#ew who put this ship again in the tag

[i-carry-the-evilmortyabel-name]

[simp-ly-writes]

Spencer x reader where reader is in art department but loves entertainment and is really funny, so is always backstage with Spencer making jokes that end up making the rest of the cast and fans laugh. Bonus points if in videos where Amanda flirts with Spencer (for example, Krungle Darts video) she makes a comment abt not liking “that girl who’s just always hanging on your arm!” And it fuels shipping, maybe at the end the camera turns and they finally kiss and then giggle?? Also maybe partial social media au bc u know I eat that upppp

Hard-Launching

─────── · · A Smosh FanFic

Pairing: Spencer "Chosen" Agnew x gn!Reader

─ · · TAGS: gender-neutral pronouns, slight jealous! and protective!chosen, fluff, light swearing, confessions, cheesy, attempt at humour, social media au (near the end).

─ · · MASTERLIST | TAGLIST REQUEST | WORDCOUNT: 1,392

─ · · A/N: I switched a few things up but I hope you enjoy and thank you so much for the asks 🥰

─────── · ·

You were the newest edition to the art department at Smosh having been "stolen" from the Good Mythical Morning Team. It was a bittersweet placement, sure you love building the sets and props and seeing them used within the videos, especially the big production live streams. Yet you studied acting and improv in college, a part of you dying to return to work in front of camera rather than behind.

But you enjoyed the privacy it gave you and of course your relationship with Spencer. Not having to worry over crazy fans coming over and stalking you both yet still being able to share pictures with friends and family freely. But every now and then you would get tastes of being back in front of camera, making comments or faces during the "guess which employee" styled videos or specials yet those came few and far between what you had been craving. But luck would have you on a late Friday afternoon, it was the last production of the week to be filmed and it was a livestream. Your manager had been pulled away putting you in charge of handing the props and quick changes to the crew members.

There was nothing funnier than switching someone out of a poorly designed Taylor Swift outfit and into a gorilla costume the next. Or throwing literal banana peels at Mario and Peach. You smiled watching your boyfriend Spencer in his Chosen outfit threaten princess peach, chasing Shayne around the set as they hid their darts from one another before the filming crew called for intermission and long and behold, the inciting incident.

Spencer came off camera, albeit a little sweaty as you handed out small face cloths, the hospitality team throwing orange slices and water bottles, "its like a kids soccer sunday game, out here..." you mentioned in a dry tone to Spencer as he laughed in your ear, pulling you in for a side hug as you shrunk into yourself.

"Ew, what the hell, get your sweaty self away from me, basement dweller," you retorted, playfully shoving him off you as Spencer pouted in your face then you pulled him back into a hug, rocking back and forth, Spencer places a kiss on your forehead before another member of crew came running over, separating you both and searching for Spencers mic pack.

"Something wrong?" Spencer asked, looking around the set, his inner director coming out as he looked for Courtney who was producing this video to see if she was alright. Yet everything seemed rather chill on set as you both looked at one another in confusion and nodded along to the staff member, "your mic was just left on, chats going crazy over it."

You both walked over to where Courtney was seated, observing both the chat and set, now peering over her shoulder as hundreds of messages flooded up the screen, you barely managed to read a few before you attention was being caught by another...

USERNAME04 Who was that, bring them on they are funny as!!! USERNAME23 are you holding another spencer from us again??? How dare you! /pos

USERNAME27 I KNEW SPENCER WAS SEEING SOMEONE

USERNAME99 DRY HUMOR, IAN IS THAT YOU?

USERNAME02 Girlfriend reveal, please we are begging you!!!

USERNAME76 A new player has entered the arena??

USERNAME88 Nope you have teased us with new content, you have to show us NOW!!!

A sudden rush of a thousand emotions was coursing through you as Spencer pulled you in for one last hug before running back on set, his cheeks a bit pink as he tugged down his sunglasses and gave you a wink as you stood behind the camera and sent him a playful wave back before everyone got back into line and character.

Amanda leaned down, tapping Spencer on the shoulder as the Chosen slowly turned around, hand on katana. "What do you want Mario?"

"Whos-a that 'friend' on your arm? I think-a they would like-a me more than someone like you!" Amanda replied back in a horridly fake Italian accent as you choked back a laugh watching as Spencers shoulders tensed up to his chin and emitting a loud sigh of frustration and chat erupted once more, the computer struggling to keep up with the flood of messages.

USERNAME73 new lore new lore new lore USERNAME90 wtf did i miss???

USERNAME14 I SHIP IT

USERNAME16 Jealous!chosen? In what dimension have we entered? USERNAME40 fight! fight! fight! fight! USERNAME14 Anyone else ship this thruple? USERNAME30 You can't hide it anymore now!!

Your cheeks were now very much warm as you and Spencer looked at one another and then at Amanda, wondering how this should continue. Amanda waved you over wildly with her huge white-gloved covered hands as you looked at Courtney who gave you a wide smile in permission.

Taking a cautious step, then one and then two before Spencer- wait Chosen was dragging you beside him to stand in front of Mario. "So do you want to repeat what you just asked me?" The Chosen asked, looking intently at Mario with furrowed bros as you smiled brightly, land latched onto Spencers forearm.

"I say-a I like-a your 'friend' here, what do ya say? me and you?" Mario asks, leaning in closer to your face as Chosen pulls you back slightly, taking a step forwards as you slide your hand down his arm and link your hands together. "I think I'll stay with who I've got," you speak into Amandas microphone before she takes a dramatic huff and step back before crying into Peach's shoulder as you choke back a laugh.

You smile seeing Spencers ears go slightly pink before looking over at the cameras and crew as Courtney flails two thumbs up excitedly. You can feel your phone in your back pocket start to blow up as you continue to stare at Spencer as he turns to do the same as you, moving a hand to almost cup your cheek before letting you go as you walk back behind camera as if nothing happened.

Once safety off screen once again, you open your phone to see all your friends and family going wild and sending you encouraging texts alongside a sea of social media notifications as thousands flock to follow and stalk your posts. It's all there now, you think to yourself before forcing your phone to power off, not wanting to stress yourself out on all the what if's now.

─────── · ·

The stream was wrapping up yet the chat was still going insane, your heart warmed to see so much support toppling over the obviously jealous haters of you and Spencers relationship.

"How would you feel about hard launching?" Spencer sent through text, looking up from his phone as Shayne started outro-ing in front of him and Amanda. All you sent was a thumbs up in reply before you were being pulled back in front of camera, his sunglasses now raised as he smiled brightly at you.

"I love you," Spencer whispered, "I love you too, but maybe ditch the shark necklace next date night," you said with a laugh and the cast and crew joined you. Absolutely buzzing off of life, you partially didn't realize you and Spencer had pulled one another into a short kiss after that confession and the deafening sound of claps and cheers has you both pulling away and holding your hands up for the camera that fades to black.

─────── · ·

🔔 Spennser just posted, check it out!

─────── · ·

Liked by your_username, ianhecox, shaynetopp and others

Spennser I've loved you for three years and how i get to share how lucky i am to have you for all the rest and then some ❤️

View all 1,577 comments

your_username i love you 😘

↳ spennser i love you too 😘

co_mill Obsessed with you, I smell a Smosh Wedding Season 2 on the horizon!

olivia_sui happy for you both!!

username71 I KNEW YOU WERE SEEING ONE ANOTHER, PATRICK YOU OWE ME $10!!!!

ianhecox took you both long enough...

↳ anthonypadilla now ian, we don't share our jealous online, we just hide it and take it personally next time

username88 happy but sad at the same time- congrats I guess 😭

shaynetopp lets gooooo man! can't wait to post all those double date pictures now! 😆

─────── · ·

─ · · A/N: hope you all are not getting sick of these

─ · · SPENCER AGNEW TAGLIST: @lisiliely @missflufffanfics @little-stitious-studios @thejourneyneverendsx @sibsteria @lizzylynch1

[some-pers0n]

Demoman is one of the characters in the fandom I feel most people straight up ignore or don't know how to write. Blunt, sure, but I do stand by it. Demoman is such a fascinating, intriguing character with the most fleshed-out backstories, yet is oftentimes relegated to being Soldier 2.0, only now with poorly written phonetics.

In other words, hey! I'm a fanfic writer who has a ton of opinions as well as a neurotic need to analyze every character they come into contact with. Pleased to see you're reading this. I've already done a little doohickey essay like this with Medic a while back. The purpose of these long rambles is half of me combing through every instance of the character and pulling them apart to see how their character works...and also me not-so-subtly venting and complaining about mischaracterization. Shocking how a fandom where the main characters are all very clear-cut stereotypes with some slight subversions here and there can't seem to get them.

This essay will go through Demo's beginning and all the way to his latest appearance in the 6th comic. I'll touch on how his character shifts and is expanded upon. I doubt he changes as much as Medic has over the years, but I think it will be interesting to see. I'll just go over bits of characterization, try to rationalize it, and then try my best to sum up all of the traits by the end and try to describe his character in the most canon-compliant way.

With that preamble out of the way, let's begin. This is also 7k words btw just...be aware of that, okay?

Before we actually get into proper character stuff, I wanna lay the groundwork first by exploring the types of characterization I see from Demo. Pick them apart. See what they're really like.

So, of course, there's the popular Redditor opinion of Demo that's mainly shaped by the way people play him in the game. There, people will describe Demo as being generally a bumbling drunkard. It's not too uncommon to see people say that he's an angry drunk. A man who is more concerned with alcohol and drinking himself into a stupor than anything else. I've also seen people say that Demo straight up can't read, which...euhhhhggg. He feels more like an alternative version of Soldier at times, which, again, isn't accurate to his character.

I don't care at all for this characterization. I do think a good chunk is rooted in racism and it's generally very uncomfortable for me to look at for too long. This characterization is pretty shallow and empty, which makes for a boring and offensive caricature. Reddit moment.

The second one is more interesting and the version you'll see more on Tumblr. It's this...odd version of him. I can't exactly put my tongue on what is off about it. It seems more accurate to his character. He's a foil for Soldier a lot of the time (Boots n' Bombs is his most popular ship let's be real) and generally isn't exactly seen on his own. Sure yeah there's the oddball art of him and him only, but let's be real most of his tag is mainly just him being in the background or saying a jokey-joke.

I actually fell back into Ao3 for a bit to skim over some fics to see what kind of characterization there was of Demo there to refresh my memory, and some of the common throughlines was shockingly that he doesn't drink a lot. "He rarely drinks!" I remember reading once. That's not right, no. He's an alcoholic. Like that's a core part of his character. Another fic had him being called "Cyclops" as a pet name. Ew. Anywho, other than that it's Demo being pretty into cryptids, having the Eyelander as a buddy guy, etc and etc. It's fun, but also it's missing...something.

Then, it hit me: Demo rarely is seen as an individual. He reminds me of Heavy in that regard, where most of his appearances have him be the straight-man to another character. Most of the time he's secondary and just a folly for the other characters. It's disappointing in that regard. Like you see a lot more stuff for characters like Scout, Medic, etc and etc with their own unique characterization stuff and getting their own attention.

So...then what is Demoman's character, exactly? Well, that's what we're here to see. It'll be pretty interesting, no?

----

So, funny thing is that Demo didn't change nearly as much as Medic has over the years. Sure yeah, the concept art of Demo was more of the generic stereotypical Scotsman. White, ginger, sideburns, that whole thing. Cartoony and fun design, but eventually they went with the Demo we all know and love today.

Looking at the concept art, it all seems pretty standard for the tone that Invasion was going for at the time. Nothing really to note there other than Demo's face being a stock angry grr grr expression. It is interesting to see how the idea of him wearing an eye was a constant even from the beginning though.

This then brings us to the voicelines. Ahh, good ol' characterization. Demo here is characterized as being jovial and having fun. He's throwing out insults left and right, damning them to hell and laughing at them as they die. Usual typical mercenary stuff. This is just personal headcanon material, but I always rationalize the way the mercs act on the battlefield as being a result from adrenaline and generally being drunk on blood. They aren't as mean when off the clock, but it's worth noting that these are how these characters act when a gun's in their hands and they're exploding people left and right.

TF2 really likes basing the characters off of the class they play as and how they act. Scout is fast moving and his gameplay is oftentimes getting right in someone's face and bolting, which is reflective in his hotshot personality. It's only reasonable that Demo is an explosive, fun, and generally cocky guy when out and battling. He's lobbing grenades and sticky bombs left and right. He isn't afraid to yell to the Medic he just blew up that he's been shagging his wife and calling the Scout he just chopped the head off "twinkle-toes". He teases and such when it comes to the other team.

However, the voicelines also very curiously give us a really fascinating look into his character. He's an alcoholic. He loves his scrumpy, which is not whiskey, shockingly. I thought it was whiskey for the longest time, but no! It's a cider! His stock melee is the bottle he uses to drink, now turning it into a quick weapon. His model in the main menu is him holding up the bottle itself. His default melee taunt is him taking a swig from the scrumpy bottle. It's a core part of his identity, let's be real. It's a part of the whole Scottish stereotype he has going on.

The game of course follows this. There's a lot of lines where he's slurring and babbling in a cartoony drunken way. A good portion of it is just him making vague threats...but a lot of it is also sad. He calls himself a one-eyed bloody monster. He weeps and cries. When jeering, he says he's hit rock bottom here. Interesting new development.

Apologizes for pausing to ramble, but I don't get why people try and sand down the edges to Demoman's character by making him out as though he isn't an addict. He is. That's something that is made abundantly clear. The iconography of alcohol follows him like his own damn shadow. I dunno. It bothers me.

I digress. There's some other bonus stuff I think is quite interesting. Most of his battle charges involve the other team. "Let's gettem lads!" and all. I think it's neat how he views his teammates as just that. Teammates. Those he fights alongside with. Another thing of note is how he occasionally has lines that are...odd in a way. Poetic and dramatic. Something that subverts the typical characterization. When he loses at rock paper scissors, there's a chance he'll say "Oh, 'tis a dark day", which. well then okay buddy.

So to recap: for characterization in-game, Demo is an alcoholic Scotsman who is generally pretty witty and functioning despite the incredible amounts of booze he drinks. He is energetic, bombastic, and generally hearty and having fun. He's not taking things terribly seriously and is generally just going about and blowing stuff up. However, there is a very noticeable streak of sadness to his character. When drinking, he reveals undertones of self-deprecation and hatred. Why? How?

...well, you just need to take a gander at his character card.

Erm excuse me what the fuck.

I honestly do not understand the logic behind this backstory. Like in a practical sense. Like, yeah!! obviously this backstory is sad and such! I really actually like this backstory and honestly I love writing him in the context that this happened to him. It's just that...I can't wrap my head around the idea of this being Demo's backstory given that everyone else has pretty silly little blurbs here. I think the darkest it gets is Soldier going to Germany years after WWII ended to kill people.

This??? Sure yeah TF2 gets a lot sillier and more cartoony comedic as time goes on, but even with the current tone where is the funny? I ain't complaining, I love me my angst, but this is so jarring to see. I suppose that explains why they retcon it later, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Hey, at least it gives us an explanation to why Demo is sad. We can pretty easily gleam a reason for his current behaviour in the game from this: his messed up childhood. To begin, Tavish Finnegan DeGroot was abandoned by his parents and left to live in an orphanage. Eventually, he was adopted and brought up by some foster parents, who he then murdered in an attempt to blow up the Loch Ness monster. This was when he was six years old. Actual child. 

He then went back into the orphanage, where he would tinker with bombs. Why? Insert whatever headcanon here, but for me I think it's a feeling of fascination, yet also heavy guilt. Perhaps revenge. Either way, he loses his eye from these experiments. Eventually however, he's brought back into the family when word spreads of his excellence when it comes to manufacturing bombs. The use of the word "lovingly" feels exceptionally sarcastic, but that could be in part to how his parents are later characterized. Either way, this is a result of the DeGroot tradition, which, and I quote, is wholly unnecessary and cruel. It even cites it as him being reintroduced into his family as the "end of his unhappy childhood".

...so yeah. Pretty safe to say the reason for his alcoholism is to cope with that. He feels the guilt over that and will breakdown into sobs over it even. Yikeesss... It can also mean that he feels as though he's held up to incredibly high expectations, having the entire DeGroot family lineage to live up to. Again, later on he's being nagged at for not being as hard-working as his father, who, in good ol' TF2 fashion, blew up the Queen for a nickel. It does certainly feel that way, no?

So this introduces a new wrinkle to Demoman's current characterization: he's an alcoholic who is happy and has an upbeat and fun personality (at least on the battlefield), but underneath it he's hurting and feels ashamed of who he is. He drinks to cope and manage it, yet it only seems to exasperate problems at times.

Can I safely say that Demo is the merc with the most fascinating and intriguing backstory and personality thus far? Sure yeah I love Engie a lot as well, but Demo's character actually feels like it is a result of the backstory written for him. Like all of the other mercs sure you can go on and on about stuff with them, like Scout and Spy and their whole deal, Sniper and his parents, everything with Heavy, etc. Demo?? Right off the bat there's something to chew on in terms of actual character writing.

What an interesting character! I sure hope later installations of the story will follow through on this and give him ample screentime!

Anywho, time for the Meet the Demo video. Again, a departure from the Meet the Medic video and how I rambled on and on about that one, but it was mainly due to MtM being something to mark a drastic shift in Medic's character from serious and angry to more silly and mad scientist-esque. Meet the Demo, due to it being one of the Meet the Team videos made so early on, doesn't really get the benefit of a short with a story, but I digress.

This one is stylized more like an interview, which, in canon, means he's telling this all to The Director and all. It opens with the title screen before the horns section seep in, cutting to a clip of Demo running while explosions go off behind him. A freeze frame cut before a voice-over of Demo comes on with the iconic line "What makes me a good Demoman? If I were a bad Demoman, I wouldn't be here discussing it with you, now would I!?"

Okay so just more confirmation and all of Demo's personality in-game. According to his bio, he has a short temper and all, which could explain him getting louder when asked that question. I don't think it's a joke or him exaggerating, since he seems genuinely pretty upset by the suggestion. He would have to be good at his job in order to be telling you this, yeah? Why even bother asking? It's an interesting bit of characterization that somewhat expands on that short temper.

More generic footage of him running about while explosions go off before coming back to the interview of him explaining a bomb in its simplest form. "One crossed wire, a wayward pinch of potassium chlorate, one errant twitch... and kablewie!!" Seems like filler dialogue, but I always like taking note of the fact he uses the chemical compound term as opposed to something more colloquial. It's just headcanons, but I really enjoy thinking that Demo is pretty damn smart and really gifted when it comes to making bombs and general chemistry. It's a clear passion and love of his and I like touching on it when I can.

The next couple seconds are shots between him taking a good swig of his scrumpy and then blowing up a level three sentry. It's just showing off his capabilities as a class. Nothing special (other than being cool and showing he's competent at his job). The real interesting part is his breakdown where he's on the verge of tears, exasperatingly telling the camera that he's...off. He knows it. There's not too many black Scotsmen, especially ones with a busted eye. "They've got more fucking sea monsters in the great Loch Ness than they got the likes of me" he says.

But, he perks up! He talks over a clip of him baiting a group of BLU mercs into a sticky trap. The voiceover is also really fascinating here. The way Demo talks reminds me something out of an Aesop fable. It's a very curious and fascinating way of talking. I wish this bit of characterization stuck around since it's pretty fun. "Come and get me I say! I'll be waiting on ya with a whiff of the ol' brimstone. I'm a grim bloody fable...with an unhappy bloody end!" is really cool.

The video ends with him taunting the mangled corpses followed by a rendition of the main theme with bagpipes. I should probably also mention Drunken Pipe Bomb, his theme song. It's an upbeat and fun piece with a mixture of the typical TF2 sounds (funky jazzy drums and bass guitar) as well as a Celtic flair, what with bagpipes, whistles, etc and etc. There's also a kickass surf rock section. It's quite the battle theme and definitely reflects a lot of Demo's character as being an energetic, explosive type of character who is proud of his Scottish roots.

So that's pretty much it for SFM bits for now. How about we take a step back and look at the first-ever actual TF2 comic: WAR!, where Demo really gets a big break for his characterization. We don't care about the Saxton Hale or Jarate ones. WAR! my beloved...

But first, the actual WAR! update. It was the sixth major content update released back in 2009. Remember when this game got actual content updates? Me neither. The update was based around the rivalry between the RED Demo and the BLU Soldier to excuse why they were adding new items for the both of them, with Soldier in the end winning the little contest and getting the Gunboats.

For canon lore, the update serves to introduce the idea that the RED Demo and BLU Soldier had a comradery at first. Friends! Interesting piece of characterization to have Demo explicitly go against RED and become friends with Soldier. The two of them do bounce off of each other quite well when they're paired up, I will say. They're both heavy-hitters in terms of gameplay and their personalities are quite loud at times.

For added voicelines, there's a bunch of the Administrator denouncing their friendship as well as domination lines for both Solly and Demo whenever they kill each other. Demo pretends he hates Soldier, but asks if he's okay, tells him that he loves him, and generally is like "but we're still friends though, aye? :]" He does care a lot about their friendship, which is pretty sweet and cute. Sure hope that lasts.

In the WAR! comic, we see Demo in a mansion. He's loaded! It's also confirmation that the mercs are given quite a lot of money, but apparently not enough for Demo's mother. She's nagging him about not working and saying that he should be ashamed for being so lazy, to which he rebuttals, saying he has three jobs and has made millions annually. Apparently not enough for his mother, since Demo's father worked twenty-six jobs.

She also brings up an interesting piece of information. "No demoman worth his sulfur ever had an eye in his head past thirty!" which implies that missing an eye is a family tradition to lose your eyes when working this job. Would this also imply that Demo is not thirty by this point, since he still has the one eye? Eh, whatever. 

Demo taking care of his mom in this old, nagging state is pretty neat characterization, as well as him holding down two other jobs besides mercenary work for RED. He's very capable and talented! He's also extremely caring and sweet. Even when his mum is complaining and griping about him not living up to his father, he gets her tea and takes care of her. He does respond with a lot of "I know mum" when it comes to that. He's heard it all before. She keeps saying the same stuff. I like thinking he knows fully well he can't live up to the extreme work ethic his father had or truly impress his parents and is pretty bummed out about it, but that's just headcanons.

Anywho, Pauling's there. She's there because the Administrator wants to break up the friendship between Demo and the BLU Soldier and instead have them be pitted against each other. While Soldier needs to be tricked and insulted by Demo and told that he's a civilian (something that he hates apparently), Demo is more coerced and convinced.

He's still loyal to their friendship, but, aye, there's something different about that sword there. Here's an interesting bit of characterization: Demo being a sword guy. There's a lot of medieval stuff relating to Demo, what with DeGroot's Keep, the Eyelander, his general way of speaking at times, etc and etc. It's fun and I think he takes great interest in medieval-period stuff, but, again, headcanons.

Demo feels conflicted. How could she make him choose between his best friend and this cool ass sword?? He doesn't give an answer, but Miss Pauling further pushes him to choose violence when leaving even more stuff for him as well as telling him that Soldier said that he'll join the fight. It's then assumed that Demo agrees by that point.

It's interesting to compare and contrast Demo and Soldier. Soldier, despite hearing all of these mean things, still wants to be friends with Demo. It's until "Demo" calls him a civilian, something personal and sensitive to him, is when he decides to betray him. Demo meanwhile is more swayed by things that he loves, but the final push is that betrayal. He only acts when he's finally told that their friendship has been severed. Curious how their loyalty is strong in those ways.

...I should probably sometime mention the actual retconning of his backstory however. Hoouhhh boy let's go. So, for the 2011 Halloween update, there was a comic alongside it. This comic had some cute gags, like Heavy giving a little boy he scared seven grand. However, the main attraction is the rewritten backstory for Demo.

I mentioned earlier, but I honestly can't blame them for maybe trying another crack at a Demo backstory that isn't as bleak and miserable. I do really like the original one because I'm a sucker for angst, but this backstory does work a lot better tonally when you're just trying to write some goofy stuff, especially if it involves Merasmus at some point.

The story retcons the whole thing and seemingly makes it so that Demo has always been with his parents and the reason he lost his eye was not because of some brutal accident but rather a currrseeee ooohhhh spookyyy. He's hired by Merasmus to sweep up the place a bit, with him being exceptionally clear to young Tav to not touch any of the accursed tomes. He does, of course. Nothing too much in terms of characterization. It's more just saying "Hey Demo's eye is cursed and that's why he lost it but! hey! it comes back once every Halloween!!"

Again, I can't really knock this version of events. They're simple, but goofy and fun. It's all up to whatever you're trying to accomplish with Demo methinks. If you want silly and whimsical stories, you can have that backstory. If you want gut-wrenching angst, probably should take the initial one.

Aanndd that's virtually it for Demo being important. Demo doesn't get too much plot relevance later on. He's just kinda done with. He shows up in Expiration Date for a quick gag where he returns with a bunch of beer, shouting and cheering while being unaware of how they all just learned they're going to die in three days. He then shows up again during the bucket scene and doesn't do much other than mouthing somethin' (I can't tell you want tbh). A new thing is that he plays piano! That's fun! He then kinda watches Scout try and ask out Pauling and he yells for him to describe what she looks like, which is just what Demo currently sees her as (drunk, blurry, etc). He then fights in the big battle yada yada and shows up at the end with the beer again.

The MVM trailer I suppose is a thing to be noted. Here, he's a BLU Soldier and is playing cards with the Soldier of the same team. Seems like regardless of teams, there's some sort of bond between the two of them. All that happens is that Demo is down to bust up robots with the rest of the RED mercs. Pretty much it.

It is quite unfortunate to see Demo relegated to a role so passive in the story and comics. I've mentioned it before, but I do have an ever so slight grudge against Soldier for taking up the majority of the screentime when it comes to the comics. Yeah, he's really fun to write about, I can't blame the writers for doing so, but also like...c'mon... In the end, we're left with a good chunk of the mercs being underdeveloped in exchange for a ton of Soldier trivia. Props if you like Solly though; your fave got the best treatment.

Ah, but still! Demo has some moments in the comics! Let's go through them! 

Uh. Upon checking most of the comics before the mainline ones, it appears he does not say even a single word. Or even show up in a good portion. Well that's disappointing. I thought he at least said like...one thing. The most he does in terms of characterization is put on a crown in A Fate Worse Than Chess, and even then that's just a silly cosmetic. Damn.

It's fine though! Because now we have the mainline comics! Hot damn finally some actual casual Demoman TF2 writing! Let's get a look and see what his normal usual personality is like! I wonder what fun shenanigans he's been up to.

The first time we see Demo he's babbling about his job being replaced by robots and looking utterly dishevelled and depressed.

Okay. That's...yeah pretty in line for his character thus far. An alcoholic who is struggling with some stuff and oftentimes will have a very vocal breakdown in front of others.

The way that he's characterized here is rather fascinating though, I'll say. He's depressed. From what we can glean, this is what his life has been like since the layoffs. He's gained weight (what with Soldier's very blunt "Hello fat Demoman!"), hasn't shaved, his clothes are dirty, and beer bottles are scattered in the living room. Even the Eyelander is like "dude you need to let it go" when Demo mumbles about robots replacing jobs. He's presumably lost his two other jobs and has just been laying on this couch, drinking booze and watching TV and nothing more, despite his mum's nagging.

This is a side of Demo we don't really see. Sure, yeah, we see the hot and tempered side (ex: Meet the Demoman and the general game) as well as the sad and weepy side, but it's never to this degree. Like full on depressive episode. Yikes. Sure yeah he gets dragged back into the plot and instantly gets back to himself (albeit more orange than actually black)(I keep forgetting how whitewashed Demo was in these first few comics), but it's played for laughs and gags.

What an interesting piece of characterization, no? I've seen a fair amount of major depressive disorder, BPD, PTSD, and or bipolar headcanons slapped onto Demo and tbh I can't blame them. I'd be really interested to see some fic explore that in greater detail. I'm too busy writing Engiemedic yaoi to do anything for now though. Womp womp.

The ending bit of the comic has Demo and Pauling mainly chat with each other. Oh yeah!! Demo and Pauling! They've got a couple pretty neat lines. For the usual contract it's just jokes about his alcoholism, his eye, and a couple about his mom and just general gags. In the Tough Break update, she's out drinking with Demo and nearly spills the beans about her job. Fun. I really like the Miss Pauling characterization where she regularly hangs out with the mercs. It's cute.

In the comics, she talks to Demo more like an actual equal than, say, Pyro or Soldier. She talks to them like they're children roughhousing in the backseat. Demo sits up front and the two go back and forth. Demo is the more mature and reasonable one here. Another thing that's a common bit of characterization in the comics is that Demo isn't...drunk. He's not slurring nor acting in a way that makes it immediately clear he's inebriated. He's pretty lucid. This can be from the fact that he's a very high-functioning alcoholic, but it also makes him out to be actually pretty all-there for most of the time. I've seen far too many fics where Demo is in a perpetual state of shitface drunk so that was a nice refresher.

Demo reappears in the second comic, where we get some pretty neat characterization. He's out on the town in disguise. I keep forgetting about that "What do you see?" "Not a damn thing. Let's switch places" gag that's so funny. Whatever. He is the voice of reason when it comes to Soldier. The straight-man character. He's not really...drunk here. He's not slurring his words nor is he exactly doing anything. He steps in front when Soldier starts yelling at an elderly woman, instead approaching her with a calm and kind demeanour. He holds Soldier back when he goes to strangle Scout for. I guess just being there.

So there's Demo when he's just doing stuff normally, I suppose. He's generally pretty level-headed, albeit because he's up there with Soldier. He's the Normal One when posed next to a guy like Solly. A little disappointing, but there's probably more in comic 4.

Ah the Swordvan comic. Demo and Pauling head over to Sniper's house to retrieve him. An odd bit of characterization is that Demo just takes one look at Snipes' house and goes "Welp, nobody's here. Let's get out". He doesn't seem terribly thrilled to be here, further backed up by him saying that there's just gonna be fingernails and jars of piss and he straight up says "good riddance" like what is his issue with the bushman??

Now that's kinda interesting. Demo sees Snipes as being kinda just gross and a raving lunatic. He could easily be in-place for the audience and just saying what we're thinking, but I think it's interesting to see that Demo, the guy often portrayed as being the weirdo party guy, being very straight-forward. He think Sniper is some sadistic madman and just wants out. Unfortunately, he's given a neckfull of Sniper's homemade family moonshine, so he can't get out quite yet.

A very common thing in these comics it seems is Demo being the voice of reason, which is pretty interesting. The straight man to everyone. When he wakes up to Pauling spitting on him to wake him up, he goes "eughhh gross, but, hey, it worked!!" before then is knocked out. He then stays quiet for the rest of the scene, unless of course you're counting the deleted pages. There's no dialogue, but Demo breaks free from the ropes binding him, yells at Sniper, then pushes past before then inserting three syringes-worth of the moonshine into himself and passing out. Alcoholism joke as per usual. Shockingly the first one we've gotten so far.

In the submarine ride down, Demo's passed out with his scrumpy in hand. Again just a gag about him drinking a lot. He then kinda stays in the background for the rest of the comic, only appearing really once to hold a vat of liquor, before then coming to in the final shot where he holds Sniper's dead body. Heyyyy Demo I thought you thought Sniper was a weirdo freak.

Nothing too much to say from this comic then. It's just establishing more and more that Demo plays a very...straight-man character role when it comes to the comics at least. He's reasonable, level-headed, and often just says whatever comes to mind. He's kind and will instantly rush to someone's aid when they're hurt as well as just generally being pretty good-hearted. Nice!

Comic 5 mainly just features a gag with Demo's liver being so overworked that he starts turning his other organs into alcohol distilleries. The whimsy. The line that I find most fascinating from this comic is from Spy.

Like oh okay so he straight up doesn't eat anything other than alcohol and aspirin. Water literally poisons him. Probably just a throwaway gag, but geez. It does say that he is kinda in pain all the time, at least to the point where aspirin is one of the few things his body can handle. Someone out there can probably work with that and make it angsty. Other than that, not much else for Demo.

Comic 6! The final one! Home stretch here folks before I can wrap this up and give a thesis on whatever the heck Demo's character is. Demo, again, is mainly just here for gags. It's the one thing I do really wish that the comics did more: explore Demo's backstory. Like you don't even need to keep the original one, but it's still fascinating to bring up the fact he has a family lineage at all. Instead, he's mainly just a straight-man character. But, hey, whatever. I'm just the one analyzing these silly comics and jokey joke characters for gay melodramatic yaoi fanfiction.

There's a gag about Demo's liver coming back to him after leaving. These soap opera drama scene could parallel the type of shows that he was watching when having that depressive episode, but that's maybe a bit of a stretch. He then gets included in that fun group shot, where his pose mimics that from the Meet the Demo, before then gets a one-on-one scene with Medic. 

These two are such a fun duo I wish Jaggerbombs was a more common pairing. Ah well. Medic catches Demo up on everything whilst he's stitching up wounds. The medi-gun is broken so they're doing this the old-fashioned way. Demo has a gag where he's still drinking, only that it's hydrogen peroxide instead. This then leads to a scene where Demo asks why Medic never gave him an eye. Reasonable methinks. Medic responds saying he did.

Demo gets upset. He raises his voice for the first (official) time in the comics. Again, his temperament. I think it's a reasonable thing to be upset about tbh. Like imagine being told after all this time you could've had your eye back. He then learns that, no, the procedure has been done before, but rather that it never sticks because of how his eye socket is cursed. Demo asks how he can't remember this, to which Medic goes "Hooh :] It's because I scooped out a part of your brain" because of course he did. He then forgets the entire conversation + probably Medic entirely.

Aaannnddd that's pretty much it for Demo. That's his last speaking role. Just a quick, simple gag about his eye being cursed, his alcoholism, and generally being the straight-man for others, even if he does have a couple silly gags too. Seems like a culmination of everything he is in the comics.

To conclude: Demo is a character I feel can take on two main roles depending on what kind of tone you're going for. If you want angst, you've got a character who carries the guilt of murdering his foster parents as well as the burden of being a DeGroot, turning to alcohol to cope with his sadness and general inability to deal with it all. If you want silly goofy stuff, you have Demo being a straight-man or a neat party guy if you like the bit from Expiration Date where he brings back beer and such. Of course there's nuance. I find it best to try and find a balance between these two opposing sides. It just takes time and practice to really get a hold of his personality methinks.

I do wish he was more in the comics though as his own person, y'know? He's very reliant on others in order for his character to function, whilst most others have scenes where it's just them doing something. I wish he was used more than being the guy who drags the others back to reality. Damn it sucks to see that the fics where he's mainly just the straight-man are kinda right in that regard.

But for character traits? Hm, let's see. I find it's just trying to make sense of what's given to you and seeing what best fits for the tone of story you're trying to go for. However, for me trying to write him? Well...

His alcoholism is a central character trait. He is definitely 100% an alcoholic, regardless of however people try and sand him down. I personally really like sticking to the idea that he straight up can't eat anything but booze and aspirin because I think it's funny but also sad, but that's me. I think him having a flask of scrumpy on his person at all times is a neat headcanon as well.

Another big trait with Demo is his frequently shifting mood when drunk. He can swing from loud to weeping in a couple moments. I wouldn't say he's particularly angry nor aggressive, no more than any other character at least. He's most volatile on the battlefield, but otherwise at the base I feel it wouldn't be an uncommon sight to see Demo partying until dawn or holed up in the living room and sobbing. Poor guy.

In spite of what many think, Demo is certainly not lazy. He's a workaholic is anything. He holds down three jobs and rakes in a lot of money in order to live up to his name as a DeGroot. It could be because he likes working that much or that his mother just nags him to push himself that far. That also ties into his self-deprecation, another core trait of his, but that's pretty obvious to see.

His heart is another big trait. The guy loves. He cares for his mother even when she nags at him. He sticks by Soldier's side until he feels as though he's been betrayed. He takes care of the Eyelander and treats it like a pal. He generally cares a whole heck of a lot about people and other things. He wears his heart on his sleeve and says what he means. He doesn't feel a need to really hide who he is as a person. He's loud, fun, and just naturally pretty sweet and kind. I don't think he's ever really "mean" outside of the game stuff. There's also the whole "being hired to explode people" part but ehhh that's just the silliness in him :]

Demo also being generally pretty...normalish. He's a guy who's really just going through it when you take the angst option. He oftentimes will try and hold back others from doing something stupid when sober. I feel like when he's drunk he's more willing to get in on dumb shit, but still. However, this doesn't mean he's wholly a normal person. I think you can do a lot of headcanons here where you bring out some traits that are otherwise not talked about too much.

There are a lot of liberties to be taken with Demo's character as per usual. A ton of writing a character to be, well, in-character is just getting down their voice and mannerisms. Understanding their personality and motives is just half the battle. Demo sometimes speaks like an old-timey medieval knight or poet or whatever. He's generally pretty well-spoken and whatever. For the love of god if you want to write him, you don't need to include phonetics constantly. Please. It's so much better that tu'try toh spell everay whurd like tis. Oftentimes people will just know what the character sounds like regardless. Just try and mimic his way of speaking more and you'll do wonders for actually making that character sound like, well, that character.

I've neglected to mention Demo being a black man a lot because, well, it never really pops up a lot in canon. I think the most recognition we get for Demo being black is him just saying that he's black. He's a black Scotsman and that's about it. It's curious since I've seen a number of fics where it's all period-typical racism angst and whatever, with Demo being used as a way for the author to get up and proudly say that they think that racism is bad by having Demo being called a slur and getting upset. How progressive. 

I dunno. I never really personally touch on period-typical bigotry stuff myself due to the fact that this is Team Fortress 2. Rocket jumping was invented before stairs. Besides, this is the late 60s/early 70s. The civil rights movement happened by this point. Not everyone walking the streets is gonna be some abrasive bigot. I don't know why people want to try and make it "historically accurate" to begin with since this series has never been period-accurate to begin with. I don't particularly think TF2 is a great series to go on about tackling period-typical bigotry either. Literally if you want Demo angst you've got the actual mountain load of angst with his backstory right there. Obviously of course people are allowed to write what they want and I do fully believe that sharing stories and portraying bigotry is important, but why with TF2??? Do people just really look at a POC and think their existence is inherently political and they need to make it clear they think Racism Bad, even though the tone of canon really doesn't match that?? Ah well. I'm just rambling.

Regardless, Demo is just a character where you can take a lot of different avenues with. Maybe you can explore his trauma and try and write about how he feels trying to live up to his family name. What about his issues with his now-deceased father? Maybe you can forgo that and have him be a partner in crime to Solly or whomever else, with the occasional glimpse into his more sensitive self. Really, it all just depends on the story you're trying to tell. Ultimately, writing Demo with a healthy mix of comedy and angst is probably what is best done if you just want a pretty in-character version. He can be out on some grand adventure to take down Nessie with a merc or two AND have it be a story about him coming to terms with his past. That's just a me thing though lol.

Demo, like the rest of the cast, is an easily moldable piece of clay. All of the mercs at their very core are just funny character archetypes. They can be whatever you want them to be. It's just best to work with their original characterization and personality in mind, y'know? Fanfic writing is mainly about having fun anyway.

Speaking of which, enough procrastinating for me. I need to get back to writing my yaoi...

[lilbittymonster]

AO3 End Of Year Roundup 2024

Tagged by @crackinglamb 💜

Tagging @crystallineconflict @nidstiniens @myreia

Words Posted: 33,783

Additional Words Written: 64,946

Total Words Written: 98, 729

Fandom(s): Final Fantasy XIV

Works: 33

Highest Kudos: An Exercise in Submission, E, 2.5k

Highest Hit Oneshot: An Exercise in Submission.

New Things I Tried: I can now check "has written tentacle porn" on my writer bingo sheet lmao. ~Tendril porn if you want to be pedantic about it.

Fic I Spent The Most Time On: Song of War, T, 6.3k. I remember dragging myself through writing the fight sequence in the second half a hundred words at a time over the course of....five-ish months? I was really bogged down with trying to rewrite something that everyone had already played through while keeping it interesting to read.

Fic I Spent The Least Time On: Honestly that could be most of the XIVWrites fics, since that was sort of the point of the event, but I think it has to be Stable since I already had the scene in my head and it's the shortest word count of them all.

Favourite Thing I Wrote: Surrogate. I was up until after 3am writing this as it's a collection of several of my personal headcanons with Alberic and Estinien when he was younger. And I think that Alberic is a character that's overlooked and underutilised a lot for people who write with Estinien and/or dragoon OCs. So if I have to singlehandedly fix that then I will!

Favourite Thing I Read: A Land Long Dead by @nhaamazu. I'm absolutely enchanted by the worldbuilding and the Beauty and the Beast fairytale being woven into and through canon.

Something I Finished: ...just about everything? I won't list all 33 works here, but I only have a couple outstanding WIPs at the moment.

Miscellaneous Highlights: I joined a writing server again. I had sworn off joining big fandom servers after several bad experiences in various ship servers, but I had reached a point where I was the only one really actively writing and publishing in my private fc server and felt like I was boring everyone else. I also felt the need to put my eggs in some other baskets, so to speak, so when a mutual of mine created a server with the explicit mission statement of "curate your own experience" I decided to give it a go.

And so far it's been great! Doing the diet NaNo event got me to write 34k words in a single month which is easily the most I've ever written in such a short amount of time. And there's a small circle of regulars that have cropped up. It's been pretty chill for the most part.

Writing Goals For 2025: Finish and post the HW fic. Realistically, I'm going to finish the EW caster rolequest rewrite sooner, and I'm also looking forward to that one, but the HW fic is my big project that I'm actually really invested in.

Final Thoughts: I've been trying to fight XIV burnout for a while now. The social isolation is really starting to hit, what with half of my dashboard all vanishing into various discord servers and siloing shit there, instead of hanging out on the dashboard. The group I was raiding with disbanded quite some time ago and the discord finally got deleted. I've mostly withdrawn from a lot of shared canon stuff with Kitali because I really don't know what to do with her anymore. And I'm trying to find a love of creation again, and lately that means trying to bury myself in writing again and withdrawing into my own little bubble. And, y'know, I've gotten over 44k words in the HW WIP and some 3-odd thousand in another and 15k in the EW caster rewrite so I wouldn't call it a total loss. And I actually did a lot of words for XIVWrite this year.

And in a strictly fic sense, I sure am feeling some type of way about the most recent fic having over 3/4ths of hits and more kudos than my first longfic for XIV that has been around for over 2 years now. But, I get it. The former is a M/M smutfic between two NPCs and the latter is a G fic with no romance in it and is largely OC based. I get it.

I think for 2025 I want to actually get back into making shit instead of just mindlessly grinding the game. Dawntrail killed off any real drive for me to do late game content and I think that's a good thing since I have a whole other playthrough to focus on. I want to be able to turn the "I have an idea..." into an actual finished Thing that can be absorbed by other people so I'm not just going insane in my own mind over things only I know about.

This year was pretty rough on me so hopefully the next one will be. If not better, at least not worse.

See you all next year!

[masked-artist-xp]

MEET THE ARTIST!

I am a minor.

Art requests are currently closed.

Asks are open!

I am open to answer just about anything.

My birthday is oct 23rd.

In a relationship fr fr

I am a maine coon and husky therian

My pronouns are he/they/it/meow/kitty/neos

Refer to me by Ash/Vix/Masked !!!

My persona's name is Fang. (But there is also my creator sona and Corruption who are seprate sonas)

My fursona's name is Ace

I have ADHD, Autism, hypermobility, and a few more mental issues ^^

I am a bisexual demiboy(but it's totally chill to call me transmasc or nonbinary)

If you do submit an art rq I may put it off for a bit-a while cuz I tend to be working on a bunch of things at once.

There's gonna be probably a lot of cussing on this blog- so- don't follow if you don't like cussing- QvQ

I am a scemo kid >:P

We don't say slurs on this blog!

You can absolutely tag me in posts with Horror Sans cuz I absolutely love him <3 (/p) cuz Horror is my comfort characterrrr

I'd love music recommendations if you have any!!! (just not country music or slow songs- not my pace lolz)

I do tend to post a few of my outfitzzz(especially if I feel like they're popping off that day)

If you submit an art rq, plz specify who a character is by/where it's from that way so I can draw the proper character, also make sure that I can get a good ref of whatever I'm drawing if it's not my own oc lmao

If you're not welcome on my blog, I will very clearly let you know.

Majority of my necessary information is in my bio!

DNI IF:

You are homophobic/transphobic/racist/a pedophile/a predator/a proshipper/a TERF/a zoophile/anti-furry/anti-therian/abelist

Art request information!(if I open them again)

I WILL DRAW:

-characters, skeletons, suggestive stuff, animals (even if it looks funky), furries, doodles, gore, ships(if they're acceptable), ect.

I WILL NOT DRAW:

-NSFW, overly complex poses or scenes, bare feet(cuz ew no), backgrounds, sanscest or papcest(sorry y'all), anything homophobic/transphobic/sexist/racist, or against religions, or anything that stands with absolutely profane acts(rape, sexual assault, abuse, pedophilia, incest, ect.)

RULES FOR ART REQUESTS!!!

Don't send more than 1 at once, don't ask for a request if requests are closed, don't pester me to do a request, don't send the same request more than once, don't request me to draw anything that is in the "will not draw" section.

Feel free to talk to me! Askz and Dmz are open for a reason! (I promise I'm not that scary)

Join the discord!

[susandsnell]

You're so right about Katniss! Her feelings for Peeta always felt like obligation - because he was kind, because he loved her and he deserved to be loved back, because he was what she was supposed to want and she'd be crazy not to - and she had mad vibes with Joanna. (The Katniss thing is also why I hated all of the MCU Natasha ships with guys. She's my second pick after Nina for character I am convinced is a lesbian.)

Thank you so much for articulating all this and sending it my way because I've felt nuts for years reading it this way (+ it's a pleasure to hear from you)! And that's with Joniss as a relatively popular ship, lolol.

I won't deny that him saving her from starving and later all they did for one another during the Games isn't meaningful, but you put it perfectly; the text keeps telling us he deserved to be loved back, he's what she ought to want. It makes a point about why she doesn't owe Gale, but wholly kind of sells us on her owing Peeta. The text makes a point of how Katniss, very realistically, has hang-ups about debt, and how the nature of Panem's totalitarianism is such that all kind acts are viewed as transactional rather than genuine, but then completely undermines this by providing little to no meat to how Katniss' real feelings developed from the ones staged for the Games. It's one of those cases where even if the guy isn't a Nice Guy, there's textual Nice Guying going on lolol. (I do also acknowledge that these books were products of the aughts and queer characters in YA were almost nonexistent, but having recently read Moth Diaries from 2002 which actively engages with comphet, I'm feeling spoiled lol.)

Likewise, the having children thing is like -- I get it, people can change their minds and her not wanting to be a mother was a product of the dystopian society they subsequently rebuilt as well as her own experience of maternal neglect, but given what the real world has always been wrt reproductive rights and just in general treating female queerness/nonconformity as a "phase you'll outgrow"/"you'll find the right guy and want kids eventually", I don't think I'll ever not feel gross about a character who does not want kids eventually ~embracing motherhood~ lmao. It could happen, but when the characters are fictional and hence in the author's control...it feels like propaganda, especially coupled with her repeatedly stating she didn't want a husband. And the quote from the epilogue is literally "It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly." Which. Ew.

Contrast with Johanna, where things felt a lot more organic, less based on a sense of debt and more on some classic rivalry tropes that evolved into a sweet balance between an organic camaraderie and Stupid Sexy Flanders (I mean, the elevator scene? Straight girls do not react like that! "Johanna's motivational insults" and the relationship shift?)

Anyhow, thanks again for the message and sorry for the mini-essay/rant this turned into, haha. I'd be mega interested to hear your MCU Natasha thoughts, though, since your Nina tags were so accurate! (Equally biased because she was an early sapphic crush for me, haha.)

[nepticmancer]

Shout out to The True Confessions Of Charlotte Doyle by Avi.

First chapter of Witch Rose with the ship scene is based off whatever I remember from when I read it.

(Quick word to those of you only interested in this post for the just dance tag, most of this post is actually about The True Confessions Of Charlotte Doyle until the last paragraph before my sign off)

(And to those of you who want to read The True Confessions Of Charlotte Doyle, this post contains HEAVY spoilers for the book, you have been warned)

It’s still one of my favorite books, I finished it in a few days and then half my class tried to murder me because I knew whether or not one dude dies and who murdered the other guy. I love that book so much oh my goodness gosh gracious. I want to get back into writing sailors and pirates and I would be interested in learning more. So if I come out with some random project on sailors, it’s going to be because of Charlotte Doyle. I actually disliked Charlotte at the beginning for her actions but with a new mindset it’s easy to see why she did everything she did. She was a scared teenager who’s status made her a bit distrustful of the crew and Jaggery used that against her.

I also have to mention my love for the round robin. It’s a circle with names on it that sailors sign to agree on overthrowing their captain after harsh and unfair treatments. The reason for it being a circle is so that it’s unclear who’s name was put first or who is leading the rebellion.

Some other characters that I feel I gotta mention because I adore them so much.

The first mate, Mr. Hollybrass. I love him so much. When he had his verbal dispute with Jaggery resulting in his demise I was so happy. Not because he died but because he was pissed off at Jaggery for being a rash dumbass. Bro got stabbed in the back, literally. I actually did a writing from his perspective and it was so fun, my teacher liked it too. I actually had to trade my paper to get Hollybrass but it was so worth it.

Rebellion man, Mr. Cranick. I don’t have much to say really since he died early on but I still loved him so much. I know captains are meant to be harsh on crew but Cranick didn’t deserve to be beaten as badly as he was by Jaggery.

New Captain, Mr. Fisk. Once again, not much to say but I love him all the same. I’m so glad he became captain and I know he’s such a big step up from Jaggery. I believe whole heartedly he’s going to be a strict captain but I think he makes a much better captain seeing as, he’s was a member of a Seahawk crew and he’s been through it quite a bit along with his crewmates.

Mermaid lover, Ewing. He was such a nice change from the rest of the crew to me. The crewmen are all understandably a bit distrustful and cautious of Charlotte but Ewing just talking with her whilst sewing was sweet. Now, I know he can still be distrustful of her but it was still a sweet scene.

Main character, Charlotte. Ok, I wasn’t going to do a review on her but, she’s got a very powerful arc. Her story is about a young girl finding freedom and taking her life into her own hands and making her own choices and I love her for that. She was so dislikable at times but I would’ve made the same choices as her. Her defending Zachariah from the whip after not trusting him for so long and then hurting Jaggery instead, even by accident. I applaud her. When she couldn’t turn to Jaggery anymore she turned to the crew who hated her just as much but still gave her a chance. She climbed the rat lines to prove she was sorry and genuine about her wanting to be a crew member. She’s so dedicated and I really admire her character for that. And the end when she tried to befriend her servant and then ran away from her house right back to the place that truly felt like home made me so happy.

And how could anyone forget Zachariah? Honestly, he was not the character I was expecting when my teacher first mentioned him but he is a great character. Him protecting and defending Charlotte? Kind of a fatherly move if you ask me. He made Charlotte a captain after Jaggery died and did most of the work. And his reunion with her was sweet. And let me mention that dagger, that was most likely his only weapon and he wanted Charlotte to use it to protect herself. He saved her too when she nearly fell in the storm. e how he puts her over himself so much and

Everything in the book was so worth while, a great read. I’m so glad to have read this book and have it help me write not only the storm scene in Witch Rose but also some short stories and I even wrote a short sequel that while unfinished was still so fun. It really helped me figure out what books I had an interest in, I would love to write more on sailors and maybe even involve those themes in Just Dance fics as well. I hope you didn’t mind my rambling on this book that I haven’t read in a year.

Much love,

Neptic Mancer<3

[mysicklove]

Hi. That one user who replied to your post about proshipping is dead wrong. Full stop.

I’d suggest going onto Fanlore (a creditable source!) and researching for yourself, but I’d also like to help explain.

Proship means you’re in favor of shipping. Like how people are pro-choice, or pro-life, or pro-gun. The pro- in proship is NOT short for, and does NOT stand for, problematic. Otherwise pro-choice would be problematic-choice and that doesn’t make sense? Pro- as in for. For the right to choose. Vs anti. Anti-abortion. Anti-gun. Anti-ship.

Proship means “ship and let ship.” It means you don’t harass other people for liking things different to you because everyone is different and has different likes and dislikes. Maybe you like fluff (for example) but someone else likes angst. You may not understand why they do, but it’s just as valid as your love for fluff. Or like A likes pineapple on pizza but you like pepperoni. Or I like cilantro but you think it tastes like soap. Fandom is a big pizza party and we all have things we like and things we don’t. That includes age gap ships, toxicity, rape/non-con, incest, violence, what have you.

When you judge someone for what they like (like that person, who can’t even type out what they despise) you open yourself up for judgement. Proship... doesn’t do that. If you like X and I don’t like X, that has nothing to do with me. You can like X and I can like Y and we can still get along because there’s more to us as individuals than just liking one thing. Antis/antishippers don’t seem to understand that.

Antis think you are what you eat (“oh you like age gap? You pedo. You groomer! Ew you like yandere? Abuse apologist—no I don’t care if you survived that, you’re still bad for liking it. You like non-con? You’re a literal rapist, even if you’ve never touched anyone or are a survivor. You like incest? Again, don’t care if you survived it but I bet you wanna fuck your IRL sister too, huh? You freak! KYS!”) because they attach morals to their consumption of fiction. But the funny thing is liking only wholesome shit hasn’t made them any nicer. It just makes them feel morally superior.

It’s worth noting proship was the default stance in fandom. People shipped what they liked and didn’t care what others did because it had nothing to do with them. If you found something weird and it made you uncomfortable, you just closed the tab. Hit the back button. And that’s what proship is. Proship is also tagging properly so if people do have problems with certain subjects, they don’t have to see it. If I can’t stand rape/non-con, for example, I’m not going to click on a fic tagged “rape/non-con” if I even see it because I know it’ll only hurt me. But a work tagged r*pe/n0n-c0n won’t be filtered out so I will see it and it’ll hurt me because the author thought they were helping by censoring but they didn’t.

Again, please please please do research. Don’t just take the word of a stranger who throws emotionally-charged buzzwords to sway you into their favor. Please. And that goes for this ask too. If you don’t believe or want to believe me, I implore you to do your research and decide for yourself.

Thanks for your time!

oh wow, thank you for putting the time to respond to my post I appreciate it. I'm not going to add my take on it, but i will do some research on it. but thank u love!!

[dragonflylady77]

tag game: stranger things (again)

I was tagged by the lovely @callieb and I decided to do it again after some hard thinking.

1.ride or die ship (your otp): Harringrove

2. most annoying ship: any ship that has Mike Wheeler in it, he annoys the hell out of me.

3. second favourite ship: I don't really read anything that's not Harringrove but when I do it's a tie between Hellcheer and Munver (extra points if background Harringrove).

4. favourite platonic relationship: Robin and Steve definitely. Special mention to Max and El as well.

5. underrated ship: Billy and Heather friendship

6. overrated ship: I wanna say Steddie because the push from the rabid fans has been scary. Non rabid fans welcome to it, though

7. one thing i would change in canon: Apart from Billy's demise? The Stancy revival in ST4. Or like, season 4 as a whole...

8. something canon did right: Max, Steve and Robin friendship, Max and El friendship

9. a thing i'm proud of creating for the fandom PLEASE BRAG ABOUT YOURSELF I WANT TO SEE/READ YOUR ART: My July 4 fic, definitely better than being dead. It went really angsty on me but it's sweet with a happy ending, because I'm all about the happy ending. Also my Harringrove Micro Poems!! I love them so much.

10. a character who is perfect to me (wouldn't change a thing): Joyce.

11. the character i relate to the most and why: Joyce (tired mums unite), Robin (I talk too much and tend to overshare), Max (sarcasm)

12. character(-s) i hate the most and why: Neil, for obvious reasons. Karen, for not putting a stop to the thing with Billy. I have kids the age Billy was and ew ew ew no way.

13. something i've learned from the fandom: Use the block button freely, it will make your experience so much better. The ST fandom seems very toxic but the Billy fandom is a haven of lovely people and full of friends I love.

14. three tags i seek out on ao3: I don't really, because when I look for a tag, I end up making a list of fics and post that list on tumblr. I do like College AU fics and soulmates AU fics.

15. a song i strongly associate with my otp/favourite character: Right now, Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've) by the Buzzcocks is helping me work on my Harringrove Big Bang fic. You Got It also helped me write a fic (one you'll have to wait to read). Separate Ways by Journey is a very harringrove coded song. Oh and 5SoS songs.

No pressure tagging: @destroya2005 @peanut-booi @whataboutthefish @memes-saved-me @deedoop @lemongizumo @iloveyoubillyhargrove @pleasdonttalktome @starkstruck27 @a-redharlequin

[beevean]

3. The best character you've written for and 4. The best ship you've written for

Hector and Dracula and Hecula, respectively. Because of course :D 💖

8. What I like the most about your writing

I've said it a lot of times before and I'll say it again - you clearly know what to show to the audience and what to leave to their imagination. Your mastery in this skill gives your Hecula fics this "implicitly nightmarish" vibe I haven't seen many nail down as accurately as you do. tl;dr beev peak

9. A fic i'm excited for you updating/posting

Grip when.

10. A character/ship I didn't enjoy/think about as much before you wrote about them

You're the one who made me love Hector and Issac as much as you do, heh heh :P

11. Something I wish/hope you write

A full-blown Lenore rewrite fic :) search your heart, you know you want to write it :)

(semi-jokes aside, I'm looking forward to you contuining to carry the entire Hecula tag on your back lmfao. do your best bestie <3)

3/4) Haha, of course :P I should try to change... but I love those two disasters and the JESUS FUCK NO EW factor too much 😂

8) awwwwww bro 🥺 I try my best! In my experience and tastes, allowing the reader to put two and two together creates a bigger sense of discomfort than showing the Horrors in all of their gory details. Ofc a talented writer can do that too! But I prefer to leave things implied and allow the braincells to activate :P

Besides, I actually don't care so much about the Horrors themselves, so much as their consequences. Hint hint 🙂

9) I wanted to try to finish other one-shots, but I'm not getting any inspiration. Perhaps. Perhaps I could take advantage of re-reading the MF manga in Japanese. :) (jokes aside, I'm glad you still look forward to it!)

10) And I'm so happy you came to love them 💖 they're our boys now ^^

11) ... don't you tempt me. Yes I do want to write it damn it the missed potential of that bitch lives in my head rent free 😭

well it sure would be nice if other people helped me hfdkjshfjksh but if my propaganda doesn't work, then i'll be proud to carry the tag on my shoulders...

[epickiya722]

"Ew, get that ship away from me!"

Then proceeds to tag their post with said ship. 🙄

I firmly believe this shit is on purpose. I know some people will be like "they're probably new and don't know how the tagging system works"... BULLSHIT!!

For one, don't other platforms have it to where you can tag your posts? Whether it not it works the same way as Tumblr?

Two, people who be doing this aren't always new to Tumblr. Look at their archive and it dates months and months back? They ain't new! And if they are, what if they're someone who already had an account before and made another one just so they can pull these shenanigans?

Three, be for real now. Be fucking for real. As long as ship wars and discourse has been going on, you're telling me not a couple of people have said "hey, can you not put your hate in our space"?

Anybody who tags a hate ship post with the ship name knows shippers will see it and wants to get them riled up for a laugh. They want that attention. I am not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

The word "anti" has been around for a long time. They know to use it, but choose not to because again, they're just being an asshole and wants to cause some trouble.

If they really didn't want any of the shippers and the ship near them, they wouldn't do shit like that and do whatever it takes to stay away from that shipping community

[wednesdaysviolet]

Why I left the Wyler Fandom:

1. Racism: the way people have discussed Wednesday/Tyler as a ship honestly is reflective of internalized racism not to mention one work in the tag having a title with severely racialized connotations. Someone came in my ao3 inbox accusing Wednesday of moving “too fast” with Tyler— fyi, accusing women and girls of color of being “fast” to mature sexually or romantically is a tired and blatantly racist talking point. I also reached out to an author on here privately with sources about their racist fic title and they promptly ignored it and never changed it. 💀

2. Plaigiarism: when it was one time it was one too many. now that it’s happened again I honestly can’t even wrap my head around it. I confronted the author directly about properly giving credit and they told me that giving credit was equivalent to promoting said work they used as a template. This is nonsensical. Not to mention while this discussion was still up and while the author still had their indirect, disrespectful attack on the original author in their authors notes, people were supporting said plagiarized work publicly. Does no one value artistic integrity???? I’ve considered orphaning my works in leaving the fandom but decided against it specifically because I don’t trust anyone to not use my works as their “blank canvas” and claim the foundational elements of the story as their own. FYI you cannot put “this author accepts constructive criticism” on your work and then delete said constructive criticism. Lmfao.

3. Including non-con as a fictional ship and staying silent about a literal sexual predator being in the cast. I mean, do I have anything more to say about this? Zero care concern empathy consideration whatsoever for sexual violence survivors. No denouncement of Percy Hynes White whatsoever. Xavier still being included left and right in stories. EW!!! That guy belongs in PRISON!

4. Zero loyalty to anyone even people that you consider “friends”: people I once considered my friends using my personal triggers against me and featuring them in their work with no trigger or content warning 🚩🚩 people supporting works that were plagiarized from their “friends” works 🚩🚩

6. General Clique-y Behavior and the creation of vapid Echo Chambers: full grown adults acting like they’re high school, referring to being proven wrong on things as “drama”. This is not a soap opera, this is real life and real people are getting hurt by your actions but it doesn’t seem like anyone actually cares.

7. Erasure of Tyler’s History of Abuse: Tyler is very explicitly groomed/abused in Wednesday and while changing aspects of the storyline within an AU are totally okay and within the author’s right, there are still people who write for Wyler claiming they don’t trust Tyler and his intentions. There are also people whose works feature Tyler himself as an abuser/rapist/groomer.

8. The frequently used excuse aka myth that fiction is fiction and incapable of causing harm in real life: this is widely debated in academia but the general consensus since the mid-80’s has been that for darker themes like suicide, murder, sexual violence etc there should be a sense of liability in what gets published and in the hands of young people especially. The British Journal of Social Psychology published in 2011 scientific research that violent fictional written word was in fact relational to readers’ actions and beliefs in real life.

Believe it or not as human beings we have a responsibility to be decent to other human beings. It’s clear that when you act in favor of truth, integrity and social justice it will get you ostracized. So I’m out :)

I’m grateful that I’ve been able to maintain anonymity throughout my time in this fandom and have not let any of this affect my real life. Compartmentalizing has allowed me to move forward whereas a few years ago this kind of situation would have driven me off a cliff. <3

[dittolicous]

I've been thinking a lot about the whole purity culture struggle thing re: incest/twincest because of submas and while I absolutely get the issue of slippery slope censorship + how dark topics are not inherently bad, I feel like a lot of the issues people have in incest ships isn't neccarily with the actual incest portion, but actually the constant denial & erasure of deep platonic love, yet all shipper focus on is censorship or antis or 'being too sensative' etc...

for example, every goddamn year around Christmas people roll out the 'incest folgers commercial' and every goddamn year I have to practice my breathing so as to not lose my shit because why the fuck can a little sister not love her damn brother and be elated to see him again? why does that mean she wants to fuck him? why are we okay with belittling familial relationships, demanding they only show their love in a certain way?

just because you don't have that kind of relationship with your sibling doesn't mean no one does.

this can also be seen in found families and/or adopted families, as well as nonconforming queer-platonic relationships. so why is it not something to be had and acknowledged in creations?

another example is the batfam (aka the Waynes & co). despite Bruce CANONICALLY adopting various robins/sidekicks, people constantly deny they're siblings, shipping them with each other. and even with Bruce.

because 'it's not by blood'. because oh, whats the platonic explanation for such-and-such?

because platonic love is only allowed to be shown in one way, and if they do otherwise, if they consider them just as important, well clearly they're in ~romantic~ love.

its.... really demoralizing to say that if you care about someone a little too much, that means you want to fuck them. that's how we build a society that is lonely, divided, and lacking in a loving community, because the only love we put credit in is single, romantic love.

the tier list of relationships isn't 'romantic partner > family > friends'. in a better world, they're all equal to a point and given proper attention to sustain a healthy relationship altogether. just like gender or autism, love is a spectrum that we shouldn't demand conformity of.

and, ok, how does this relate back to submas?

I think a lot of the b-----kshippers really don't understand just how upsetting and even triggering it can be to have them interact with non-shipping stuff.

like... how many people base their work on their own siblings, on things they've experienced in their family? so a person make a submas comic or fic based on a memory with their own siblings. they're happy, want to share it, and we'll of course creators want to see what others think of their creations!

until they see tags or comments about how 'there's no platonic explanation' or how 'in love' they are or, hell, even just the simple tag noting the ship.

on a piece created after a real-life experience with their sibling.

that can shift the entire vibe, not only of the work and characters, but also the creator. now they're having their family relationship twisted & denied. will they stop creating for these characters? will they pull away from their siblings so no one ever claims they love them in that way?

idk

I know that in my own writing, I constantly stop and question how close i make Ingo and Emmet, how their relationship may be viewed, despite it all being written 100% platonic. and it's agitating that I struggle with that, because it makes me feel so utterly gross that people look at what I make and deny that any other love is possible.

that also comes through in how I interact with creations of others, because I do not want to accidentally interact with something that twists platonic love languages or denies them. and i think people who ship such things demand understanding for their 'whys' without stopping to consider that maybe these 'antis' have reasons beyond 'ew incest taboo!'

what can we do? again, idk. censorship isnt..isn't... something im down with. but I think that those who do ship it need to be just as critical of how they interact with it and the fandom at large, because they impact our art just as much as we impact theirs.

there is a time and place for all creations.

don't act like disliking or wanting no interaction with them makes them pathetic or... whatever. you have your reason, we have ours. a trigger is still a trigger, even if the trauma it comes from is the menial yet constant societal pressure for romance to trump all other relationships.

so please look critically at how you interact with others too. don't view my stuff as bl------shipping. just... block me and move on. or whatever.

[astralleywright]

WTF PEOPLE ACTUALLY SAID THAT ABOUT ASHTON??? from what i see it's always "ashton is perfect and can do no wrong and everything they do is justified. btw imogen should be put down like a rabid dog cause she's gonna turn on everyone" ig yeah it is a problem of the fandom being so large that some subsects of it are totally alien if you don't go there, like i see people insist "UGH why does everyone coddle and baby laudna? let her take responsibility for her actions!" when i have literally seen nothing but criticism for her or say that chetney is universally hated when again, no? but maybe they are in a part of the fandom that does do that. ew though. that's fucking gross.

TO BE FAIR that was like one specific example of extreme haterism!! but yeah many such cases of ppl who think Ashton sucks and want him to shut up, as opposed to genius intellectual Ashton stans like myself that know that he sucks and want them to keep talking forever.

it would definitely seem insane if you just used tumblr though, bc cr fans On Here 1. often have opinions regarding cr characters/ships/story beats that differ noticeably from those common to websites like twitter/reddit/tiktok 2. get mad at cr takes that have been posted on those other sites but not here and 3. invent problems or blow things out of proportion so they can play fandom police.

Ashton hate is a good example because it exists, but largely on other cr fandom circles, and also not nearly to the extent some people here make it out to be. in conclusion if you see someone in the cr tag outraged about some take or trend in fandom that you have literally never seen before you should just ignore them lmao, in all likelihood they are either lying to you or they are being stupid

[zhoufeis]

Hey, I just saw the post you made about the possible lgbt couples in "Soy Luna," and I'm wondering which is your favorite (canon) couple in Soy Luna, and why? And your least favorite?? What about a non canon couples (it can include lgbt couples if you want)? Which one is your favorite? And your least favorite?

Hi there... Can't believe I got an ask about this show 5 years after it ended.

Look, if you go through my #Soy Luna tag, you will easily spot my fave couple on the show: Simbar. The only reason why I even watched that show. I mean, on the surface, it's enemies-to-lovers, soft boy x cold girl, poor boy x rich girl couple. All tropes I love on their own already. However, I just love even more the slow development they spent on them as well as the fact that she is not just some cold, rude bitch, but an actually lonesome, depressed character who never experienced love, including the love a child knows from her parents, so she doesn't know how to properly give it and much less knows how to make people love her, aside from getting good grades and winning competitions. So she is selfish and goal-driven in achieving to make people love her - cause she never experienced being loved just because for who she is. Ámbar as a character on her own is so intriguing and interesting that I would claim her to be one of the most intriguing TV characters ever. And then there's Simón who is kind and selfless to the point that it's self-destructive because he always takes a step back so that others can find their happiness. And it hurts him so many times and then he gets to know this really rude, cold-looking girl and he sees right through her and he wants to break down that facade of hers. He is absolutely obsessed with fixing her while slowly learning to be more selfish because of her - everyone is against their relationship for various reasons and, for once, this boy is like but I WANT to be with her, you cannot take that from me. And despite all the troubles that fighting for her causes him, risking the harmonious relationships with his friends that he always put above his own needs. I don't entirely like the ending because it's Disney and she becomes all good and kind. I think I'd have preferred a more realistic road for them to go than for her to just suddenly starting to be friends with everyone, but again, it's Disney.

My least favorite couple on Soy Luna? Gosh, almost all the others. Most ships bored me to death and I don't even feel like mentioning them. Many were also just... childish, and I don't think it is worth talking about them for me as an adult. After all, it is a kids' show. So I'm only going to mention those that I've been a bit more passionate about hating because they had aspects that bothered me beyond: 1) Lutteo. Obviously. All the toxic traits with him being possessive, literally being an a**hole towards her, emotionally cheating on his girlfriend because he so wants to be with Luna, a non-consensual first kiss given in a public space in order to win a competition, the fact that they have very different goals in life (she wants to travel the world and he just wants to settle down), and their constant on-and-off relationship. Annoying. Toxic. Disney loves to romanticize the asshole boy / kind girl relationships though. Honestly, I just really hate Matteo. Luna deserves 1000x better than him. 2) Benicio/Ámbar. Clearly, he's also possessive, he manipulates her and tries to blackmail her into being with him. He makes assumptions about their apparent relationship which she never agreed with. He kisses her without her consent multiple times and threatens her. All the red flags. At least, Disney didn't try to romanticize this. 3) Emilia/Matteo. Ew. It's not any better when the girls throw themselves at the boys and kiss them without consent. So it's a no-go. 4) Simón/Jazmín. I might be the most passionate about them in the sense that I really dislike them. She keeps obsessing over him when he over and over again tries to kindly tell her that he is not into her. When he is into Ámbar, she's got nothing better to do than to put her nose into their business. It's unhealthy. She's never been an option for him, and yet, she cannot ever mind her own business. She pretends to be his girlfriend and because he doesn't want to hurt her, he never uses harsh words on her, and yet, she always feels like a victim when he draws a line sometimes. And I find it disturbing that the writers never let her suffer any consequences for her behavior. They just excuse it by... Well, she's sorta cognitively weak... aka dumb. 5) Last but not least: Yam/Ramiro. I didn't mind them much untul season 3. Like I never had any feelings about them except that I found them boring. However, in season 3, I was really disturbed by the fact that he decided to think about his career and therefore joined another team - for which she scolded him and broke up with him. Honestly, what the hell? Like switching teams, unlike what Disney promotes, is something very common in sports if you wanna have a career. Ramiro did what he decided was good for his own career, to achieve his goals, and he was right to do so. It's not like Yam wants to have this career too and he went behind her back. She's got her music and Ramiro wants to be an athlete, so going to another team was all good and right. And all his friends turnt their back on him, Yam broke up with him. It was very f*cked up and Disney promoted that Yam and their friends were in the right while Ramiro was in the wrong. Which was just, excuse me, ridiculous. Just because he joined the Red Sharks, which is drawn out by the writers as the "evil" team, does not give his friends any right to break off that friendship with him. And the fact that his girlfriend didn't even support his choice to take his career further and instead broke up with him - red flag. Relationships are about mutual support.

Favorite fanon couple would clearly be Luna/Ámbar. I know Disney sold it as (adoptive) family eventually, but honestly... They were a pair of starcrossed lovers. Fire and water, yin and yang, sun and moon, poor and rich, kind and cold. Two passionate young ladies with a tragic backstory that is connected through lies and feelings. The thing that Simón/Ámbar were, Luna/Ámbar could have had too, but like 10 times better.

No idea what my least favorite fanon couple would be... I think SL had so many bad couples, it's useless to imagine even more bad ones, lol. Generally speaking though, no one should be paired with Benicio. He should be killed.

[c0smiccom3t]

Ryonna (Ree-oh-nuh) Tag Team Racing quotes because yes. their dynamic with cortex is so good. (part 1)

"A little bit too much of a brute and a pretty loyal lackey to Cortex, They are always ready for a challenge... Even though if the bad prize is having to calm Cortex down from his temper tantrums when he loses and preventing him from embarrassing himself" Voice actor: Tabitha St. Germain (Rarity from MLP: Friendship is magic) (Trans-Atlantic accent) Cutscenes: - "HAHAHAHAHAHA! keep shooting N. Gin, keep shooting!" - "Heheheh..." - [When Cortex gets hit by a chicken thrown by Crash] "HEY!" - [after Cortex asks Von Clutch if he knows who he's dealing with] "Yeah, are you?" - "ugh..." - [after Cortex tells Von Clutch he has an appointment with world domination] "Yeah, we got no time for this, booger-man!" - [when Von Clutch opens his chest while saying his beloved black gem is gone] "Ew." - [responding to N. Gin] *gasp* "REALLY??" - [replying to Cortex's comment] "SIR, YOU'RE A GENIUS!" - "Uh-huh??" - [When Willie Wumpa Cheeks makes his first appearance] "BY MY RINGTAIL!" [jumps infront of N. Gin and Cortex and cracks their knuckles] "GET AWAY FROM MASTER!" - [after Willie Wumpa Cheeks is introduced] *facepalm* "...Seriously?" - [running to get to the elevator] "Wait for me, doc!" - [Answering to Cortex's comment on the situation] "Yeah. And you better believe it!" - "OUT OF THE WAY!" - [petting Cortex's head after he yells about a sinister force upstaging his evil plan] "There there master, We'll figure it out." - "ITS YOU!" - "well well well, looks like we're a little late to the party! mwuhuhehehe.." - [replying to Cortex saying that the bandicoots foiled his plan] "Yeah!" - [when N Gin giggles madily and they roll their eyes, annoyed] "Ugh.." - "Yes, master!" - [When Cortex's shot fails] *gasp!* - [When Crash throws a chicken into his ship's engine] "Uh-oh."

Missions [Costume] - "Could you get one for me too? If i wanna show off im a master of stealth business, i want to look like i am that, too!" - "Yeah i'm sure it won't be too big when you put in on, sir." - "AGAIN, BRAT-ICOOT?!" - "This is getting us nowhere. Sir, perhaps would it be better if i went to fetched those things myself?" - "Oh-kay..." - "JUST GET ON WITH IT, OR YOU'RE GONNA SAY HI TO STARGAZER, TOO!" - "Finally." - "Yeah, keep it for yourself, you deserved it." [Mission 1] - "Yeah, could you? That'd really pay off and your sister would be impressed, if you ask me." - "Good luck! ...and make it quick." - "Master, calm down!! Maybe he just needed some clues to where that set is! ...Please hurry before he has another tantrum, he skipped his beauty sleep today." [nervous laugh] - "Yeah, you don't want to be known as 'the worst big brother in the world' now, do you?" - "We told you, brat-icoot, just BRING THAT GEAR!" - "Congrats, you played yourself. Hope you enjoy your demise! See you on the race track! Heheheheh, sucker." [Mission 2] - "Dont you mean 'weapon of mass de-- OW!" - "Okay, okay, you're right, sir!" - "That'd be so helpful, indeed! ...No pun intended, by the way. Now get moving!" - "Yeah, come back to us once you did get those crystals, bucko!" - "Yeah. Things take time. But honestly, you got to hurry. so get a move on!" - "These gamers are such a predictable bother nowadays, it's exhausting really." - "See you there, Brat-icoot. C'mon m'lord, let's show him!" end of part 1 lmao