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3/16/2024

this post is for mouse, but you can read it, too, if you want.

i hope you like the random photos i've been choosing. xD you've probably seen them all before, but it's still kind of fun to try to match them up with how i think the current post might go. the magnolia trees downtown will be blooming again soon so this one felt appropriate. i had another idea of what photo i might've used for this one, but i can't remember what it was. maybe next time.

anyways.

things have been going okay lately, with spring getting here and daylight savings happening, i'm finally starting to feel like a human again. it's been getting a bit better since i started working from home anyway, but more light is definitely helping. that said, i think the time change fucked me up real bad. i haven't been able to get out of bed before 930-945 all week (yay for working from home and working in my bed), i've been exhausted and i still can't sleep at night. shit's problematic. hopefully next week is smoother, but if this is the price i have to pay for daylight, i'll gladly pay it 50 times over.

A's internship/job is over now; she was hoping she could stay there, but long story short her manager and one of the HR people are both super ableist and discriminatory. she asked for disability accommodations (4 days of 8 hours a day instead of 5 days of 8 hours) and everything blew up in her face even though her request was perfectly legal and reasonable. i had just gone to a deep-dive webinar about the Americans with Disabilities Act a week or two before all this went down and i was appalled at the actual laws her workplace broke. to make it even wilder, she works at a community health center, doing things like, y'know, helping clients get accommodations at work for disabilities (among other things). the full story is kinda long, but i can tell you someday if you want. needless to say, she's back to the drawing board but has some prospects. fingers crossed.

my job is going okay right now. it's been a week since a bunch of articles came out saying we'll be declaring bankruptcy soon, but so far we haven't heard many peeps (other than a ton of us being anxious about it). allegedly, the type of bankruptcy we'd file would let us stay in business without making major changes, but we have over a billion in debt so....yeah. it's funny, on the website/earnings announcements they always say $1,xxx.xx million because it sounds a lot better than $1.1 billion. they're not really fooling anyone, though, or at least not us as the employees. they're especially not fooling me, because i know how far behind we are on paying our invoices.

i'm working on going through my books and sorting out what doesn't speak to me anymore. i have some of yours that you got when you were here last - i'm going to box them up and put them on a shelf in the basement so they don't accumulate cat hair like mine all are lmao. so far, i have about 25 books i'm going to be giving away or selling to a used bookstore i recently found. that's just the shelves in the blue room; i still have to go through the 9-cube white shelf in mine that's double-stacked.

where i'm at so far.

the main shelf in the blue room did have a couple double-stacked cubes, but mostly those were A's terry pratchett books. it's been an adventure. next step is cleaning my room (pack up unused bags, get my cameras and gear organized, etc.) and then i can use the space in here to sort out the other shelf. i'm telling you this to inform you of my life, but also to hopefully hold myself accountable. xD

this is pretty long so i should probably wrap it up. it was definitely way more stream-of-consciousness than the other one so hopefully it's not too rambly. miss you bbg, i hope you're doing a bit better now. <3

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fannishstuff · 5 months ago

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Dangit.

Now I have an AU.

A brief outline of the world where Stan and Ford are both uneducated and financially unsuccessful.

Oh, and Fiddleford's there too.

Setup

The story takes place during the years when Ford would have been building the portal, if he had gone to college, gotten some degrees, impressed some funders... you know. Things that you daydream about, when you imagine what-ifs at night. Obviously you know that none of that would really happen. You're a bit of a screw-up, after all; people with degrees did well in school as kids, did well all the time, not just on tests and not just for the really interesting stuff. They didn't talk to the councilor that often. They certainly never had the cops called on them.

But, when you're imagining, anyway, why not make it over-the top? Why stop at a college degree? Let's do a doctorate. Heh, let's do twelve doctorates. That would be funny. Fitting.

Anyway, you're not that guy. You're this guy. You live in a basement apartment; you don't get a lot of sunlight, but you kind of prefer it that way, because you also don't get a lot of people looking in. Your landlord payed for electric at first, but he got really mad when he found out just how much you use, and now you pay for it. It's fine, though. You don't really need much else. You have a job that you don't really think much about even when you're doing it and which gives you the opportunity to swipe supplies sometimes. You may not have a degree, but you are going to be big someday. You'll show them.

Part 1

The story isn't really about you, though. It's about your brother, Stan. He's involved in some stuff that you don't really know a lot about, but you couldn't live without him, and you help him when you can.

It starts one day in a bar. You two both keep ending up further and further West, and right now you're in California, and he's intermittently there too, when work takes him that way. He's heading up to visit you, but stops for the night and finds a place to wet his whistle and blow off some steam.

There's a guy there. Shifty, skinny, clearly feeling pretty rough. Stan likes talking to that type of person. People like that remind him of you. (He was always the only one who kept talking to you when you started to lose too much sleep or when your emotions stopped working the way people expect them to. Stan doesn't care if a guy looks crazy. "That usually means they're interesting," he always says.) So he sits down next to him, and asks what the problem is.

It's a pretty boring, if relatable, problem. He lost his wife, the guy says, and she kept the house and their son. He knows he can make it, he could support them all if he had a bit more time, but she didn't have any more time to give him. Things got tense, he screwed up one too many times, and now he just doesn't know what he's supposed to do next.

It's not Stan's problem. But, well, the thing he's got in his hands is interesting. The guy is righteously sozzled, but his hands are steady enough to poke at a circuit board with a tiny little screwdriver like you'd use to fix your glasses. Some sort of tech junk that Stan doesn't really care about, but sure would like to know more about.

The guy has a backpack with him. He pulls out a... something. Says it's a personal computer.

Well, what's it for? (Stan's always like that. He knows that the fastest way of making friends with a guy like you is just to ask and to listen.)

Part 2

"Poindexter! It's me!"

Of course it's him. He's the only guy with a key. You don't say that, though, because there's something much more exciting to talk about.

You finally have something! You suspected those creatures you caught on camcorder last month might be leaving a traceable signature, and so you went out with a device you whipped up, and these readings are undeniable. The Racketball Wrecker, as those kids call it, seems to be some sort of poltergeist - when it passes through, there is a noticeable change in the local magnetic field, and you were able to make a graph of the electromagnetic changes over time!

Stan grins at you. You haven't even acknowledged the nervous-looking guy who's passing a critical eye over your less than respectable living arrangements. You haven't really cleaned up in a while.

"Hold on for a sec," he says. You scoff and turn away because you know very well why he said hold on, and it's because you have a new piece of equipment.

He checks your fridge. While he does, the other guy - you haven't bothered to ask his name, and neither of them introduced him - looks at the graph notebook that's lying open on your coffee table.

"Wait, your data is over a six month range, but you have two sets for each time block," he says.

Well, obviously - you're using a park a few streets over as a control.

"So this blip in October, what's that about?"

It has been a very, very long time since someone asked you about this who both took you seriously and knew how to do basic high school statistics.

"Hey, Sixer, I'm heading out for a bit. Will you two be fine?"

Part 3

You don't need Stanley to pay your way, obviously. He just - well. It's a mutual arrangement.

There's a cannabis container garden in your apartment under some bright lamps. That sort of thing usually gets you investigated, because electric companies notice the high energy bills and they'll tip off the cops. But you have a reputation for your science experiments, which are already pretty energy-intensive. Stan came up with the idea because it was relatively harmless and easy to move, so when he comes by and doesn't feel like you've been taking care of yourself, he can fix things up quickly. (He also says that he got the idea from an ex-girlfriend that sometimes, when a person has trouble taking care of themselves, it can help to take care of another living thing. You think that's silly, but you tend his silly little garden and he's much less likely to get on your case when he visits you. Besides, you use the same space to grow weird plants.)

He takes some dried bud and heads out to hawk it. Your new friend - his name is Fiddleford - doesn't really notice; he's too busy showing you his machine. It's a personal computer, he says. You think it's stupid at first, but he shows you the programs on it that will graph your data and work out your math, and you have to admit, this would make a big difference in your research.

Fiddleford is smart. Very smart. And he's college-educated, too - in fact, he has a masters degree in fifth dimensional calculus. He starts talking about how your data would make a lot more sense if we were to assume that this "wrecker" was drifting in and out of a different plane of existence, rather than acting as a static, physical object.

You demand that he shows you the math. He looks like he's been waiting for someone to say that to him his whole life.

You two are still talking when Stan gets back. He packs your fridge, gets dinner started, and begins to tidy. After a while, you start to get dizzy and lose track of what Fiddleford is saying.

You apologize to Fiddleford profusely. It's very rude of you, after all. But Stan walks over and ruffles your hair.

"Well, yeah," he says. "When's the last time you ate, Sixer? You smell food."

You start to count backwards, trying to remember the answer to that question.

Fiddleford laughs. "Yeah, I get that way when I'm workin' on something, too," he says.

Conclusion

You met Fiddleford on a Saturday. You work together all night.

On Sunday, Stan intervenes.

"Hey, uh, I'm glad you two are gettin' along, but I think you both have work tomorrow and probably oughta get some sleep."

"Psh," says Fiddleford. "It's not even five o'clock yet." You haven't actually associated 'sleep' with an o'clock time in years, so it's surreal to hear someone say that.

"Yeah, how much have you slept this weekend?" Stan asks.

Now Fiddleford is the one counting backwards in his head. You can see it, and you laugh.

"I guess we both get caught up working on things," you say. Stan is beaming. It's the friendliest you've been with someone in a very long time.

Fiddleford leaves, and you're sad to see him go. He gives you a reading list, though - all of the math books that he thought were most useful in school, and some books that you were talking about, and a shop book he had in high school that he thinks would make your work a lot more successful.

Fiddleford is now your best friend. (Aside from Stan, at least.)

How would Ford get kicked out instead of Stan?

So, a bit ago, @ckret2 posted an essay expressing frustration about the fandom portrayal of Filbrick. Filbrick is often characterized as violently and irredeemably abusive, whereas ckret2 cites some very convincing evidence that he was a well-meaning but authoritarian father - not a good dad, but not an evil person.

This discussion was prompted because ckret2 was considering an AU in which Ford never goes to college and ckret2 prefers the smallest possible change in AUs.

I wanted to link those posts because they have absolutely gotten me thinking about the subject. The following will make more sense if you've read that essay and this follow-up about Filbrick's regret over Stan's behavior. I accept the contents as canon for the purposes of this post.

(For completion's sake, the entire discussion was prompted by a Ford as a Trucker AU, but the following doesn't actually have anything to do with that.)

Let's make Ford the kind of person Filbrick would kick out of the house

Stan's eviction is the end result of many, many years of contention between Stan and Filbrick - an earnest last-ditch effort by a desperate father to get his delinquent son to shape up, and a decision he only made because he thought Stan was legitimately malicious. Most AUs in which Ford is kicked out instead of Stan will just rewrite the Science Fair scene so that Stan has more to lose than Ford. If we're talking "smallest possible change," though, I don't find that convincing. If Filbrick was an unpredictable maniac who's ready to ditch his kids at a moments notice? Yeah, fine, any small mistake by either one of them would work. But if Filbrick has been earnestly trying to be a good father, and just didn't feel like he was getting through? One mistake, even a big one, from his less troublesome son would be unlikely to prompt a disowning.

So, my question is: what "single small change" early in life would lead Stan and Ford to develop in a way that flipped Filbrick's expectations of them?

Personality traits and how they affect the relationships

Let's talk about Filbrick, Stanley, and Ford.

So, first of all: Filbrick wants is sons to be industrious, tough, honest, and hard-working. Those are the qualities that matter to him. He makes them box so that they'll be able to stand up for themselves and others. He fights with Stanley because Stanley is a thieving scam artist. He demands the kids be profitable and successful because that is a mark of success as an adult for him. If we assume that the twins were an unplanned pregnancy, then he also firmly believes in taking responsibility for your mistakes -- in owning up.

Stanley is a born liar. Like, even his playful and friendly interactions with his family involved good-natured lies. (He reminds me of one of my uncles, who was an avid prankster up until the time he went up against me, but that's a whole story that I won't get into here.) I think in order to be on Filbrick's good side, he'd have to prove that he was honest in his own way - for example, by defending people when it really mattered even at the expense of his own reputation, or by refusing to take advantage of someone who has wronged him. I don't think canon Stan would do either of those things for anyone except family, but canon Stan is also convinced that nothing he does will ever be good enough. His last, dying words were "I guess I was good for something." He never until that moment thought he was. We need to make sure that he earns some self-respect earlier in life.

Now we need to find a flaw in Ford to exacerbate to the scale Stan had in canon. This isn't really hard, honestly. Ford may have been the less troublesome kid in high school, but he is ruthlessly ambitious, and as an adult he will steal or destroy anything to get the results he wants. I think that the reason he was the less troublesome kid is because there really isn't a good way that a high schooler can be ambitious at the expense of the people around them on a scale that matters. The stakes are just too low. Maybe Ford put down his classmates to secure a win in a spelling bee or stole an answer key once or twice, but it's hard to imagine Filbrick caring about schoolkid drama. That said, if Ford did have an aspiration - a science project, for instance - that he became truly obsessed with, it's easy to imagine him stealing or breaking things to achieve it.

So, how would we make stealing and destroying things a pattern of behavior for Ford, instead of a single one-off mistake? And how would we make Stanley's good-heartedness and self-sacrificing nature something that is visible to his father and overwhelms his tendency to lie?

Oh, and one more thing:

The big fight didn't just happen because Ford lost something he wanted. The entire Tale of Two Stans is about two twins who are very close to each other when they're young drifting apart over time as their needs, ambitions, and hobbies begin to diverge.

How do we make this separation happen in a way that flips the script?

Ford as a more isolated kid

Ford has a one-track mind.

In order to make this alternate canon work, I want to isolate Stan and Ford from each other very quickly. Filbrick might not be violently abusive, but he does ignore the kids, and Ford is already isolated from his peers due to bullying and poor social skills. If Stan isn't spending all of his time with Ford, then Ford might become more and more withdrawn. I don't think he would even be unhappy! Maybe a little lonely, but he's a bright kid with varied interests, and he'd keep himself occupied. But he might get a little... unhinged.

My Ford sans Stan is a kid that gets into trouble. A lot of trouble. Way more trouble than parents should have to deal with.

He gets arrested for disassembling abandoned cars. He gets detention for melting things in the chemistry lab. He gets stitches and tetanus shots after climbing under bridges, or ends up in the burn ward because he stuck a fork in an outlet. (I knew multiple academically gifted children who did this, what is wrong with you guys.) He might make a weapon like a nail gun because he thinks it's cool, and while that wouldn't cause as many alarm bells in 1980 as in 2020, it gould get someone seriously hurt. And, moreover, no matter how many times he's yelled at or bailed out or suspended or has his privileges revoked, he just doesn't get it. He'll express genuine remorse every time, but Filbrick will stop believing him after a while because he never changes. He never changes because... well. Because he is incorrect about what's wrong.

This version of Ford is isolated from his peers and doesn't have his brother to entertain him, so he's extremely self-centered. He doesn't think about the consequences of his actions and he doesn't think about how they might affect others. Let's say he snuck into the chemistry lab after hours, did an experiment without adult supervision, and ended up catching a shelf on fire. When he is punished, he's contrite and apologetic. He earnest in his expression of grief. He feels horrible. You'll tell him what he did wrong, and he will say, "I know," and accept his punishment without complaint. But, if you were to actually ask him what he did wrong, the answer will be:

"I used the wrong solvent." Or, at best: "I wasn't careful enough."

Nothing about disrespect for property. Nothing about breaking the rules. Nothing that reflects the fact that he is a child using someone else's resources to try a dangerous experiment without permission or supervision.

I don't think the adults around him, least of all Filbrick, would notice the communication error. Filbrick isn't in the habit of asking young boys about their feelings. Even if they did notice it, I don't think they would handle it well; this is before modern mental health science, and it might actively frighten the adults around him to realize that he doesn't understand morality in the way the kids around him do.

I think that if we start with this version of Ford, it would be very, very easy for him to screw up so badly that Filbrick felt the need to kick him out.

Some ways we can reduce Stan's influence

Option One: Stan might actually be worse off.

Usually, these reverse AUs are about Stan being the golden child and Ford being the one who Filbrick has it out for. However, that doesn't necessarily have to happen in order for Ford to be the one who gets kicked out. If Stan gets caught (or framed) for a crime big enough to send him to juvie for a while, or for Filbrick to send him off to a reform school, Ford would be left alone for years - long enough for Ford to develop the habits I just described.

This AU would fit really well with the themes of canon, too. The show is about how, even though family has its ups and downs, we're better together than we are apart. If Stan is separated from Ford against his will, and the rest of the Pines live to regret it, we address that theme head-on.

In an AU where Stan goes to boarding school, juvie, or something like that, I personally think Stan would still love Ford dearly and do his best to support him. Ford would do his best to make his own way in the world after his falling out with his father, and Stan meets up with him whenever he can. They have their own lives but remain friends.

Option Two: The ever-so-beloved Sports Stan option! If Stan ends up in a successful hobby, it might keep him out of trouble enough to curb his more dishonest tendencies. If that's the case, Ford's isolation comes from Stan having more friends (teammates!), more extracurricular responsibilities, and possibly the kind of social life that keeps him busy during school hours. I figure that in this version, Stan might stand up for Ford getting bullied, and he would be listened to, because you don't fuck with the football team. That would leave Ford with neither friends nor enemies. Ford might hang out with the sports kids for a while, but it would be really awkward, since he's just Stan's brother and doesn't have much in common with these guys.

This version leaves Stan slightly less delinquent but otherwise the same as his canon counterpart. Sports keep him out of trouble, might get him a scholarship, but otherwise leave him pretty much intact.

My problem with both of these two options is that I feel like, for maximum effect, we need to isolate Ford in middle school or earlier - I think fifth grade would do it. Sports don't really get that serious until late middle school or high school, and it's hard for a ten-year-old to get in enough trouble to get sent away.

The sooner the twins begin to separate, the better for this narrative.

Option three: Boy Scouts (or something). In this version, Stanley doesn't just have a hobby he likes - he has a hobby that becomes a lifestyle. He joins a club or meets a mentor that has a profound impact on him as a person. This, I think, would be the biggest possible impact with the smallest possible change.

I'm going to use Boy Scouts as my example, even though I can't really imagine Stan joining a troop without Ford. Just know that this is a placeholder, and it could be anything: he might find a car repair shop with a kindly and avuncular war veteran mechanic, he might fall in with a volunteer group, et cetera. If we go with the boy scouts, though, here's what happens:

Stan is bored and frustrated and has too much energy as a prepubescent or barely pubescent kid. He ends up hanging out with some boy scouts, and they do things that he thinks are really cool. They're the first kids he meets who like boats as much as him, and they know all the rigging knots. Maybe one of them tells him all about how to take care of lizards, and that other kid knows how to light a fire using a flint.

He convinces his parents to let him join the troop. At first, he doesn't fit in at all. All of the other kids have been doing this since first grade, and he's bad at making friends. However, one of the troopmasters becomes a mentor to him: this man intentionally gives him attention, spends time with him, asks him about his interests, teaches him skills that he's missing, et cetera.

If you've ever been or known a young kid who didn't get enough attention and then, suddenly, met someone who made them feel included, you know what happens.

Stan would sell his soul for this guy.

Stan memorizes his handbook, he attends all the functions, he mentors the cubs, the whole shebang. I think Stan would have a blast, too. Boyscouts make up bullshit to tell the little kids constantly. They play pranks on each other and the troopmasters. They haze the new kids. The develop complex internal mythologies for their troops. They get up to all manner of ridiculous shenanigans, oftentimes with the help of knives, ropes and fire. Stan would love it.

By high school, he's working hard toward his Eagle Scout badge, and that means he isn't just attending troop functions. For those who have never been scouts, the whole program is supposed to be about leadership training. The Eagle Scout status is one you earn by doing a project of your own - usually some small but tangible improvement to your hometown, such as building some benches or making an improvement to a museum. So, in the Sports Stan version of events, Stan is busy because of regularly scheduled team sports; in the Scouts Stan version, he's spending a huge chunk of his own free time planning, fundraising for, and building his project.

But there's another thing at play here.

Boy Scouts have a strict code of honor. If Stan was a gung-ho boy scout, he would probably become exactly the kind of person Filbrick wants him to be.

And, well,

I think he'd also become judgemental as hell.

Yeah, he still loves his brother, but here Stan is living his best life and being a good citizen who contributes to society, while Ford's out there... drawing pictures of ghost he insists he saw? Reading about mermaids? Catching the chemistry lab on fire?

Like, seriously bro, you need to get a real hobby.

You know how by the end of high school, Ford was treating Stan as an immature and ignorant kid with no real aspirations who wasn't going to amount to anything in life? You know how Ford was so sickened by Stan's relative lack of ambition that he really believed that Stan would deliberately sabotage his science fair experiment just for a chance to hang out more?

Yeah.

Now imagine that reversed.

#gravity falls au #Gravity Falls #Stanford Pines #Stanley Pines #Fanfiction #Gravity Falls Fanfiction #Second Person Present #(I AM SO SORRY -IT WAS AN ACCIDENT; I PROMISE IT'S NOT HOMESTUCK)#Fiddleford McGucket #Emotional Support Cannabis #(As in it's literally a houseplant)#My hand slipped and now there's a fic?#My post #my fanfiction

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