#was originally about w359

[topayitfoward]

Survivor's Guilt. Every single character. All of them.

[houstondoyoucopy]

officially in kepcobi hell

[hephaestuscrew]

When you listen to the funeral in Boléro when you're 19 and are fairly naïve and have been lucky enough that you've never had a death close to you, you think Hera doesn't understand "why they have to be gone" because she's an AI and she only has 4 years of life experience to go off and it's inevitably difficult for someone without a physical body to conceptualise death. But then you get a little older and things happen and you realise No, that's just what grief is like.

Hera thinks that it doesn't make sense to her because she's missing something, because there's something that her creators didn't put inside her head, or at the very least because she's never experienced that kind of loss before. She thinks there's something that can be explained to her that will make it easier to come to terms with the deaths of people who've been a part of her life. And Eiffel struggles for an answer, or rather a way to explain to her that there is no answer; "Hera, we don't… I don't know that there's… That's not what this -".

The truth is that there's nothing that Hera is missing. What is happening inside her head feels "wrong and stupid and wrong" because that's just how it feels when someone you know dies. That's how the other characters are feeling too, even if they express it differently.

Hera thinks that she feels the way she does because she's experiencing things differently to her human crewmates, but that's not really the case. She's just being the most honest about those feelings.

It's not an artificial intelligence grappling with human situations that she can't understand. It's a person struggling with grief in the way that any human struggles with grief.

Hera's feeling that she doesn't know how to deal with this, her inability to stop thinking about the fact that they're gone, her sense that there must be some set of instructions she wasn't given, her desperation for a way to make it better or easier, her plea for things to somehow make sense… It's all just so incredibly, heart-wrenchingly human and real.

[tawodiii]

Hey, Hera? Are you there?

Of course, Doug.

Commission for @commsroom

[harpoonsandmusicals]

It’s pride month, have my random queer w359 headcanons!

Hera is trans. Obviously. Sexuality wise, I don’t think she’s really met enough people to tell for certain. Her feelings for Maxwell were very strong, were they romantic? Does she really know what that means? She’s working on that one.

Eiffel is aromantic bisexual and completely clueless about that fact. He fully believes romance was made up for the movies and that all dudes find other men a little hot. He is painfully cisgender.

Minkowski’s gender is a little masc and spicy but mostly cis as well. She read a book on how to support your trans coworkers and it honestly made her worse and more awkward instead of helping. She’s aware that she’s bi but trying not to think about it. Being ok with other people being bi is not the same as being ok with herself being bi

Hilbert sold his gender and sexuality to clear space in his brain for more science

Lovelace is very very lesbian and also the only one of the crew who is actually engaged with the queer community. She went from her very queer original crew to these disasters and is having a terrible time trying to figure out how to explain what aro is to Eiffel. Her gender is lesbian. She’s probably cis but I can see reading her as trans too

[tanis-drawings-2point0]

originally drawn for the wolf359/tma october prompt 6: Crossover Ship, because I like thinking about a time before canon where minkowski w359 and tim tma met while hiking and hit it off well :') <3 (and maybe even... 😏😏😏)

[commsroom]

I'm really glad for all the love you've put into w359 fanworks. every time I see you post about it, my heart glows a little.

I'd originally felt that way while listening to the show, and your interpretation & vision feels so tightly knit to the source material. you even go farther in your explicit discussions about hera, her autonomy, her emotional depth, her treatment by other characters, and her arc as a trans allegory

totally understand why you might feel embarrassed, but I wanted you to know: thank you 💜

oh, that's so sweet of you to say!! i'm honored you think so.

i genuinely think there's a case to be made that eiffel/hera is as canon as the parameters for romance in wolf 359 allow it to be. like: gabriel urbina's policy was always "never confirm or deny 'on-screen' romance unless absolutely necessary" and from the AMAs we know they at least discussed it with regard to eiffel and hera, though we'll never know how that conversation went. it's not really a secret that sarah shachat and zach valenti, at least, viewed it that way. i still think about zach saying (paraphrased) that he thinks his non-answer is an answer, because if he didn't ship them, he could just say so.

and that's kind of how i feel about eiffel/hera within canon. like. anybody at all familiar with shows the wolf 359 writers like (especially things like btvs and farscape) can tell you there are plenty of scenes that mirror and meta-textually reference scenes from other shows. both gabriel urbina and sarah shachat were huge fans of the new doctor who, and whatever you believe the intent was, i find it hard to believe they didn't at least know they were evoking "if it's my last chance to say it, rose tyler, i-" with "and hera. hera, i-" it's what isn't said, the fact it has to be left unsaid, that speaks the loudest.

and anyway, talking about hera and romance / sexuality is especially interesting to me because it's not a given for her. it's not assumed to be something she should want or can have, and the way that intersects with her canon disability and with readings of her as a trans woman re: autonomy and desirability is very interesting (and very personal) to me, especially in the broader context of stories about AI women. but that's a topic for another post.

it's not a new observation by any means, but i think there can be a tendency to treat romance as separate from character analysis, and that's always sat poorly with me. romance isn't unique in either a good or a bad way, it's just... one type of relationship people can have. i think a lot about the unique approach wolf 359 has to romance because, while i understand why a lot of people would find the lack of romantic subplots refreshing, the characters aren't written to be intentionally disinterested in sex or romance (in some cases, textually... the opposite, even), so much as the writing carefully skirts around it. and... i don't know! there's something fascinating there.

obviously, i think you can recognize what's important about eiffel and hera's relationship (that it's the most equal one hera has ever had, that he has no real hierarchy over her or expectations for her other than companionship, how they share values and mutually support each other, etc.) without needing that to be romantic. and i think you can even acknowledge there's some degree of romantic intent without being invested like i am or "shipping" them. but i do think there's some intent there, and i think the the themes of the show can be expanded in some interesting ways to explore that beyond the intentional ambiguity of it. if you want to.

i would also never deny having an emotional bias here!! complete objectivity is never possible because we always bring parts of ourselves to our interpretations of art, and that's only amplified by how close to my heart wolf 359 is as a story. but i do really want to communicate, to the best of my ability, how much love i have for the show and how much thought i put into it. and i definitely don't mind being known for my love of eiffel/hera; they're my favorite characters from anything ever, both individually and together. but i do get kinda embarrassed when i talk about them too much, because it's not that i don't have plenty of thoughts about every other character and aspect of the show, it's just... that they are close to my heart in a particular way. anyway. i really appreciate it, thank you!!

[iersei]

hi im mutuals with both 1 billion dndads blogs and 1 billion tma/wtnv/w359/taz/manyotherpodcasts blogs and like i just have to say. im fairly sure you are genuinely skewing the vote here. i felt so odd voting for glenn instead of lup, instead of isabel lovelace, instead of KRAVITZ. and i voted for him and looked deep inside myself and was like "why did i do this? because its funny?" and realized thats exactly why. this is all fucking hilarious. i witness your blog daily and it has the same desperation as an irl election if not far more so. theres not anything else on your blog and if there is its because you drew it for someone who voted. i have a mutual who was upset about annabelle cane not winning and was like honestly, if you were as passionate as iersei, maybe you would've had a chance. you're picking glenn close up like one of those screaming toy chickens and successfully smacking aside every character ive seen this website lose their minds over every couple of weeks perpetually since 2016 at the latest. glenn fucking close of all people. id say theres sexier dndads characters but honestly im not sure if there is anymore. i think its all glenn. i wonder how long it will take you to go back to being a normal, non-glenn-sexy-tournament themed blog. i hope you carry this sheer unfiltered passion into everything you do. because its the funniest fucking thing ive ever seen. please keep going

AS A CLOWN AT HEART, MY FIRST COMMITMENT IS ALWAYS AND FOREVER TO. THE. BIT.

anyone who knows me will tell you that they are completely unsurprised by how thoroughly i have dedicated myself to this. i wear my heart on my sleeve. i am loud. i am passionate. and when i commit, i FUCKING COMMIT.

and i ask of you. what is the greatest measure of victory. nay, of sex appeal in general on tumblr dot com. than some freaks doing some unhinged nonsense and pissing off a looot of people that just don't Get It in the process?

the reason why cecilsweep was so entertaining to watch was because. he swept against the victors of the original tournament on twitter when the rematch rounds came around to tumblr. it's because it was unexpected, but people were adamant and they were passionate.

and here? in this sphere? where nightvale is such a fucking behemoth of a powerhouse that their popularity necessitated another bracket? it doesn't carry the same energy.

you know what does?

one hot and sexy mess of a man submitted by one person with zero propaganda clawing his way up to the top. knocking down a lot of really popular characters in the process with close (heh) victories and hard fought battles. all because a handful of really desperate freaks really really want him carnally.

that's what it's all about baby. and that's why, in my heart, we've already won.

...i'm gonna keep fighting like hell though because i refuse to give up on anything and it is WAY TOO EARLY to give up now. SO EVERYONE READING THIS SHOULD GO VOTE GLENN CLOSE [HERE].

peace and love and sexualizing that old man on the planet earth <3 i refuse to ever change <3

[clonerightsagenda]

One of those get to know you posts!

tagged by @herawell

LAST SONG? U2's "40" because I'm working on questions for our scholar bowl competition's 40th anniversary and I'm trying to create a whole round of 40-themed questions.

FAVORITE COLOR? Hard to pick one, but overall I prefer cool tones. Recently painted my bathrooms teal.

CURRENTLY WATCHING? Nothing at the moment, but I am eagerly anticipating the next season of Great British Bakeoff, although I'm also morbidly curious about which cultural foods they will destroy this time.

LAST MOVIE? Oh man. I honestly can't remember? It might have been Glass Onion, actually.

SWEET/SPICY/SAVORY? Sweet tooth. It is my prime vice, and I think it's actually gotten worse as I've grown older, although my current meds tanking my blood sugar might be connected to that. Baked goods are my passion.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS? Single and unwilling to mingle.

CURRENT OBSESSIONS? This year has been a lot of me revisiting old obsessions. Funnily enough I'm pretty sure I cycled from FMA to W359 the *first* time and now I am doing it again. We'll see what I migrate to once I finish my w359 relisten; I'll have to look at the suggestions I got again.

LAST THING YOU GOOGLED? "keelhaul", to re-immerse myself in the horrifying origin of that phrase. Fun fact: I did not know it was literal until I read the Baru Cormorant books.

People I’d like to get to know better: I never know who to tag on these things; feel free to do it if you'd like!

[ame-in-the-rain]

been working on two kaleipro videos which will hopefully come out next month or so, but because it’s been on my mind I wanna go over the etymology of all the character names

Cecil Nelson- name origin mostly comes from the patron saint of music named Cecilia who was martyred. I guess you could connect how Ferron might see Cecil as a sort-of martyr in his Kaleidoskull plan. The name means blind, which I like to connect to her eyes/albinism. Nelson is a pun on Cal, (lit. Neil Son). Also I made Cecil and cal’s initials mirror each other when I first created them, (CN and NC)

Warren Ferron- I just named him Warren after Warren Kepler because 14 y/o me was still riding on that w359 high. But a Warren is typically a burrow for rabbits, matching with Cecil’s bunny imagery. Ferron derives from the prefix “ferro-“ which means iron. This was because he was originally a part of this lemonverse thing for morally grey scientists, so I wanted a name with a pun on grey

Neil “Cal” Callaghan- we know why he’s named Neil so moving on. Anyway the only good improvement out of that god damned server was that someone thought Callaghan sounded like “call again” (like “call me back” in touch-tone telephone) so I’m stealing that and plagiarizing that. Same thing about the initials here but also Cal’s Irish. I’m sticking him in my Gaelic Group™️ of characters.

Cade Ar- THE ARCADE JOKE CAME AFTER I NAMED HIM. I named him Cade because I couldn’t find a name that started with “Cab”. And then I realized I could make the worse character name ever. Apparently Cade as a name means round? Take that what you will

Emerson Moon- nothing really of note, I think I just subconsciously named her Emerson because I know an Emerson irl. But the last name Moon is probably from “Ó Mocháin” which means early, so I guess that could represent her insomniac nature. Also another character in the Gaelic group haha

Ichigo Ichinose- Go Ichinose is the music composer for the Pokémon series so ichiGO ICHINOSE. But also minus the “nose” part, her name can be read as “ichi go ichi” (一五一) or 151, 151 original Pokémon. Also her name in kanji is 一之瀬苺

Ernie Wright- Ernie’s is pretty simple, coming from the lyrics in I Earn My Life, EARN/EARNIE, and “if I wasn’t always right.” Also his ex-wife’s name is Laura which I’m pretty sure is named after that lady Barney knows in blue shift

Reagan Pending- yeah yeah Reagan from Ronald Reagan. But his last name is Pending because when I was talking about him to my friend, I said “this is Reagan last name pending” because I hadn’t come up with a last name yet. But I think he though Reagan’s last name was the word pending. So now it is because I think that’s funny. Also pending like when a house is on the market because him and Ernie are architects for the housing market

[nightvale-thoughts]

liking a podcast character is so embarrassing because why is an mp3 file making me blush

[1-800-sexy-mad]

I think Change of Mind is a masterful wolf 359 episode but for me it's very ... emotional to listen to, for lack of better wording. we the audience know full well that almost every one of these characters are now dead. These characters who we are getting to see joking together and bonding and having connections with each other (side note, the wolf 359 writers are VERY good at getting you attached to characters, even when they only have two hours) are dead. we know that their deaths were long and drawn-out and painful, and yet here they are in this episode we're listening to now. It's a glimpse into a past that will never exist again, and especially when framed through lovelace's eyes - these people were her friends and members of her crew, and she still believes that she failed them in some way - it is very painful to listen to.

[palukoo]

.

[hephaestuscrew]

Just re-listened to Ep42 and now I'm wondering about how deeply Lovelace's decision to let Outside Jacobi die would have fucked with her once she learned that she was an alien clone. Because before that she probably justified it to herself by thinking "he wasn't the real Jacobi, he was other, he could have been dangerous", but then she learns that she's a clone too and everyone could say similar things about her.

She let Outside Jacobi die because he wasn't human and then she discovers that she's just as non-human as he was - or maybe that he was just as human as she is. Outside Jacobi was probably just as convinced that he was the original as Lovelace was.

Outside Jacobi was arguably Lovelace's chance to interact with someone like her, someone who might understand what it's like to be an alien clone and yet to feel so human. But she didn't let him in.

[pastabadguy]

✨️💕

for uuuuum. w359!

✨ OOH WELL some of it is definitely nostalgia/memories associated with it, it's been such an important part of my life. I love the sound of it all, if that makes sense, the style of voice acting (dialogue/banter and monologue balance, exaggerated but believable voices, ect), the music (HOT DAMN), the background ambience, all of it. I like the characters a lot, Eiffel and Minkowski are my all time favorites but Cutter is a close 3rd and I really love most of them. I like how much the series grows and develops a story that wasn't originally planned. I love love love this series so much.

💕 Eiffel is my favorite character but I've talked about him already so. Minkowski is such a great character, she starts out like the opposite of Eiffel, the serious rule-enforcer, but the more the show goes on the more things go wrong and her role as the one in charge gets harder and she's stuck with people she can't trust, or who need constant help, or are just incompetent and she's trying to hold everything together when she can't actually make people get along or connect on an emotional level (that's Eiffel's job) so she's so underappreciated and FUCK I just love her I have more to say but I am cutting it off here.

[nanabbi]

You asked for w359 quirks so here are my thoughts (on at least some of them for now). they're not articular creative though, so beware:

eiffel has some sort of quirk that let's him manipulate/send out/receive radio waves. essentially, he's a walking one man radio station

minkowski's quirk is something small that is easily overlooked and deemed useless, which is another reason she had to fight twice as hard to be taken seriously. either that or it's just h a r p o o n

cutter might have a voice quirk? one that can manipulate ppl and their emotions maybe? idk

jacobi's quirk is also explosion related somehow. like he can make and control bombs or sth? or it's cheese related, i'm not sure

kepler can slow down time when talking. i'm only half joking

maxwell can manipulate code without like needing a keyboard and stuff just by looking at a computer

I am- losing it. I am screaming. These are all so accurate...

Eiffel being a walking radio station? 10/10

Minkowski does deserve a harpoon, but my lady can get a harpoon anytime and the idea of her quirk being something you can glance over suits her story better. 10/10

Cutter, I- (fangirling intensifies) oh, my gosh. Yes, YEEEEEEEES, ABSOLUTELY YES! Oh, damn, he definitely has manipulated certain emotions of mine- AhEM. I like to think that his charisma is a quirk on its own and it is aaaall in that damn voice of his. That smooth bastard- God DAMN it. 1000/10

Jacobi was an easy one, let's be honest, I could have guessed of that. Our boi go boom. 10/10

Kelper is the second one where I lost my fucking mind in. I am still laughing reading it and like- Yeah. yeah. Long story short, this sounds about right for Kepler. 100/10

Maxwell is also damn accurate. Yeah. 10/10

Hmmm, I didn't get headcanons for Lovelace, Hilbert and Miranda (Hera is an AI so she wouldn't have one and Viktor- I don't care enough for him to think of a Quirk). I'll give it a try but my head is so wrapped up in the canon that it just defaults them to quirkless. Let's see-

Hilbert maybe would have an alchemy quirk. He makes things out of things he already has (you know, like soap, toothpaste and coffee).

Lovelace... Hm, what quirk would Lovelace have? It should be her original quirk too, not a new one after certain developments. Hm. I'll give her some good legwork, she did well on the treadmill despite having been in zero gravity for so long. She can smash my head with her legs, that's her quirk.

I would go with quirkless Miranda, because, I can totally see her story from Brave New World working excellently just like that. She takes pride in getting where she is despite her disabilities, so I think her being quirkless would be appropriate enough.