#having them answer separately because it works with the comic timeline

[cupcakeslushie]

Okay. I've been tip-toeing around this AU for a while now, but I just got caught up, and now I think I have a (decent) grasp on what's going on. So I wanna go over everything I know so far to see if I'm right or wrong on anything. Don't know if you'd be willing to correct me or not. Either way, I hope my mistakes can help you understand what to clarify to other fans like me. But, I also have some questions. You probably won't be able to answer most of them, but it's at least worth a shot.

First, where's Venus? Like, why is she not in your comics that are (sort of) separate frome the canon now story. The ones that skip to the future way after all the turtles reunite. Did she die? Did she escape? Is it because she wasn't introduced yet when you made those comics?

Two, why do you keep on making references to the future timeline? I know you're planning on possibly making your own stuff leading up to the events of the movie. It just gives me a jumpscare when I see certain...imagery in those comics. I guess you're hinting at what your version of the future apocalypse would look like, but it just hurts to see. Specifically in the comic explaining both the events and aftermath of the movie and the bad future timeline. It's starting to really confuse my brain as to where this story is headed. What's meant to be the main focus? The Hamto's reuniting? The aftermath? Or the future?

Third, did you make all those min-comics before you started the actual AU? Or did you do them during?

Fourth, are any of those mini-comics relevant to the actual story now? Or have you changed your mind on a few things? It's just that everything is so all over the place, I don't really know whether to trust if they're accurate. I know most of them are just there for funzies, but the longer ones concern me. I guess I'm just not used to the storyteller doing sequel, start, prequel, start, sequel, prequel, prequel, sequel, and then end. Or maybe it's just me, and I'm sleep deprived.

My little observation speech is gonna take a while for me to get out in your asks because when I get theoretical, my speech gets long, and my proper English goes down the drain. So I'll be back. I appreciate your work very much. Despite the pain it causes me, it's still amazing.

I’ll try my best to clear up what confusion I can!

1. As far as Venus. The answer is kind of a mix of, I was still figuring out her design and backstory while coming out with some of those early comics, and then, once I had that down, I wanted the boys to grow strong bonds as a main cast. That’s why a lot of the side characters are only making small appearances in the Sep!AU Life stories, as those are mainly for the boys reconnecting. (Usagi shows up the most because I love him and am totally biased towards him).

This maybe hasn’t been stated outright, but I wasn’t really expecting so many ppl to like Vee as much as they do, and now im trying not to spoil too much of her story. It’ll unfortunately just take us a while to get to the meat of it. Since the boys reconnecting takes up a lot of the early s1s2 story, Im trying to follow the familiar Rise blueprint of Draxum, Shredder, Krang, and then in s3 we’ll have crazy fun new stories with the extra characters.

Ive also decided to take this little nugget from one of the Q&As, and use it for Venus instead of Jennika. It was a much needed bit of inspiration to explain why Venus sorta disappears for a while and will go through some major physical changes (not yet revealed) before the family can figure out a way to reach her.

2. I’m not sure if you mean jump scared in a bad/triggering or neutral way, but if you need me to tag anything on those posts please let me know!

The glimpses of the future timeline, are being scattered throughout wherever they parallel the present story in little ways, but that’s only for now. As we get closer to the movie plot, bigger chunks of the future will be revealed, because the future versions of the boys will have a larger role to play in the present timeline. So we will need more backstory than what the canon got. And also I just enjoy drawing my future versions so sometimes I don’t think too hard on a reason. I just like throwing them at ppl with no warning or reason.

When s2 ends, I plan on collecting all the future related stuff that’s been released, and recapping it for easier reading. Right now, it’s just little sprinkles of foreshadowing to give ppl an idea that, ‘oh crap. The doomed timeline is a bummer’. In my mind, I guess i thought it’d be kinda like a fun scavenger hunt for clues, but maybe ppl don’t like that 😅

3. All of the side-stories were written as the main comic was/is being released. A lot of them resulted from asks that just spawned the need to expand on certain ideas, or a desire to give all the turtles their time to shine.

For instance, when I was doing Donnie’s section of the main comic, it was a good few months where we hardly saw anyone but him and Venus. I wanted to just mix it up, and give Raph some love with his ‘Raph Time’ short. When Leo was front and center in the main, we hardly saw the others, so Mikey and Donnie got their little ‘Secrets’ short (and it was also I fun thank you for EW making it so far in the tmnt sep competition).

4. Anything that has been reworked/revised or just plain dropped should have an ‘Edit’ note because yes—I have gone back and changed some things, but more so from the asks i got in the early days, and some movie idea drafts.

All the short comics done in the last year, especially the ones that are listed in my pinned post, are canon and fall somewhere in the timeline. They’re like supplemental reading though—extra meat to give the world and the characters more personality. They do have particular backstory plot and important info in them, but nothing that shouldn’t eventually be re-visited/repeated in the main story.

um I hope that cleared up some things! I know it’s kind of a crazy amount of lore. I’ve tried my best to organize it in the pinned post, huge timeline, and search bar tags, but I know it’s getting harder and harder for newer ppl to jump in as it just get bigger. Thanks for reading regardless!

[thankskenpenders]

MORE behind the scenes Sonic info and other tidbits from the BumbleKast as I continue to get caught up. These range from September 2022 to early December. (This means there are spoilers for Frontiers in here.)

They're doing episodes even more often now, so I've got a lot to catch up on and I'm sure most of y'all do too!

1. The IDW comics are, in fact, canon to the games now. Ian was a little coy when first asked about it, saying he "would not argue against it" if people said the IDW comics were canon to the games now. "I have made it clear that the comics follow the lead of the games, so… as long as there's no contradictions anywhere, we're good." So, yeah, come on. The comics are canon.

2. Ian apparently pitched another idea for incorporating Sticks into the IDW series last year that was once again shot down, although he says this only makes him want to dig his heels in and try harder. (I'm assuming most of you are already aware of her shout out in Frontiers, confirming she's out there, somewhere...)

3. If Surge was a streamer, Ian thinks she would just grief people on Fortnite

4. On the October 7th, 2022 show, Ian says there is a behind-the-scenes answer for how the depiction of Silver's future in '06 can fit together with Rivals and Rush... but he can't talk about it right now.

It's hard to convey his tone through text, so just imagine he's saying all this with a big, defeated shrug:

"Here's the thing. Working on something else, I actually did get a straight answer, and it was... frustratingly simple. And, it's like, 'That works. [sigh] Okay!' No, I can't get into it - that's all private work stuff - but maybe it'll come to light eventually. But... there is an answer. And it works. And I kinda feel dumb for not thinking of it."

I honestly have no idea what this could be if it's something Ian hadn't considered, because he has talked about popular theories and readings before, such as the reading that Blaze was transported to the Sol Dimension at the end of '06. Maybe we'll hear about it in the comics, since Silver and Blaze are both back right now, or maybe they'll be the subject of a TailsTube episode.

5. Froggy is not sentient in any way he really is just a frog

6. Unrelated to Sonic, Ian was asked "who is best pony" and he said Fluttershy. My longest yeah boy ever dot jpeg

7. With Surge and Kit originally being pitched as purely synthetic beings before Sega suggested they be cyborgs instead, Ian says they would've struggled with whether or not they're even real, as opposed to the end product where they struggle with not knowing who they were before Starline modified them

8. When the female cast of Archie Sonic stopped getting drawn so busty all the time that was, in fact, a very specific editorial mandate from someone at Archie. Sega, on the other hand, has never cared.

9. Now that we're back to Classic and Modern being part of one nebulous timeline and the divide being more of a branding thing, Ian explicitly confirmed that the Classic-themed IDW Sonic comics are set in the past of the mainline IDW Sonic comics. They're set sometime after the events of Mania, and before all the Modern stuff. Just don't think too hard about it

But hey! If it's any consolation, this now means all the Classic characters like Mighty, Nack, and Honey are out there off-screen in the world of the regular comics, even if the casts are remaining separate for branding reasons for now. It also means Shadow is out there being held in a pod in a maximum security off-shore military prison during the events of all the lighthearted Classic comics lmao

10. Ian reiterates yet again that he's still pushing to try and get the Freedom Fighters back in some capacity where he can (as are others). He also says that he's pushing for them to return as a group rather than requesting individual members because he believes that's the best shot at getting any of them through Sega's approval process.

(I can't remember when the last time this came up was, but Ian has also implied that he thinks their best shot is to return as Classic characters since their one game appearance is Spinball.)

11. Ian outright confirms that the forward-looking character arcs in Frontiers are reflective of what he would like to see out of the main cast moving forward in the games. Not surprising since that's, like... the whole point of those arcs! But nice that he wants it to only be the beginning.

Ian does also say, however, that he's not guaranteed to return as the writer for future games since he's still a freelancer, but to editorialize here, I don't see why they wouldn't want him back for the next project.

12. On the subject of Amy's characterization in Frontiers, Ian personally pins her general seriousness mostly on the fact that she's the companion for the first island, where the mysterious and somber tone Sega wanted for the story is being established and Sonic is still trying to figure out what to do. He says that she'd probably have been more bubbly if she was interacting with Sonic on the second or third island, after he starts to get his bearings. I hoped this was the reason why she felt a little dry compared to Knuckles and Tails, so it's nice to hear this isn't the new direction for Amy or anything.

13. While "officially" Sage's name is just an anagram of Sega and a reference to her wisdom, Ian seems to be cheekily implying that it's also a nod to the annual Sonic Amateur Games Expo. Hell yeah.

14. When asked to clear up some Frontiers lore from the Egg Memos, Ian explicitly confirmed that some of the Ancients left the Starfall Islands and went on to devolve into the Chao as we know them today over the course of tens of thousands of years. He says, however, that this doesn't mean that Ancients and Chao are literally the same species, comparing it to the difference between humans and australopithecus. But yes, they're related.

[strange0-0storm]

*shakes you around*

OK I HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT THE COMIC RAHHHHHH!

Anyways, ᴵ ᵍᵒᵗ ᵃ ˡᶦˡ ˢᶦˡˡʸ ʰᵉʰᵉʰᵉʰᵉ so yeah, question about the comic, when is SMG7 gonna appear?

I mean- 8 is causing chaos ˡᶦᵏᵉ ᵗʰᵉ ˢᶦˡˡʸ ʰᵉ ᶦˢ ʰᵉʰᵉʰᵉʰᵉʰᵉʰ, would 7 be fine with it? Like- is 7 going to team up with 8 or is he going to be against it? This was a questions that was juggling around in my mind aaaaaaaaaaaah.

Anyways, good luck on your part 9. I absolutely love them 2 so much 😭😭😭😭😭

OH OH I believe I have gotten a similar ask about the topic

I am NOT planning on introducing SMG7 in the Arrival (GASP HIS BOYFRIEND ISNT GONNA SHOW UP TOO STOP HIM?) THATS RIGHT.

Because I want to focus on a separate project for SMG7. He will be getting his OWN comic on how he came to be. His timeline happened after SMG8's, while The Arrival takes place around the time before WOTFI 2023 happens, SMG7' comic (which I settled to keep the title just as simple) The Guardian will be taking place after WOTFI 2023 but before any of the main Puzzlevision episodes (I KNOW IT WAS BUILT UP BUT LIKE BEFORE PUZZLES GET IN TYE PICTURE FULLY)

Honestly, I might start work on the first part of The Guardian while I work on part 9 of The Arrival (just like me to pick up a project and take forever to finish it)

But I would like to say IF 7 were to appear in The Arrival, he would probably be the one to bring 8's chaos to an end for the time being, because SMG7 is the "good" of the duo

But YEAH. I HOPE THIS ANSWER ISNT DISAPPOINTING RAAAH

[avayarising]

The Batfam Death Project Introduction

I’m working on a project to find and list every time each member of the Batfam has experienced death, either through dying or by visiting a world of the dead.

Why?

I was curious because I kept finding incidences of DC heroes dying and coming back to life, and the Batfam in particular (though maybe that’s just because that’s where I started looking), and I wanted to know how much there was of this. Jason’s death is the one everyone makes a fuss of, but there are plenty of others and I wanted to know just how many.

And, coming at it partially from the DPxDC side, I wanted to know exactly how liminal the Bats are.

And the answer is: very.

Scope

For this project I’m looking at all deaths of the core Batfamily: that’s Bruce, Dick, Jason, Tim, Cass, Damian, and Alfred; I’m also including Steph, Barbara, Duke, and Kate. I’m not including more peripheral, associate or occasional bat-vigilantes such as Jean-Paul or Helena, nor other members of the Justice League, though I am aware of at least some deaths for many of them. (I could perhaps be persuaded to expand the project…)

The scope includes only the main universe (Prime Earth, New Earth, or Earth-0). It covers all eras from pre-Crisis to the present day, within the main timeline. It does not include elseworlds, imaginary stories, or alternative universes. For example, it does not include deaths and undeaths in DCeased, DC versus Vampires, or Injustice. It considers only comics, not movies, TV shows, radio plays, or other media. My goal is that it should at least be arguable, for any given character, that the same person has experienced all their death events in succession.

Definition of death experience

A character is considered dead if they are depicted or declared dead on panel (and this is not contradicted). They are also considered dead if they have no heartbeat, have no cerebral activity, or require CPR.

The death doesn’t have to be long to be included – brief flatlining counts. I’m including a note of the rough length of time the character is dead for each incident, at least in terms of order of magnitude (minutes, hours, days…).

I’m also including instances where a character is healed in a Lazarus Pit while dying or mortally wounded – in other words, where they would have died very shortly without the intervention of the Pit.

I debated whether or not to include instances of what the comics call ‘brain death’, where there is no cerebral activity, even if autonomous functions continue. In real life, my understanding is that a declaration of death for lack of brain activity requires brainstem death, where even autonomous functions are lost. But I decided in the end to include them, because in both cases where this occurs (both to Bruce) they are referred to on-panel as ‘clinical death’.

In addition to the above, I’m also separately keeping track of any visits to any afterlife or realm of the dead where the character doesn’t have to die to go there (summoning, portal, etc.).

Preliminary results

Bruce dies early and dies often. So far I have several dozen deaths for Bruce, in seventeen separate incidents.

His kids have a more reasonable 2–5 deaths each.

Duke is the only member of the Batfam (core or adjunct) whom I haven’t found any verifiable deaths for. Yet.

Deaths have been getting more frequent over the years, and they’re all getting pretty blasé about it.

Next steps

I’m going to write a post for each character listing and summarising their deaths, with volume and issue references. I’ll then dive into more detail in individual posts for some of the more interesting (to me) deaths and revivals. I’ll create a masterpost so you can keep track of them, and link it here.

Please send me asks!

Acknowledgements

Huge thanks are due to @lynzine and @zahri-melitor for helping and encouraging me with this project, letting me rant at them about this project and the comics I’ve read for it, and finding and suggesting deaths and potential deaths for me to look at. Without your encouragement I would have given up long ago.

The Batfam Death Project Masterpost

[whaliiwatching]

How DO you think universe signatures work? I don't think I've seen many theories or discussions on it but I also haven't been looking for them either

HOHOOO UNIVERSE SIGNATURES. ok. as i was rewatching scenes so i could write this, my theories fucking blinked out of existence :) there is as much consistency to universe signatures as there is to the atsv timeline.

alright lets see how incoherent this gets

btw i’m not using the word ‘dimension.’ incorrect scientific terminology in an animated spider man comic movie franchise about the multiverse? couldn’t be me. i already let them keep their holograms*

itsv came out in 2018 and is reported to have taken four years to make. in 2014, we couldn’t have made atsv; the technology hadn’t been developed, because there wasn’t yet a movie to demand it. (usually when the question comes up during production, the team has to invent an answer. like animating violet’s hair in the incredibles in 2004, or water in finding nemo in 2003, or fur for sully in the monsters inc movies, or the entire animation process of 2019’s klaus, or reflections on the cars in cars—) this, combined with itsv being set entirely in miles’s own universe, means that the b team’s (noir, peni, ham) universe signatures changing between universes can be attributed to 1. less worldbuilding than atsv and 2. lack of technological ability in 2014-2018 (no diss to the og animators obviously, itsv is fucking gorgeous)

but that’s a boring doylist analysis. i wonder if we can get watsonian. atsv, which was likely produced from 2017 or so to 2023, explores four more universes, rather than sticking to miles’s. surely it’ll have more answers!

i went through the entire movie to see what changes. not gonna bore y’all with a scene to scene analysis, so i’ll summarize: the only person who substantially differs between dimensions is gwen (abstract in E-65, solid but still pastel in E-1610, slightly more painted in E-50101, abstract again in E-928 during emotional scenes). hobie’s collage changes to match the tone or color palette of the universe around him, but doesn’t take on its signature. other than that, the only effect any universe has on every character is with its light, and the only effect to overpower a universe signature is a portal.

let’s pretend that in an infinite multiverse, such a thing as a standard can be set, and that standard is Comic Style. comparing it to itsv, where peni and ham gained depth from previously 2d-esque universes, it seems as though some things don’t change—general color palette and extreme stylistic divergences from the aforementioned standard, eg when atsv peni is styled in 2d—and some change universally—like universe-specific volumetric light, eg in itsv when E-1610’s halftone-style light gives peni depth and in atsv when E-928’s holographic-style light does the same in a different way.

then portals. they distort the space around them in their style of origin: organic portals always have miles’s universe’s signature because that’s where they were born; any portal opened with an E-928 watch has miguel’s orange holographic hexagon, no matter who uses them or where they open to; portals opened with hobie’s homemade watch are always collage, though they take on the color palette of the universe they’re opened in. that means portals have to be watch-specific, prolly based on the materials’ universe of origin, but in that case, hobie’s would look a lot like miguel’s since he harvested most if not all of the parts from E-928. so it has to be specific to either the person who made it or the universe it was made in.

but neither of those make sense! the degree of separation from universe/person that apparently applies to the watches doesn’t apply to items left in other universes. E-1610’s rubik’s cube retains its color and volume in noir’s universe, but the sweater gwen leaves on miles’s bed isn’t abstract, and the shoes she nicked from E-138 aren’t scrappy. even hobie’s watch is rendered in strangely crisp 3d, brightly colored and noticeably not collage.

and of course, both universe-specific light theory and portals-overpower-all theory aren’t totally consistent. hobie’s only properly illuminated when he’s in his base colors. but maybe that’s a quirk of atsv? he doesn’t glitch like paper in the radius of a portal—renaissance vulture didn’t glitch like paper either, maybe that’s just how glitching works! maybe it’s always that tv-signal-bright blocky mess! maybe there is one concrete rule in all this!!!!!

noir’s universe (during his intro scene, at least) comprises of three solid colors: black, light gray, and white, and volume/shadow is communicated through the intensity of halftone used. in itsv and in atsv he’s always in black and white, no matter the color of the light around him. he’s also the ONLY CHARACTER who glitches differently. noir breaks down in black and white!! when the team is lit up by gwen’s portal in atsv’s final scene he’s the only one not distorting in color!!!!! what the fuck man!!!!!!!!!

there isn’t one cohesive multiversal rule for how universe signatures act and interact with different universes, much as i’d love to have one. it raises too many questions and doesn’t give quite enough evidence to study. the closest i can theorize is color/style generally sticks and lighting/spatial physics generally doesn’t, and since that’s relatively simple, i’ll use it. gwen gets her photo-booth-app watercolors and peni/pav/ham/noir get just a little more rendered.

theories i have seen floating around that i also enjoy

gwen’s universe requires people to be in tune with it, to reflect their emotions—implying that the floaty abstract art during her scene with her father is diagetic. so when she’s not in her universe, she’s not like her universe.

hobie’s universe signature necessitates that he doesn’t conform to any other style

on that note, so would ham’s, because cartoon logic defeats reality logic

hope you enjoyed!! or at least were amused by my suffering <3

*do not get me started on holograms

[diakkoday]

DIAKKO DAY 2023!

It’s that time again! The Diakko community is once again uniting to celebrate our favourite little gay witches, and this time, we’re hoping it’s gonna be even bigger and better than last year!

February 1st is an opportunity for all fans of Diakko to post fanfiction, fanart, headcanons, videos, edits, or anything else you can think of focused on Diakko!

We’ve provided some answers to common questions below, but if you have anything else you want to ask, don’t hesitate to send us a message here, or on Twitter.

We’d also like to extend a huge thanks to @yourcutesthope​ for her fantastic art to kick off our countdown hype! If your interested in doing a piece to countdown the weeks to Diakko day, let us know!

How do I participate?

Participating is simple! All you need to do is post whatever Diakko work you create on February 1st, and tag it as #DiakkoDay2023! Tagging this account also makes it easier for us to find your work and share it, and tagging it #diakko, #dianakko, and #LittleWitchAcademia makes it easier for other Diakko fans to find and enjoy your work!

We’ll also be sharing everything over on Twitter! We’ll be using the same #DiakkoDay20223 hashtag, and we also suggest using #Diakko, #LWA_jp, and #ダイアコ on Twitter. Last year, we got plenty of submissions from beyond the English-speaking fandom, so using the internationally recognised hashtags can help spread your work and the event far and wide!

Is there a theme? Are there any rules?

There’s no theme, you can submit whatever you like! This is simply a day to celebrate Diakko!

That said, we won’t be reblogging or retweeting NSFW content. For writers, this means your fic or chapter needs to be rated T or G. For artists, that means no boobs, genitalia, blood/gore, BDSM themes or similar. If you’re not sure if your work falls under these rules, please feel free to shoot us a DM on either Tumblr or Twitter!

Additionally, we would request that writers send us only one fic chapter or oneshot that they wish to be shared. Artists may send collages or comics with multiple images if they so wish, but we’d ask that you send them as a single post to make sharing them easier, thank you!

Why February 1st?

According to the timeline outlined in The Little Witch Academia Chronicles book, the finale of Little Witch Academia most likely takes place on February 1st. And what better day to celebrate Diakko than the day the two of them saved the world! And held hands! In space!

Also no one can prove they didn’t kiss after the camera panned away, OK?

Is this connected to Diakko Week? Why Diakko Day?

Because most ships, especially anime ships, have popular days to celebrate them in their fandoms! These are often fun dates, like combining the two characters’ favourite numbers, or the canonical day they met, so the community figured Diakko needed one too! The great number of submissions last year would seem to agree, and we can’t wait to see what you all have for us this year!

Diakko Week is a separate event that occurs in the summer. Some of the folks involved in organising Diakko Week are also part of the team for Diakko Day (they say hi!), but the two events are distinct (hence our lack of prompts), united primarily by our desire to celebrate our favourite witches.

Is there any way I can get more involved? I’d love to meet more folks from the Diakko community!

Aside from commenting and sharing each other’s posts on the day, you can also join our Discord! Simply add our admin LavMana#0188 and ask about joining the Little Gay Witches! Our community is primarily writers and artists for Diakko and other LWA and wider WLW fandoms, but we have plenty of fans who enjoy hanging out so come say hi!

And that should be everything! Please don’t hesitate to send us an ask if you have any questions, and we’re looking forward to seeing your submissions on February 1st!

[elanorpam]

Hey, ive been a fan of your cultstuck series since i first read it 10 years ago and its one that i hold dear along woth toastyglow and their siblings' works. Given that we are all adults now with very busy lives, i dont expect you to kerp up with an old project like writing a fan novel fpr free, but i am curious as what ur current plants for earthbent are, if there are any atm.

(Tbh id be happy with any answer you provide, whether its a detailed outline, an unsure shrug, an excited wink hinting at a deadline or an announcement of permanent hiatus. Youve given so much with your writing, thst i just want you to be happy with whatever plans u have)

hey there! i'm going to go with unsure shrug as an answer here.

see, I did have a detailed outline for cultstuck-- i wrote it all down at around ...2015? very soon after the second eridan chapter, and sent it to my beta, who then proceeded to ghost me forever. I was already sensing she was growing disinterested in the fic/the fandom, giving constant excuses, and I myself was dealing with an anxiety/depression combo that would sharply nosedive by the time the finale came around, so i just... let it go. She didn't care. I wasn't in a good mental place to care. We went our separate ways.

I decided to take a mental health sabbatical, and now, after a few years of sertraline and therapy, the thought of picking it back up is very, very far down my list of priorities. I have so many other fics I want to write, for media which hasn't let me this profoundly down! And also, Cultstuck was conceptualized in the post-cascade hiatus, in chat logs and rough outlines, and was never supposed to take later canon into account unless it dropped any interesting, matching lore...

...but late act 6 took such a dump on the characters and the setting that it took the joy right out of playing on my patch of sandbox, fenced off as it was. And I couldn't connect with the Retcon timeline at all, but some of its developments are so popular and so deeply entrenched that I hesitate to contradict them even though i kind of hate the whole thing and never meant to take it into account?

Let's take the strongest example: Davekat. Dave and Karkat in Cultstuck were never meant to be anything more than mutually annoying acquaintances connected only indirectly via Terezi-- Dave was to be her moirail, and aro-ace besides. This was because for the entirety of the comic, that was the only vibe I got from Dave as a character, and from his interactions with Karkat as a whole-- he and Karkat felt too similar in mutually unpleasant ways, like a cousin that's just enough like you to give you second-hand embarrassment. So by the point the comic was playing coy with pushing the New Dave and New Karkat action figures together, you couldn't get me to care about Davekat if you put a gun to my head. This really hasn't changed in the least. And that means whenever I think of dealing with disappointed Davekat fans in the future of the fic, I just feel an all-encompassing, soul-deep exhaustion.

but i also don't want to drop the fic altogether, for some reason? Like, I might not feel this way forever. So idk, i'm keeping my options open i guess. Subscribe to the fic/series and maybe 10 years from now you'll get a notification like a holiday miracle. Who knows.

[ask-the-tf2-mercs]

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this post may update from time to time

Info About Shipping | Ask AUs | The Intern

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all OOC posts will be tagged: "//mundeez nuts" all fanart posts will be tagged: "//mannmail"

Asks will be posted at 10AM, 2PM, and 5PM CT (Central Time) Fanart will be posted at 12PM CT (Central Time)

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Blog Rules

"why hasn't my ask been posted yet?" I queue / schedule posts, and often I have several days in queue. chances are it's in there and will be posted at some point so I ask you to be patient. however, there is always the possibility it's one I deleted either due to me not knowing how to respond, or not feeling comfortable responding

this is not an RP blog. I may be roleplaying as the Mercs answering your questions, but please do not send asks roleplaying as yourself or your characters, and please do not reply to posts doing so either

please keep your questions directed to no more than three Mercs at a time. if you have a question for more than three, I encourage you to ask my main headcanon blog, doobnnoob-tf2 and I will go on and answer that for the whole team. this is because the Mercs will most likely be interacting with each other on the post and I don't want them getting too long

vague asks will be deleted. i.e, asks not directed at anyone in particular; "this is for whoever sees it", "for any of the mercs", "to whoever opens the letter", etc.

do not god-mode your way into forcing a reaction. this means either by spamming asks to try and change the answer to fit your narrative, or sending an ask where you detail out how you want the Merc(s) in question to react. this is a headcanon blog, accept I will respond how I think they would

there is no RED vs BLU. this blog follows "actual" canon, not in-game canon. as in, the comics. there may be asks that reference the BLU team but I will no longer be doing so to avoid confusion

transformation/"specific scenario" asks (for lack of better description) are their own AU. things like Pyro being a dragon, TentaSpy/TentaScout, etc. are all their own timelines separate from any general asks. this is to reduce people spamming "and now I've fixed it" asks in the inbox

do not tag/reply to/reblog a post with things like "kin" or "me" or anything of the sort, especially not "self-ship". it makes me uncomfortable

for personal reasons, I will not answer genderbent asks or child-related asks

no questions pertaining to Merc x Reader/OC/generic S/O character. I'm willing to tackle ficlets involving these topics, however I would prefer to be paid for them as they require a lot of work to get right

if you intend on reblogging a post just to "correct" it, I encourage you to simply make your own post. it's simply rude and uncalled for

this is a SFW only blog. do not send non-SFW or even suggestive asks. I will not give warnings about this, I will just block you - anonymous or not

you can ask other characters questions. Pauling, the Administrator, Saxton, Bidwell, etc. however these may not always be answered, depending on how well I feel like I can portray that character at the time

BYF

I wish to reiterate this: this is NOT a roleplay blog. please do not follow/interact with the hopes of roleplaying with this blog

that said, I may be willing to be lenient on the above rule in the future, but at this current moment in time I'd like people to respect this

I block pretty freely, plain and simple. I'm here to enjoy myself and my time as much as everyone else, and that means limiting people who indulge in content that makes me uncomfortable from interacting with my blog

if you are a proshipper, you're disgusting and fuck off. you're not welcome here

I may not answer every ask. either because I can't think of a good answer, or it's a topic I'm just not comfortable answering. but I will try to get to everything I can

I'm very picky about ships I'll answer things for on this blog, please see my shipping page for more information. and please do not tag non shipping posts as shipping

About the Mod

Daniel / Aster

he/vamp/bat, gay-ace transman

28, Oct. 6

CARRD

main tf2/headcanon blog ⛧ furry art blog ⛧ personal blog

I am open to roleplaying outside of this blog! however, only with people 18+ since I myself am an adult

[drplantboss]

I think that Sonic media could benefit somewhat from an approach to canon similar to what the SCP Wiki does.

For those who don’t know, the SCP wiki uses a “choose-you-own-canon” style of universal consistency. This makes sense for it in particular because it’s a community writing project. It’s hard to get everyone on the same page when “everyone” encompasses literally thousands of writers. What this has done is created a system where there are general elements that will almost always be internally consistent — the SCP foundation itself, the other groups of interest, the containment classes and danger levels — while still allowing people the freedom to bend the rules in order to make their stories work. Some entries are written from the perspective of the foundation hundreds of years into the future. Some of them take place in alternate realities or the places in-between. As stated, this works very well because it allows authors to craft their own stories, and it also allows readers to choose what kind of story they want to see.

Obviously, this can’t have a 1-to-1 translation to Sonic. There have been a whole lot of Sonic writers through the years, but nowhere near the level that the SCP wiki has. It’s also an official product, licensed and produced by a company that pays people. Nevertheless, I think some elements of this fluid canon approach could still be applied to Sonic given the right execution.

At this point in time with Sonic “lore” for even just the games, there’s a whole lot of confusion about what the timeline of events is, what events actually happened, and whether they even happened to the characters we think. Generations and Forces did a lot of this because of the introduction of the “classic” timeline, which is apparently separate and distinct to the “modern” timeline — essentially, the timeline splits after Sonic 3&K. This is something that has been extremely unclear, and even what I just said is still just the idea that has been most widely accepted from “official” tweets. The problem is that this makes understanding what is happening, when, and to whom very nebulous.

This is something that was an issue for one game in particular, 18 years ago: Shadow the Hedgehog (2005). Shadow has 11 different endings, and 326 possible ways to get to each of the 10 primary endings. Each of these paths is a pure hypothetical; the game is posing the question and then answering: “What would Shadow do if this happened?” Only the final, “true” 11th ending is a concrete addition to canon — the rest is up to speculation. Obviously, some chain of events leads to Shadow betraying Black Doom, remembering his memories, discovering he isn’t an android, and quieting his inner turmoil. We just don’t know what those specific events are.

While this has been infuriating to some Sonic fans who want to have a concrete canon, I think this might actually be a fairly good approach to use for basically every Sonic story. Does this take place in the same universe as [other piece of Sonic media]? Unless it otherwise states it, that’s up to you! This would give each writer the freedom to choose what aspects of the Sonic world to bring with them into the narrative they want to tell — universe consistency be damned. It would also allow fans to interpret the works as they see fit; something a lot of Sonic fans already do in spite of blatant contradictions. This would make the differentiation of the “classic” and “modern” timelines pointless, and it would allow for integration with external media. References to the IDW comics, Sonic Prime, or other adaptations of the character could be mixed and matched.

One of the main issues I see arising from this would be a bit of an increase in difficulty when writing a Sonic story. While having rules may be restrictive, having the freedom to do what you want can be a bit of a headrush when writing. It’s easy to trip over your own narrative coils when you don’t have a neatly laid out thread with which to start. I wouldn’t envy being a Sonic team writer in that instance. But, hey — if fanfic writers can do it, I’m sure they could make it work.

The other issue would be fandom reception. Sonic fans are notoriously fickle, and I don’t really think this would “help,” per se. The key to success would come with the fandom’s willingness (or unwillingness) to accept that not everything is canon to everything else. I know that the infamous tweet “everything is canon” gets a lot of mileage, but I don’t think it was meant to be interpreted the way many people do. I think it’s more meant along the lines of what I’ve been saying here — even if the events aren’t consistent within the universe as a whole, the events that are meaningful in that interaction are true to themselves. In Shadow the Hedgehog, the events of those 10 endings and the buildup may not have actually come to pass, but that is how Shadow and the other characters would have behaved if they were to happen in that order. Getting over the hurdle of simply not having a defined canon would be very challenging for a lot of people.

To summarize my thoughts, I think it boils down to this:

Sonic struggles with canon because of a multitude of inconsistencies already, so the writers should embrace the inconsistency and let the individual writers and fans determine how they wish to perceive the events of the world as they see fit.

[ziracona]

Given how your ideal Myers is based on the H20 version, have you looked up the tie in comics? I'm not saying you're depiction is wrong, but in those he's worse than ever. He does stuff like spiking kids' candy with razor blades, killing an entire family, torturing Loomis' friend to death, cutting out a man's tongue, and burying a girl alive. You can argue it's non canon, but that is still inexcusably evil. Mike may not be as bad as some other killers, but he's still capable of heinous shit.

I really don’t know why you keep asking me this kind of thing. My answer isn’t going to change. If it’s non-canon, why would it matter if it’s inexcusably evil? It wouldn’t apply to the canon character if it’s not canon. One version of him being capable of heinous actions, doesn’t mean they all are. Every canon version of The Joker is The Joker, but The Killing Joke’s universe’s Joker is unrecognizably a different character than Telltale Batman’s Joker. That’s just how media with alternate versions of characters work. I know he does inexcusably evil things in many Halloween timelines. But even when it comes to canon, being canon in one timeline, is not canon in every timeline. Even officially licensed tie-ins aren’t often the exact same timeline. IE Terminator’s novelization, but several parts canonically cannot happen in the timeline of the film, despite it being generally faithful, because they directly contradict time and actions that happen on-screen. Ergo, the novelization and the movie are parallel, but still separate timelines. What is true of Halloween Kills Michael, is not true of comic Michael, is not true of DbD Michael, is not true of H20 Michael. What one does doesn’t affect my perception of other versions, canonically separated, of the same character.

Even when it comes to closer media, like comics, where incredibly different takes on characters are ‘canon’ at the same time, it is and always has been commonly accepted and expected fandom rhetoric, that it’s impossible to judge a character for every single thing they’ve ever been written to do, especially since so many versions of them by hundreds of different writers, contradict each other. And it’s impossible for basically everyone to consume all the content anyway. So some people will like characters someone else despises, and often not because they’re wildly different types of fans, but because they read wildly different versions of the character first, and that became true canon to them. It’s just kind of how it has to work. I will forever despise Wolverine, because I read classic X-Men and he was a shithead and he murdered one of my favorites in cold blood for no reason, and had the gall to be sanctimonious about it. But I don’t expect someone whose mental version of Logan is contemporary Logan, or the films, or X-Men Evo, to feel the same as me.

That logic applies infinitely more to things like Halloween, where there are like 10 canonically acknowledged timelines going. Would I hate OG Star Trek Uhura if the version of her in the JJ Abrams movie did something awful? No. It’s not the same person. Does Tom Holland Spidey affect how I feel about Toby Maguire? It doesn’t matter if some versions of him are awful, and despicable, when it comes to me liking or sympathizing with another. If you were introduced to him in a way that made you hate not just that one, but every version, and will always feel so, or even if it wasn’t a different Michael, but you have a personal reason? —I was buddies with someone who hated him forever because of their own brother, and personal experience—that’s valid. Feel free to never change. But it doesn’t make my interpretation wrong. Mine isn’t. And I don’t need to change mine either.

One of the most important things to remember both in fandom and film criticism, is it’s entirely possible for multiple people with opposing views to both be right (or wrong) simultaneously. What is harmful genuinely to some heals others. Mulholland Drive is both homophobic for demonizing its Lesbian’s love and burying your gays like 4 times, and it has value in queer cinema for being a film about Lesbians center stage that has mattered to some. Even if you don’t like that I feel how I do, because you feel very different, it doesn’t make me wrong. Please stop messaging me to try and get me to change my mind; it both is never going to happen, and genuinely objectively doesn’t need to. And you don’t need it to. You don’t have to care at all what I think or how I feel about this if you don’t want to. I have no power over how you need to think or feel about him yourself. Only over myself and what I think and care for and will create.

[pxiedustnblades]

*knocks on the door quietly, and then peek inside, bringing cookies and chocolate*

Hi Faye! :D How are you doing? I saw your requests for ask and questions, so, here I am bringing them to you! :D

1,2,3,6,9,13,20,27 and 28! :D I know they are a lot, so feel free to answer only the one you feel the most! No need to answer them all, if they make you feel overwhelmed. :)

--Nemo

Nemo!!

Oh my goodness thank you so much for the chocolate & cookies! Always a treat to hear from you. And always more then happy to oblige with answering those asks. While there are a lot, I am eager to answer them all. I am up to the challenge. Here, have some coffee for while you read.

1) Who was your first ever OC? Do you still "use" them? How have they evolved over time?

Aww this is a treat! My first ever OC was a HC’d lovechild between Kisshu and Ichigo from Tokyo Mew Mew. Her name was Claire Momomiya and I adored her like nothing else. Even so far as to making a silly little comic book with a school friend. The writing was atrocious and very cliche middle schooler wattpad weeb. 🤣 So you know, grossly cringe. Ugh since then Claire is still used be she is completely separate from her original counterpart. She now goes by Clara and has matured a great deal. Although I don’t use her anymore, she is still such a memorable and precious OC that she will never be discarded. I will find something for her one day.

2) Who is your newest OC Why did you make them?

Yvette is my newest oc! I made her shortly after I started playing God of War and saw Tyr’s design. After hearing what a gentle giant he was, and then seeing him in Ragnarok, I couldn’t help but be smitten. That and comparing my own height to his. 😳 He’s such a sweet, wise soul whats not to love though? Even if he is a bit of awkward giraffe lolol. Between that and general simping gutter brain, I wanted to give him someone to love and be loved by. But not by me lmao. No self insert here. But uhh my gutter brain was strong with this one because size difference make brain go brrr. And somehow these became the horniest, most mature, yet sweet canon x oc ship I have to date. Whoops?

3) Biggest self-insert OC?

OOH! That would be my sweet pea, Faline! Closest tie with her would be Florence. Although both are actual self inserts. Faline has been my longest standing Self-insert (going on 2 years soon) and one that holds most of my similarities. Including my height, build, my autism, my not-so-great childhood, trauma, and mental health. Genuinely v little difference between her and I.

6) Do you have any OCs without stories? Will you ever create one for them?

I mentioned it before but Clara is currently the one without a story. Although I’m not quite sure if you’re talking actual physical written & completed story or just a general background. I’m assuming the latter, but please correct me if I’m wrong. I will eventually give Clara a proper story, but for now she is content seeing me bond with my other OCs.

9) Favourite OC?

Oh my Gods, Nemo; how can you ask me such a thing? 🤣Just kidding I can actually answer this. My beloved Claudia is my favorite. She was such a treat to create. To go from a minor character made to push a plot point, to then being one of my biggest muses, she is a gem and a half. She is as complex as she is beautiful, and I look forward to continue creating stories for her and Darius.

13) Which story has the most lore?

Oh Gods “Saints & Sinners” by far. Ash and I have spent almost two years developing that universe. It initially started off as a silly “what-if” thing but now we have a whole world, timeline, rules, deities for every basic thing, A deity hierarchy system, Soul-bondings, rules for said deities, the reset system, etc. it used to only focus on four characters, now its expanded to following 8. 4 couples, all soul-bonded deities. It’s an incredible experience.

20) What story are you the proudest of? Why?

Hmmm probably “burn scars” as of right now. Its still in the works but its pushing me out of my comfort zone to deal with more graphic, emotion-heavy scenes. Trying to capture something like that is not easy, but considering it’s such a crucial part in Darius & Claudia’s timeline I am determined to get it right.

What are your favourite movies?

I’m not much of a movie person in general but the ones that have higher chances of holding my attention are animated films. I’m the worst when it comes to watching films. Its like pulling teeth to get me to do.

Thank you again for asking me everything Nemo! I hope you enjoyed!

- Faye

[thankskenpenders]

Scourge the Speed Demon: A summary

Because this has all been crazy, here's a timeline of this whole situation with Penders licensing out Scourge. This has been a huge mess and the fandom has turned it into a big game of telephone, so for posterity I just wanna have one complete post about what happened.

Pre-announcement

August 18th, 2021: Penders announces that he intends to license out his Acorn Kingdom-based Archie Sonic characters. (Licensing them, not selling them. People keep saying he's selling them. He's not.) Specifically named are supporting characters like Prince Elias, Geoffrey St. John, and Queen Alicia, but most notably, Evil Sonic AKA Anti-Sonic AKA Scourge is on the list. This offer is aimed at fans and third parties, but also Sega and IDW, as Ken believes that them licensing his characters would be mutually beneficial. Fans mostly continue to be bewildered and outraged by the fact that Ken owns a character who originated as Sonic but with a leather jacket and sunglasses, although some who still like the guy instead optimistically respond with "Yay, the Archie characters are coming back!" (They're not.)

(I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of the copyright situation because I Am Not A Lawyer and we'd be here all day, but yes, Penders does own Scourge. He just can't say he's Sonic the Hedgehog anymore. No, it isn't fair, but he does. Archie losing the contracts made everything more complicated. This was all settled in court years ago.)

August 23rd: During a BumbleKast Q&A, Ian Flynn is asked about the licensing offer and the prospect of Sega striking a deal with Ken to use those characters in the IDW comics. Listen to the linked podcast clip if you want Ian's full explanation, but a partial summary:

Ian states up front very clearly that he's just a freelancer and that he doesn't represent Sega or IDW. But in his opinion, they probably wouldn't think it was worth the trouble to license old supporting characters from a third party, especially when Sega currently doesn't want the comics to reference SatAM at all. Characters like Elias and Alicia would need to be radically altered to separate them from Sally, and at that point they might as well just make new characters. Keep that last comment in mind, as it'll become relevant very soon... (Ian does, however, add that he loves writing Elias, and reminds listeners that getting to work on the original Archie Sonic universe was a dream come true for him. He just doesn't think Sega would go for it.)

But, again, Ian says that this is just his personal guess, and that if a deal was made he would happily admit he was wrong

Later that night: Outraged by an inaccurate secondhand account of Ian's podcast answer, Ken releases an outline of his proposed licensing deal in an attempt to explain why Ian's reasoning is, in his words, "absolute bullshit." He argues that he "really is easy to deal with," and that Ian simply doesn't want to work with non-game characters, which is absolutely not what he said at all. When confronted about what Ian actually said, Ken tells people to Google it because he "doesn't spend his time searching this stuff out."

Said licensing deal is widely derided by Sonic fans, mostly because of the relatively steep asking price of $10,000 up front against royalties for a two year license, but also in part because he pads out the list of characters on the table with uber-obscure extras like Lt. Smiley and Dynamac-3000. Fans generally do not agree with Ken's assertion that "IDW and Sega would only benefit from the inclusion of his material."

August 26th: Following the initial solicits of IDW's Sonic: Imposter Syndrome miniseries from August 20th, we get the proper unveiling of Surge the Tenrec, a new evil green and black doppelganger of Sonic who's immediately compared to Scourge by fans for obvious reasons. While the influence is undeniable, writer Ian Flynn had wanted to include Surge and her companion Kit the Fennec in the IDW series since day one to form a villainous glitch character trio with Dr. Starline, with Surge being a tribute to the ever-popular "Ashura" glitch. Surge and Kit are immediately greeted with a massive wave of hype and fanart

August 30th: Nobody seems to bite with the $10k bulk licensing deal, but Ken says that several parties are interested in licensing individual characters or groups of characters from him for a lower amount

[Edit 11/21: This post originally contained a section detailing a rumor about an alleged Scourge licensing deal that I had been privately contacted about in October, and how said deal later supposedly fell apart. This information has since been proven to be an elaborate lie. The Scourge comic that we're about to talk about is the only one ever licensed by Penders. I apologize sincerely for adding to the confusion here. [Edit 11/26: If you want more info on the fake deal, here's a separate post.]]

Post-announcement

November 15th: "Scourge the Speed Demon" is announced

RUSH! Comics in association with @KenPenders is proud to announce production on a 4-issue mini-series, Scourge The Speed Demon! 🔥The Official Revival Of The King🔥 #ScourgeComic #Scourge Follow Scourge & his Hellfire Gang as they conquer The Wasteland.

Yes. He has a cigar now. I wonder whether or not he's still supposed to be 17 here

The Patreon-funded Scourge the Speed Demon (which, yes, was going to be a commercial product, not a free fancomic) is immediately hit with a massive wave of criticism via hundreds of replies and quote tweets. Fans are upset that Penders is not only licensing out the evil AU version of Sonic, but his Scourge persona in particular, which Ken had no involvement with. The makeover and name change were conceived by editor Mike Pellerito and artist Patrick Spaziante, and he was developed into a fan favorite character in stories by Ian Flynn and Tracy Yardley. (Contrary to popular belief, no, Ian is not solely responsible for Scourge's creation.) Plus, fans continue to blame Penders for Scourge's removal from the comics, although this is an oversimplification of what happened there. Ken did want Archie to license the characters back from him - they just didn't. But fans still blame him regardless. And, of course, many question the entire premise of giving Scourge his own series that has nothing to do with Sonic

Fans also look into the creative team behind Scourge the Speed Demon (which does not include Penders, who was merely giving them the license), and a number of red flags come up. For one, folks find out about a skeevy sexual harassment scene in Rush!, the team's previous comic for which their company is named, where the hero strips a pair of female villains nude in public because he thinks they're hot. More concerningly, it's discovered that the lead artist on the project is following a number of extreme right wing accounts like Breitbart, PragerU, Steven Crowder, the Trumps, and more, and she had liked some pretty heinous posts from them. (In particular, an Islamophobic tweet from alt right conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson is singled out, but there are some general MAGA tweets as well.) "The artist is a white supremacist" quickly becomes pretty much the only thing people are talking about regarding the comic aside from "fuck Penders." When Ken is asked about it, he says this:

November 16th: The Scourge the Speed Demon team releases the following statement in an attempt to clarify several points of controversy:

This statement does not help

November 17th: In the middle of all this, IDW's Sonic: Imposter Syndrome #1 comes out. The fandom continues to love Surge and Kit. A common refrain among fans is that nobody needs to license Scourge from Ken now that Surge exists. I wish the only Sonic thing I had to talk about this week was how cool Surge and Kit are

November 17th - 18th: At some point, people notice that the replies listing who was working on the comic under the announcement tweet have been deleted. Some assume that this is an attempt to hide their affiliation with the controversial artist, but I would guess it was due to how much hate the project was getting in general

The lead artist would also eventually unfollow the far right accounts that had gotten her called out. Maybe she really had changed and had just forgotten to unfollow those accounts since she's so inactive on Twitter. Maybe not. (A later comment from the writer described the exclusively far right political accounts the artist was following as "mainstream political commentators," and he also added "I'm Aussie I don't know nor give a fuck about American politics." This does not inspire confidence.) The artist has yet to say anything about any of this, and she probably never will because of what happened next

November 19th: After three days of radio silence, the Scourge the Speed Demon Twitter vanishes, the Patreon (which had accrued $29 in pledges) is taken down, and all mentions of the series are scrubbed from the Rush! Comics website. The writer releases this statement explaining that the project has been canceled a mere four days after its announcement due to the backlash:

I'll state clearly that I absolutely do not support targeted harassment (which is one reason why I'm not naming or linking members of the creative team on this post), especially as an artist who's been on the receiving end of it myself, and I tried very hard to set aside my opinions on Penders and just wish the Scourge team the best from the start. But it's unclear how much of this "abuse" was genuine harassment, and how much was people criticizing the core concept of a non-Sonic Scourge comic, the sexual harassment scene in Rush!, and the political views of the lead artist. It should also not be surprising to anyone that a new Sonic-adjacent project with Ken's name attached was received poorly by Sonic fans. Even if he was never going to have any creative input, I genuinely do not know what they thought would happen when they uttered the phrase "in association with Ken Penders" in the year of our lord 2021

But let's look at it another way: maybe the team dodged a bullet! The getting yelled at by the entire Sonic fandom part, not so much, but the project being canceled means they can't possibly get in trouble with Sega for copyright infringement. I have no idea what would've happened (again - not a lawyer), but while Ken does own Scourge, he's explicitly forbidden from making his new stuff look too much like Sonic to avoid brand confusion, which is why The Lara-Su Chronicles looks like that. But that Scourge design still looks A LOT like Sonic. The updates just make him look like Movie Sonic. Who knows how Sega would have responded had this thing actually made it to market

At the time of posting this over a full day after the cancelation, Penders has yet to make any sort of comment. He's just continued his Sisyphean task of arguing with people on Twitter about how he can claim ownership of Scourge

It's unclear what will happen next, but as Penders has apparently been in contact with multiple potential licensees, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw another announcement involving a Penders-owned Archie Sonic character before long. You know, provided the interested parties haven't been scared off after all this. I just pray that there's no news for at least a couple weeks so I can have a fucking break

[hood-ex]

I have read and am reading comics but it isn’t really clear to me how Jason went from trying to kill Bruce and Tim to kind of an ally. Could you explain this? And did other characters like Tim and Dick have something to do with it?

Sorry if you’ve already answered this.

(Completely separate from this but I just wanted to say it: I really love your fics and I absolutely adore your characterisations and how much they align with canon)

Right, so, Jason's relationship with the family didn't get positively rebuilt until the N52 reboot where parts of Jason's backstory were condensed to fit into N52's weird timeline. Babs summarized all the terrible shit Jason did before the reboot as "insane acts that he should be in prison for." She, rightfully, had a hostile attitude towards him.

However, Lobdell didn't write Tim with the same hostile attitude towards Jason despite the fact that Tim hated Jason in Post-Crisis. He had Tim and Jason feeding each other information instead (RHATO Vol. 1 #8). Jason admitted that he hadn't always been the nicest guy to Tim. Tim responded by essentially brushing off all the terrible shit Jason had done because Jason "had a lot to digest" after he'd been murdered/resurrected. Yeah, so, Lobdell basically had Tim wave away Jason's past crimes just to create some bullshit relationship between them.

On a separate occasion, Tim reached out to Jason and suggested that Jason should come help the family with the Court of Owls situation (AKA help them stop all the Talons from killing people). Roy, Kory, and Jason then ended up helping the batfam out. So Jason and Tim were given more of a positive relationship in N52 but it wasn't developed in a natural way that made sense. Lobdell just decided all the beef between them wouldn't exist anymore.

The aftermath of Batman: Death of the Family led to Jason being more integrated into the family. After Jason was hurt by the acid in his helmet, he and Bruce reconciled (RHATO Vol. 1 #18) enough to work together. That was why Jason agreed to go to Ethiopia with Bruce (Batman and Robin Vol. 2 #20). But during that mission, Bruce abused Jason's trust in order to get information to save Damian. Later, Bruce tried to gain Jason's trust back (and Babs and Tim's trust as well). It resulted in Bruce asking Babs, Jason, and Tim to protect Gotham while he went to Apokolips to resurrect Damian (Batman and Robin Vol. 2 #34).

After that whole mess, Jason was then seen working more with the other Robins during the Batman & Robin Eternal series and Robin War event.

So, basically, the events of Batman: The Court of Owls and Batman: Death of the Family are what led to Jason becoming more of an ally to the family. If you want an idea of what Jason's relationship with the family initially looked like during that time of rebuilding trust then I'd take a look at Batman and Robin Vol. 2 #10.

[spicyicymeloncat]

I have a couple of questions about your Ninjago Non Human AU.

1st Who pays for everything? (Food, Bills, etc)

2nd How did Kai meet everyone? Was it through Nya or someone else?

3rd What does Kai do when he has a moment 2 himself?

1) hmmm well I think Kai still has his dad in the au, and they still run a blacksmith shop. Although since it’s a modern au, it’s more of a garage. I think Kai probably works there part time on top of school and stuff. Maybe Jay sells random inventions made of junk whilst putting on a human disguise, in like the corner of the blacksmiths shop, but he’s probably not making profit. I assume the group struggles for money for a bit until Lloyd mentions that he has like a hoard of gold stashed on a mountain because he’s a dragon. He could’ve told them earlier but in his defence he doesn’t understand human currency. He’ll share some of his money for pizza but overall they all have to find work. Maybe Nya sells rare seashells and stuff on eBay. I think it would be funny to see Cole and Zane try to pass as human and get part time jobs. Like late night janitors or something. Ooh like this!

This post got long so 2 and 3 under the cut

2) (I had this written down somewhere but I can’t find it and I don’t remember all of it so I’m gonna just rework the timeline. If I end up retconning anything)

Short answer is: Kai basically meets everyone separately but most of their encounters are due to the fact that Kai bought a house and everyone happened to be around.

So Kai lived with his family originally, his dad is human and his mother is a sea spirit. Kai got the human genes and Nya got the spirit ones. And they all lived together until Nya was like 12 years old when she and her mother returned to the sea to connect with it (maybe at a certain age she needed to learn to control her powers). So it’s just Kai (age 14) and Ray.

Later on Kai wants to earn like maybe a history degree (focusing in ancient Ninjago, all about time of the dragons and the serpentine, and water elemental sand such so he can understand more about the experiences he’s had) but he has to go to uni, which means he has to get a house closer to it. (Ray also just wants to kick Kai out of the house to be more independent, he didn’t want Kai to feel like he has to look after Ray now Maya is gone). So Kai goes and rents out the cheapest house he can find and it’s really run down. It’s also haunted. By Cole.

Kai also finds that he’s sharing the house with Lloyd, who pretends to be a human at first and is generally a pleasant roommate. His mother does some lectures at the university but spends more time travelling and researching stuff. Lloyd wants to learn more about human life and eventually Lloyd reveals he’s not human and he and Kai both learn from each other. (Also Lloyd has met Kai before but Kai doesn’t know that yet, I think I might do a comic to expand on this).

Meanwhile Jay is living in the sewers near the house, because he’s trying to hide from society because he’s a snake, but he’s kinda tailing Kai because Kai mentions that one of his course modules is on the serpentine and basically Jay is trying to glean info on maybe a cure for himself. However it turns out Kai is not that great at studying so I like to think Jay breaks into his house to complete assignments for him and that goes on for a while.

On a field trip to the sea on an assignment, Kai finds Nya again and after catching up, Nya decides that she wants to go back to humanity, so Kai manages to take her back to the house (she’s probably technically running away from whatever ocean responsibilities she’s supposed to have. Also Lloyd probably helps transport Nya, maybe they can bond over being dragon-like beings).

As soon as Nya gets there, she can sense Jay is in the sewers and rats him out, and they all invite Jay to live with them, because half of them are already hiding their inhumanity so they may as well stick together. Cole’s kinda apprehensive at all the people suddenly living in his haunting grounds but he warms up to everyone eventually.

At some point maybe the gang visit Jay’s parents, who are also snakes, at the junkyard, where they happen across Zane, unconscious in the rubble. He’s powered off and the group decides to try and take him home and fix him in Kai’s dad’s garage. Kai uses his (albeit mediocre) blacksmith’s skills combined with Jay and Nya (who is learning about mechanics) engineering abilities to fix Zane, who wakes up with his only memory being his name, although they’re working on trying to restore the rest of his memories as well. He’s quite happy to stay and try and repay them for their help and he joins the effort to learn more about each other. Whatever happened to him is a mystery, perhaps an ominous one…

(Anyone is free to suggest anything better, I’m free styling this haha)

3) sleep lol. Jk, I like to think he takes martial art classes as his own thing. The others are more into video games than him, but he probably had one fighter game that’s his thing (kinda taking inspired from s1)

[diakkoday]

It’s that time again! The Diakko community is once again uniting to celebrate our favourite little gay witches, and this time, we’re hoping it’s gonna be even bigger and better than last year!

February 1st is an opportunity for all fans of Diakko to post fanfiction, fanart, headcanons, videos, edits, or anything else you can think of focused on Diakko!

We’ve provided some answers to common questions below, but if you have anything else you want to ask, don’t hesitate to send us a message here, or on Twitter.

We’d also like to extend a huge thanks to @commieakko​ for her fantastic art to kick off our countdown hype!

How do I participate?

Participating is simple! All you need to do is post whatever Diakko work you create on February 1st, and tag it as #DiakkoDay2022! Tagging this account also makes it easier for us to find your work and share it, and tagging it #diakko, #dianakko, and #LittleWitchAcademia makes it easier for other Diakko fans to find and enjoy your work!

We’ll also be sharing everything over on Twitter! We’ll be using the same #DiakkoDay2022 hashtag, and we also suggest using #Diakko, #LWA_jp, and #ダイアコ on Twitter. Last year, we got plenty of submissions from beyond the English-speaking fandom, so using the internationally recognised hashtags can help spread your work and the event far and wide!

Is there a theme? Are there any rules?

There’s no theme, you can submit whatever you like! This is simply a day to celebrate Diakko!

That said, we won’t be reblogging or retweeting NSFW content. For writers, this means your fic or chapter needs to be rated T or G. For artists, that means no boobs, genitalia, blood/gore, BDSM themes or similar. If you’re not sure if your work falls under these rules, please feel free to shoot us a DM on either Tumblr or Twitter!

Additionally, we would request that writers send us only one fic chapter or oneshot that they wish to be shared. Artists may send collages or comics with multiple images if they so wish, but we’d ask that you send them as a single post to make sharing them easier, thank you!

Why February 1st?

According to the timeline outlined in The Little Witch Academia Chronicles book, the finale of Little Witch Academia most likely takes place on February 1st. And what better day to celebrate Diakko than the day the two of them saved the world! And held hands! In space!

Also no one can prove they didn’t kiss after the camera panned away, OK?

Is this connected to Diakko Week? Why Diakko Day?

Because most ships, especially anime ships, have popular days to celebrate them in their fandoms! These are often fun dates, like combining the two characters’ favourite numbers, or the canonical day they met, so the community figured Diakko needed one too! The great number of submissions last year would seem to agree, and we can’t wait to see what you all have for us this year!

Diakko Week is a separate event that occurs in the summer. Some of the folks involved in organising Diakko Week are also part of the team for Diakko Day (they say hi!), but the two events are distinct (hence our lack of prompts), united primarily by our desire to celebrate our favourite witches.

Is there any way I can get more involved? I’d love to meet more folks from the Diakko community!

Aside from commenting and sharing each other’s posts on the day, you can also join our Discord! Simply add our admin esn#1339 and ask about joining the Little Gay Witches! Our community is primarily writers and artists for Diakko and other LWA and wider WLW fandoms, but we have plenty of fans who enjoy hanging out (and yelling at their favourite writers to update more often).

And that should be everything! Please don’t hesitate to send us an ask if you have any questions, and we’re looking forward to seeing your submissions on February 1st!

[warriorrazor]

Welcome to the Spooky Family AU Masterpost!

The Spooky Family AU is an AU for Spooky Month (which is a web animation by Sr Pelo). I’ve posted quite a few things for it, so everything I’ve posted for it is all sorted out here for your convenience!

Very quick and basic summary:

Lila finds out Pump is being extremely neglected by his father. Pump stays at her place all the time and she loves the little guy so she is having NONE of that. She goes through the whole process of reporting child neglect, getting a lawyer and doing large amounts of court research, and gaining custody of Pump. Lila and Skid then proceed to shower him with the love and affection that he deserves, and they become the most loving, spooky, Halloween-obsessed family the world has ever seen.

*****

So that’s a very condensed explanation of this AU, but I’ll probably be posting more stuff about it as I develop it more. While I do, please feel free to tell me what you think about this, literally any comments/questions/asks/additions would make my day!

For now, here are some AU details (fun facts?) that probably vary in importance:

Spooky Family boys reference

Lila doesn’t want to leave Skid in the dark about the situation. She tries to explain it to him in kid terms. Thankfully Skid is an extremely empathetic kid and while he may not completely understand, he wants to help Pump however he can.

If you think Skid and Pump couldn’t get any closer, oh boy. Now that they’re brothers, they do pretty much EVERYTHING together. They’re inseparable most of the time. They somehow manage to never get bored of each other.

Not only did Pump joining the family bring him closer to Skid and Lila, it also brought Lila and Skid closer to each other. Their bond has never been stronger.

Pump is pretty touchstarved. Thankfully Lila and Skid are always there when he needs to be held.

Pump was at first shy about calling Lila “mom”, but after many days of Lila assuring Pump it was okay, he now says it a lot.

Because he didn’t always get much to eat, Pump will eat pretty much anything given to him, unlike Skid who would eat candy and dinosaur nuggets his whole life if he could. Lila often explains to Pump that it’s okay to have preferences and he can ask for snacks whenever he wants, both take Pump a bit of time to get used to.

Pump had like, two toys so he finds himself overwhelmed by the amount of toys Skid has. Skid wants to share them all with him.

Pump sometimes has nightmares of Lila and Skid leaving or abandoning him (as well as other things, he’s quite prone to nightmares in general). At first Pump would run to Lila’s room whenever he would have one, but now Skid has gotten good at comforting him too. (They share a room, there is a guest room but Skid and Pump love sharing a room.)

Pico sometimes babysits the boys (not a big part in the AU but I don’t want to leave it out bc Friday Night Funkin’ is what got me into Spooky Month in the first place-).

Posts so far in the order of the AU timeline (Bolded posts are important events, italics are fun facts n’ stuff):

Late night research - a drawing

Pump Joins the Family - a summary of Lila finding out about Pump’s father and her gaining custody of Pump

Hope Within Winter - a poem

Finally Together - an in-depth look at Lila working to gain custody of Pump, and a mini story of Pump finally joining the family. Additionally, the first drawing I made for the AU.

Pumpkin Bear - a drawing, a lil bit of writing, and a doodle

Weekly spaghetti night - a mini comic

Broken toy - a mini comic

Don’t separate them - a drawing

Safe and Sound - a small fic

Mother’s Day - a drawing and some doodles

Hugs galore - a drawing

A mother’s worries - a drawing (Additionally, midnight check-in)

Lil baker - a drawing

Stimming! - a drawing

Familial love - a mini comic

Inktober things - some lil sketches

Assorted fun facts

Skid and Pump ramblings

Lila fun facts

Jaune stuff

Hatzgang headcanons

Answers to some particular asks:

Pumpkin Bear vs Happy Fella

Protective Skid

Sometimes Skid needs comfort too

Sleeby tired

If you’re looking for more, take a look at the comments on this post! Some people have offered some amazing ideas and have helped me already expand this AU a bunch!

*****

So obviously this AU deals with themes of emotional abuse and neglect. I’ll be tagging my posts accordingly, and this AU will also be tagged “spooky month spooky family AU” and such, so please feel free to block the tag if this AU makes you feel uncomfortable, I won’t be offended. Also if there are any tags you want me to add, please let me know!