wiliowtreemarch

[wiliowtreemarch]

Logically I know it’s his eyebrow connecting to his LED but I keep seeing this as a little plant growing out of his head …

Me when jumping from 1.14 to 1.18 skips the season 8 designs entirely

[wiliowtreemarch]

here's to hoping next ep has a gimmick (like grian's task in sl ep 8 or cleo's zombie revive in wl ep 7) so pearl and the other ones out can still participate :(

[wiliowtreemarch]

Spin the wheel. That's who's trying to kill you.

Spin the wheel again. That’s who’s trying to protect you.

(If you have zero idea about the name you got, spin until you see someone you recognize.)

(Six months ago, I did a version of this poll with about five hundred options on the spinner wheel. For this one, I more than doubled it.)

[wiliowtreemarch]

pearls past life has honestly been so chill. she is somehow never at the scene of the crime. She wanders around picking flowers and taming dogs and being so pleasant to be around that she really isn’t on bad terms with anyone. literally unbothered flourishing in her lane

[wiliowtreemarch]

Pearl is cooking!

Pearlescentmoon is cooking!

[wiliowtreemarch]

oddly vindicated by the fact that Molly looks so ugly in the preview shot 😭 he looks like a drowned rat

[wiliowtreemarch]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/66992527

Y'ALL THIS IS THE COOLEST FANFIC I'VE EVER SEEN.

It is a complete narrative about SecUnits on a Planetary Survey trying to communicate and keep their clients safe while dealing with the restrictions of their govmod.

IT IS ALSO A FULLY INTERACTIVE GAME OF MINESWEEPER.

The story is told BY PLAYING MINESWEEPER.

This fic is criminally underrated go look at it!!!

[wiliowtreemarch]

having Thoughts about the wolf/dog pearl hc. hmm

[wiliowtreemarch]

I’ve already alluded to it plenty here, so: let me tell you about my friends’ TTRPG game. 

So, almost two months ago, my friends @hgb94​ and @nilim​ started what was supposed to be a oneshot of Ships That Pass, a two-person game about queer spaceships in love. Because they like to talk a lot (affectionate), they didn’t finish. So they played a second session, and still didn’t finish. And then, because they liked their characters, they started adding extra scenes and secondary characters. And then they started adding flashback scenes to create extra context for the characters. And then they threw out the rules entirely, and it became largely-improvised collaborative storytelling. 

Oh, and they’d recorded it all from the beginning, so they started editing the present-day and flashback scenes together to create episodes, complete with music, soundscaping, and narrated scene introductions. Not for anyone but themselves, but, well, I did start listening. 

But the story, friends, the story. It’s so good. It starts off simply: the Elysium (Ely), a luxury cruise ship and a bit of a prankster, meets the Scythe (Scy), a biomedical research ship and a stickler for rules, while both of them are near a plasma cloud. They start talking, and Ely’s sense of humour enchants Scy as much as Scy’s stories of the wonderful phenomena she studies enchant Ely. They start finding excuses to pass by each other. Scy introduces Ely to an ice storm. Ely starts writing poetry for Scy. They’re frankly adorable. 

But things aren’t that simple. Both ships have close bonds with their captains and crew. Ely has been flying with her captain, Richard, a kind, gruff, and Tired man, for fifteen years; Scy’s been with her cool but Disaster captain Manon for less time, but they care for each other deeply. However, in this world, AI are seen as property — and dangerous property at that. Fifteen years ago, there was a brutal war fought over AI rights, where the colonialist Coalition used propaganda about “rogue AI” to justify invading other planets, and the rebels fought (and lost) to try to protect their ships and planets. 

But that was fifteen years ago — it’s all “settled” now. Supposedly. 

When one of Manon’s crew dies of illness, both she and Scy are brought in for psychological evaluations, and Manon’s suspiciously pro-AI and anti-MAN (Monitors of Artificial Norms) sentiments put her under further investigation by the MAN. They assign her an Agent, Oliver (Ollie), who comes on board to monitor both Scy and Manon. 

Fortunately for them, Ollie’s a young but incredibly bright Agent on his first mission, and particularly sympathetic to AI. Doubly fortunate, he’s the protégé of Theresa Williams, a ruthless senior man Agent who’s been plotting undercover revenge against the MAN for over a decade because they reprogrammed her ship. Williams “recruited” Ollie out of university — that is, discovered Ollie had pro-AI views that might get him in trouble and then blackmailed his family so he’d join the MAN and be “protected.” She’s mentored him ever since, and despite her insistence that attachments are a weakness, she cares deeply for him. 

Williams assigned Scy’s case file to Ollie after she noticed Scy & Ely’s anomalous flight patterns; she wants to help. She hopes no one else notices this dangerous pattern — particularly because Richard and Manon should not be meeting. See, while Richard and Manon know that Ely & Scy are in love, they don’t know who the other’s captain is. 

Manon doesn’t know that Ely’s captain is Richard, her mother Elske’s lover, who was almost her stepfather — who was forcibly conscripted to the pro-Coalition side, while her mother fought and died for the rebels. Richard, who never contacted Manon after the war. 

On the other hand, Richard doesn’t know that Scy’s captain is Manon, the daughter of the woman he loved; the woman who he saw die, for whom he punched out a Commanding Officer, for whom he was ready to die. Manon, whom Richard was forbidden by the MAN from contacting after the war, who was used as leverage for Richard’s silence about the war. 

When they find out who the other is, well, that’s when things really start going to shit. Because Agents aside from Williams and Ollie have started noticing what’s going on, and that puts everyone in danger: Scy, Ely, Manon, Richard, Ollie, and Williams. To get out of this mess, the captains & ships will have to trust the rogue Agents, Manon will have to trust Richard, and they all will have to believe there’s a life outside of the MAN’s control. 

And that’s about where I am in the story so far — I’m told it’s not even halfway done. I am literally bouncing with excitement for every single upcoming episode. 

And like! The story is beautiful — it’s a queer romantic love story between spaceships yes, but also a queerplatonic love story between ships and captains, a story of love lost and found, of found families, of redemption, of healing, of learning to care and hope after trauma. And the characters, goddamn, I love every single one of them: Scy, sweet, reserved, a little naïve, a bit of a know-it-all but in the most loving way; Ely, hilarious, protective, and hopeful even after 200 years; Manon, simultaneously carefree and incredibly angry; Richard, weighed down by years of guilt but learning to be courageous; Ollie, who sees the best in everyone even after years of being told that it will only hurt him; and Williams, cold and ruthless and vengeful but really broken-hearted and more kind than she wants to admit. 

And that’s not even mentioning the side characters; at this point, both players play over half a dozen characters each — some love-to-hate villains, some loveable goofs. And they play them so well, like, I’ve played with both my friends in the past and I know how good they are at role-play — but they’re still blowing me away with the strength of their RP in every single goddamn scene. And their shockingly good audio editing makes it feel… well, genuinely like a real podcast. 

It’s just… amazing. I’m so proud and astounded by my friends, and feel so lucky that I get to sit in on (and write fanfic for, and create a fanvid for, and make a fanwiki for) this story. It’s really cool, and like. Wow. I have cool friends. 

[wiliowtreemarch]

everyone take my 114 result ‘which character are you’ uquiz

[wiliowtreemarch]

Transcript: "Again today I will go soaring through the sky! My enemies, I'll dish 'em up in a stir-fry! Gracious goddess of light watches from up above! At dinnertime I always show the cook some love!"

Please do not spoil who the character or voice actor is in the replies or reblogs. Thank you

[wiliowtreemarch]

fanfic writers what font do you write in

i know on ao3 it's all in verdana but when you're drafting the fic in word or docs or whatever

[wiliowtreemarch]

[wiliowtreemarch]

Transcript: "He is the god of death, after all. So he gets perks like evil powers and health insurance. And free soda." "Don't curse the darkness, light a candle! When freaky aliens give you lemons, make freaky alien lemonade! Liiiike THIS!"

Please do not spoil who the character or voice actor is in the replies or reblogs. Thank you

[wiliowtreemarch]

A fictional guy should only be made blonde to signify that there's something wrong with him

[wiliowtreemarch]

people can do whatever they want with fictional characters forever but one thing that always pisses me off is how aro/ace characters are treated in shipping.

while it is a naive mentality to tell people never to ship aspec characters, saying “aces CAN have sex” and “aros CAN be in a romantic relationship” to defend erasing their aspec identity just to ship them as if they were like an allo person means you don’t respect their identity, nor ours. yes aces can have sex. yes aros can be in a romantic relationship. but they will still be aromantic and asexual while in that relationship. and don’t even get me started on using demi identities as an “easy explanation” for why it’s okay to allowash them. other identities are treated with such absolution, so why should we continuously get the short end of the stick?

so i guess the thesis of this post is that people are absolutely allowed to ship aspec characters but if you mfs don’t care enough to understand the nuances of our identities i’m taking your aspec blorbos and putting them on a high shelf

[wiliowtreemarch]