#or that they didn't feel that way

[something-wrong-with-us]

Here's a word of advice

If you talk about your experience shipping something or feelings of guilt and shame, which I've been there mate I get it, just be aware that other shippers can see it as well.

If you say shipping something is wrong and you know it's wrong, you might be talking as a shipper, but you are still making other shippers who might not have felt that way feel that way. They might not have felt any shame or gulit until now. They might not feel what they were shipping was weird and fringe and ostracized until you reminded them that some of us are second-class citizens of this fandom and there is no way for us to escape that label.

Not all of us like degrading ourselves like that, making jokes about how we are sinners and how our ship is trash. I am not gonna roll in the trash, I am not a raccoon. I am a person who asks for respect, and not the condescending, backwards, you-do-you, winking and nodding bullshit.

And you did that as a multishipper which is okay to be, but, some of us don't get the luxury of hiding behind our more acceptable ships. Not me, because I don't have them.

[uncanny-tranny]

I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.

I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:

Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)

Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)

Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often

Eat dessert first

Celebrate well, and often

Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)

Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.

Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate

Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)

Walk without having a specific destination or goal

Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.

I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.

[charlie-rulerofhell]

"I'll be back. I promise you. And everything will be alright."

[tuherrus]

a kiss

[cup-o-stars]

Relativity Falls!

Design Concepts (and my unnecessary thoughts):

Excuse the the colors, ig my apps are fighting.

I see Mabel finding success no matter what happens to her, but I really like the thought of her running an insane arts and crafts business in GF. Alternatively, if she fell in the portal, she'd come out acting confident as always, but she probably wouldn't realize how much the constant change and lack of family/stability wore her out until she settled back in. In either case, she's a bit cracked.

Dipper is investigative, but cracks easiest under stress and is not as inherently adventurous as Mabel or Ford- so the portal wouldn't treat him well. If he's not the one in the portal, he'd be into stargazing and real magic to share with people, while also warding tourists away from the dangerous stuff. In general, he'd be an unhappy adult if left to his own devices, lol.

Between Dipper and Mabel, I like Dipper being in the portal more. He's a great protagonist, but as a supporting cast member, he needs to be more insane to match the draw that is 'Mabel taking care of children,' ha. I also love the idea of there being no portal / some other looming threat for these two to struggle with (at least because Hirsche has made it clear that Dipper and Mabel are equally smart, and to me it seems like the portal would reopen way quicker with them), but I didn't plan on posting these and I don't know how my followers feel about me posting lore.

Stanford and Stanley:

Pretty much how they are in canon, but now they're in a setting where they can get over themselves, ha. They aren't quite as mature as Dipper and Mabel were at their age, but after coming to GF, they finally found other people to look out for them. Dipper could be a more emotionally available and level-headed role model (I think having people to take care of is calming for him in turn), and they'd both look up to Mabel as the peak of somebody who knows how to socialize.

Fiddleford:

He's a sweet, southern, farm-raised mechanical engineer just like in canon.

Idk why Fiddleford is in GF (visiting an unnamed grandparent?), but I really like his relationship with Ford in the journal. Following that thought, in this AU, he starts out more of Ford's friend than Stan's, and it's kind of a big deal. Unlike Dipper's arc on learning to be a kid, Stan and Ford clearly struggled a lot with interpersonal relationships / finding security outside of eachother, and that's what I think this AU could be about (it's great they realized they need each other in canon, but the part where they had no one else to turn to is also kinda crazy if you ask me).

Ford gets to meet another smart kid in a weird town, which helps him feel more normal. He has a better idea of what friendship is because of it, but also, since I can't imagine Dipper wanting an apprentice so young/vulnerable/impressionable or Mabel asking only one of the twins to stay- he'd have to come to terms with the fact that he can't live in his dream world forever. (Or maybe the apprenticeship comes from somewhere else, just because the conflict around going back to Glass Shard Beach at all, or sending Stan alone could be pretty good.)

On the flipside, I think Stan's initial jealousy of Ford and Fiddleford's friendship would force him to try finding his own friends / hobbies. I like the idea that he fails at first- and a lot- but Mabel notices his mounting frustration (which he is very keen on hiding), and her consistent and unorthodox support makes him realize he wasn't alone to begin with. He can be more open around her, which makes it easier to open up to others, and then he can make friends without having to pull any tricks. He probably starts with some animals, and then at least gets closer to Fiddleford anyways (I feel like they're both more practical than Ford and value human company more, so they'd bond easier once Stan gets over his personal hurdle).

Anyways- because that was way too much- Mabel's exes are a constant source of antagonists and Dipper is stressed about setting a good example.

(I was more of a Monster Falls fan back in the day, but I can't draw animals, lol)

[egophiliac]

ANNIVERSARY GROOVY BOYBAND! THEY ALL LOOK SO GOOD, I also love the hades reference with idia! Ik ur probably really swamped with the book 7 brain rot but I wanted to know ur thoughts. I also wanted to mention that I am so card deprived I feel like I need a replacement event to take tsumderlands place

AUGH NO I LOVE THEM. 😭 UGH now I really have to think about if I want to try pulling for Grim again. dangit. heck. I already got his little pedestal to add my guest room shrine, but...now I kinda need the boss himself...

also, the implications of it not being an OB thing, Idia can just. Do That? apparently? do you think he ever just sometimes does it by accident? what am I saying, he absolutely sometimes does it by accident.

gosh though. this event has been SO cute in general! I was wondering who'd get the focus for year 5; I could not be happier that the answer is apparently EVERYBODY. :D all the dorms get their own special songs! so many cute little scenes!!! the lowest of stakes bringing out the highest of pettiness in everyone!!!!!! it's excellent.

(also, because I will make literally anything about my diaboys...I know these events are typically sorta, let's say chronologically unmoored with regards to story. but the further implications that this takes place pre-episode 7/Malleus' Big Existential Crisis, and yet...some of these lines?)

[bixels]

Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

[cloudfishcg]

referring to the cleanup arc

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The dog days are over.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[the---hermit]

I am not saying here's a link to a free online version of the 1984 graphic novel but if it was there you should probably go read it.

[sharkylass]

ALRIGHT, I ASKED FOREVER AGO, BUT WHO WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT MY ISA LOOPS AU??

Heads up this contains a lot, and I mean A LOT of spoilers for In Stars And Time. Including: = Act 6 spoilers, including main mystery and secret encounter = Minimal Act 5 stuff = And a bunch of extra stuff that happens through Act 3 and 4. SO BASICALLY ALMOST EVERYTHING, FINISH THIS GAME COMPLETELY BEFORE READING (ESPECIALLY THAT ACT 6 ENCOUNTER, IT WILL LITERALLY BE THE FIRST THING I MENTION UNDER THE CUT)

With all those warnings out of the way-

IN REPETITION AND CHANGE

Initial Concepts:

I feel it's important to show these sketches because they were the first ideas I ever had. I wasn't even entirely sure I wanted to make an AU at this point, I didn't even know how I'd approach it. But I started sketching and it's been on my mind since- SO! Isa is stuck in the timeloop. I know what his wish is and he DOES have a Loop equivalent! The grumpy dandelion guy is Roboro (it/they/he). Their name is a very small play on Ouroboros and they call Isa "Seedling". However, this post is not about them, as I'm gonna talk about it and Isa's dynamic in a separate post. In short, Isa is his normal loud self up until Act 3, right? They beat the King, they reach the end, and whoops, the loop isn't broken. So now, what happens is that Isa starts getting his brains out. He starts thinking more analytically and tries to problem solve.

The more stuck he gets in his head, the less he's able to perceive his friends as real people, and more like them holding him back. Because even if Isa explains that he's smart, that they shouldn't be surprised if he says something, shock of all shocks, reasonable- They'll forget it the next loop.

So Isa is stuck with trying to portray his confident, loud, supportive facade- Which is fine! It wouldn't be the first time! But it progressively gets more and more frustrating, as he tries to find answers and simply looses the energy to pretend to be stupid.

TL;DR: Isa in the timeloop, unlike Siffrin, becomes more distant and cold rather then something more akin to Sif's mania.

NOW, MORE ART!!!

KILL KILL KILL:

I imagine Isa didn't have this encounter the same way that Sif did. Yeah, frankly, Isa is pissed with the sadness- But that's not why he goes through with this.

In this moment, Isa is trying to kill two birds with one stone. He's trying to get through this quickly, as well as reassure Mira that they can do this! If he shows how strong he is, then she'll feel safe right???

Poor Isabeau forgot that whenever he shows that he thinks ahead, he scares people. How could he forget that? How could he forget that he's inherently---

Family Quest:

I still think Odile is the one to call out to him (same with sus quest).

The hangouts I'm still figuring out, cause I don't think they'd too similar to base game- But, fun fact, at the end of this run, everyone agrees to keep travel together!

Isabeau brings it up, can't hurt if you can fix your mistakes right? And everyone agrees. The relief on Siffrin is the most palpable thing Isabeau has ever seen.

In this moment they love you. In this moment they all love you. In this moment---

Death Screen:

He loops back anyways. (This is one of the initial concepts that I ended up animating. This line in particular is when he reaches the end)

Act 5 Tarot Card:

NOW TO SEE MORE OF HIS PASSIVE AGRESSIVE SIDE

Thanks to @the-bitter-ocean for prescribing tarot cards to Isa (THEY ALL FUCK SO HARD) and for the RAW ASS LINE

If interacted with in act 5, predictably, Isa tears it apart. He doesn't need the divine judgement upon him, he's faced everyone's perception his entire life.

However, he tears it methodically. Tears it once in even pieces, twice, three times, and one of the pieces once more. In a way he isn't even getting his emotions out, it's like he's actively trying to tear it apart so it stops nagging him, like he wants to shut it up. Though, the Judgement card symbolizes rebirth, absolution and inner calling. In Act 6 he'd be able to look at it and find comfort and confidence in the card.

Act 5 Mirror:

And lastly, I have the Act 5 mirror picture. I haven't quite figured out how to make the normal ones work yet, however, I couldn't let go of the idea that Isa would not want to be in the picture.

The idea of seeing himself at all makes his head hurt and his stomach squeeze. The memory haunts him as he stands to the side and says the word. He didn't think the mirror would catch him.

AAAAND THAT'S ALL THE ART STUFF FOR NOW!!

I still have quite a bit of it to post, especially about Roboro, but I'm gonna leave it here for now.

I still gotta figure out the hangouts and potentially the dagger equivalent- but I have ideas for Bad Touch, the glass equivalent, and some extra little things that didn't happen in Siffrin's loops.

I needed to yap about this, because I've been slowly stacking up ideas and writing and I needed to share it at some point- If anyone read all this and has questions and stuff I fully welcome 'em!!

[chell-min]

avenstelle dump. the silliests

[nadiasna7]

What if WWX lived to see his forties in his original body (without the core, of course)

[forgettable-au]

FORGETTABLE-AU (Page 48-52)

FOUND.

[BEGINNING] [PREVIOUS] [CONTINUE]

[urfavoritemistake]

i'm not seeing any posts about it here yet, but they solved the silas birchtree riddle on reddit and there's some pretty juicy lore! first, entering "paranoid" backwards nets this conspiracy board:

then, from the black letters in the corners of some of the pages people pieced together the code "connect the dots", backwards again, gets a whopping 12 page chapter about the ciphertology cult! it's...something.

so in summary, bill puppeted a guy's corpse, became a cult leader, seemingly married over a hundred people, mass-possessed his followers, tried to get them to build his portal. his lone dissenter was a spinster who made anti-bill chick tracts and started a fire. a waco-style shootout ensued, killing silas' already-rotting corpse a second time in a disturbingly detailed manner. at some point he made some of his followers drink the kool-aid too.

entering the lady's name, emmaline butternubbins, into the computer finally gets you the reward for solving all the riddles: hd wallpapers of various graphics from the book of bill. but frankly this is more interesting and fucked up to me.

(alt text under cut, wip)

[Image 1: A cluttered conspiracy board centered on Bill Cipher. Red string and pins connect various newspaper clippings, photos, drawings and pamphlets.]

[Image 2: A history-book style chapter page. Header "LESSER KNOWN AMERICAN CULTS."

"Have you ever heard of Orchard Lake, Kansas? Chances are you haven't. It was erased from every map, book, and historical record, and the US Government's official position on it is "stop calling us or we'll send a drone to your house." (I learned this the hard way.) But if you drive to the exact latitude and longitude of you'll see bullet casings, faded billboards, and bow ties strewn across the desert sands.

That's because Orchard Lake had another name before it was wiped off the record: BillVille.

CHAPTER 3: BillVille

The First Cult In History That Was Right

FIG A: A tumbillweced

As a historian of esoteric religions, I thought I'd discovered the strangest sects America had yct to offer (see "Chapter 3: Kevin's Gate") but that all changed when I found the following items tucked away in an old trunk in an estate sale on the out- skirts of Bootstrap, Missouri."]

[inkedberries]

i have a headcanon that Yoichi trims AFO's hair because i can't help but compare AFO's nicely trimmed hair to Yoichi's and i thought someone had to have cut AFO's hair for him and it is only logical for me to assume it was Yoichi who did. I think AFO would only trust Yoichi to be so close to him with a sharp object like a pair of scissors lol

I think Yoichi would have also liked cutting his brother's hair at first, because it would make him feel helpful in a way? And I just think even when AFO put him in the vault, AFO would still go there to get his hair trimmed by Yoichi.

and once Yoichi joins the resistance, he offers to do this for Kudo as well.