#just in RP stuff or fanfic or whatever
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seventh-district · 3 months ago
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again and again i find myself lamenting that audio roleplay isn't taken more seriously by some people. like yeah, they often have a romantic element, and by nature they usually directly involve/address the listener- and i totally get that those things aren't to everyone's taste. no art or entertainment is universally appealing, and that's okay! but.. it still makes me a lil sad that the "cringe" reputation of asmr/audio rp precedes it. there's a whole lot of talent and creativity being poured into these audios by so many people that i feel goes unrecognized and/or disrespected simply due to the medium that the stories are being told through.
#this post brought to you by: me bingeing Sam & Darlin's entire storyline over the past few days and having a Lot of feelings abt it#asmr#audio roleplay#rp audio stuff#redacted audio#anyways i don't have a conclusion to this post. and i'm not Mad or Upset or anything i'm just thinkin' out loud#and i mean it's not like it doesn't get plenty of praise within its respective audience bc it does. at least for the more popular creators#but i feel it'll still always have the shadow of its cringe reputation looming over it#which makes it hard for some ppl to openly appreciate or share with others that aren't already fans of the medium#like do u know how many comments i've seen along the lines of 'this is great but i'd die if anyone knew i liked this kinda stuff' ?? :(#idk maybe i feel strongly about it bc i'm a self-insert fanfic writer. and i feel like the two have a lot in common. including a bad rep.#like. not every audio will be well-written or produced and neither will every fanfic. but that doesn't mean it's a less legitimate artform#and i'm lucky to have never (yet) received negative comments on my work. but that doesn't mean that it doesn't make me sigh when people-#-say shit like 'this reads like fanfiction' as a way of calling something bad. or other similar sentiments that make the same implication#and i wouldn't be surprised if audio creators feel the same way when they encounter certain comments or statements#like. those YT videos where ppl will 'try bf asmr for the first time' or whatever and it's just 20 mins of cringing and over-reacting? eugh#tbf i haven't watched many bc why do that to myself. so Maybe there's some that are respectful but still. imagine getting roasted like that#and yes yes i know that by posting stuff online you're inadvertently sighing up to be criticized by Anyone but still. man. i dunno#i'm going on a tangent but my point is. i'm grateful for the creators that still make their art in spite of the public's perception of it#bc some of the most impactful emotional experiences i've ever gained from fiction took place in audio rp and i'm so serious abt that.#anyways. this post almost feels like i'm 'making up a person to be mad at' but i promise it's not that serious i'm just yapping. mostly.#certainly not trying to start any kind of debate or anything either i just have a lot of fixation-induced energy and nowhere to put it#this is Eric's fault (/lh) for cooking Sam up in a lab catered exactly to my taste and making Darlin' waaaaay too painfully relatable#but it's also My fault for bingeing the Inversion /and/ the Quinn arc /and/ the Summit all within a couple days. but i can't help myself#feels like i've run an emotional marathon. triathlon. The Emotional Olympics if u will. i'm feeling Everything#who knew that beating the shit out of ur fictional abuser could feel so goddamn cathartic! it's a nice replacement when u can't do it irl#anyways i'm off on a tangent again. thanks for coming to my TED Talk i'm gonna crawl back in my hole now#actually i'm gonna go relisten to a few audios. as Research for my Sam & Darlin' playlist as well as a post i'll be making about it soon#u Know i've got it bad when i not only make a playlist but start Posting on here about the songs that remind me of them. i'm cooked guys.
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wereh0gz · 2 months ago
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Not feeling great abt some of my creative endeavors rn
#ramblings#neg#specifically abt project: new moon#i can feel myself actively losing interest in continuing to write for it#like the main story is already out there and that's fine#but even tho i have ideas for oneshots and stuff to introduce more characters (like those redesigns for rouge and shadow i did a while ago)#it just. doesn't feel worth continuing. idk why#i guess it might be the lack of interest for my writing in general#or maybe project: new moon just. isn't that great#which is fine the point of the project was to do it for fun not to make something objectively good#but ig i'm just. not feeling it anymore? i don't feel satisfied with it like i did when i finished writing it#i still love my ocs and the redesigns i did of canon characters for it#and i'm glad i got the story i've had in my head since i was like 12 out there. even if it's very different from how i first envisioned it#but. i really just wanna put it to rest#i really don't feel like i can promise any more writing for it. not like anybody cared abt it anyway besides like 3-4 ppl + myself#idk man i wanna move on from it. i have other stuff i wanna write that i feel guilty for not doing#bc i'd said i'd write more for project: new moon and still haven't#i think i'd be happier if i let the fanfic go and just draw my ocs and my redesigns when i feel like it#without worrying abt the fic anymore#bc frankly ever since writing the epilogue my heart just didn't feel like it was in it#thinking abt it felt like a chore more than anything. so maybe it'd be for the best to just leave it as it is#that comic i said i'd write is still happening tho i still really wanna do it#but that's different from writing fanfic so#anyway. might turn the project: new moon blog into a general writing blog#if i finish the corrupted au fic i'm currently working on. idk yet we'll see#but yeah. i know i shouldn't trust how i feel past 9 pm but I've been feeling this for a while now so whatever#i think i should've seen this coming in retrospect. pretty much everything i do that isn't just art never gets much traction anyway#can't say i'm really giving up on it considering it's TECHNICALLY complete#but the way things are going feels almost exactly like the rp and ask blogs i've tried to run in the past#idk man. i gotta stop thinking abt this before the vague feelings of inadequacy spiral into something worse. goodnight
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babycharmander · 2 years ago
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I feel like the people who are super into character AIs just… really haven’t read enough fanfic. Like, so much of the output of those things is just generic sludge, like, the most basic, boring response to whatever you typed in. It’s not in-character, it’s just an algorithm coughing up the most obvious response it can think of.
If this is the stuff you’re enjoying, I highly encourage you to read literally anything else.
The most poorly-written OOC fanfic is better than a character AI by virtue of it at least having been written by a human. It’s not the most obvious algorithmically generated sludge—it’s something a real person wanted to write.
Or like, if you want to write stuff yourself while playing off another person… maybe join a roleplay group, or find an RP partner? It’s not like they’re hard to find these days. Of course you need to learn basic RPing etiquette, which might seem intimidating, but once you learn it I promise you it is SO much more satisfying than receiving sludge responses from an AI.
Please engage in fandom in literally any other way—I promise you it will be more fun than what you are currently doing.
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duplicitywrites · 3 months ago
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Does fandom feel very different to you now than it did pre-2020? This could be a rather myopic viewpoint- I’m in college, so I’m young enough to have never really lived in times where fandom was ridiculed or whatever, but it still felt fringe-like in 2019. I’d go to school and chat about fanfic and fan art with my nerd friends, but fandom did not feel omnipresent in the mainstream- not just fan art or fanfic ( which is still 100% fringe like ) but fandom discussions too. Now swifties get mentioned on the news and crap. Perhaps that’s a bad example since Taylor swift is….Taylor swift, but I feel like a fandom that big and powerful wouldn’t have even formed pre 2020. Swifties certainly existed, but even in 2014, they would not be mentioned in the news.
i'm afraid i can only confirm your viewpoint as myopic because my friends weren't fandom nerds haha. the only other person i knew who read fanfic was this one guy in my year who i think only read what i wrote because he had a crush on me. which, well. not sure if that actually counts 😂
i first started engaging in fandom at large around... 2012? i think? or maybe sooner than that, i don't remember anymore. i used to rp on facebook LMAO but my later fandom experience mostly centers around tumblr and discord.
now that fandom is mainstream it really does feel omnipresent. people as a whole have changed. but to circle back to your other point — swifties have history that relates to this, because taylor used do private fan sessions (screenings)? of her album before release, and i think a majority of those fans were selected from social media, tumblr in particular, because she was active here. you can imagine how that made the parasocial aspect was even worse.
this stuff predated 2020s but it did drive a significant amount of fan behaviour. and ik not every celebrity is taylor swift, but you see a lot of that continues to be replicated because modern fandom is about 🚨 ATTENTION 🚨! so it's quantity over quality, anything that isn't an immediate massive hit gets dismissed, etc. then the stuff that does make the news so to speak gets exploited to death until people are sick of it, which again, you know, takes us back to taylor swift.
things are better when i can just enjoy my little guys in peace. which i do! or try to do. it's difficult because the rest of the world seems to want less and less to operate like that.
all this to say i think fandom can still be close to the way it was. it can still be fringe, with you and your friends in a group hanging out. you just have to block out the noise and really make that space for yourself. then you can still decide how much you want to engage with the rest of it.
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luciluck2046 · 17 days ago
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HIIIIII!!! WELCOME TO THE SILLIES!!!
I'm Luci :3
I'm just a silly.
Okay not JUST silly, I got problems. Emotional, mental, physical, YOU NAME IT!
I like drawing. And writing. And music. Artsy stuff in general.
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Also I have ADHD. It means Attention Deficit Hey look a Donut.
LESBIAN & TAKEN.
Btw I'm 14 but idrc about suggestive stuff. Just don't push it with hard nsfw. The jokes are fine tho (I make them myself).
I don't like to talk to ppl who aren't my friends. Don't DM me on stuff if you aren't a mutual. If you have an art request, that's when you can DM me but tbh rn I have an art block so I can't draw shit.
Current Hyperfixation: MURDER DRONES
Anyway, I have a SHITTON of alts
Like bro what's wrong with me XD
@luciluck2046-writing writing blog. Forgotten, was used for fanfics but I'll make it for og stories.
@luciluck2046-md - md stuff alt.
@luciluck2046-utdr - utdr stuff alt.
@artsycrow2046 - my crow's blog. They have lost phone privileges at the moment.
@racoongod-ll2046 - my forgotten reblog blog. Do whatever you want with it I might even delete it.
@kris6942069 - my kris rp blog. Gone but not forgotten/jk IT'S FORGOTTEN BUT NOT GONE. Might delete that one too.
@darkxfox17 - my Flesh&Sins!Uzi blog. It's a human au of mine.
@th3-k1ll3r-6uns - blog ruled by almost the whole md cast of Glowing Future. Another md au of mine.
@interstellar-empire-ll2046 blog for one of the book series I have. F O R G O T T E N.
ANYWAY HERE'S SOME OF MY ART!!!
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I often forget to sign my art. If you see unsigned finished drawings TELL ME.
My fave mutuals are: (the order DOESN'T matter)
@a-mess-of-a-crow
@thatweirdbitchjax
@attentiondeficitastartes
@purpleeggyboi
@th3-r4t-48
@okamiz36
@ultrabean (I have the honor)
@soul-of-justice--uty
@inkyprince
@scooburst
@temfling
I like a bunch of stuff. Too much stuff. But the main things I'll talk about on this blog are:
Murder Drones
Undertale & Deltarune
Cult Of The Lamb
Genshin Impact
Minecraft
The Sims 4
Arcane (didn't finish it yet)
Hazbin Hotel & Helluva Boss
Epic: The Musical
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Intr0duct!on
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please do not send me asks for donations, here’s why. my nsfw blog: @justagirlwithanoralfixation my rp blogs: @thorns-and-rosier @your-chchcherry-bomb
song stuck on repeat:
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• Hello, you can call me Luca or Skye (but feel free to call me nicknames based on my url, let me be one of those people)
• I’m genderfluid, so my pronouns change a lot (card). Please check here what they currently are before referring to me.
• pronouns: they/them, last updated December 23rd
• any gendered terms are always fine
• also important: I am offline every day from midnight till 7 am, CET. Everything posted in that time frame is queued/scheduled.
• I am happily married to @sotiredimbored & @aidens-ocean-galaxy /p & @calypso10191 /r
• my gender is whatever coked up Bowie had going on.
• I’m biromantic or whatever (I just like people) and somewhere on the ace spectrum, but too lazy to find a label
• and a minor
• idk about religion rn, but leaning towards paganism and hellenic polytheism
• I speak German and English (fluently), know the basics in Italian, Spanish and French, and can insult you in Korean.
• My fandoms are: PJO, The Marauders/Harry Potter (fuck jkr), The Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Sherlock Holmes (BBC, the books, Sherlock & Co.), Dead Boy Detectives, Derry Girls, Stranger Things
• me living in Germany is cause for multiple mental breakdowns a week over fucking Deutsche Bahn, don’t be put off.
• I am kind of fucked in the head, don’t expect me to be normal. Ever. • As in I have depression and am probably autistic, but testing isn’t available to me so self diagnosing will have to do, (maybe also bpd? fuck therapy tho)
• on that note: major swear warning, not even my intro is clean
• other TWs include: suicidal thoughts, depression, SH and
• here’s my Pinterest if you’re interested
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• my blog is a safe space for you unless you find yourself in my DNI.
• DNI: transphobes, homophobes, racists, sexists, zionists, MDNI blogs, if you wanna convert me or smth, etc.
• If you don’t like my stuff, the door is right there, don’t be rude about it.
• please don’t hesitate to send me your thoughts and questions about literally anything. Inbox and DMs are always wide open. • I’m sorry if you followed me for something specific and now have a bunch of shit I reblog on your dash
• and also please send music recs, I love discovering new music.
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Tags I use regularly:
#skye’s silly thoughts ➾ shower thoughts, lyrics I relate to, and shitposting, I don’t always put TWs so beware
#my fucked up family ➾ self explanatory
#my poor poetry attempts ➾ my poetry/writing
#cal <3 ➾ my beloved, he is half my soul, as the poets say
#my silly bug boys ➾ about The Beatles, my commentary on Get Back, etc. #love letters ➾ submissions
#luca’s fanfic ➾ my fan fiction
#music stuff ➾ my guitar covers and maybe original songs in the future
#skye’s asks ➾ my asks
moodboards by my beloved (cal <3):
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by aiden my love:
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My Taste In Music. About Requests. Microfic Navigation. My Cover Of Landslide.
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AITA for telling someone that roleplays are a two-way street and refusing to re-engage with them?
Occasionally, if I'm in the mood to write but I don't really know what, I'll browse ship tags on Omegle. Its become synonymous for roleplays, and I've found its (typically) pretty fun.
As with every social thing, there's the odd... Less than pleasant experience. Last night was one such experience. I connected to someone on a ship tag, they sent a prompt, and it was actually a pretty interesting one, so I responded.
It was an AU prompt, but I generally kept my characterisation as close to the character's canon as I could, while still matching it to roughly what someone's personality in that profession and location would be.
(E.g; if the character was a proper old-country style cowboy, or a socially awkward secretary, ect.)
It became very clear, very fast, that the other person had very, very specific ideas about the roleplay, what happens, what my character was supposed to say/do, ect. To the point where (as I later told them) they should've just written fanfic so they had complete control.
Near enough every time I responded, they'd "correct" it or argue against it both in character and in brackets as themselves. For example if I noted something about the background or story of my character, theirs would immediately say "no that's not what happened" or they'd say [hey actually can you change that, it doesn't fit/I don't like it/its not what I envisioned].
After about fifteen minutes of this I got incredibly vexed and decided I was done. I don't mind a roleplay having certain goals/main points/guidelines, but they were literally trying to control every tiny aspect of what I did. So I sent them this:
[I'm sorry, the RP sounded interesting in the prompt you sent, but its rapidly becoming clear you don't actually want a roleplay, you want to be the sole one dictating everything that happens. Honestly I think its best you turn this idea into a fanfic and not a roleplay. It kills off any enjoyment of the roleplay when I have you contradicting every tiny detail I include or dictating what I'm allowed to do or say. I'm not going to sit there waiting for you to approve of everything I intend to say. Thank you for your time, but good night.]
I disconnected, and decided I'd spend another fifteen minutes browsing the tag before I did something else. Well apparently, the other person decided they were going to spend fifteen minutes stalking the tag trying to find me again, spamming every connection with messages ranging from extreme insults and threats to demands I 'speak up again, bitch, I wanna talk' and so forth. After connecting to them for the tenth time, I sent:
[I'm not going to re-engage with you. I said what I did, and frankly, it was a valid statement. If you can't handle the fact that roleplaying means a 50/50 creative allowance with someone else, and that you can't micro-manage or bulldoze every single detail, then you shouldn't roleplay. Frankly, knowing how vile you can be from simple criticism, I'm glad I disconnected. Take a breather and re-evaluate yourself. I'd be embarrassed.]
Well. This morning I logged onto Tumblr and after some browsing, I actually came across them again. Here. By means of a post where they included screenshots of everything and are even going so far as threatening to stalk Tumblr and AO3 to 'match up the writing' so they can find me and presumably say their piece or whatever.
I talked to a friend about it, and surprisingly, they think I'm an asshole. Not for what I said in the first place, but for not re-approaching the other person (through DMs) so they'll stop filling the ship's tag with negative stuff. (They've made 3 posts about it all so far.)
I don't want to do that because it means opening up my private social media to this obviously unhinged individual. I know I can expect to be spammed, sent hate mail, have them try to track down my other socials, ect. I could make an alt account for it, but honestly that's effort I don't see the point in making. If they can't let this go, its not my problem.
AITA? Should I make an alt account just to let them get it out of their system? I don't know how to proceed with this.
What are these acronyms?
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biblicallyaccuratefour · 1 year ago
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Blog intro post...
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Hello, lads, lassies and fellow letter mafiosos and attack helicopters! This is an intro post made by the man behind the man, under the table, Yuri! I'mma just cut to the chase-
(FREE PALESTINE! 🇵🇸)
ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕤 𝕦𝕡!!!: Ask me for permission to draw my characters if you plan to make an artwork that is beyond SFW. This is a safety measure.
Also, please, please, PLEASE don't refer to me as she/her. I don't even know why I have to emphasise this because I made it clear that I use he/him and they/them.
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✨About me✨:
Age 16 (Bday on 22/04)
Transmasc (They/them and he/him)
Irish-Ukrainian, and a raging polyglot (I know Ukrainian, English, French and Irish)
I am pretty much a tired, unstable and a lazy boi-
I am autistic, which explains a lot, lol
I post multifandom content, whatever I feel like posting
I kin quite a few characters, mainly Five and Colress, hhhhhh-
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~*•°✦𝕐𝕦𝕣𝕚'𝕤 𝕂𝕚𝕟 𝕃𝕚𝕤𝕥✦°•*~
☆ Five 📚 (XFOHV/BFDI)
☆ Lucifer 🐤 (Hazbin Hotel)
☆ Colress ⚙ (Pokémon)
☆ Test Tube 🧪 (Inanimate Insanity)
☆ Papyrus 🍝 (Undertale)
☆ Spamton 💲 (Deltarune)
☆ Catnap 💤 (PPT cartoon only)
☆ ENA 🎭 (ENA)
☆ Airy 💻 (hfj ONE)
☆ Ingo & Emmet 🔲🔳 (Pokémon)
☆ Caine 🎪 (TADC)
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⚠️DNI list⚠️:
Bots of any kind
Paedophiles, zoophiles, necrophiles and those with fetishes
Proshippers, comshippers and e.t.c
Racists, homophobes, transphobes, ableists and any other people who discriminate
Don't ask me for money through my asks. I don't have money.
If you happen to be one of the people that are listed and interact with me, you'll be promptly blocked.
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✅What I will/can post📝:
Headcanons
Fanart
Fanfiction
Reblogs
Art or other material with light gore, sex references and jokes, violence and dark topics. (Will have a content warning, so be aware)
Shipping
Vent posts
Kinnie stuff & me simping for fictional characters hhhhhhhh
❎What I won't/can't post📝:
NSFW, heavy gore, discriminatory content (That's it, really-)
There's a few more things I will clarify on, just to make sure I don't rub anyone the wrong way;
Even though my nationality is Ukrainian, I will allow Russian bloggers to interact.
Requests are always open, and I may not answer all of your asks, as I am lazy- TωT)
Reblogs are highly encouraged here. I want more people to see my content as much as the next bloke on Tumblr.
If there is harassment going on, I will report the people involved in said harassment, as this has happened recently with fellow bloggers.
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✨Cool people you should follow✨:
@justanapplenothinghere (my pookie /p/aff)
@yari-saber (cool big sis /p)
@crispysweetss (creates the most delicious artworks /silly)
@static-errorcode
@slayedfrr (CEO of 810)
@ikintwosm (another awesome friendo, creates yummy art /silly)
@lemonpie45 (another pookie of mine /p/aff)
@zoomigummi
@bespectacled-bookwyrm
@akalikestodraw
@aft-3-r-gl-0-w (Slay all day, girlypop /p)
@liliadrawingstuff (girly, I love your art so much)
@katbam
@sloppypears-ash-sg
@chaoscupcak333 (Another pookie who's silly /p/aff)
@icy-saturday (Got really cool fanfics and art :0)
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That's pretty much it. Now, enjoy the silly content that will be posted on my blog! ^^
Faux's ask blog (rp): @ask-faux-integer
Coda's blog (rp): @ass1stant-c0da
Side/Reblog blog: @biblicallyaccurate4reblogs
Janitor AI profile
Character AI profile (taking requests for both Janitor and Character AI)
My Discord user: yuri_underthetable
My Pronouns Page: Yuri_Akur0ma
(Ref sheets under the cut-)
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Dividers made by @chachachannah
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princesscolumbia · 1 year ago
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Ranma 1/2 Thoughts, Meta Edition
I have consumed...a lot of Ranma 1/2 content.
I mean, this is kinda what happens when you're a repressed transgirl who discovers the manga a year into a marriage that you got into to "fix" being trans and be "a real boy" in a desperate bid to fill the hole that you wouldn't learn for two decades could only be filled by living as your true self.
I've encountered precisely four (4) types of Ranma 1/2 fans in that time:
Transwomen who see Ranma as their idealized expression of the gender experience ("I'm not like this because I want to be, it's a curse. A curse that gives me a smokin' hot body and HUGE tits! But it's tooootally a curse, for realsies! I'll find a cure any day now, see how hard I'm looking? I'm trying sooooo hard to find a cure...")
Transmen who see Ranma as their perfect representation of their gender experience ("I'm a guy, damnit! This body...it's a curse! I hate it and I want nothing better than to be cured, but all sorts of Life Bullshit keeps getting in the way!")
Lesbians who kin either Ranma (butch NB lesbian) or one of their love interests (Akane - comphet closetted butch lesbian, Shampoo - Strong, smokin' hot bad bitch who goes after what she wants, Ukyo - transmasc coded genderfluid NB)
Completely clueless nimrods who miss the FUCKING POINT and are only into the show for the martial arts and think it would be better if Ranma got cured and they stopped having funny stuff happen.
(In case it's not obvious, IMHO the last group are the worst parts of the fandom and need to Go Away. Most of the toxic stuff that exists in R.5 fanspaces is because of this group of assholes which includes the incels that think everything would be better if Ranma just did stuff that's questionable from an ethics and morality perspective and chased after Shampoo because she's the closest thing to a Barbie-doll these closet fascists can allow themselves to fantasize about playing with, completely ignoring that she's a complex character that's a subversive pastiche to the Japanese racist stereotypes of the 1980s.)
I'm not kidding when I say that in the early days of the public Internet (before Facebook and Twitter ruined it for everyone), Ranma 1/2 was the SINGLE largest fandom by a MASSIVE stretch. I once checked my math on this by going to Fanfiction.net (before the massive purges) and brought up the Big List of All Fandoms and right there at the top with a MASSIVE number of fics was Ranma 1/2 by a HUGE margin. It took three fandoms (Star Trek, Doctor Who, and I believe Naruto if I'm recalling correctly) to have their combined total number of fics exceed the number of R.5 fics on FF.net...and that was JUST FF.net. There was an entire separate index (The Penultimate Ranma 1/2 Fanfic Index) that had the single task of listing, not even curating or reading or reviewing, ONLY Ranma 1/2 fanfics. Not fanart, not commentary, no RP blogs or chat transcripts or whatever, JUST fanfics. And only about half of those linked to FF.net, meaning that if you dig up the archives you'll find at least 60% of all fanfics that people had managed to index in the Ranma 1/2 fandom are missing because they were never properly archived and just...faded from the Internet as the public servers and places like Geocities started disappearing. You can find teasing, tantalizing hints of larger works that all we have left, like scraps of ancient papyri revealing a quote from a missing book of the Bible, are single chapters backed up on niche sites that managed to get spider-crawled by Archive.org, but many great works are just...lost. (There's an ero fic called "Playing with Water" that was SUPER hot and featured elements that we have tags for on porn sites but didn't really have proper words for back in the day...but even back when it was first being written finding the thing was hard...and today? Nearly impossible.)
(If you wonder why I'm such an absolute RABID advocate of AO3, this is why)
For me, Ranma will always be the transfemme coded genderfluid hero that we needed in the late 80s and early 90s. We were on the tail end of the AIDS pandemic, and just like COVID-19 there were a bunch of assholes who used it to ride to power and marginalize queer folk. It was easier to do with AIDS, of course, given the absolutely massive numbers of queer cis men and transwomen who contracted it and died. (Sidebar: the reason "L" comes first in "LGBTQIA+" is because it was the Lesbian nurses who were the caretakers of the Gay men who were dying in numbers large enough to be counted as a tragic statistic instead of a mere tragedy) and while the world was starting to acknowledge (again) that gay men was a thing that existed and they weren't actually trying to corrupt the youth, what we now call "transgender" was still listed in the DSM as a mental disorder that required treatment to "cure." According to the cultural majority in damn near every field you can imagine, the Gender Binary was the only way to exist and if you didn't fit neatly into one or the other then you were Damaged™ and had to be Fixed™ for The Good of All People™ (but specifically so cis-het-white folks, usually men, could feel comfy and not be confronted by things that made them feel icky and might have cooties). It's a truism that's treated as a joke that transwomen get into coding and wind up doing IT work in such massive numbers that between us and the furries we ARE the foundation of the modern Internet. And into the fanspaces packed to the brim with closetted AMAB transwomen who hadn't yet had their egg cracked came this plucky martial artist that gets to swap their gender with a splash of water but somehow still winds up the best of the best, the finest martial artist of their generation. (Goku can suck it, Ranma would turn the Kamea-meha right back on the over-muscled, braindead loser with a food fetish and still make it home in time for Kasumi's dinner)
I'm no sociologist, anthropologist, behaviorist, whatever, but I suspect that the reason Ranma Saotome spawned such a large fanbase so early in the modern Internet's history was specifically because the series created a safe space where people could talk about gender issues with a degree of separation that helped strip away the stigma surrounding feeling like you were in the wrong body.
I get why people like the martial arts aspect. I mean, Ranma kills a demigod. This is NOT something to sneeze at. I also understand the transmen who latch onto Ranma as a kin because I get the feeling like you have no control over what your body's doing and you're going through your days in existential dread of what might be dragging you further and further away from what you always knew was right and correct about yourself. It's a terrifying thing and here's someone who (esp. the anime version) IS a guy trapped in a girl's body.
For me, though, and for a LOT of transwomen out there, Ranma is transfemme. And, yes, canonically Ranma states right near the end of the manga that they're both and they kinda forgot about the 'cure' when they had to pick between that and the really important stuff and that they're okay with being fluid ('cause water, gettit?!) about their gender and it's a damn shame this was the 80s 'cause a continuation might wind up showing Ranma embracing being both...
BUT, and this is a transfemme thing, I know, if you continue the parabolic arc of Ranma's character development, the logical conclusion (for us) is that she eventually decides that she's a woman and just lives in her "cursed" form the majority (or all) of the time.
And yes, this is because that's the transfemme story arc. In the manga in some distant part of the multiverse that peers into our universe and for some reason decides to make me the MC (god, that must be a FUCKING BORING manga by our standards, I weep for those fans), my story arc is the gradual progression of uncracked, closetted transgirl to transitioned out and proud transbien mom. At one point I swapped back and forth between gender presentations because it was safer for me to appear in some spaces as the male that they thought I was. Now I would prefer to die before being forced to go back to pretending to be a man again.
Ranma has the choice, and good for them. Until the Kaisufuu is permanently destroyed, even if the "curse" is locked, they have the option of going one way or the other based solely on their own, personal desire. I can't say I'd be comfortable with that option being available. In that theoretical manga where there's a reboot that gives me a condition like Ranma's, I'd probably wind up destroying the equivalent to the Kaisufuu just because of the threat to my mental wellbeing it presents.
So it's not a stretch to imagine Ranma making the same choice. She's a woman now, she has the life she never realized she wanted because she never had the choice so didn't know she was allowed to imagine it, but now she's happier than ever and why would she ever go back to that struggle of being a guy that only ever brought her pain and challenges and heartache?
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mellybabbles · 11 months ago
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What's kickin', chicken?
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I've decided to finally make a masterpost for this blog
HIHIHIHI!! You can call me Mel, Jynx or whatever floats your boat! This is an UTMV blog, meaning a lot of sanses will be poppin up 'round these parts. Specifically Dust- Pronouns are he/him, I'm a minor, artist, blah blah all that hooby hobby stuff. I have a big ol fanfic called Dreamscape and a few others on AO3. AO3 Acc is MelatoninDepicts I'm a guy!! I go by he/him, but dw if you get the wrong pronouns I really do not mind. My other blogs are @shattereddreamrp and @melatonindepicts !! DNI: Pedophiles, 18+ Blogs, Homophobes, Racists, Proshippers, all that jazz. If you support Israel and the actions, please DNI and unkindly fuck right off. I'm open to drawing/writing requests! Expect a lot of self insert, x reader, etc. I can't really do many ships, usually only on my own terms. I'm Pansexual and Polyamorous(?), and possibly genderfluid but still working on my sexuality and identity, heh. I'm open to chatting about whatever, just don't be a dick and such! Certified Dust Addict. I will never shut up about him. Literally obsessed with him to an unhealthy degree. Anyways, enjoy your time on my blog! Feel free to pop in an ask or anything. Always happy to talk <3 Tags for navigation: Regularly Scheduled Dust Simping = Dust shit. Drawings, writing, etc my art = well, my art melly's silly talk = Me answering asks and just chatting Melly's silly reblogs = reblogs !! Melly's silly sketches = Doodles/sketches Discord is melatonindepicts, feel free to friend me and chat whenever haehaeh This is my discord inv! For my story, chatting, whatever. We vibe and chill here. Positivity space/negative free!! Oh and RP and other many things https://discord.gg/UnpQvhtQfT
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what-the-yippee · 3 months ago
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HI HI HII :3 I'm Hiraoka and welcome to my blog !! Feel free to ask me questions to get to know me better and all the basic stuff.
[Ooc under cut]
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꘎♡━━Blog Owner Info━━♡꘎
⭑.༉‧₊ᐟ name : Xyra
age ⤷^᪲᪲᪲ : Minor
prns ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 : She/They
⋆.˚ Main Blog: @tired-xyra-urstruly / @tired-xyra
Other owned Rp Blogs ୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ : @vampirebram @thegreatfitzgerald @royalbandages @iron-justice @i-use-pantene @not-a-pillowprincess
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꘎♡━━Rules━━♡꘎
1. Kindly refrain from sending NSFW. But jokes are okay.
2. Avoid Arguments sort them out somewhere else not here.
3. I am NOT caught up with the manga I'm still reading it 🙁
4. Oh no an oc x canon ship whatever shall you do. If you don't like oc x canons kindly leave and don't pester me about it 😞
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Extra bits of information:
- Hiraoka goes by He/they
- To get an outline of their personality I just kinda combined Nikolai and Kenji from BSD together into one person kinda.
- Writing a fanfic about them so if you want their law read it trust.
- PFP by @the-rini-rush (Ily /p)
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teastainedprose · 10 months ago
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Intro / Master List
I made a place to shake out all of the writing blurbs free instead of leaving them to rot in my e-mail drafts. Fics, drabbles, nonsense musings, headcanons and whatever else falls out will go here. Side blog to @tearueful
I am here to WRITE because creativity DEMANDS it, and this is low enough energy that chronic pain can't steal it from me. Unless it has an A03 mirror link, the writing is RAW and probably full of errors. Real fuck it, we'll do it live hours.
I loveloveLOVE interactions on my posts and in my ask box. PLEASE add replies, reblog with your comments and/or and go HOG WILD in the tags. IT FEEDS MEEEE and further fuels my inspiration.
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🔞 18+ content. I say fuck. I will write smut. The situations will be adult in nature more often than not. There will be problematic content as my favs are problematic.
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The ask box is open and I encourage sending requests, inspiration, or just chatter.
Feel free to send ask requests on or off anon.
Current brain worms are focused on Homelander of The Boys with a mild Fallout invasion.
Archive of Our Own Link
Prompt Requests / Fandoms / Tags / Master List of Writing
I have no issues with prompts that are open ended with what characters are involved or ones that specify. Within the fandoms that have captivated my brain, I'm up for writing any relationship romantic, sexual, or platonic and x reader writings are ones I'll happily engage in.
Sending something in is no guarantee I'll write for said prompt or when I'll get to it. My mind is fickle and sometimes a prompt grabs me by the throat, or I let it simmer for a hot minute. That or I'll simply delete it if it doesn't spark joy.
I've been writing and RPing for a very long time, but only recently delved into anything canon adjacent and then writing actual fanfics for it. Thus what fandoms I'll write for are currently limited to things I've been hype fixated on or am currently fixated on. Obviously, the main one right now is Homelander. He's my poor lil meow meow, but I will happily slip back into writing OCs from my years of RP or other characters in fandoms I adore.
Fandoms I'll write for:
The Boys
Fallout, TV series
Wildstar (OCs)
World of Warcraft (OCs)
Given how long I've been writing for and what sort of dark stories I've written with friends, there's not much that I won't explore if it has an interesting concept that I can get a good story out of. Dark themes, kinky fuckery, violence, and sexual situations are all well and good. That being said, there's plenty of things that squick me out that I rather not touch but as I'm an adult I'll either delete the prompt or explain my thoughts on the prompt related to whatever character it is.
i.e., Homelander sure as shit has a lactation kink but pregnancy stuff is body horror to me. Can I write it? Possibly, it wholly depends on the prompt.
Writing
WIP List (Yes please ask about any you're interested in to motivate me 😭)
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Fallout:
🔞Explosion (Lucy x Maximus)
🔞Too Sweet ( Cooper x Reader, WIP) : Chapter [1], Tag
🔞 Gash (Cooper x Reader)
🔞Take It As It Comes ( Pre-War!Cooper x Reader, WIP)
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The Boys:
Fanfics
Play with Fire (Homelander x f!reader, plus sized, WIP) : Chapter [1] [2], [3] Tag
One Up (Homelander x f!Reader) : Chapter [1] , Tag
No Bad Dogs (Homelander x Kimiko??? besties!???!?!) : Concept stage, Tag
General Drabbles:
🔞Two Player Game (Homelander x f!reader)
🔞Lonely Together (Queen Maeve x Homelander)
Pinky Promise (Ryan Butcher & Homelander🥺)
Mark You Pretty (Homelander x reader)
🔞THC Gummies (Homelander x f!reader)
Introducing the 'wife' (Homelander x Billy Butcher)
Girl Dad (Homelander & Zoe)
Rainy Day (Homelander x reader)
Mix Tape (Homelander x reader)
Plushie (Homelander x reader)
Sugar Daddy (Homelander x reader)
🔞Making a Mess (Homelander x f!reader)
🔞Blackmail, Play With Fire side fic (Homelander x f!reader, plus-sized)
🔞Crusty.. (Homelander x reader)
Driving Lesson (Homelander & Ashley Barett)
🔞Over Eager (Homelander x f!reader)
Tampons (Homelander x f!reader)
Emoticons (Ryan Butcher & Homelander)
Flower Picking ( Homelander x reader)
🔞Office Tryst (Homelander x f!reader)
Breaking Point (Homelander x reader)
🔞Pet Play (Homelander x OC, WIP)
🔞Choke (Homelander x Reader, WIP)
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Tags
General Tags
Drabble / Ask / Anon Ask / Fanfic Planning / Fanfic Chapter / Worldbuilding / Canon x You / Plus-Sized Reader / Brainstorming
The Boys
The Boys FanFic / The Boys Smut Homelander / Homelander Headcanon / Homelander x Reader / Homelander Writing / Homelander Smut Queen Maeve / Maeve Writing / Maeve Smut / Maeve x Homelander Kimiko / Kimiko Writing Frenchie / Frenchie Writing Ryan Butcher / Ryan Writing
Fallout
Fallout Fanfic / Fallout Smut Maximus / Lucy MacLean / VaultKnight / Cooper Howard / The Ghoul / Cooper Howard x Reader / The Ghoul x Reader
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18+ Banner Source
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sethdomain · 4 months ago
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want my shipping takes that ill still probably get hanged for??? here we go. theyre basically all "everyone chill out" ...it seems like most people are just submitting ships theyd get cancelled for, not takes on shipping. ill do that after in case i completely misread what you were asking for
if ccbeeduo didnt want to get shipped they shouldnt have made their characters get married and have a son and fall in love. natural byproduct, really shouldve expected it. i still think ppl should have chilled fr but like, they both had plenty of examples of what fans were like, they shouldve taken that into account before making those character decisions.
cdapduo discourse was absolutely batshit insane and everyone who posted with a banner saying either "slime is quackity's son and if you ship them you're weird DNI" OR "they keep flirting, if you call slime quackity's son you're weird DNI" pissed me off. how about no one's weird because actually its a roleplay with lots of different perspectives and you can do whatever you want forever . obvs i understood people who were like "i believe this thing, dont fucking yell at me for it" but it sucks that people had to make banners for that fr.
in the same vein, the discourse with emeraldduo. though that one i dont/didnt see as much, i did still see those same banners. even as a family sbi fan, i never saw someone shipping emduo and thought "yeah let me go yell at them and tell them not to interact with me because i personally think theyre family-coded." the devotion is ambiguous but powerful.
Heat Waves was the funniest fic ive ever read because idgaf about either of those guys so it was just like 20 chapters of some guy crying and jacking off and then getting rejected.
i think rarepairs are based as fuck and mischaracterizing guys to fit your ship is fine do whatever you want forever!!!!!!!! people complained to hell and back about fanfics tagging characters and ships and them being ooc . WHO GIVE A FUCK THEY WROTE THAT SHIT FOR FREEEEEEEEE!!!!!! ALSO MANGOBALL'S MONSTER/CHEATER CHEATER WAS A MASTERPIECE
karlnapity was not perfect polyamory i see people glossing over the fact that when they first talked about polyamory quackity started attacking and biting when karl and sapnap kissed and thats fucking FUNNY i want to see more of THAT.
sorry for writing so much i have a lot of opinions
JESUS ANON, honestly idgaf bro i take any spicy opinion as long as its not going straight to 'i love pedophilia/incest' territory that my only rule man
For beeduo, idk if u mean the cc ship or the c ship cause honest to god i was a huge inniter back then and dont follow their stuff closelt that much, but im just gonna assume u mean the rpf cc shipping. Honestly, I don't really agree with ur take, its a bit victim blamey, both ranboo and tubbo were like young and in their naivety expect their fans to uphold their boundary to just not ship them in a rpf way and i think you should've respected their wishes man. You sometimes gotta be reminded that dsmp was just them guys having fun and if they want to rp as a husband then whatev man :p
I agree bruh, i think people were just sscared of a little doomed faggot in action
phil and techno doesn't even act like father/son in the dsmp canon anyway, they act like old bestie
imma be fr idgaf abt heatwaves but that sound awesome
sometime the back of my mind say that, but the evil demon that wants everything to be perfect take over anon.. its hard... I need to get mad at people...
no cucking is allowed in karlnapity... #lame
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beauregard-sinclair-ask · 1 year ago
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Bo's Workshop
⤷ »✵⭒ An ask blog where you can chat with the spitfire of a man, Bo Sinclair!
✵⭒Created 6/29/23
✵⭒Updated 7/25/24
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»✵⭒✵⭒✵⭒ Bo's Introduction ✵⭒✵⭒✵⭒«
⤷ »✵⭒ "𝗪𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗻', 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗲, 𝗟𝗼𝘂𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗮! 𝗬𝗮 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝗲 𝗕𝗼! 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗴 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗮 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝗺𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗻’ 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝘁. 𝗜 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝘆𝗮 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗮 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗶𝗻', 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗲 𝗼𝗼𝗰, 𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁/𝗴𝗼𝗿𝘆, 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻' 𝗺𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁' 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁! 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗶𝗻'𝘁 𝗶𝘁? 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹, 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝘆𝗮 𝗲𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆 𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘆 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻' 𝗜 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝗰𝗵𝗮 𝗴𝗼𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗲. 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁’ 𝘆𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗼𝗼𝗻."
✵⭒ Old ver
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⤷ »✉ requests/inbox: open
⤷ »⌦ nsfw blog so minors dni or atleast be aware of my content - I am not responsible for anyone under the age of 18 if exposed to my content.
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»✵⭒✵⭒✵⭒ Rules/Things to know ✵⭒✵⭒✵⭒«
✵⭒ Might change in the future!
⤷ »✎ Not be be picky but I much prefer just ansewering questions, not responding to long paragraphs like it's some fanfic. No hard feelings!
⤷ »✎ I only respond to whatever is in my inbox. I won't roleplay via dm's, or through comments on my posts. It's just easier to keep track of things.
⤷ »✎ Yes I mark this as a nsfw blog but I will not reply to nsfw roleplays/requests (Go back to janitor.ai). I only mark this blog as nsfw due to my age and some suggestive remarks I might respond with as Bo.
⤷ »✎ You're more than welcome to tag me in stuff and possibly get a rp comment from Bo!
⤷ »✎ This is a safe place to vent but only to a degree for my sake. If your vent mentions (rape, self harm, drug use, suicidal thoughts, etc), don't expect to get a response back. I apologize and feel for anyone going through such things but it effects my mental state a lot. If you need to reach out persoally, you can always dm me on my main.
⤷ »✎ Most gifs I use are occasionally of Dean Winchester depending on the ask. Also most of the gifs I use of Bo are mine while the other half are not so credit to those people.
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»✵⭒✵⭒✵⭒ Roleplay Brothers/Family ✵⭒✵⭒✵⭒«
✵⭒ Keep in mind that the accounts down below are not me but other people. Their rules are far different then mine so please read them and respect them!
⤷ »✵⭒ Vincent
⤷ »✵⭒ Lester
⤷ »✵⭒ Jonesy
»✵⭒✵⭒✵⭒ Tags used for my posts ✵⭒✵⭒✵⭒«
⤷ »✵⭒ #bo sinclair
⤷ »✵⭒ #house of wax (2005)
⤷ »✵⭒ #character interaction
⤷ »✵⭒ #bo sinclair house of wax
⤷ »✵⭒ #Ask me anything
⤷ »✵⭒ #ooc
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ex0rin · 6 months ago
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oh look a distraction from work!
tagged by @jdeanmorgan (thanks! 😘)
10 questions for 10 writers
How many works do you have on AO3?
195, would have been more but i recently orphaned a whole pile of them (sorry if this is the way you're learning of it)
What's your total AO3 word count?
686,289
What fandoms do you write for?
i know i haven't written anything in like two months, but i'm still going to put The Walking Dead since all of my active WIPs are from that one - but like, in general i write whatever i'm into at any given time (prev: The Boys, TFATWS, CA: TWS, Witcher, Watcher Entertainment, general rpf, etc etc)
Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
I SWEAR I TRY i'm just so fucking bad at it, when i'm in an upswing of writing i don't want to stop to reply (which makes me an asshole) and then when i can't get words out i'm just too sad to try and respond to everything... usually once a year (right before @febuwhump i do a full two weeks of JUST responding to as many as i can from the previous year) (so i guess if you haven't heard from me, wait till January 2025 😅)
Have you ever had a fic stolen?
i have! multiple times. almost ALL rpf from Buzzfeed Unsolved stuff weirdly enough
Have you ever co-written a fic before?
also yes! i think the only one(s) posted are the ones with @ponderosa121 (Gotham, Constantine) but i've done some Very Good and Very Long RP fics with @sparklingbinjuice that one day i'm going to make into actual fics and post
What's your all-time favourite ship?
why do people keep asking me this 😅 if you asked me RIGHT NOW (which is kind of what's happening) i would say neggie (negan x maggie) but this answer is subject to change at the drop of a hat. a month ago it would have been cegan (negan x carl), seven months ago it would have been butchie (butcher x hughie), and before that it was winterbones (rumlow x bucky) or hell, roosmav (rooster x maverick) and so on and so forth
What are your writing strengths?
smut. descriptive smut.
What are your writing weaknesses?
dialogue. jesuschrist i hate writing dialogue (esp for negan, fuck that guy and his tone and innuendo and run on sentences) (affectionate but still annoyed)
First fandom you wrote for?
first posted on AO3 is for NBC Constantine but that's only from 2015 and i've been writing smut since the late 90s 🙃 reader-insert for Star Wars was probably the first thing i ever wrote (before i even really knew what fanfic was tbh) (luke x me babyyyy) but some of the first stuff i published to an audience back in the yahoo groups days would have been the UK queer as folk or... shit, gundam wing probably?
(also, sidenote but tfw you realize charlie hunnam was in the UK QAF on this day of our lord 2024???) (just need a moment while my childhood watching queer as folk collides with my adulthood adoration for pacific rim crash into each other)
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okay, anyway, tagging: @sparklingbinjuice @the-ravening @unlikelymilliner @winterbonesthings @duchessonfire @sequencefairy @crushcandles @grianhole @stunt-lads (my tenth @ is whoever would like to participate! you can say i tagged you)
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fanfic-inator795 · 1 year ago
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WoY: A Decade Later (A personal retrospection)
Wander Over Yonder… for a time, it was - in my opinion - the best cartoon ever. It was my number one, and I wasn't sure that anything else could top it. While I don't necessarily feel the same way these days, it's still a cartoon that very much lives in my heart and I don't think I'll ever truly leave it behind.
From a personal perspective, it was probably the biggest and most active Fandom I had been in at that time. It wasn't my first fandom/hyperfixation - prior to WoY, there had been Cartoon Network's Chowder and Regular Show, as well as Disney's Phineas and Ferb. But Chowder was short-lived and RS and PnF were both shows I had lost interest in due to them beginning to dip in quality.
WoY, however, was new, fresh, exciting and growing rapidly. It inspired me to write probably at least a hundred fanfics. It was a blast live-reacting to new episodes with everyone and seeing all the art that would come afterwards. It brought me into the RP scene and, if not for that, I might have never met my best friend of 10 years (and counting! Love you, Tessa).
Looking back on it 10 years after the fact, I can't fully say that WoY is still my favorite cartoon (shows like Kid Cosmic, The Ghost and Molly McGee, Big City Greens and Craig of the Creek have all outshined it in one way or another), nor can I claim that it is/was a perfect show. But man… It sure was a hell of a ride.
(Keep reading for all my admittedly VERY LONG personal thoughts or opinions regarding this one of a kind show)
Humble Beginnings
Pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but I actually didn't care for WoY at first. It was the summer right before college, and I remember watching the sneak peek - The Picnic - early one morning after not being able to go back to sleep. I remember not really laughing much or even seeing the appeal… and yet the episode stuck in my mind, to the point that I ended up watching it again during a free moment I had from Freshman Orientation Week. I had a similar reaction to the show's proper pilot, The Greatest - not loving it, but not hating it either.
The fact that people/friends from my RS and PnF days were also posting about it helped keep the show in my mind (shoutout to Taylor, Erin and Darkwing). But it wasn't until two specific episodes - The Fugitives and The Good Deed - that I managed to finally start to connect with the characters myself. 
I started to see the appeal in this little furry orange spoon who just wanted to do good and make others happy, even when it was a struggle. I really liked the show's core theme of not just optimism and positivity, but also just being kind. I also started to really enjoy the show's sci-fi and space aesthetic and grew to adore its animation and gorgeous backgrounds, as well as laugh at its wacky sense of humor (I still laugh at The Fugitives/Good Deed quite a bit, even though I probably have their entire scripts memorized at this point).
So, it was official. I was hooked. Whenever there were new eps, I'd either try to watch them on the basement TV in my college dorm or wait for a livestream or FreeCartoonsOnline upload. If we're being honest, the first half of season 1, while being much more low-key than the wackiness that the show would end up eventually shifting to, was probably when it was at its most consistent. Other eps later on would reach higher highs, but getting stuff like The Bad Guy, the Prisoner, the Troll, the Pet, the Box and The Little Guy back-to-back just made my love for the show grow more and more.
The Little Guy specifically is one that is just incredibly well-crafted in its dialogue, story-telling and pacing, being both enjoyable and heartfelt. (Also the last time I watched it the ending made me bawl so, there's that, lol). Shortly afterwards, The Hero was another ep that I distinctly remember sticking in my head for whatever reason (Dracor and Demurra are still adorable, ngl). Then we had another favorite of mine, The Nice Guy.
I know I may be in the minority on this one - I remember my parents being annoyed and frustrated when they watched it with me, haha - but I absolutely love this episode. I find the jokes funny enough - the cashier is one of my favorite minor characters tbh - and the space gas station appeals to my aesthetic. But what really sells this episode for me is how it handles and portrays its moral of "being nice isn't always easy, but it's still right and still worth doing". Its ending never fails to get an "awwww" out of me, and honestly I could probably go on for an hour about all the little details and things I like/appreciate. I've also grown to really like its sister episode, the Time Bomb.
But no show is perfect, and right around here is where the show, in my opinion, started having some misses. It was mostly just "meh" affairs like The Night, The Toddler and The Big Job (weird, since I usually like heist eps… though I haven't rewatched this one in a while so *shrugs*). Other eps like The Tourist and ESPECIALLY The Helper (which I consider to be the show's worst outing, the vibes are just SO WEIRD on this one) I just didn't care for at all. 
Nothing terrible (save for the Helper), just cases of the jokes not landing or the stories being boring. This was also when the show really started leaning into the wackiness - which wasn't BAD persay, since it led to some really funny jokes and memorable moments when it was used well - it's just that looking back, I sorta miss the simplicity of early s1.
Thankfully, the season put out some real bangers by its end, with my personal faves being The Epic Quest (that ending will never not make me cackle. Again, it's a case of the wackiness actually working incredibly well), the Halloween/Christmas special, and the Rider, which is a great adventure to cap off the season and also the Horse from Horsin’ Around guest stars in it! (and does a pretty good job too. Will Arnett is def one of my favorite celeb VAs at this point, ngl)
So yeah, between the two seasons, s1 is easily my favorite. Call it nostalgia or personal taste, but for me it's all about that consistency. Adding in the fact that s2 has some pretty notable flaws and is thus a lot harder to look back on without noticing those flaws, and it's really no contest for me. 
New season, New problems
I certainly remember the excitement - as well as the fandom's stir craziness - in the lead-up to s2. There were crackships that were invented, silly RP blogs were rampant, Craig McCracken and crew (back when they were still on Tumblr) kept us fed with cool behind the scenes info as well as sneak peeks of the new season, and while I can't recall when it specifically happened, I also vividly remember the 'Bad End to Episodes' phase that the fandom was in at one point. Ah, the joys of still being in your angst phase.
Come that year's Comic Con, and a new round of hype came from the reveal that our new villain of the season was going to be a girl! …yeahhh, it sorta sucks recalling how hyped we all were about Dominator now that we know that she didn't quite work out the way we were all hoping for…
But regardless, s2 had a very strong start. Outside of the premiere, my favorites of this first batch would easily be The Boy Wander and The It for both just being incredibly funny. Although, if you had asked me at the time though, I probably would have said the Skeleton Dance fueled eps that were The Big Day and the Fremergency Fronfract - and like, yeah those eps can still be funny and enjoyable, but I've definitely cooled on the Skeleton Dance ship since these eps first premiered. (Still love a lot of the cute fanon stuff though)
Skipping past the next tent-pole episode for right now, this season had two of my favorite episodes of the ENTIRE SERIES - these being The Cartoon and The Black Cube. The former is just hilarious while the latter has a unique visual presentation and feels like an early s1 ep, and I mean that in the best possible way. I also really enjoy the Eye on the Skullship as well as the Hole… 'Lotta Nuthin' (this one especially, as it's another instance where, for as good as the ep is as a whole, it's the heartwarming lesson and hilarious ending that makes it such a winner in my book).
But for as much as the show was still putting out hits, I'll admit that there were also quite a few meh or just okay eps, especially as the season goes on. Some eps I found funny when I first watched them, but that humor doesn't hit as well when I watch them now. I also feel like there were points where it tried to be TOO silly to the point where it inhibited the actual humor and made the characters flatter and a bit flanderized compared to how they were in s1 (Hater especially got hit bad with this, where it’s less about him ‘softening up’ to show that he has the potential to be a good guy, and more just him constantly leaning into him being a bratty teenager instead of having that mix of dumb/bratty teen boy and legit evil conqueror).
Other times, it was just another case of a story not being as good as it could have been - and by this point in the season, while there are still enjoyable eps with fun concepts/jokes in the latter half of the series, the only one to get near the peak of the show's typical high quality is the musical ep, and if we're being real, it's Andy Bean's impeccable songwriting that saves this ep and makes it so good to rewatch despite its connection to the season's flawed overall story.
And I think it's about time we talk about that…
Not Quite Ready for Serialization
Being a show that was made right after Gravity Falls but before stuff like Star VS, Amphibia, and Owl House, s2 of WoY felt like a show with one foot stuck in episodic stuff and one foot trying to step into serialization. Because of this, the season’s overarching plot feels incredibly underbaked.
Now… Am I saying that I’d want the show to be like ATLA where every episode had to relate back to either the overarching story or one of the side-arcs? No, absolutely not. We’d be missing out on some of my favorite one-shot episodes if they did that, and if I had to choose between the season we have now and the season we could have gotten had the WoY crew gotten more freedom and were allowed more serialization, I’m going with the former each and every time.
HOWEVER, I still have to acknowledge just how poorly done the structure of this season was when it came to the overarching story. Basically we got four tentpole episodes acting as the season’s beginning, arc shifts and ending. During the season’s second and third arcs, there would be certain episodes afterwards reacting to the change in the show’s status quo.
Now, I get what they were TRYING to do but in my opinion it just really didn’t work as well as it could have. I’ll talk more about this in a bit but the season’s second arc (the “romance” arc) definitely got tiring after a while, meanwhile the third “Stop Dominator” arc felt like it was sort of killing time given that it was mostly just the main 4 trying to find some sort of weapon/figure out some sort of plan that ultimately resulted in some ‘funny’ failures and some quick lessons, with the occasional character piece thrown in here or there.
Now, I didn’t hate these episodes. By this point, it should be evident that one of my favorite elements of WoY are its morals and lessons, so even if the episodes themselves didn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things and were essentially filler, I can at least appreciate a message like “being sad doesn’t mean you’ve given up hope” or “allowing yourself to laugh even in the dark times can help a ton”. So yeah, not completely pointless.
Unfortunately, even with a few bright spots here and there, the overarching plot of s2 still feels underbaked somewhat - and that’s ultimately because of the new character its focused around.
Dominator’s Dilemma
Okay, fess up. Whose idea was it to completely exclude Dominator from the first six episodes of the season (after the s2 premiere)? Because WOW does this decision backfire a lot. I don’t even like Dom that much and I can still acknowledge that she needed much more screen time and focus than she got.
I don’t know if this was to build up the ‘mystery’ surrounding her or because they wanted to get back in the groove of writing the main 4, but this was the crew’s first crucial mistake. Hell, in the first two episodes she plays an active role in, she’s nearly silent in both of them, only having her little fangirl rant in The Greater Hater and a small handful of lines in The Battle Royals. (Which, if I’m being honest, is still a really fun episode for 90% of it, having both great action and absolutely hilarious jokes that still make me laugh, but I get the ending of it making people sour on the episode as a whole.)
Again, it felt like trying to build up this artificial mystery surrounding her when it really wasn’t necessary. Dominator was meant to be a MAIN MEMBER of the cast! Yet I’m pretty sure Emperor Awesome got more significant screen time than her in the end!
Things got a teeny bit better as the show went on, with Dom at the very least getting more lines and more moments to be both badass and totally villainous, but she still felt more like a goal/obstacle than an actual character. I’m not sure if the writers MEANT to do this persay, or if it was just an accident.
Ultimately, it wasn’t until The Night Out when Dom finally got a spotlight episode… which was a little over 3/4ths of the way through the season. You could argue that she also got a bit of characterization in the musical episode, but it was really more emphasizing what we already knew or could infer about her. 
The Night Out, meanwhile, gives us something new - that she’s lonely - and we get a teeny hint of this again in The Robomechabotatron before being told outright in the series finale. Ultimately, it truly does feel like too little too late - especially when her secretly desiring friends just sorta feels like it’s aping off Hater’s secret motivations of wanting to be liked/admired and to have friends/people who love him for who he is.
So yeah, the crew completely dropped the ball on Dom’s characterization, using her as just a goal/threat/obstacle/etc. for nearly all of her appearances. Not only does it make Dom feel like a shallow character, but it also just feels unfair in general. Practically everything we know about Dom is for the sake of other characters.
She’s a test for Wander, an enemy/temporary love interest for Hater, an obstacle for our main four to overcome, and a threat to the characters we already love. Again, there’s nothing wrong with having a character that’s only meant to serve a purpose in the narrative, nor is there anything wrong with a character being shallowly evil… it’s just that the WoY crew hyped her up so much and claimed that she was a fifth main character (implying that she would get about as much development as the main four), so it just felt all the more disappointing when we didn’t get that. Add in her character design - a mix of goth/punk girl energy with Hartman Hips - and it does feel just a tad misogynistic.
There were things I liked about Dom - her cool lava powers and gadgets, her excitable personality, her villain spotlight moments, and her fun vocal performance provided by Noel Wells were all excellent. But unfortunately, these were all surface-level elements, and the crew just didn’t put in enough time to give her much else, essentially saving all her deeper character stuff for the never-made season 3…
A love-hate relationship (leaning towards hate)
Of course you can’t talk about Dom without discussing the season’s second arc, which many see as both a tumor on the plot and the absolute low point of the season. Admittedly when I was watching the season for the first time, I didn’t mind the romance arc all that much. I didn’t care if Dom was getting short-changed, I was too busy laughing at Hater falling all over himself like a dork and thought all the ‘critics’ of the arc were just focusing on the wrong thing and didn’t know how to have fun with a silly cartoon.
Obviously, this was the wrong perspective to have about this sort of thing (I was in the mindset of “I don’t want to accidentally make myself hate this thing I love so I’m going to ignore all criticism of it”. Definitely not the right approach), one that I still apologize for because the critics were totally in the right. From both an objective and a storytelling standpoint, this arc was just the worst - and for several reasons.
Leaning into the overall problem with Dom herself as mentioned previously, this arc was focused solely on Hater and Wander (and to an extent Syl and Peeps as they tried to talk some sense into their respective friends). Whenever Dom was brought in, she either used Hater’s crush to mess with him or just ignored it entirely, being obviously annoyed - and that was the extent of focus that her feelings got.
Outside of those moments, however, Dom’s feelings are relegated to the background, deemed as ‘unimportant’. Sure, in the climax of the arc, she gets this big whole musical number about how she’s “not the damsel” and isn’t interested in Hater’s affections - but again, it’s at the VERY END of the arc and the moment is less about Dom standing up for herself and more about emphasizing just how cruel she can be, as instead of simply rejecting Hater’s advances, she laughs in his face, continuing to mess with him to try and make the rejection as painful as possible before ultimately trying to kill Hater.
But while the arc ends in a showy (and admittedly still kinda fun, thank you Andy Bean and your musical talents) way, the way it starts sorta proves why this idea was so rotten to the core. The ONLY reason why Wander tries to get Hater and Dom together is ONLY because he knows Hater wants a GF and believes that a ‘positive’ thing like love could only ever result in the two villains finding happiness and no longer being evil. Nevermind the fact that Wander is shown only really caring about Hater’s perspective, not once considering Dom’s feelings or even asking if she wants a BF or romantic partner in general.
We get Syl calling him out on this a couple of times, but it’s in that ‘oh that Wander, always with the crazy ideas’ way. You’d think Sylvia, the icon that she is, would be just a bit more blunt and maybe even a bit harsh about how Wander’s treating Dominator - it’s not just a matter of it being a dumb and dangerous plan, but it’s essentially objectifying Dom, treating her like Hater’s missing piece. But hey, it’s fiiiiine, because Wander learns his lesson in the end, right? Except, no not really.
Because even when Wander FINALLY realizes this and feels guilty about causing so much trouble, Syl is more concerned with comforting Wander about it, because he TRIED to do what he thought was right and that “acknowledging you messed up is the first step towards making things right”. Like… yeah I guess but you could have let Wander actually acknowledge what he did was wrong and super messed up, focusing more on the personal aspect of how his whole romance scheme affected Dom AS WELL AS Hater (not JUST Hater) instead of how his scheme broke Hater’s heart and inadvertently made Dom more powerful.
(Also we see Wander shipping and actively pairing up the little Pikmin things in “The Sky Guy” soooooo no I don’t think he fully learned his lesson)
I also have to bring up how there are fans who view Dominator and her whole anti-love thing as aphobic. As someone who only recently figured out she was almost definitely aromantic, I’m certainly not the authority on this, but I can certainly understand the critiques.
What I THINK the WoY Crew was trying to go for was a ‘strong female villain who don’t need no man’, but between Dom constantly being described as ‘heartless’ and Peeps saying that he “doesn’t think she likes anybody” and her cruelty being turned up to 11 whenever someone expressed romantic feelings towards her, it does sorta imply “She can’t love and THAT’S why she’s a villainous monster” rather than simply “she’s a villainous monster”. And because we don’t get any real development or strong characterization with Dom, it’s hard to say where exactly her cruelty comes from, so it’s hard to really argue against these implications without simply inserting headcanons like “Dom is a lesbian”.
Now to be fair, I have seen some aromantics see Dom as good representation - I recall a month or so back when I saw people praising her after she was included in one of those Tumblr polls, with this one being focused on aromantic characters, saying that they liked how she didn’t sugarcoat her rejections and seeing her as this strong, cool, badass villainous who didn’t need romance. So yeah, obviously not every person who shares an identity is going to agree on representation and whether or not it's good, but considering all of Dom’s baggage and the inability to determine whether or not her heartlessness is the cause of her evil or simply a by-product of it, I personally feel like she’s just too messy of an example of a potential aro character.
(Honestly, Syl feels like a better example of an aromantic character to me, given that she and Ryder seemed just as platonic as she and Wander are, as well as her multiple rejections of Awesome and general disinterest/discomfort with romance. Buuut given that those latter examples are specifically with villains and thus it makes sense why she’d reject them regardless of her orientation, it’s still just a vibe/headcanon).
Before I close off this section, I do wanna acknowledge that beyond the potentially aphobic nature of Dominator, WoY’s LGBTQ+ rep isn’t nearly as great as I thought it was once upon a time as a young shipper. Some parts are still pretty okay, like Wander being coded as genderfluid/agender, but overall it still feels more like an old Looney Tunes cartoon than an episode of “The Owl House”, if you get what I’m saying.
In Craig’s defense, the man has never been all too interested in romance in his shows nor has he claimed otherwise - he either uses it as a joke while portraying it as a negative (see Ms.KeenexProf.Utonium, BlooxBerry or, obviously, DomxHater) or it’s a wholesome relationship that ultimately still stays in the background because it’s not all that important (see DracorxDemurra or Ramona and Carlos Flores from “Kid Cosmic”). 
BUT given that there were LGBTQ+ crew members working on the show in s2, such as N.D. Stevenson, as well as LGBTQ+ allies, it is a shame that no proper representation came of that. We got a whole episode where the joke was “oh, Wander and Hater are planning Wander’s execution like it’s a wedding”, an episode where Peeps and Hater essentially break up when Hater fires him, and an “I just can’t quit you” sort of moment from Peeps in the s2 finale when he goes all heart-eyed over Hater deciding to continue being a villain. That’s it, all jokes but nothing substantial. Even the show’s number one lesbian/wlw pairing of SylxDom got a quick Girls Night montage and one sweet moment between them, nothing else.
Again, it’s fine if you’re just looking for jokes, and yeah the WoY Crew never outright promised any romances… buuuut given how much they chose to lean into the Skeleton Dance and DeathGlare stuff while at the same time never outright confirming any of these characters as LGBTQ+ (they didn’t even have to make any ships canon, they just had to say whether or not Wander/Hater/Peeps were gay/bi/pan/etc), I’m not gonna invalidate people who feel just a bit queerbaited about the whole thing.
Bittersweet Goodbyes
As I said before, I was starting college when WoY first premiered. It’s the show that led me to my best friend and it’s the show that helped me through those first two years of college (easily the roughest part of college). It was a show that made me laugh and got me excited, even during the times where I was stressed out or worried. For all its flaws, it was one of the brightest lights in my life at that time.
So, needless to say, when I heard the show was canceled, I was devastated. I remember crying about it that night and even the day after, and I remember joining in as many online strategies as possible to try and get the show back, from letter writing to petition signing. Of course none of that worked, but as a bright side, going through this helped emotionally prepare me for the next time one of my favorite shows was suddenly canceled (looking at you Nickelodeon. Though considering how the RotTMNT movie turned out maaaaybe it was for the best…)
Honestly, for as much as I can look at the show through a critical lens nowadays and point out all the ways it could have been better, I think there will always be a small part of me that wishes we could have gotten some sort of continuation, whether it be through a special, a TV movie or a comic - or hell, I’d even take the plans for s3 leaking at this point. Now, given that the end of WoY brought about the creation of “Kid Cosmic”, I feel like this part has faded a bit, but I’m always gonna want closure on things like Hater’s arc as well as his origins given how much they were teased.
But that in itself is another critique I could give the show. Whether it be Wander facing a different type of threat that wasn’t just another villain, Hater’s transition into becoming a good guy, Peepers getting fed up with his boss and striking out on his own, or Dom’s true characterization that the crew kept insisting was there - the show simply saved a lot of it’s most interesting ideas for a potential Season 3. It was a gamble, and it was one they ultimately lost. It sucks, but it is what it is.
There’s a few more things I could critique about the show, such as its take on the idea of character redemption and Wander becoming a bit of a karma houdini that the show pretty much stopped calling out, and while these critiques are valid I feel like there are other fans who could do a better job talking about those points. But in the end, while season 2 was both a let down in some parts and a bit of a mess in others, I still feel like there were ultimately more good things to be found within the show than bad things.
It’s not a perfect show, far from it. Frankly, I don’t look down on anyone who fell out of love with this show or enjoyed s1 but hated s2. But for what it’s worth, the memories I got from the show are still ones I treasure, and episodes like “The Good Deed”, “The Little Guy”, “The Nice Guy”, “The Epic Quest”, “The Rider”, “The Boy Wander”, “The Black Cube”, “The Hole… Lotta’ Nuthin’” and “The Cartoon” are ones I still love to bits and will probably always love as I watch them over and over.
Disney Channel itself may not care all that much about this show these days save for an occasional rerun or a quick cameo in their Chibi-Verse shorts, but I’m always gonna remember it - for better and for worse. So here’s to 10 years, WoY. I may not always like you, but I still love you.
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