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selfboredom · 1 year

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MOTHERS MISTAKES CHAPTER TWO :⠀PARADISE’S LAST STAND

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

summary :⠀When Arven went to Lab Zero, he expected to be tearing his mother apart for everything she put him through. For abandoning him. Only to find yet another that was left behind in the wake of her mistakes. But some small part of him held out hope. Hope that together they could fix things, and not let anything else be ruined by her.

ao3 link :⠀link

content warnings :⠀parental neglect

fandom :⠀pokemon⠀( scarlet version )

word count :⠀2626

word count :⠀I apologise for the sudden formatting change! with the amount of dialogue sada has this chapter I had to change it so that it didn’t strain y’alls eyes. the first chapter should be updated soon!

Arven reached out a hand towards the malfunctioning AI. Flinching away as an ear-piercing alarm blared through the room. The walls became dyed a bright ruby red as a familiar voice crackled through the speakers.

SECURITY SYSTEM FAILURE!

THREAT TO THE TIME MACHINE DETECTED!

Arven backed away, sensing something bad about to happen. Sada looked around the room in a panic, muttering under her breath.

“No… No… She couldn’t have actually…”

AN OBSTACLE IS PREVENTING THE TIME MACHINE FROM PERFORMING AS INTENDED.

ACTIVATING PARADISE PROTECTION PROTOCOL TO REMOVE THE OFFENDING OBSTACLE…

“She really was that stupid… Keeping the time machine running was truly all the woman cared about.” She whispered, looking solemnly towards Arven as the voice continued.

LOCKING ALL POKEBALLS EXCEPT THOSE REGISTERED TO SADA’S ID.

Arven’s eyes widened, looking frantically down at Mabosstiff’s pokeball. He firmly pressed the button to let it out, but nothing happened. He desperately kept mashing the button as the voice went on,

PROGRAM INITIALISING…

GATHERING TERASTAL ENERGY…

“I’m sorry, Arven…” She said, tera crystals forming around her legs, spreading all the way up to the bottom of her coat.

“This… This is too much for you. I… I never should have asked this of you.” She continued, her eyes flickering in and out. Flashing between their more human-like and completely robotic appearance.

“You have to run. Leave this for me to fix!” She yelled, reaching out towards him. Her hand was consumed by tera crystals. They spread further down her arm, all the way up to her face as her eyes completely shut off.

“No… No!” Arven called out, racing towards Sada, desperate to stop whatever was happening. But he lost his footing as shaking erupted within the floor.

AI SADA DISABLED.

PARADISE PROTECTION PROTOCOL INITIALISED.

The shaking worsened as the floor once again began to rise. Arven stumbled backwards, narrowly avoiding the platforms spiking up from the floor. He scrambled away. Only able to watch the parasitic Paradise Protection Protocol take over her.

“No, no, I… Arven… Just… Get… Out.” She called out. Struggling against herself as the convulsions worsened before stopping… “No! I refuse to let all of this be in vain!” She screamed. All previous semblance of humanity left her voice. She was finally taken over completely.

A lone masterball sat in its hand. Dismissively tossed down to the teen's level. A brilliant flash came from the ball, revealing a second Koraidon. It was in its battling form, unlike Florians. Arven again tried to let out Mabosstiff, but the ball was still locked.

Thinking quickly, he grabbed Koraidons ball from his bag. He remembered that it technically belonged to his mom.

“Look. I know we have a… Troubled… Relationship, but I really need you to help me out.” Arven whispered, hoping the pokemon inside could hear him. He took in a shaky breath, throwing the ball. It came out normally, but… Still in its riding form.

It could never be able to take on a full-strength one.

Arven stayed silent. He couldn’t fault it for not wanting to fight something it clearly had a bad history with. Or help someone it had a bad history with. He sighed, crouching down and resting a comforting hand on Koraidons back.

“I assumed it would have recovered its battling form by now. Especially after consuming the herba mystica. To think she died defending this pathetic pokemon.” The possessed AI scoffed, resentment dripping from its words.

“I understand you don’t want to do me any favours… But… I need you to help me fix this. Please.” Arven whispered, trying to ignore the AI’s taunting. He pet Koraidons back, trying to comfort it. It could only shrink back towards him, away from its stronger counterpart. “I know you have it in you. You just need to stand up to that bully,”

A golden glow suddenly began to manifest from within the pokemon as it began to float upwards. Arven took his hand off, staring in amazement as the golden light spread. Koraidon began to shift into its original form. Its vibrant plumage exploded outwards. A bright crown of colourful feathers adorned its head and the base of its tail.

Its paws became webbed, and viciously sharp as its chest sac fully inflated. The glow expelled from Koraidons body as it landed harshly on the crystalline floor. Finally in its true form, it let out a booming roar. The light in the room became harsher, heightening both pokemon's senses.

“Ah, I guess it's a fair fight after all. You’ll still lose nonetheless.” The AI said, looking down sharply at the pokemon. “Koraidon. Use Giga Impact.” It ordered. The Koraidon obeyed, summoning all its power. It charged full speed toward Arven and his companion.

“Get out of the way!” He yelled in a rush. Koraidon dashed out of the way, narrowly missing the other. The opposing Koraidon collided explosively with the wall beside the elevator, unable to stop its momentum. It let out a cry of pain, deep cracks forming around the impact area as it fell down to the ground on all fours.

Arven quickly tried to think of his next move while the pokemon recovered its energy. Koraidon nudged his backpack urgently, trying to signal something to the teen. “This isn’t picnic time, you don’t even know a super effective move. Ugh! What the hell am I meant to do?” He said frustratedly.

Koraidon grunted, snatching the Tera Orb from his bag in its mouth. It dropped the slobbery ball into the trainer's hand. Arven recoiled, nose scrunching up in disgust before he realised what it was trying to communicate.

He dried the orb on his vest, beginning to charge it. The sheer force of the tera energy being absorbed knocked him off his footing. He held it at arm's length, his ashy blonde hair kicked back. The orb had a brilliant shine to it, fully charged as he threw it up in the air.

Huge tera crystals shot up from the floor, encapsulating the dragon pokemon as the energy exploded out. Seconds later they shattered, revealing the crystalline Koraidon. A thin layer of tera energy rested on its skin, shining like a diamond in the harsh light. Atop its head was a crown, sporting massive red wings and a dragon's head signifying its tera type.

“Koraidon, use Tera Blast!” Arven exclaimed, the pokemon quickly obliging. The crystal crown expelled some of its draconic energy. It gathered around Koraidon, charging its attack further. It let out a deafening roar as a massive beam of energy escaped out of its maw. Encircled with deep blue and scarlet flames.

The opposing pokemon attempted to brace itself, sent back from the force of the attack. It barely gathered the energy to stand, letting out a snarl. It was on its last legs but still had some fight in it. The robot above looked completely irate as it began to shout another command.

“Hmph, you’re just as stubborn as she was. Koraidon, use Bulk Up.” It ordered, glaring at the pokemon as it made a last-ditch effort to save itself. The Koraidon let out a small whine, forcing itself up straight. Its plumage and chest sac expanded out, bolstering its attack and defences. Arven gave his Koraidon an encouraging look before giving another command.

“It’s going to try something. Use Endure, Koraidon!” He called out, watching Koraidon plant its feet firmly on the floor. Preparing for another attack.

“Use Giga Impact. And actually hit your target this time.” The AI hissed. The Koraidon unhappily obliged, charging blazingly fast at the pair. Arven jumped out of the way, knocked over from the shockwave of the collision.

Massive cracks spread along the floor from the impact. The opposing Koraidon flew backwards, knocked off its footing. His Koraidon stood firm, looking towards Arven for its next instruction. The trainer picked himself up from the floor, dusting himself off before giving another instruction.

“Use Tera Blast again! That should finish it off.” He said, covering his eyes from the harsh brightness of the attack. The other Koraidon let out a final screech as it fell for the last time, completely unable to battle. A loud shattering sound echoed throughout the room. The robot collapsed, the tera crystals gathered around it becoming fractured and broken.

The room returned to its original state. The final layer of security over the time machine was finally broken through. Arven raced up to the AI, seeing the more human aspects return to her. Sada glanced around the room. Then down at herself examining the broken crystallisation before looking at Arven.

“You… You did it!” She exclaimed, wrapping her arms tightly around the teen. He instantly reciprocated, comforted in the knowledge that it was finally over. He could finally just let the past die and wash the bitter taste that his mother left in his memories.

“I… I am so proud of you, Arven. I could never imagine that you would manage to break through her final protections.” She whispered, gripping him tighter as the convulsions began to return. “You never gave in. Not when I was beyond repair… Not even with the weight of your mother's wrongs weighing you down. I truly wish I could have the same fortitude.”

“Thank you. For everything you’ve done. But… I’m afraid you will be unable to take me out of here.” She said softly, pulling away from Arven, who had a look of confusion spread across his features.

“What… What do you mean? The time machine should shut down now. I beat you, the Paradise Protection Protocol, I put in the book, what else is there?” He asked, panic underlining his voice.

He hadn’t realised in the heat of battle, but the feeling of having a parent care about him. The feeling of a mother's comfort. Of being told that he wasn’t an annoyance. A mistake. A disappointment. He craved it… He needed it… And he finally had it.

“The time machine… It seems, won’t shut down completely so long as I’m still here.” She explained, causing Arven to panic more. His breaths began to shorten, bordering on hyperventilating.

“No… No, no-“ He stammered, tears rolling down his face, barely able to keep himself upright. It was right there… Everything he needed as a kid… A parent that finally cared… It was. Right. There.

But his mother was never one to consider consequences.

“Arven, I know this has been an exceedingly difficult day, but it has to be done.” She said gently, trying to calm the teen down from his borderline panic attack. She took a small step towards him, stopping barely short.

“No! You’re the closest thing to an actual parent I’ve had in my entire fucking life. You… You can’t just leave me behind like her.” He yelled, tightly clenching his hands. Tears began pouring down his face as the emotional dam in him finally burst open.

”I don’t care if I have to move into this damn lab, I’m not letting another person abandon me!” He screamed, gripping his head as he collapsed onto his knees, sobs wracking through his body. As much as he wanted to force it back in, to act like he didn’t care, he couldn’t.

“Arven…” She whispered, still unable to calculate a way to help him. Arven kept repeating ‘No’ under his breath. Unable to accept that yet another person was leaving him behind. Sada stayed silent, mulling over what to say.

“I cannot rewrite the past and fix this, as much as I want to. In another history… I would leave this place with you, I want to leave this place with you, trust me.” She said, crouching down to Arvens level, tenderly running her hand in his hair.

“But I’m intrinsically linked to this lab. To the time machine. That simply wouldn’t be possible without rewriting my programming.” She explained, continuing to comb through his hair. Arven stayed silent, thinking about something for a good minute.

“Rewriting your programming…” He mumbled to himself. He thought for a moment before his head shot upwards.

“Wait! I, I can get an acquaintance of mine to help. I can still get you out of Area Zero and shut this stupid fucking thing off.” He rambled, his words being near incomprehensible with the speed he was talking at. Though luckily the AI could discern it.

“You really are just as stubborn as your mother…” She muttered. Tenderly wiping the excess tears from the corner of Arven’s eyes. “But you must be prepared if something goes wrong, you know. If you try to shut it down later and I haven’t been completely disconnected, you’ll have to repeat all of this again.” She explained calmly.

“I can handle that.” He said quickly. Almost on cue, his rotom phone buzzed, flying out of his pocket. For a good few seconds, only static came through the speaker. After a moment of adjusting Florian’s voice came through semi-clearly.

“-ven, Arven, are you there? Where the hell are you? We’ve been looking all over the lab.” He asked, a slight crackle underlining his voice. Sada gave Arven a silent nod, helping him up.

“Yeah, I’m… Alive. I’m just down in the lower part of the lab. You couldn’t have missed the giant elevator.” He said, pacing around the expansive room as he spoke.

“That giant elevator was shut down. We came in and heard something about a ‘Paradise Protection Protocol’ activating. When we tried getting in the elevator it was locked.” Florien explained.

“Oh. Well, I got it to shut off so the elevator should work again. I’ll be up in a minute. And there's someone I need to introduce you guys to.” Arven said, glancing back at Sada.

“Alright, we’ll be waiting.” Florian said, abruptly ending the call. Arven slipped his phone back into his pocket and looked over to Sada, indicating for her to follow him. She complied, quickly catching up with him as they approached the elevator.

“I do hope you and your friends can fix this. Genuinely.” She said quietly as they entered.

The elevator doors opened. Forcing Arven to readjust his eyes to the dimmer lighting of the lab's top level. The group of students were all hanging out around the lab, just playing with some cards on the floor.

“Hey guys, we’re back.” Arven announced, causing Nemona and Penny to jolt out of their spots. Florian glanced over toward the pair as they exited the elevator.

“Arven! Professor!” Nemona called out, charging into Arven and wrapping him in a tight hug. He flapped his arms as much as he physically could, signalling for Nemona to let him go.

“Nemona, boundaries exist.” Penny said flatly, pulling Nemona off of the uncomfortable teen.

“Oh. Right. Sorry. I’m just glad you're safe.” Nemona said, rubbing the back of her neck.

“There was all that banging and crashing, we were worried!” She exclaimed, the energy re-entering her voice.

“Ugh… It’s fine.” Arven sighed, before looking towards Sada and back to the group. “Anyway, here’s that person I had to introduce you all to. My AI mom.” He explained, gesturing to the AI, whose only response was a stilted wave.

“AI mom?” The group asked in unison, looking towards Arven for answers.

“It's nice to meet you all in person. Though, I regret the circumstances in which this meeting had to happen.” Sada said, smiling towards the still confused group.

“Why does there need to be an AI version of the professor? What about the fleshy alive one?” Nemona asked, walking up to the AI and closely examining its robotic exterior.

“And why does it look like she’s having a seizure?” Florian asked bluntly.

“Well…” Arven began.

#drabble dump #mothers mistakes #rewriting the past #pokemon fanfiction #pokemon #arven pokemon #ai sada #professor sada #pokemon scarlet fanfiction #pokemon scarlet #pokemon scarlet and violet #writing #fan fiction #fanfic #angst #hurt comfort #fix it fic #canon divergent au #retelling

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theycallmebecca · 1 year

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I posted 2,782 times in 2022

381 posts created (14%)

2,401 posts reblogged (86%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@izhunny

@twittytelly

@bloggingfromherbed

@theycallmebecca

@jobean12-blog

I tagged 551 of my posts in 2022

#becca replies to readers - 186 posts

#chris evans - 72 posts

#becca reads - 69 posts

#becca makes mood boards - 58 posts

#mood boards - 52 posts

#theycallmebecca - 47 posts

#becca’s sugary sweet dad collection - 46 posts

#becca writes drabbles - 40 posts

#theycallmebeccawrites - 40 posts

#becca's sugary sweet dad collection - 39 posts

Longest Tag: 136 characters

#they purchased like a million dollars worth of medical debt for people in their community and forgave it using this debt buying strategy

My Top Posts in 2022:

Drabble: Box of Chocolates

My friend challenged me to write a drabble inspired by Chris being the voice of Godiva chocolate. So here y’all go.

Title: Box of Chocolates

Pairing: Chris Evans x reader

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: suggestive

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

Hearing the video call alert on your phone, you grabbed it and smiled when you saw Chris’s name. You accepted the call and then waited for it to connect.

“Hey, babe,” Chris greeted, his face super close to the screen.

“Hey, handsome,” you replied. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” Chris said.

As if he realized how close he was to the screen, he pulled his face away from the phone, but going farther back than normal.

He was talking about what he was doing on set when you noticed how familiar his background was.

“Where are you?” you interrupted him.

See the full post

385 notes - Posted May 10, 2022

Prompt for Chris Evans father's day: Chris's wife went out for a few hours leaving Chris with his 4 year old daughter. She ends up skinning her knee and he rots teeth with how sweet he is taking care of her.

Aww I love this prompt! Though... as I write this part now... it really became the Dodger and daughter show. But look at this face... I couldn't not include him!!!

Becca’s Sugary Sweet Dad Collection Masterlist

Title: Bandaids

Pairing: Chris Evans x female reader

Rating: PG

Warnings: n/a

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

See the full post

516 notes - Posted June 8, 2022

18+ Drabble: Twister

Got the idea for this drabble earlier today and friends encouraged me to write it. So here goes nothing!

Edit: Fixed the warnings... I wrote them before I changed things up. Sorry for any confusion!

Title: Twister

Pairing: Chris Evans x female reader

Rating: R

Warnings: language, semi-graphic sex & oral sex (female receiving)

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

18+ Disclaimer: This work contains sexual material that is for those over the age of 18. By clicking the keep reading link below, you are agreeing that you are over the age of 18 and are not offended by sexual content.

Usage Disclaimer: This work is for fans only. This author does not give permission for it to be shared, spoken of, referred to in any public manner (podcast, tv, online, etc.) that wants to either make a celebrity uncomfortable, mock fan fiction/fandom in any way, or the author themselves. Requests can be made, but it is unlikely the author will change their mind. If no response is given to a request then the answer is a solid no, not interested and the work cannot be shared, spoken of or even referred to, regardless of the manner or context.

“Play a game with me,” you said to Chris.

He looked up from his book and raised an eyebrow when he saw the box in your hands. “You want to play Twister?”

“I want to play strip Twister,” you replied. “You can either choose between doing what the wheel says and risk falling, or you can just remove an item of clothing.”

“And if you fall?” Chris asked.

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530 notes - Posted July 19, 2022

If your state makes it hard for you to vote… that means your vote is even more important because that is a fear tactic on their part.

Go to the polls. Let your voice be heard.

Democracy is on the ballot in more ways than one right now.

Don’t let them intimidate you.

As a United States citizen, you have a right to vote.

Practice your right.

600 notes - Posted November 8, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

18+ Drabble: Gray

Like a lot of you, the pictures of Chris from the MTV Movie Awards last night having been living rent free in my mind ever since. Especially the close ups that really show off the gray in his beard. 🤤

Now that I’m off work for the day... here’s a little idea that came to me...

Title: Gray

Pairing: Chris Evans x female reader

Rating: R

Warnings: suggestive, semi-graphic sex

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

A late spring rain fell steadily outside as you made your way into the living room where Chris was sitting in an easy chair reading.

Grabbing your favorite blanket, you made to sit down but Chris’s voice stopped you.

“Come sit with me,” he said, a smirk playing on his handsome face. “I’ll keep you warm.”

“I thought you were reading,” you replied, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ve read it before,” he said, setting the book aside.

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755 notes - Posted June 6, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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harrysfolklore · 1 year

Note

I don’t know why people are so pressed about this whole pattern thing. Readers of fanfiction / consumers of fandom culture often don’t take into account the labor and hours that go into making content and writing fics. It IS possible to do something out of love and get paid for it at the same time. And, in a world where tumblr is the way it currently is, people not engaging with longer fics the way they used to, etc. why be mad at a creator for wanting to be fairly compensated for the work they put into something? Not unlike independent businesses/ freelance workers. Or really get mad at anyone for trying to support themselves in this day and age? Sorry some people are rude. You’re so respectful in response too it making me mad. Quite being mean, y’all!

thank you so much bub 💖💖 i completely understand that everyone has different opinions and feelings about writers joining platforms like patreon and sadly, it’s impossible to please everyone

i’m always going to try my best to post content you like ♥️

#puffpasstea

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crowlore · 1 year

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lucian’s comfort character compilation (i will be cheating)

i have been instructed by @huginsmemory to “List Five Comfort Characters And Tag Five People”. helpfully, i was already recently provided with a handy list of characters perceived to be Mine™, seen here:

what can i say. i have a brand to maintain and apparently it’s deeply mentally ill characters that spark needless discourse on twitter. i own this. i will be cheating by pairing characters together per listing. order doesn’t particularly reflect anything. i don’t typically tag specific people for these things so consider this post an open invitation to anyone reading to overshare about your favs. GO FORTH

nicholas d. wolfwood. my fucking god. to lead with him feels the most transparent i can stand to be. what is there to even say. he has everything. he's the foil. he's the love interest. he's introduced with one foot in the grave and the other in the church. he's a hitman. he's a priest. he's a bodyguard. kids and single mothers love him. he's an orphan. he's a chain smoker. he shoots first asks questions never. he's screaming and covered in his own blood and hunting you down with a concussion and temporary blindness. he was drowning in foot deep water with seven broken ribs three minutes ago but he's fine now. as a man who once fractured his spine on a rock because of a comical tightrope walking incident and was walking it off two hours later, i relate. something something i could fix him but whatever is wrong with him is way more interesting

minato arisato and ryoji mochizuki (do not separate). uhhhhh persona 3 remake when? please? the earliest installments of this series may have been a bit before my time (not that i even got to play 3 when it was fresh since i didn’t really get a lot of freedom with video games until 2012) so i understand my bias but p3 is still my favorite main series entry to date. and you get TWO depressed moon themed bitches for the price of one with this game? one of them is death. the other becomes an interstellar gateway. i’m a sucker for characters who know each other for a tiny fraction of the larger story but instantly connect like they’ve been waiting lifetimes to meet again. characters whose presence in the narrative is brief but infinitely impactful. one is literally made from the other. what can i say.

goro akechi. while we’re on persona. sorry, we have to get into my Problematic Fav. let me tell you. i’ve been in the fucking trenches. this character is easily 50% of the reason i don’t engage in persona fandom spaces (wrt 5 especially). i love crazy bitches. personally, i love and encourage his violent mania and psychotic tendencies. can’t help being a gemini. can’t help being a foil. he didn’t stop at biting the hand that feeds him; he wanted to chew the whole thing off the arm regardless of who else he had to sink his teeth into on the way. y’all are just still mad that part of that means he can be a pretty unlikable person. at least he was honest with his motivations when you caught him. i get him though. goro’s role in the third act of royal saved the game because you and i both know that new story content wasn’t any good otherwise. he’s there to be a BITCH and keep things REAL. shout out to goro akechi for helping me identify my own dissociative disorder. thanks king

uldren sov and crow. this is a different people, same character sort of situation. sometimes you die and come back with no memories and get to be the same person at heart but placed into a life of extremely altered circumstances and see where that takes you. now i’m aware these characters are kind of divisive in destiny circles (mostly for the wrong reasons). i’ll give it to the people who think he’s being pushed waaaaay too hard into the narrative spotlight in a lot of seasons; that’s totally fair. but he’s had a lot of super compelling arcs surrounding his trauma across two lifetimes. his grief really becomes him. i’m also sincerely just so weak to stories centered around siblings, especially ones dealing with the really harsh and ugly truths regarding emotional abuse in the family and the complexity of familial love.

dimitri alexandre blaiddyd and the blue lions. SORRY. CONTRACTUAL FIRE EMBLEM MENTION. fe16 is the reason i completely left the fire emblem fandom space, even though it’s been a toxic cesspool for the entire decade i’ve been in any way involved with it. dimitri’s another of my twitter assigned problematic favs (the fandom faction wars surrounding this game were insane) and the reason i’m not even on the platform anymore. i have miles wide weak spot for the blue lions’ found family dynamic and was instantly in love with the way these characters played off of each other in established relationships right from the start of the game. their route tells a very complete, grounded character driven story that hit all the right emotional story beats to make the ending really feel rewarding. it was often times uncomfortable, but it was done well in a way that didn’t shy away from a lot of the ugly parts of mental illness that allowed me to feel very seen. i think it held truest to the standard formula of the fire emblem story structure and did so very well, even if silver snow was written first as the intended canonical story route. still my favorite after four years. classic.

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somanyerikas · 3 years

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Nostalgia sells - or does it? About BBC’s rehiring of a previous showrunner for Doctor Who as a marketing strategy

All, right, this is the one where I deal with my issues about RTD’s rehiring from the standpoint of BBC’s business strategy . Brace for passive agression, swearwords, brief history of british television and numbers. So, so many numbers.

Allright, so I already wrote a post about my problem with RTD’s (re)hire from the creative standpoint (it’s here in case you’re interested), but hey, I can bitch about it all I want, but we all know what caused the BBC to make this decision, right? You’ve heard about it for sure. The Dropping Ratings. You’ve read about it on so many posts, lots of them probably oh-so-gladly conflating this fact with their own opinion about the deteriorating quality of the show. (Don’t worry, we’ll get to that.) So Obviously the execs at the Big BBC Quarters needed to do something about it, and what better way to go than rehire a guy who’s run at Doctor Who is a warm childhood memory for so many in it’s fanbase? After all, it’s what we’re seeing nowadays: from Star Wars return to wave of 80′s nostalgia to every old blockbuster star doing a comeback, there is but a single conclusion - nostalgia sells.

Or does it?

Part One: Moving with the change; or very much refusing to.

Let’s start this off with some facts about the ratings for Doctor Who. (Well, I warned you there’s gonna be numbers, didn’t I. Stick with me, I’m going somewhere with this I promise.) In it’s beginnings, in the sixties and seventies , the series flown high, averaging a viewership from 8 up to 10 million viewers per season. Collin Baker’s series 17 brought in a record of 11.21 milion viewer asses in front of a good ol’ TV screen, real champagne opener here. But, as it happens, things were downhill from here. During the eighties, the rating started dropping steadily, reaching an all-time low of 4.15 milion couch-warming bottoms in 1989, the last season of the classic era.

Years passed, 16 of those years to be exact, and here comes our saviour RTD. Under his wings, the revived series premiered, bringing in over 10 milion viewers to the premiere episode of season 1, Rose. A viewership this high did not last for long, but still, RTD’s seasons averaged between 7 and 8 milion viewers per season, which seemed pretty respectable. But then, as the story likes to repeat itself, not unlike the bbc execs just did, along came the decline again. Ever since 2010, the ratings began steadily dropping again, from 7.95 in 2010 to 5.46 in 2017. Then DW experienced an unexpected peak in 2018 with the premiere of Jodie Whittaker’s first season, which averaged 7.96 viewing asses, but then continued the dropping trend on the next season, averaging 5.40 viewing butts.

So what went wrong?

You see, part of the reason that Doctor Who was bringing in such great viewership numbers in the 60′s and 70′s, was that, to put it simply, BBC did not have much competition. Or, to be exact, only had one competitor. ITV was literally founded in order to break BBC’s monopoly over British television. But in the 80′s, with the launch of Channel 4 and Sky, the british viewers had more and more options to choose from. So logically speaking, they no longer had to watch BBC’s programming just because there was nothing else on. There was more and more new programes to boredom-watch. And here’s something y’all need to know about the tv industry: the boredom-watchers, the casuals? That’s the most important demographic. As hard as it might be to swallow, us hardcore fans, forum dwellers and Ao3 gremlins, we’re not as big of a group as we’d like to think. Loving fans are important to the tv execs as providers of word-of-mouth advertisment, but the real numbers come from the casual, everyday viewer who will just put on the next episode cause the other one was kinda fun I guess. Or more fun than the other options, anyway.

And this is why, by the way, when someone is conflating low viewership with the show Dissapointing The Fans, they’re full of shit. I’m sorry, but we’re really not that much of a force here, definitely not enough to make such a big impact on the numbers. Another factor, that some of you probably noticed already, is that the numbers I’m quoting are from british tv only, while the online fandom is very much international, so our opinions matter even less to the british execs, I’m sorry again, hard pill to swallow I know, but true nonetheless.

But I digress. So, to sum up the previous paragraph, Doctor Who’s viewership decline in the 80′s was the effect of the changing landscape of the TV industry, with which the BBC struggled to come to terms with.

Sound familiar?

Let’s move on to the 2010′s, shall we?

2010 was is actually a good marker of a year to choose, because it marks one important thing that begun a big change in the industry. This was the year in which Netflix expanded their services overseas, from being a DVD rental company to providing VOD services. Over the next decade streaming services grew in importance, from being an add-on to your cable TV that you didn’t really want but they were throwing it in for cheap, to very much self-sustainable media services you might very well buy instead of buying the cable. And if you look at the numbers for Doctor Who viewership declining over the last 10 years, that’s precisely what’s been happening. It’s not that people don’t want to watch Doctor Who on tv, they don’t want to watch tv in general. Do you know what was the most popular channel in Britain this year? Can you guess? Fucking Netflix that’s what. It’s just slowly-yet-steadily ceasing to be the way we use home entertainment anymore. Again, not much to do with the audience approval, because for that matter, let’s see about the specific episodes that saw the spikes in viewership.

Rose, which i mentioned at the start of it, was for the longest time the unquestionable queen when it comes to viewership, at 10.81 milion. The next episode, The End of the World, pulled in 7.97 - almost 3 millions worth of lost viewer-butts in one week? Is it because it was so much worse than it’s predecessor? No, it simply did not have the smell of Newness, the Event You Must See, and as such brought forth less of the casual viewers who were simply curious about The New Thing. The next season followed the similar formula, peaking at the premiere, when the marketing was at it’s strongest, going down during the season, sometimes rising slightly for the finale, sometimes not. The most popular episodes are, of course, the specials - yet again, the vibe of The Event To Be Seen worked here, but one more thing working to their advantage is they often aired in spaces between seasons, serving as both a long-waited Crumbs of Content for the fans, and the basically stand-alones for the casuals. Do you know what the single most watched episode of revived DW is? No, it’s not Tennant’s goodbye with the role (yeah I know, I thought it had to be that as well). It was Voyage of the Damned, between seasons 3 and 4. The perfect standalone for the casual watcher. And last but not least, you know one more special feature that brought, maybe not as much, but definitely more than expected? The 1996 movie Doctor Who, with 9.08 million. Again, a perfect standalone.

But the standalones aren’t the only way to grab the viewership. The currently-highest viewing non-special episode of DW? The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Jodie Whittaker’s introduction. In 2018 no less, in the year when the streaming was the ruler supreme, this episode brought a whooping 10.96 million buts to the good ol’ TV again. Let me reiterate: this episode brought in more viewers than Rose did in 2005, while having WAY more competition and way less favorable circumstances of release that RTD’s debiut did. Not only that, it managed to bring on some numbers for the entire season as well, not as good of course as the premiere (because again, the Event vibes faded), but still brought a better average than the last six seasons did. (Again, let me reiterate: more than the last SIX seasons. More viewership than any series since 2010, since the Streaming Wars.) So clearly, this must be the way, right? Catering to this Weird New Trend, that saw directors notice there do in fact exist other actors than white men, that surely brought in some profit, even Marvel does it now, right? Out with the old, in with the new!

Part 2 The Deceitful Charm of Nostalgia

Well, it turns out the whole Doing New Things deal didn’t work out that well after all, now did it? The second season penned by Chibbnal averaged 5.40 milion, that’s 2.5 million drop from the previous one! It must mean it didn’t work, right? Well, yes and no. As much as the refreshment of the formula as simple as Let’s Put A Woman In It absolutely worked for one season, it very visibly did not hold up for longer. An Event-Episode is something that can still happen on TV, Event-Series? That’s pretty much reserved for streaming now, if you think about it, and it’s honestly kind of a miracle that Series 11 did as well as it had. Two consecutive Event-Series on network tv? Flat out impossible.

So how to make those ratings great again? How to get those butts in seats of the Good Ol’? Well, the execs of the BBC have a plan for that. They brought in a devouring beast, and it’s name is: Nostalgia.

Without a doubt, there is a number of people who feel nostalgic about RTD’s era of Doctor Who. It’s a lot of people’s fond childhood memory, or the series they started with, and judging by the numbers, there should be quite a lot of them. So the new plan, as it appears, is to get to those who maybe lost interest in the show and lure them with the promise of the thing That Is Totally Like The Thing You Used To Love, Remember? (This is why I don’t actually think that RTD will be allowed to do anything new and interesting, that’s not what they hired him for. And that’s why I think this is bad from the creative standpoint.) So there are two questions here: One, will the people be lured? And two, for how long?

Nostalgia as a marketing strategy is something that you’re probably sick of seeing already (I know I am). But it has very much been effective on many levels, especially the eighties-baiting, Stranger Things style, can bring a new IP up to relevance. But what about old IP’s that want to have a comeback?

It’s kind of dificult to find another TV show that I could compare to Doctor Who. Most series that have been running for that long are mostly soap operas, that operate on slightly different rules, and are also targeted to a different audience. So as much as the movie series is still not exactly the best comparison, when I think about a big IP, campy sci-fi, family-oriented (at least in theory) on its path back to relevance, I think about Star Wars, obviously. The Force Awakens gambled on that nostalgic feeling and won big, but the next two movies, while still financially successful, were nowhere near the astounding success of the first one. And that’s because - you guessed it - it created the Event You Must See again, The Great Comeback, but merely two years later, the comeback became old news. So what we can gain from that is that nostalgia can create an Event as well as a new trend, if not better. But the question remains: how long will that last?

That is, after all, the main difference between a movie franchise and a TV series in the traditional, network TV sense of the word: movie franchise must bring in the viewership every year or two, and TV series must bring in viewers every week for at least two months. Is RTD’s Nostalgia Vibes enough to provide for that?

I’ll say this: I’m absolutely certain that the 60th anniversary will be very popular. I still don’t think it will break any records because, as I’ve been trying to explain for this whole post, it is not 2007 anymore no matter how much the tv execs would like it to be. But ironically, the almost-certain success of the special is the very thing that could undermine the effect of bringing their precious Nostagia Boi back onboard. Remember, the first Event Episode is The Big Oof. That’s the one that gets asses to the Good Ol’, if anything ever does. After the first big event one, that’s the point when things start going down. They’re wasting their Special Event Boi for something that already would be an event, dear fucking gods, I hate your plan and I would still execute it better. Either have RTD be the Anniversary Guy and then hire someone new, use that hype and keep it going, OR have RTD come in after the anniversary, then at least you get the Event Effect for the premiere of his first return season. Fukin’ amateurs.

But even if they did that, here’s the thing: do you think that the people who departed from the show years ago actually want to watch another three to five seasons of The RTD Show? I mean, I’m sure the thought warmed some hearts, for sure. A number of people will definitely gladly watch the anniversary, probably the first few episodes of the first return to the basics, but after that? In the world when, due to streaming, they have an easy way to revisit the actual thing they’re nostalgic towards? I honestly don’t think so. And you’re not really gonna get many new people by going back, if that nostalgia factor isn’t there. And then there’s casual viewers, the backbone, as we established. And here’s the thing: lots of those people don’t even know who the current showrunner is, cause they’re not Terminally Online like we are, and the second thing? Lots of those people ARE JUST NOT WATCHING NETWORK TV, IM SORRY GARRY. They’re just. They’re just not. I don’t know how to spell it out better. Even my mum has netflix now. Your biggest base is in another castle mate, gotta get moving and gotta get moving quick, cause here’s another thing: all the nostalgia in the world will not do SHIT for you if your target, people who were kids/teens when the RTD era was airing, PROBABLY DON’T EVEN HAVE A FUCKING TV ANYMORE CAUSE THEY MOVED OUT OF THEIR PARENTS FLAT AND LOTS OF YOUNG PEOPLE JUST DON’T BOTHER. Just. I’m sorry but you’re trying to resuscitate a decade-deceased corpse there buddy. It just won’t work. The times have changed and you gotta swim or drown, and it’s just not gonna be 2005 again, no matter how hard you pretend it is. It’s not your content it’s your business model. Just push more marketing for your iplayer or whatever, focus on streaming as your primary not your secondary cause that’s just what it is now, and maybe don’t rely on the viewer-counting systems of the yesteryear to evaluate your business. Or else you’re gonna get stuck sacrificing the creative growth of your show for a marketing strategy that probably won’t even fucking WORK.

There, I got it of my chest. Feel free to reblog, and also: you somehow got to the end of this, congrats! I’ll make numbers nerds out of y’all yet.

#it's like. my sister and I were #watching a movie lately. the one with multiple will smiths and the de-aging tech #(don't recommend it it's real boring)#but when Youngened Will Smith appeared on the screen my sister got my spiting my tea laughing by innocently saying:#"oh i don't know this actor. it's nice that they're giving opportunities to the young actors. great to see a new face in the biz''#and u know what #this rehire is the same fucking vibe to me #some cunts from marketing plastering make-up to an old man's face and pretending its 2005 still #anyway #doctor who #i guess.

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wickednerdery · 3 years

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Title: Save a Mobius, Ride a Loki Author: @wickednerdery Fandom: Loki, Rick & Morty Pairing/character: Loki & Mobius, Rick & Morty Rating: FRM Summary: “Mobius, no!!” Notes: This is a continuation of The Great Loki and something that’s been stuck in my head since before Loki premiered I’ve been dying to write, so I have. Knowledge of Rick & Morty is helpful, but not required. This story has adult content, language, and violence. For length, etc, there’s a Read More:

Loki scans the desert, wary he’s ended up where he began; where the TVA first collected him. The whinnying of horses on the wind and outline of an American frontier town in the distance indicates this is unlikely, which is a relief. He takes a few steps, then stops and turns back. “What are you doing?”

Mobius sighs as he fusses with the TemPad. “Trying to figure out when and where we are.” He stumbles through the sand as he attempts to keep up with the god’s long strides. “There’s something wrong with the specs, the settings maybe…” Then a thought blooms in the back of his mind, compels him to ask. “You didn’t do anything to it, right?”

“Of course not.”

“Loki…” It’s gentle warning, reminder. The TVA isn’t done with him, he’ll not simply let Loki wander off.

The tone, implication of it, offends. “I didn’t do anything to your blasted device!” He storms off with his own suspicion and settles under a Joshua tree to examine the gun he lifted from the old man.

Mobius plops beside him, undoing tie as the god shifts to share the shade. “I’m sorry I accused, it’s just…” He’s Loki.

Loki ignores in favor of moving on. “I think the portal gun moves across time and space. We’re in another dimension entirely, see?” He shows the tiny dials, settings, on the device. “Your TemPad won’t work, because it doesn’t exist here.”

If the TemPad doesn’t exist, then reason stands that the TVA doesn’t either and the thought is mind-blowing - terrifying and exciting both. Mobius lived his life with the understanding that the TVA, the Time-Keepers, existed everywhere and (in a way) at every time, and yet...He examines the gun for himself, then hands it back. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“Enough exposition for the readers then?”

“I guess so, I mean, we don’t want to bog them down in the...”

“Talky talky talky.” They say in unison.

“So...how do we figure out where we are then?”

“I’ve a thought.” Loki gets up, starts in the direction of the town, with Mobius quick to catch up. As they carry on he waves hand to change their clothing according to what he suspects will be most appropriate.

“Did you just change my clothes?”

“Of course, how else did you expect us to fit in?”

“No, it’s nice…” The agent looks over the dark shirt, cowboy boots, before taking off the hat to examine. “Impressive...Just...why am I all in black?”

“Because I’m in white.”

“Yeah...But why are you in white and then, you know, I’m in black?”

“Maybe I want to change things up? Think that’s possible? ” It’s said sarcastically, but Loki himself isn’t sure it’s not true.

Mobius smiles. “If anyone could do it, it’d be you.”

When they arrive the god scans the rough wood buildings, the rougher looking citizens that stroll and spit in the streets, with growing smile. This is a place he can enjoy, regardless of where or when it is. Eyes follow a woman in threadbare silk, breasts nearly out, before they find the double-gun holster of her companion.

"What you grinnin’ at, Saddle-Bum?” When Loki laughs the man grows enraged, pulls his gun.

Mobius curses and scrambles as chaos breaks out, just managing to push the woman out of the way of the gunfire. He tucks them behind a pile of barrels that spill liquor as bullets fly. “Stay down.” As the dust settles he glances out. “Loki?” He’s not cross, only worried.

The god only smiles, triumphant over the local bleeding out on his back. “Ah, there you are, Mobius!” That’s a relief.

The woman begins to scream. “Oh my god! You shot the sheriff!!”

“But I did not shoot the deputy.” Loki tips his hat with a grin.

He should be angry, scared, but Mobius isn’t. Heart pounds not with fear, but at the possibilities. It’s one thing to study Loki, to interview and interact with him under controlled circumstances, but this is something entirely different. They’re off the proverbial reservation. This is a wild Loki and it’s thrilling. “This is crazy…” The corners of his lips lift in spite of himself as men drag the body away. “Lucky no one liked that sheriff.”

“Funny how often that happens.” Loki chuckles. “Shall we find a room then?”

“Two.”

“Mobius, really, I thought you would know better. If two beings are in this sort of scenario, there will only be one room and one bed available.”

"Come on, you really think the...powers that be are gonna pull that old trope out?”

Loki only chuckles as he swings saloon doors wide and cheers. “Your new sheriff is here!” The gunslingers, prospectors, and whores all turn and stare. Just stare. The god drops hands to hips, but smile remains. “Tough crowd.” He huffs his laugh, carries on to the bar. “May we have two glasses of your finest and two rooms please?”

“Sorry, just got the one available.”

“On, come on, really?” The agent is incredulous. “Did Loki put you up to this?”

The bartend and proprietor smirks. “You want the room or not?”

“The one room will do just fine, thank you,” Loki smiles out before grabbing the whole bottle rather than poured glass and heading towards a cards game. “Are you coming or not?”

It takes a moment to realize the saloon owner had no expectation of getting paid now, that Mobius was free to go to the table if he wished. He did and he did, settling beside Loki. “You know how to play this game?”

“I know how to play many games, from many different lands. Do you know how to play?”

“I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it.” Not more than a few hands later he’s nearly all the pot to himself.

The god is thoroughly impressed. “You lied.” He smiles.

“Ahhh, what is a lie, anyway?” Mobius smiles back. “Just a...” He shrugs. “Reinterpretation of the truth.”

“You get that from your space lizard employers?”

“Nope.” He sets another winning hand on the table. “I got that from you.”

“Yer a cheat,” a player grumbles. “A liar and a cheat.” Mobius prepares to defend himself when the player turns to Loki. “And a lousy sheriff.” The god only laughs before the man grabs his wrist, digs into Loki’s jacket pocket, and pulls out an ace.

Guns cock in the men’s direction; one sighs, the other grins madly.

“Loki, you weren’t even winning!” Mobius decries.

“Well I would have been, if you weren’t so good!”

“Oh, so this is my fault?”

“Not completely.”

“Not remotely!” The two men begin to devolve themselves into a shouting match, talking over each other as they plot an escape. “Are you ready?!”

“As I’ll ever be!”

“Good!”

“Great!”

Loki blasts the poker player holding his wrist along with two other gunslingers while Mobius socks the man beside him in the nose. It quickly escalates, spreads across the saloon like a tornado that draws in all manner of people around it. Chairs and bullets and glasses fly through the air. Mirrors and tables shatter, people scream, and through it all the god revels...and so does the agent. Until, that is, another gun fires from outside...Fast, futuristic, and deadly so both man and god hit the floor lest they get hit.

“I know you’re in there you portal gun stealing fuckers!” Rick rages from within his ship. It isn’t simply that they took his gun - they weren’t the first and he’d many - it was that he hadn’t discovered the theft soon enough. It was the hit to his ego. “Come out here now and maybe, maybe, I won’t squanch your ass!”

“Jesus, Rick, relax.” Morty doesn’t know why he bothers as his grandfather turns to berate him instead.

Loki pops up, begins to pull magic into his hands as Mobius braces on overturned table to stand. “Hide in the rafters”

“The rafters?” Mobius looks up as Loki forms him an armored vest as precaution. “Are you kidding me? What in our history together makes you think I’m capable of something like that?”

“Then hide elsewhere, just let me handle the old man.” Loki gives overconfident wink.

Mobius sighs...This is it, this is how he dies… “I’ve a better idea.” He storms past Loki, strolls out into the street where the other two are still arguing in their ship.

“Mobius no!” Loki gives chase.

As you can see, Loki’s got no trouble slipping into new, chaotic, worlds and having a blast while Mobius takes a bit longer to find his footing - this may change as Mobius continues to travel and finds his own way of making things work. Because the rascals couldn’t manage to finish their cowboy tale in one go, there will be at least one more piece in this Wild West world...Hope y’all don’t mind, haha! (”Saddle-Bum” is an old west phrase meaning drifter.)

All gifs made found on Google, combined by me, credit goes to whoever their OG makers are!

Those who may read: @holykryptonitekitten @lady-crowned-with-stars @ultrarebelheart @chibiyanai @dreamsofapiratelife @biiskuitx @delightfulheartdream @antoniostarshadow13 @mobiusbmobius@zippythewondersquirrel ...If you wish to be tagged in future pieces, please let me know!

#loki #loki series #rick and morty #crossover #fanfiction #mobius #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #mobius m mobius #loki x mobius #rick sanchez #morty smith #time variance authority #tva loki #marvel cinematic universe #mcu #cowboy au #my writing #not my gif

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appendingfic · 4 years

Text

Sooo...

@c2ndy2c1d made a pretty fantastic comic, Rockababy (found here), which I would totally recommend reading. And if you can, bookmark and comment on it - good creator engagement can help them with further development on the comic, and I selfishly want to see more.

And I was really inspired and was in a place in my writing cycle that I wanted some (3,500 words worth of) shipping fic so.

I hope y’all enjoy!

Observation

Rating: T

Fandom: Rockababy

Ship: Richie/Shifty

Summary: The facts are undeniable - Richie has been watching Shifty very closely. To what purpose, however, Shifty is determined to find out.

Shifty was sitting at his workbench, but unlike other times, there was no gadget or technology to work with at it. Just a notebook - identical to the dozens Richie kept in his room, observations on aliens - more detailed, now, that he had regular access to all the species that had found their way to Earth.

Identical in all respects except for one.

This notebook's contents were exclusively about <I>Shifty</I>. He steeled himself to open the book again, page through notes that were both more detailed and less focused than he was used to from Richie's writings.

"Not ticklish," was scratched out, bold letters next to it reading, "Ticklish at base of spine/tail - DO NOT TOUCH". Richie had inadvertently (Shifty hoped) discovered that fact during one of their photo sessions, documenting the regrowth of Shifty's tail. The memory almost brought a smile to Shifty's face - Richie had been mortified, blushing as he apologized fervently from across the room when Shifty had nearly bolted off the exam table at the touch.

"Has a sense of humor", another page read. "Not slapstick - not observational. Absurd? Smiled at a pun - denied it BUT I KNOW THE TRUTH". Shifty actually smiled at that.

Another was a list of foods, apparently random unless you had been studying Shifty's tastes. Next to the word "Chocolate" was a doodle of Shifty's natural face, frowning. The discovery Shifty didn't like chocolate had seemingly depressed Richie, and Shifty still wasn't certain if he'd disappointed Richie by failing to enjoy that particular human treat. The page after that was another apparently random list of foods, again, unless you'd been trying to determine what foods Shifty liked. Six fruits were circled, lines drawn from them to a margin where Richie had written "FRUIT", and, next to it, "even Durian?" There was a doodle of Shifty's face - natural, again - smiling next to the word "peanut butter", and a line drawn between that and "bananas", a wholly intriguing proposition Shifty vowed to explore later.

There was something crossed out with heavy lines next to the word "suckers" - the only letters Shifty could make out were "OR-" and "-IXA-", and the tail end of a question mark. As he had no idea what the note could have been, he left it alone.

Especially as there were other, more puzzling notes filling the notebook. A list of numbers which had been mystifying until Shifty recognized one as his normal body temperature, at which point, the others included a startlingly accurate indicator of at what temperature Shifty started feeling cold. There was a number underlined several times, which Shifty recognized as the temperature the fever he'd had two months ago had pushed him to, and a rambling series of notes that Shifty recognized as documenting Richie's frenzied attempts at treatment when Shifty had finally admitted he was sick (not that the NESB didn't have perfectly adequate medical care, but Richie had been adamant Shifty shouldn't have to recuperate in their medical lab or, as Shifty had suggested, handle it himself).

Dozens of drawings - of the patterns on Shifty's skin, of his hands, of his tail. Detail of his face - or attempts, as Richie had scribbled over each one. Shifty stared at one such attempt for a moment before flipping to find the doodles next to the lists of Shifty's favorite and least favorite foods. Looking at those drawings, he couldn't pinpoint what had frustrated Richie about the others - the disappointed frown on drawn Shifty's face felt true to life, and while Shifty didn't see his own smile much, the delighted cartoon Shifty looked - much the way he felt when one of his friends drew a smile out of him.

The notes were clearly the work of months of observation - most, if not all, of the period of their...acquaintanceship (friendship. They were friends. The first people who'd seen his natural form and agreed to raid a corporate lab to rescue an infant alien were his friends). And Richie must have been keeping it with him most of the time, as Shifty had discovered the notebook on the couch when Richie had last visited.

So...months of observations. At first glance, somewhat scientific, unless you'd seen Richie's other work, and realized how little of the notebook's contents lacked the - objective veneer he maintained for other work. The notes he included with the photographs of Shifty he submitted to the NESB were professional, and rarely included any of the banter Shifty had to keep up to distract himself from the vague discomfort of being under such close examination.

This notebook was more of the same.

...Technically.

For all it didn't involve the complete suite of photographs sitting in an NESB lab somewhere, the notes were more intimate. They all touched on things that no one should know without having been close to Shifty. It wasn't that he suspected Riche were keeping the notes to - sell them to tabloids or something ("Aliens Love Peanut Butter" wouldn't sell papers, he guessed).

But not knowing what Richie was trying to accomplish with this left Shifty a little uneasy. They were supposed to hang out the next day, ostensibly to study for their calculus final, although both of them were far beyond needing the additional help, which meant it would be a perfect opportunity to get some answers.

Ms. Cunningham answered the door when Shifty arrived at their home, eyes brightening at the sight of him. "Blueberry!" she said, kissing him on both cheeks as she stepped around him to step outside, ignoring the flush on Shifty's cheeks (in human guise, it at least remained confined to his face). "I assume you're here to see Richie - he's in his lab, while I'm off to mine." She pulled Shifty in for a hug before letting go and stepping back to grin at him. "So you boys have fun, and make sure Richie eats."

"Oh - absolutely," Shifty replied, watching Ms. Cunningham drive away. He stepped inside; the Cunninghams had opened their home indiscriminately to Shifty, and he'd only recently become comfortable with it. He knew they had good reason not to worry about him wandering around their home, even if he was expected. He didn't have much reason to wander, of course, except, taking Ms Cunningham's comment into consideration, to bring Richie a sandwich (and experiment with the notion of peanut butter and bananas for himself).

When Shifty descended the stairs into Richie's home lab (an examination table, a desk, and a couch that had migrated down there at some point in the last several months), Richie barely looked up from a notebook he was writing in, at least until Shifty set a plate down next to him.

He looked up and smiled at Shifty, an open, bright expression that made Shifty glad he hadn't let his human form drop, because his tail had developed a traitorous tendency to wag when Richie smiled at him.

"Your mother said you should eat," Shifty said as an explanation.

"Oh, yeah, thanks." Richie picked up his sandwich, took a bite, and set it down again. He twisted around to look up at Shifty, a frown almost taking over his mouth before his expression smoothed out. "Did you want to get started on studying?"

"Come on," Shifty replied, leaning against the desk so he could look down at Richie's notebook (neat, organized, nothing like the one in Shifty's bag). "You and me have studied enough. I'm just here to keep you from starving to death."

Richie looked back at his sandwich, and picked it up for another bite, apparently focused on it while he ate, although Shifty was certain Richie kept glancing sidelong at him.

"You're, uh. Just trying to keep me fed?" Richie asked. There was a tone to his voice, almost - lilting, and Shifty suspected he was being teased.

"Well, I also wanted to ask you about something you left at my place," Shifty replied. "It probably fell out of your backpack or something-"

"I'm sorry!" Richie blurted, holding up his sandwich between them like a shield.

Shifty, who hadn't expected such a violent reaction, stood, shocked, until he saw jam leaking from the bottom of Richie's sandwich. He caught the drop before it could hit the floor and licked it off his finger.

When he actually looked back at Richie, Richie was staring at him.

"What?" Shifty demanded.

"You...aren't mad?"

"I don't know," Shifty replied. "I'm not sure what you're apologizing for."

"O - oh." Richie's cheeks flushed as he looked away from Shifty. "I thought you found the. Uh. Pictures."

"The drawings?" Shifty asked, and somehow, Richie's cheeks went redder, his entire posture tensing into something that made it look like he was about to bolt.

"Richie?" Shifty asked, leaning forward, realizing only as he reached out to Richie that he'd dropped back to his natural form, pale, clawed fingers coming to rest on Richie's shoulder.

"I kept some of the photos," Richie said. "The ones you didn't really want the NESB to keep because they were a little…" He trailed off, and Shifty, remembering the discussion and in his natural form, felt his whole body blush, because.

Richie had tried to be professional when taking the pictures, requesting standard, clinical poses, but even so, some of them had ended up looking a little-

Well, like the pinups Boomer had implied Richie kept in his room.

"It just seemed a shame, because they're good pictures, and you look really - you look good in them. I haven't shown them to anybody or anything, but…" He trailed off, staring at his feet, and if Shifty were inclined to hugging anyone besides Buttons, he might have tried to hug Richie to calm him down.

Except while Richie had panicked over the photographs, the mention of drawings seemed to have freaked him out worse.

"Can you maybe tell me what you found?" Richie asked, voice a little reedy. "So I know what I'm freaking out about?"

"It was a notebook," Shifty replied, pulling the book out of his bag and handing it over. "At first I thought it was one of your alien data books, but it was - about me, and sort of...personal?"

"I'm sorry," Richie repeated, snatching the book out of Shifty's hands to clutch it against his chest. "I wasn't like - secretly trying to find a way to hurt you or anything. Obviously, I've been paying attention if there was anything you were allergic to because I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I got you killed because you had a peanut allergy or something."

"You also appear to think it's a tragedy I don't like chocolate," Shifty pointed out, and Richie, who'd seemed to be calming down, flushed ducking his head to hide it behind his notebook.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Don't be," Shifty said, settling against the desk so he could lean closer to Richie, squeeze his shoulder in a way he hoped was reassuring. "I mean, it's a little weird - and it's sort of driving me crazy trying to figure out what it's for-"

"I just wanted to figure you out," Richie said. When Shifty didn't respond immediately, he continued, knuckled still white from the strain of holding onto his notebook. "Like - I thought maybe I didn't understand you because you were an alien, so I started paying attention. Like if you were allergic to anything, or if you're ticklish or sensitive-"

"If I can get sick," Shifty interrupted, bringing Richie up short, quiet as he considered that.

"Yeah. And I didn't really have friends before, so I was also trying to figure out friend stuff, like what you liked, what you didn't-"

"I do like puns," Shifty said. At Richie's slightly shaky stare, he shrugged. "It's fun, playing around with words like that."

"I…" Richie's gaze drifted down to his notebook, one hand twitching; it was almost certain he was fighting the urge to document this new revelation immediately.

"You can write it down," Shifty said gently. "Now that I know it's just you being - observant, I don't mind."

"Oh." Richie set the notebook down and flipped open to the page on which he'd mused on Shifty's sense of humor, making a few notations on it. "Thanks."

"Don't worry about it," Shifty allowed. He eyed his own sandwich, forgotten in Richie's panic, wondering if it was safe to start in on it again. Probably not; this conversation didn't feel over yet. "I liked the drawings of me in the notebook. They're - good." He paused a moment, trying to sort out his thoughts. "I liked the little cartoons."

Richie scowled. "They're dumb. I only drew them because I can't get your face right when I'm drawing it seriously."

"I don't think it's dumb. That smiling face looks like - how I feel when I'm smiling."

"...Oh." Richie closed the notebook, but didn't move after that. "I'm glad. That you aren't upset. I don't want to upset you."

"Hm," Shifty replied. "I don't think you would. Do anything that would upset me." And now that he was...observing, considering facts with an assessing eye, Shifty had a - hypothesis.

Richie had been watching Shifty <I>very</I> closely. He had in his possession photographs they had both decided were a little - much for the scientists at the NESB to see. And there were...drawings, somewhere, that Richie didn't want Shifty to see.

Without his conscious input, Shifty's tail began to swing behind him, a slow horizontal drag that Richie had probably been watching Shifty closely enough to interpret. Shifty leaned over Richie, finding he liked the idea of - testing his hypothesis.

"You've been watching me pretty closely, haven't you?" he asked. And Richie had taken his eyes off of Shifty, because when he looked up, his face paled and he licked his lips, a nervous swipe of his tongue.

"Yeah, but not in a creepy way-"

"It's a little creepy," Shifty pointed out. "I'm pretty sure there's a drawing of the marks just above my tail in there. And I don't have much chance to look at it, but it's a pretty good likeness."

Richie closed his eyes. "Sorry, I-"

"Where did I give you the impression I minded?" Shifty retorted, and Richie's eyes snapped open, jaw dropped, and he just...stared.

"Wha," he croaked out after a few quiet moments.

"It's a little creepy for - professional interest," Shifty continued, as he let his tail continue to sway behind him. "But if it's a more - personal interest." He paused, hoping he hadn't read this embarrassingly wrong, or he'd never be able to face either of the Cunninghams for the rest of his life. And then he leaned down just a little more, so the next words were spoken just next to Richie's ear. "That might be a project worth - exploring."

In Shifty's defense, everything he knew about flirting he'd learned from television, and the "bad boy" type he'd sought to emulate always acted this smooth.

In Richie's (as Shifty learned later), no one had ever hit on him before.

So Richie's startled flailing resulted in a bruised and slightly bloody nose on Shifty's part, and a possibly fatal case of embarrassment and remorse on Richie's, as he sat as far away from Shifty as the couch allowed while Shifty iced his nose.

With Richie licking his (metaphorical) wounds at giving Shifty literal ones, Shifty suspected he would have to speak up if he ever wanted to resolve this.

"I'd sort of like to know," Shifty said, at last. When Richie looked up, his eyes were almost looking wet, just on the edge of tears.

"What?"

"If you're just - looking, or if you. Want," Shifty concluded, finding the words awkward to force out. "Me," he clarified, and he probably shouldn't have, because his face was starting to flush again, which meant it was a matter of time until it encompassed his entire body. "Because if you do, I'd. Apparently, I like smart, sweet guys who care about. Snakes." He wasn't certain how he'd managed to make this sound more awkward than it already was, but. Here they were. Shifty with all of his cards on the table, and Richie.

Staring.

He was used to Richie staring - Richie was the budding xenobiologist, and whether Shifty was in human guise or his natural form or somewhere in between, Richie wanted to see anything he did that was out of the ordinary. But he wasn't used to watching Richie staring, and Shifty suspected if he ever had, they might have had this conversation a while ago.

Because Richie's gaze dragged over Shifty, along the frills on his head and arms, the patterns along his skin, including the heart-shaped one on his forehead, the pointed, inhuman head, and his tail, from the tip to the base, where Richie knew Shifty was - sensitive.

Richie pressed his palm against the end of Shifty's tail, a feather-light touch. And then he trailed his palm along the frills, a lighter touch, if possible, and Shifty shivered. Richie's gaze shot up to meet Shifty's, eyes wavering, wide, afraid.

(Shifty dismissed the thought that Richie was worried what Shifty would do, but that left as the only possible conclusion that Richie was worried for Shifty.)

"Gentler treatment than I'm used to," Shifty said, winking at Richie. "Seeing as I live with a kid with grabby hands." When Richie didn't move, Shifty flicked his tail to brush the end against the back of Richie's hand. "You can keep going."

Richie's gaze shifted from his own hand back to the lazy waving of the tip of Shifty's tail. And the next touch was - firmer, more present, if still tentative. Shifty grinned and twisted around toward the back of the couch so he could provide Richie access to his tail without discomfort, even if he had to crane his neck slightly to watch Richie draw his hand along the frills of Shifty's tail.

It was - intimate, if at the same time a step back from some of the - implications of what they'd been talking about. Still, the slightly dazed expression on Richie's face faded over the course of several minutes, and gave way to something more - analytical.

"So," Richie mused. "There's some. Stuff. We haven't talked about. About your species and. You. And." His voice rose throughout his stuttering statement, until Shifty decided any amusement he took from Richie's slowly-growing discomfort would be cruel and a diversion from Shifty's - well, not ultimate goal, but his most immediate one.

So Shifty tugged his tail from Richie's grip and crawled the short distance that separated their bodies, leaning up just enough to kiss Richie. Just a press of lips, more a statement of intent than anything.

Richie didn't jerk backward - but only just. His cheeks were red, and he was looking at anything but Shifty. "What-"

"You were working your way up to a question," Shifty replied. "I was giving you an answer. As for romance, that's a yes. As for kissing, that's a yes. As for - other concerns, I figure we can...explore that question in further detail if the rest seems to be working out." Shifty smiled, aware the slow, deliberate expression was likely one Richie hadn't seen before, a notion confirmed at the distant, glazed expression on Richie's face (either that or the promise that any forays into more complicated activities would come with the expectation of scientific inquiry and rigor, even if Richie and Shifty were the only people who ever benefited from it).

Shifty leaned back in toward Richie, pausing this time when he was almost close enough to touch. "Soo," he drawled, grinning. "What's the verdict?"

Richie crossed the few remaining inches to press his lips against Shifty's, and then press forward to - experiment, Shifty realized, to observe and detail his findings. Shifty grinned against Richie's mouth at the thought, surging forward to contribute to Richie's obvious desire to explore.

They passed an hour or so that way, before Shifty dropped his head onto Richie's lap, looking up as Richie traced along the marks on Shifty's face, face fixed in concentration, until that concentration faltered and Richie gave Shifty's mouth a strange look.

Shifty smirked. "What's that look for?"

"Your smile is - you're really pretty," Richie stammered.

And Shifty might have - suspected Richie thought that, but hearing it sent a thrill along his spine, and his smile widened. "I guessed," he replied, "seeing how you kept all those photos."

Richie ducked his head away, covering his face with his hands. "Oh god, please don't bring that up. It's embarrassing."

"Is it?" Shifty asked, stretching out (and not failing to notice how Richie's gaze darted toward Shifty's stomach as he did so). "Then maybe we could talk about the drawings that came up earlier."

It would take some time, Shifty suspected, before he got a straight answer about those (even if Richie's embarrassment was incredibly telling about the nature of said drawings). But Shifty was certain enough about his intentions, and Richie's own, not to worry overmuch about it. Richie had better things to occupy his time with, now, anyway.

#fanfiction #fanfic #writing #rockababy #c2ndy2c1d

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nako-doodles · 3 years

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content creator year in review

--- tagged by @suggable @taemaknae @userjiminie @jinvant @jimimon @lifegoesmon @honsool @everythingoes @flipthatjacketjiminie @yoongi-BTS @hobibestboy @jiminslight @kimtaehyunq @taee ✨✨

i only started “”regularly”” making content this year bc of lockdown and i needed something to distract me before i went absolutely insane....i didnt realize i would get so much love and support for it so thank you. thank you for being there bringing laughter, light, love, life into this truly dark and difficult year. thank you for being my moot, my friend, my emotional support, my much needed safe harbor when life was being too much. i love you all such much and i hope y’all have a healthy, happy, fantastic, superb 2021 💖 cheers🥂✨

♡ first creation and most recent creation of 2020:

the inaugural: this moon/tonight inspired thing

the latest: bangtan welcoming the new year

the noticeable improvement aoejgioeagra let this be a lesson for everyone that “talent” is really just a skill honed from a lot of practice

♡ a new style you’re proud of:

this whole pixel art thing is something really new for me and im super happy that all of y’all are coming along w this journey w me. it pushed me a lot out of my comfort zone bc i havent serious giffed in y e a r s for a different era and fandom of tumblr and ive never done digital art before much less an art style so confined and well known and represented. color me slightly narcissistic and impressed w myself

♡ a creation you’re really proud of:

this one i made for jin’s bday! his houndstooth beluti jacket was the ABSOLUTE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE my LORD. unlike most of the things i draw i only had like...3 nonpotato reference photos of jin in it so i tracked down the jacket and figure out what the stupid pattern was. his eyes also made me want to punch my laptop and chuck it out the window bc i couldnt get his hamster face to read “jin” after like 320849032 iterations and erasing one pixel here and adding another pixel of a slightly different color there. i finished the entire thing within minutes of needing to post it in time for his bday even though i started more than a month earlier aojgiroeajgiior

♡ a creation that took you forever:

by jove this most recent one of bangtan dancing from their chilsung ads. i started this back in september/november thinking it would take like 2 weeks at most HA! i barely finished it in time to harken the new year 🤣🤣 animating it was especially challenging because i had to draw and animate the first half going forward, and then last half going backwards so it would loop right and THEN i replayed and rechecked all 60 some frames to make sure there weren't any glaring colour or continuity issues the fortnight before posting it bc things weren't lining up. for a first attempt, i think it looks good......if you dont like....look at it too closely

this one of their pj party bts run one also took me 2 months to finish afjgioraejgio i didnt think i was able to finish it tbh im glad it turned out well. it was my first attempt in animating complex motion and perspective and i think it turned out well. you can barely hear past me phantom screaming about it.

♡ a creation from 2020 that received the most notes:

this rollercoaster derby one from bts week on whichever late night show it was. it just made me really happy seeing tannies zoom by like that and im glad most of you agree

♡ a creation you think deserved more notes:

rather than “deserve” i think we as a fandom should do a better job in reblogging and support your content creators you feel?

♡ a new fandom you joined and a creation you made for it:

i was planning on doing that ‘top 20 songs of 2020′ tag so I made a lil thing for sunmi, day6, lee hi, and ha:tfelt, but i ran out of time and motivation and decisiveness to finish all 20 (sorry dreamcatcher and apink for abandoning you midway aoijgriojgrao)

♡ a creation you made that breaks your heart:

idk something about this shot of jk tilting his head in the life goes on mv makes me....懐かしい? i tried to encapsulate the Feeling™️

♡ a ‘simple’ creation that you really love:

this ly photoshoot one of jin and the professor jin whistling one. theres not too many unique frames but they make me really happy looking at them

♡ a creation that was inspired by another one:

this yoongi daechwita one was inspired by my dash losing its mind at this iconic shot and the colouring was inspired by @lifegoesyoon

♡ a favourite creation created by someone else:

god everyone made such incredible work im going to try my best to not forget anyone:

-- @yoongikook and the art movement gifsets truly the galaxy mindedness of everything im in awe

-- @syubb and these gfx???? truly what in the ever living fuck do mortal limits mean nothing to you?

-- @jsuga and these insane gfx Jesus Christ spare talent pls? *shakes her empty beanie*

-- @everythingoes and her 100 days of joon; thank you for personally curing my myopia one joon gif at a time

-- @seoksjin and all her jin content is what saved my entire year tbh thank you ellie

-- @agustdfeatrm and this happy series seriously cured my depression

-- @minhope and this uNREAL ability to make such gorgeous gfx god im planning a museum heist and hoarding all of these like a dragon hoards gold

-- @jungshiii and their gorgeous art museum gfx and this ‘how's quarantine goin’

-- I am in love w everything @bangtanger colours

-- @hobibestboy and @eternalbulletproof and their crystal clear gifs that gave me Enhanced Vision even vision is jealous

-- @slipped-away and all of these goodies

-- @thebtsprint and their posters and gfx w o w

-- @bigswigofmilk their art style is so iconic and cute!!!!

♡ some of your favourite content creators from the year:

im ngl but im having that O M G SENPAIS NOTICED ME moment rn like everyone who tagged me I was like *amber ruffin voice* WWHHHHAAAAATTTTT like wow the talent in this fandom really be UNREAL so everyone who was tagged above as well as:

@chaylani @wabisaba @soie @hopekidoki @seokjinite @houseofarmanto @j-sope @yoongiandthebiaswreckers @joenkook @hosnack @jellyseul @jiminslight @jung-koook @joenns @hixtapes @hobeah @kkulmoon @lucid-jjin @bwijoon @jiminswn @shinhye @varietae @jintae @dearbangtansonyeondan @syuga @ynki @yibiart @samwol @kimnamtaejin @seokjinyoongis @introtae @jhoper @jinstaehyung @himbojoon @jhopetodream @eternal-bangtan @jcngkooks @faerieth @taejoon @jimint @jjoon & @/jinv (*sends a bottled message into the metaphorical ocean w my love bc ocean pollution is a no-go*)✨🌸✨💖✨

♡ and for good measure, another couple more creations of yours that you love:

drop by seokjin’s and have a milkshake🧋you deserve it after reading this entire thing

♡ tagging: everyone above who hasnt done this as well as anyone who wants to 💖💖💖 have a lovely 2021🌸

#*stage whisper* am I finally inducted to the cool kids club?? mom I MADE IT #I hikey didnt think I have enough posts to finish this tag tbh I was pleasantly surprised #I think pixel art really taught me both the importance of details and also that perfection isnt important or necessary for art #like im usually not a patient person and strive perfectionism to a fault #this was a good exercise for me thank you post shower past shirley #ii think my obaachan would be veery happy to learn Im starting to find beauty in places that are imperfect #with age comes 侘寂 right?#im barely a full-time cc thank you for indulging me anyways 💖💖💖#hash tag games

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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 years

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Taking a Break.

(Aug 24 to Sept 14/20)

So.

You may have guessed this was coming with my hinted responses to recent posts. I talked with a few Lovelies behind the scenes to help ease my fears about this decision. I’ve done a lot of reflective thinking for the past few weeks, and I’ve decided that when I have a three week break from work, I am also going to take advantage of that and take a three week break from here as well.

This is not something any of y’all did. Please do not think this. This is a “Steph hasn’t had time for herself since last summer” thing, a “Steph puts too much on her own shoulders because she doesn’t feel she deserves her own time” thing, a “Steph just needs a break” thing. And it’s been made even worse with C-19 because I’m NEVER off of the same computer nor couch. Before, I’d go to and from work, and blogging in the evenings was fun, because I didn’t do it during the day. Then on weekends, I’d answer asks and leave for the gym, spend a bit of my day running around, and come home, play again on Tumblr, and repeat.

Now, on work days, I literally wake up, spend 16 hours on my laptop, and then go to bed. Weekends, I FEEL obligated to be on Tumblr to help curate the community I love treasure so dearly, so ANOTHER day or so of my weekend is dedicated to making sure I have content for the following week to come, because HEY I can’t leave home anyway, MAY AS WELL.

My blog is nearly a full time job, one I volunteer my free time for (I have a Ko.fi, shameless segue). I spend about 30 hours a week answering asks, filing my posts, searching for stuff for people, collecting reblog threads and chains, and generally trying to keep a positive attitude because I know so many of y’all come here for safety, love, happiness, and escapism. And I do it ALL because I LOVE doing it. I love being a curator of fandom. I love having a blog that people know they can come and generally have a good time. I love all of my friends and lurkers and the people who help me make this blog an interactive one.

The problem is that with never leaving home, I am becoming emotionally drained, very depressed, and am slowly not enjoying doing this anymore. I DON’T WANT THAT TO HAPPEN. So after a lot of discussions with a few people and self reflection, I’ve decided I need Steph-Time™, and I need to FEEL like I’m not obligated to be here all the time, just like I needed time away from work. As I explained to my boss, I just need that time to not feel obligated to answer calls and Slack messages without feeling guilty about it. It’s different when I have a Work Computer and a Home Computer. My home computer is supposed to be Fun Stuff. Now it’s not, because work bothers me on my fun computer. He agreed, as did the Lovelies who I talked to behind the scenes.

I love you guys SO MUCH, and I love receiving the asks I get, but some days, a dozen asks daily becomes overwhelming and new fic lists and song recs become intimidating. I need a break. It’s taken me a lot to say that, because I am crying writing this because I feel so many people need me, and I genuinely don’t feel like I deserve a break ever, because there are people who come to me for comfort and need it more than I need a break.

But the ironic thing is that I can’t help anyone if I’m not taking care of myself. How fitting that my own advice to others comes back to slap me in the face, eh?

So, here’s what’s happening then, because I KNOW I can’t 100% stay away from here...

I am taking 3 weeks off from work starting August 24 until September 14. My “obligation break” from Tumblr will be during that time as well. I say “obligation” because Tumblr feels like I HAVE to do it. I don’t want that. I want to see what it’s like being you guys again, just taking in content, and coming on occasionally, post up shit photos of myself, LOL.

During said break, ALL ASKS AND SUBMISSIONS WILL BE TURNED OFF. I want to, IF I FEEL LIKE IT, take the time to answer some old asks. Essentially, I just want to do my blog because I feel like it, not because I NEED NEW CONTENT. Yeah, I think that’s what stresses me out, is because I’m TERRIFIED that y’all will leave me if I don’t keep producing new stuff, so I just.... never stop, and it’s draining me.

As an exception to the off-inbox rule, ASKS WILL BE TURNED ON ON AUGUST 27 ONLY. That is my birthday, and I know some people will want to send me well wishes. If you send me an un-related ask on that day, I probably won’t answer it unless it’s one of those ones I can answer quickly. But yeah, my birthday is on the 27, if anyone is interested in that sort of thing.

WEDNESDAY FIC LISTS WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED DURING THESE THREE WEEKS. Namely because I have exactly 4 lists ready to go, and I plan on using them for the this and the three subsequent Sundays.

Five Fics Friday is still on, as is Fic Rec Sunday. 5FF will probably be fave fics instead of new MFLs, so I’m sorry about that. The Sunday lists are already done and therefore not going to stress me out.

I’m not leaving completely. I’m still here, I just, like I said, need that obligation element removed from my brain. You guys have NO CLUE how guilty I feel every day when I have to choose one or another ask because of the quickness of one ask over another, or the fact that This Day was a Bad Day™ and I can’t answer advice asks in a bad headspace. I need that element removed to just the asks I’ve already got, and let myself answer them on my own time. Draft a slew of them to post when I return (I mean, y’all have been waiting months/years on some of my asks, what’s another three weeks, LOL), and head back with a clear head to better help you guys.

So LITERALLY, the only difference you guys will notice is the lack of NEW posts. My queue is full for the next MONTH, so literally you would not even know I was gone unless you tried to send me an ask or a DM.

Let’s be real here, guys, I’m not going to completely disconnect for 3 weeks. Y’all will be yelling at me to get off and go outside, LOL.

So what am I doing with my 3 weeks then? Updating my resumé, learn some new art skills, go for my Big Walks™ I haven’t been doing, play some video games, get my hair cut, maybe get my cat. Do and post up some of my art I’ve been meaning to finish. You know, stuff that not-losers do, LOL.

Anyway, unlike Mofftiss, please don’t give up on me after three (weeks) :D I just need a mental health check, is really all this is. I’m having a hard time disconnecting work from leisure and I need to do that again. <3

I will be back, I promise!! And hopefully better. <3

This is a very difficult decision for me, because I’ve been running this blog at full steam for about FIVE YEARS NON-STOP. All because I’m scared of hurting people. I hope you all understand.

I love you guys so much. <3

~Steph

#my blog #about me #steph takes a vacay #i'm just really drained you guys #i hope you understand #steph says 'obligated' a lot #long post

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fuckyeahspones · 3 years

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1. How did you start shipping Spones?

I started shipping spones when I somehow got it into my head that Spock would have an irrational desire to pick McCoy up and carry him around! I think adestroy’s comics first introduced me to the concept of spones, and it didn’t hurt that the first episode of TOS that I ever saw was All Our Yesterdays lol

Great spones fics (Surgeon’s Mate by belmanoir springs to mind), regular content from sleepymccoy throughout 2015-2017 or so, and excellent fanvids on YouTube by Danzinora Switch all helped to keep me interested in the ship.

2. Why did you ship them?

My “true” ship is McSpirk, but the great thing that the spones relationship has over the spirk relationship is the tension. Spones has what every romcom wants (and usually fails) to have: two people who are clearly well-matched for each other in terms of intellect, ideals, lifestyle and personality, but who have got off on the wrong foot due to relatively minor differences in temperament, mode of expression, prejudices and insecurities.

This tension can be played equally well for comedy and for angst. Furthermore, they are both such honest and loyal people that a serious meaningful relationship is totally plausible, opening up possibilities for fluff or epic romance. So you can have anything you want, with spones!

Also (unlike Kirk, unlike Spock), McCoy simply will not experience fulfilment without marriage. He is lonely and his career and friendships cannot fully sate that loneliness. He needs total commitment to and from one person. And Spock is the best match for him.

3. What are some reasons you like Spock and McCoy as characters?

Well I only fell into the Star Trek fandom because of Leonard Nimoy’s expressive face! Spock has remained my favourite character because I admire his stoicism, his utter integrity, his deadpan wit; and I relate to his reticence, awkwardness and (imo) demisexuality.

It took me a while to really like McCoy. In the show, the writers sometimes didn’t do the character justice, and the spones arguments don’t always make sense. But the fandom has really developed McCoy’s character as it was meant to be and as DeForest Kelley portrayed him. I love his sass, his selflessness, his mistrust of space and technology, the way he covers up his deep emotions with cantankerousness and surface emotions.

Above all, the great thing about McCoy from a shipper’s point of view is his boundless potential for pining! He breaks his own heart at the slightest provocation – which means he has limitless potential for bliss once things work out in the end.

4. Some of your fave things about liking Spones: tropes, fics, headcanons etc?

I like that spones works particularly well as an AU. Now normally I don’t even like AUs. With spirk, for instance, I can’t stand AUs because they can never be better than the actual spirk relationship in TOS, so what’s the point?

With spones, though, it seems as though TOS is almost the worst possible outcome, as though Spock and McCoy would, in any other universe or circumstances, have come together more quickly, easily and completely? So whether it’s a completely different AU (like Regency era or cowboys or something) or just a “what if this episode had gone a little differently” AU, there’s endless scope.

I’m sorry for the late reply! I saw this submission in the inbox but, before I could do anything, my power went out for days so I’m now just taking a chance to look at your answers!

That is a hell of an introduction to Spones! All Our Yesterdays has a lot of Spones content, Adestroy has such great comics, but when sleepymccoy made all that spones content from 2014-2017, it actually was one of the reasons I actually made a tumblr. Danzinora Switch’s videos are WONDERFUL but honestly her fics? Such good gen fic I’m cry. I can see how you got sucked into the Spones very quickly.

I, too, love McSpirk! (My multishipping butt collects ships like no one’s business lmao) You do make a great point about Spones having what most romcom movies want but don’t always succeed at with their main interests.

You are so very right about the writer’s not always doing justice to McCoy’s character (sometimes they write him antithesis to what has been established AS his character in other episodes -- I’ve discussed this before with Trek-Tracks, but Bev and I agreed that some of these writers would write Spock & McCoy as opposites, even on positions that would definitely be very out of character for McCoy, if it meant it was the “opposite” of what Spock was presenting, and it’s just very frustrating) and the amount of thought Deforest Kelley put into McCoy is quite amazing (I have a press release where he talks really in-depth about it, it’s a wonderful read!) and it’s nicer that fans have seen through some of that OOC bs and came up what maybe they were trying to establish with him at the time but didn’t always succeed.

And yes, to the boundless potential for McCoy angst, whump and pining. Goodness.

You have a good point about AUs! They really do work well transposed into all kinds of AUs (I know, I’ve accumulated to many in my fic wips lmao) which is a shame because there aren’t enough AU fics for this pair. In recent years, I’ve started to see more of them, but there is definitely room for more!

It’s been awhile since I’ve read Surgeon’s Mate, but I remembered it to be pretty good, and if anyone wants to read it, you can find it on AO3 here. I do remember it’s a pretty “old” fic, like 2011? 2012? It’s been awhile.

If you like Danzinora Switch’s fanvids, I think y’all would enjoy the gen fics. The fics are SUCH a joy to read, especially like that one where Spock & McCoy time travel to Vulcan’s past. It can be all found and read here, on fanfiction.net.

#submission #beastlyanachronism #spones #fic rec #i totally didn't ignore it actually seeing this in the inbox makes me SO HAPPY #i should run another ask time thing like this again it was fun to see y'all's responses

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jacearthereal · 3 years

Text

Written panel of Guillermo Rojas (Dean Winchester’s voice actor):

Note: I’m not fluent in spanish, but my native language is portuguese and I could understand a lot from what he said. I hope this clarifies more things in this fandom, because everyday a new thing comes up and we try not to panic.

What it’s not here, it’s because I didn’t understand enough to write something coherent, but I tried my best. I hope y’all like it.

Ada: He's been a voice actor from season 12 to episode 15x18. He tells us that unfortunately he got covid in the last 2 episodes and he understands that he will have to record the [last] episodes again. Let's start with the easier questions, because I don't know if you guys know, but the Mexican dubbing ‘broke the internet.’

Guillermo: Yes, I’m sorry I couldn’t answer all your questions, but I was in the middle phase of covid, with a tracheal symptom that didn’t allow me to speak. Now I’m working with therapy. Apparently, I have two sequels. One is bad and the second is not. So I couldn't answer everyone I was looking on the internet. On insta, facebook, youtube — A channel that I never updated — on the situation that happened with Dean and this other companion, right.

Ada: but let's start with other questions. Because you've worked on a lot of series, live-actions and animations. And the first question is “how different is the process of directing live-action and directing animation and which one do you prefer?

Guillermo: The process for each other is somewhat similar. Because we have a quality that we have to respect and give in this case.

Ada (translating what Guillermo said): The dialogues are given by the production house or as we call “the client”.

Guillermo: And in this case we have to pay attention to the alignments that they ask us, which depend a lot on the production we are working with.

(Ada repeats in English)

Guillermo: Yes, none of them are the same. It would be lying because we could have two live-actions and they’re not the same alignments. These are basic points that we need to follow.

Ada: (speaks very similarly and says): When you're acting, that's when the change comes.

Guillermo: The big difference that I can tell you would be the technical points to follow in each one of them. The question would be authorial, in this case. And what gives 100% of each one of us.

Ada: Ok, next question. What is your favorite role you've played and why?

Guillermo: I believe that the first one I can tell you — today it’s not the most and I will say why — It remains Kiefer Sutherland / Jack Bauer 24h. First, because it has a very beautiful story of how I stayed with (Jack Bauer?). Basically, I was directing the dubbing in the country and the idea was that I shouldn’t do it because I had many directions, but in the end we continued to record through the years because the people listened to me. And then I worked extra hours.

(Ada says in english that they managed to organize themselves).

Ada: So they paid you more?

Guillermo: No.

Ada (About Guillermo): They pay me more because I work more, but not for extra hours. It was my first leading role. It was not worth losing it.

Guillermo: I have worked for 25 years with voice acting in all areas. I'm an audio engineer. I work as an audio engineer, as a post-audio producer, as a talent director and as a talent.

(Ada repeats in English)

Guillermo: [...] very complicated content because it was a lot. Record, edit, direct and be there.

(Ada repeats in english and congratulates him)

Guillermo: Yes, it will be many years for me. I do audio production and post production of audio and video. And a friend one day; and it was because one day we went to eat. I don't remember the day, and he said “You don't work, you play(?)—” and it's true, I like what I do. But if you ask me which character I liked the most, today, it would be the 911, the Fox series that is just being produced if I'm not mistaken for the fourth or fifth season. A team of firefighters, and just from recording, my tears fall with the empathy that the production brings, but the acting has an impressive ending.

He says something about authorial issues to feel empathy with Peter Krause.

And he talks about the director having an impressive drive not only to direct, but to adapt dialogues and there’s a synergy working on this TV show.

He says something about the director supporting him and giving him characters and that he really enjoy doing because the director gives him a certain freedom to act and that allows him to feel the character and that he loves to work with him.

Ada: In the dubbing process, do you try to get clues or directions of performance from the original script and if you do it do you feel limiting or try to get your own inspiration from the dialogues?

Guillermo: I think there is a bit of both in that last question. Original alignment would be to follow what we are seeing as performance. Remember that dubbing has been a part of it— we must make a parallel alignment with the language.

Ada (repeats): A parallel work with the original.

Guilhermo: So the initial alignments we try to expand all the possibilities and all the alignments that authorially they allow us to practically give 100% of us. So the limit wouldn't always exist, I mean here in Mexico, at least.

Ada (referring to what Guilhermo said): We follow the instructions, we follow the original voice, there are no limits, as long as we don't — as we say here in Mexico — don't pee outside the toilet. The instructions are very clear.

Ada: Since you mentioned the paths and as I mentioned at the beginning, I have a question. What was the guide in this latest supernatural dialogue that broke the internet?

Guillermo: It’s a curious thing, because no director or server had so much idea of the trend that was there because in the information they said previously, we didn't know that something like this could happen.

Ada says something about his birthday being last week because Guilhermo is eating a cake (?) and she asks us to say congratulations to him and he thanks her.

Guillermo: So it was sincere when we recorded. So we were like, "What happened?" We did that, but we saw nothing of the others in the production. (I think he's referring to nobody saying anything) and not even after the recording that this could happen.

Ada: And here I have to make a change because it’s obvious that we are referring to Castiel declaring himself to Dean after twelve intense years, but the question is Dean's answer, because everyone heard very clearly “Y yo a ti”.

Guillermo: Y yo a ti. Yes.

Ada: Where did that “Y yo a ti” come from?

Guillermo: The adaptation was entirely from my director. The adaptation lineup was his and I said what he asked me.

Ada (about Guillermo): I asked him about the “i love you”, I know that Tumblr was waiting for this moment. It was the director's adaptation, he gave me the instructions, it was his fault.

Guillermo: But we all love it. Everything enchanted us. We have never heard it come so directly. If we remember well, throughout all the seasons, we hardly see a story in which Dean finds himself really in love with a woman. It didn’t happen. Unlike his brother.

Ada: I will say more. A little bit ahead of his time.

Guillermo: Yes, but never able to separate from empathy in general. It never conflicted.

Ada (About Guillermo): It wasn't his [...]. We can compare Dean with his brother. We remember the relationship he had (Sam) the past two seasons. Eileen.

Guillermo: And it was quite intense and painful in the end. Dean basically didn't suffer that. (and he says something like the closest thing to Dean was when he lost his mother).

Ada: More than once. We have a question. So it’s not a rogue translator, but a rogue director?

Guillermo: [Adrian] Fogarty has a tendency, he has very intense skills. And one of them is to adapt dialogues. You see Fogarty's work when they translate it and you have time to do it. Even if you’re not directing [...] in spanish. And in the script, if I don't forget, it said “también yo” or something like that and then we changed to "Y yo a ti".

Ada (about what he said): Because of the movement of the lips and other things. I can explain as a translator, my absolute hatred for lip sync.

Guillermo: This part is an important topic, but nowadays with the speed of production we have, it’s difficult to pay attention to this part, but we should. And in that sense, specifically, we don't have this ability to adapt like that. When we put our skills together [...] Fogarty does his job. There’s a Fogarty in every company.

(Ada talks about her cat that showed up).

Ada: This is my cat. He's a huge Dean Winchester’s fan. But he gets irritated with Sam.

(Guillermo asks why).

Ada: I don't know.

She talks about muting (?) the episodes (in spanish and english) in Sam's parts or the cat gets irritated and that he already stole Sam's Funko arm. She talks about getting funkos for Guillermo. He didn't know about them.

Ada: They are asking a lot if you know what Dean said in the original script before Fogarty changed it?

Guillermo: It was something like that. It was totally correct, clearly. It was something “Yo también, también yo” something like that.

(My note: I have to say that I think Guillermo thought it was about the spanish script here).

Ada: Did you hear the original when you were dubbing?

Guillermo: Yes, of course.

Ada: And do you remember hearing in English "I love you too"?

Guillermo: No.

(Ada says that supernatural has a very intense and real fandom, as he can see).

Ada: What was your favorite dubbing episode?

Guillermo: With my short-term memory, the latter.

(Ada repeats in english)

Guillermo: It's because it says a lot. In one scene it said it all. So it’s impressively very beautiful. I will never forget.

Ada tells him that in the episode after Castiel, Dean finally has a dog. Guillermo is surprised and says "He finally has one" and Ada says that the dog is called Miracle.

Ada: We have a question. Before you started working with supernatural, had you seen the TV show?

Guillermo: Yes. Before I started working with supernatural, I was watching between season 5 to 7. I watched at midnight and I was scared. I lived in a house that was kind of an abandoned house so there were some strange noises.

(Guillermo says he heard the original Dean's voice actor from that time).

Ada: They’re asking if the original script said anything about Dean's feelings for Cas or was it all put up by Fogarty?

Guillermo: In the original we received there was no indication that Dean was in love, or that he corresponded, that I know of. That line was what launched the whole series. We didn't see it coming.

Ada (adding): It was the director because that was what made sense.

Guillermo: I looked on the internet so many questions about what happened. And yes, both the director and the writer decided to take a very hidden trend between the two of them in various takes and very sensitive dialogues, to satiate that ‘we’ have feelings for each other’, but it was so tenuous that they hardly noticed anything.

Ada says that it was the director in English, who took this sensitive and subtle path. And he says that this brings to the fact that he’s a heller.

(My note: Who didn’t notice? Warner? All of them? And I also think Ada said “in english” by mistake).

(Guillermo goes back to saying that he was taken by surprise).

Guillermo: Because all we saw was that to be a real man you have to be like Dean Winchester.

Ada: You’re going to break the internet again with this. (she repeats what he said and adds) And Dean Winchester is in love with Castiel.

Guillermo: And to me, it was beautiful. Because it's not about gender, it's about feelings. So it was a wonderful move by the writers. I didn't see it coming and still liked it.

Ada: I believe it was very beautiful. It was a play by the original american writers. That you didn't see it coming, but when you saw it, you liked it.

(My note: She said american writers, but why? Guillermo was talking about Fogarty’s script, wasn’t him?)

Ada: We have two questions. Was anything left out of the translation? (And Ada herself answers with) No. Nothing was left out of the translation.

Ada: Have you ever been called back to re-record the “Y yo a ti”?

Guillermo: No.

Ada: He was not asked to redo the dubbing.

Guillermo: It was clear to me that the director understood the perfect texture of this text.

Ada: I have a question. From experience, because at some point I wanted to dub, but also to translate dubbing, and I noticed a couple of very complicated dialogues [...]

Ada talks about how they had to change a line (the original was in Japanese) but they said it was for children so even if it was what the character said in the original, the company didn’t accept it.

Ada: So my question is, do you know if supernatural has quality control by Warner?

Guillermo: I would lie if I said yes. But I have worked for many years as a director and actor. Some materials like superheroes and things like that would fit in a title like this, but not supernatural. So the decisions and directions are all up to the director.

Ada: Did you act Dean like he was in love with Castiel all this time?

Guillermo: No. It was a surprise. I will be very sincere. For me to say to a very dear friend, to a very dear person, I’ll say "I love you."

Ada (adding): I have no problem.

Guillermo: So I didn't feel that way, I'm sincere.

Ada: You went that way, then said no.

(My note: Strange, uh?)

Guillermo (laughing): Yes, what happened?

Ada: Are you going to voice Jensen on The Boys?

Guillermo says nobody told him anything. That he’s practically being a month just virtually. So they don't have all the invitations.

(My note: I don’t know if this part is entirely correct, but that’s what I got).

Ada: He didn't receive the invitation because he had to spend a month away because of the covid. So he cannot speak to you.

Ada asks fans to write that they want Guillermo Rojas to dub Jensen Ackles on The boys.

Ada: You can do it. Start writing now.

Harlequin: Is Dean Winchester your favorite character to voice or is it another one?

Guillermo: No, no. [but] he's one of my favorites, of course.

(He talks about it being a spectacular job).

Ada: Are you on twitter?

Guillermo: Yes, but I don't use it very much. I like facebook more.

(My note: He scaped from us).

Ada: What is your opinion, now with everything you know, about Dean's declaration to Cas?

Guillermo: I love how they did it, because none of us saw it coming. And we recorded it. And I believe that of all the personality from what we have of the character, we can know that if there’s someone who keeps his feelings reclusive it’s Dean Winchester.

Ada asks about his coworker, Castiel's voice actor, if he knows his opinion.

Guillermo: I didn't see him. We don't see each other very much because the companies we work for don’t coincide much. He has already recorded with me in productions that I directed, but I haven't seen him in four months or more.

Ada says someone asked if he can do a “Hello, Cas” like Dean Winchester, to ease the pain of the finale.

Guillermo: Sure, why not. (he says “Hello, Cas”)

Ada: There you are, girls.

Guillermo says he has a friend who loves Dean, and she said he killed the character she loves most, because Dean has a thicker voice [in the original].

Guillermo says that if she doesn't like it, she should watch the original.

Carolina, friend of Guillermo, appears and Ada repeats the question.

Carolina says Dean Winchester is her boyfriend. And she says that after hearing the dubbing, she will never be able to see or hear Dean as her boyfriend anymore.

Guillermo playfully pushes Carolina off the screen.

Ada: Have you seen the end of the last episode?

Guillermo: No, I want to see it when I record it.

(My note: #PrayforGuillermo)

Ada starts talking about him recording a “Hola, Cas” and Guillermo asks “In what sense” and Ada says “When they meet after the declaration” Guillermo thinks it’s a spoiler and goes “They meet again?” and Ada says she will not give spoilers. Guillermo thought that Dean said "I love you" to Cas and Cas didn't come back from the empty and if Cas comes back, that's how he would say "Hola, Cas".

And Ada reminds him that in the first few seasons, Dean said to Cas “It's not for nothing, but the last person who looked at me like that, I got laid.”

Then she said that someone asked him to tell Cas the whole declaration of love, but Ada reiterated that they wouldn’t break the internet anymore.

Ada: They are asking you to be godfather of the fandom.

Guillermo: Of course.

Ada tells him that he’s the godfather now and asks him to leave a message for fans who are now discovering the mexican dubbing. He thanks us for being part of this. He says that they do this work with passion. And he thanked all the people from all countries who are watching this project.

Ada: With that in mind, as you didn't see the ending of supernatural, What’s your ideal ending for Dean Winchester?

Guillermo: I believe that for everyone, since they sacrificed their lives for their families once again, for the well-being and happiness of everyone, I believe that if someone deserves to be well, peaceful and happy, [it has to be] at least one of the three.

(Ada talks about Jack)

Guillermo: Jack has joined, but he can achieve his happiness at another nest.

They say goodbye. Guillermo wishes ‘Merry Christmas’.

The end.

#supernatural #guillermo rojas #panel guillermo #dean winchester #voice actor #destiel #deancas #spn 15x18 #Sam Winchester #castiel #jack #spn #spn 15x19 #spn season 16 #spanish dub

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cosplayswitzerlandaskblog · 4 years

Text

Unlike last time Hetalia got a new season, the response has not been particularly positive, and I’m seeing a lot of twisted feelings towards the show and the fandom to a point where it seems long time content creators are stepping away from it. I know anyone still active who follows me either are or were fans of Hetalia, so it should be relevant for all y’all.

As a fan who never fell out of the show, I find the response sad though healthy, and even if I know I ghosted you all on tumblr (sorry) because of time constraints and mental health, I still make the occasional CMVs. Fact is, I do not let go of special interests very easily. It seems a lot of you all started watching the show at 10-14 years old, where I myself was a bit older – 17 – and had grown a bit more. Long story short, my Naruto phase was your Hetalia phase, and no, it’s not pretty. You’re young and stupid and don’t know much critical thinking and make mistakes, and you have to forgive yourself for those mistakes, especially when the content you consume is associated with the real world in a sensitive subject.

But after seeing all these posts explaining all the bad we see from Hetalia, I wanted to make a post explaining what I learned from it – all the good that can come with a show like this if you stay aware of perspective. I am not excusing all the bad that came with it, for WWII is a serious event in history that should never be forgotten nor made fun of, but here goes:

I went from a ‘war-is-cool’ history buff to one who truly delved in and learned the intricacies of history, being fascinated with the ‘hows’ and the ‘whys’ as well as getting an excuse to look at the histories of nations which I’d never otherwise be interested in, and I know a lot of other people in the fandom did the same. This is how history should be known, as that is how we can truly apply it to the real world.

I learned to separate people from their countries. To give an example that’ll hit close to much of tumblr, when I started Hetalia I hated Americans with a passion because of the road “you” had put the world on, and I considered all y’all dumb and bad as a cause of it. Getting that excuse to take an ACTUAL look at how your nation functioned and what communities truly hid behind the borders, I learned instead that your government is corrupt as shit, your society is rigged against you and you have been forced to stand by and watch as chaos happens. It got applied to the world as a whole, where I considered other nations being as dynamic as my own, with people both good and bad, and the actions of the nation is even less of a reflection of the people in the cases of corrupt democracies or dictatorships.

I separated from Colonial world views. I was never actively racist, brought up in a proper home, and already before Hetalia I fiercely protected the rights of Muslims who are often mistreated in my nation and tried to hear them out when possible. But I was a Westerner, and even if the nation I came from had barely participated in invasions, I had learned to consider my culture ‘correct’ and native and African cultures ‘primitive’. While the journey was long, a step wise process of realizing things like there was nothing inherently ethically wrong eating dogs or partially incubated duck eggs, only in how the animals were acquired, that cultural progress is heavily dependent on perspective and that fucking genocide of native peoples still happen in this damn century, Hetalia was the stepping stone which gave me the interest in other nations to expand my world view. I probably ain’t done here – I have a whole life of outside influences to unlearn – but I’m further than most people I know in my near surroundings, and I’ve even managed to move my parents who originally taught me to respect people of all kinds in the first place.

I learned Nazis were people. This is a conversation which often comes up here on tumblr, and the demonization Nazi Germany and its government directly allows actual Nazis and fascists like Richard Spencer a free pass because they look groomed and proper. Until then, I’d simply assumed no one was ‘stupid enough to be a Nazi’ because of the atrocities of WWII and therefore looked at the world naively. Realizing how little true support Nazis had during WWII and similarly anyone could end down that pungent rabbit hole, I became careful of what I excused on social media and allowed myself to doubt seemingly normal people if their behaviour was alarming – such as the police man who is supposed to be a damn ‘hero’ of society.

I learned how to deal with material sensitive to others. A common problem in the fandom has always been the cosplaying and portrayal of Nazis, especially at cons and the like, and in a similar vein – I did blackface once because of Hetalia. The horrible thing about this is that blackface is immensely common in Europe – at least my own country – and blackface frequently happens at schools during ‘international’ events, where whole classrooms are assigned to portray a designated country. A whole of two times – in 6th grade as well as 2nd grade of high school – I was exposed to blackface as my class was given an African nation to portray – Somalia the first time, Kenya the second. No one, adult, teen or child, are aware of the history of race imitation in my country, but by the second time I was supposed to participate in dressing up as an African tribe, I’d understood the issue – thanks to Hetalia. My friend group of white, privileged, European teens discussed what symbolism was appropriate at cons or in videos – could we wear the Iron Cross? The Nazi flag? What if we burned it during the video? These thoughts are not usually a part of the mind of European youth, and I consider that a grave problem which leads to people making fun of ‘triggers’, downplaying racial issues and the like.

It offered me a means to make history personal. The biggest struggle for good history teachers and the reason we are often made to read and write letters from the periods we study is to make it seem real and get a emotional connection to these past, lost peoples. Hetalia offered puppets for me to place into historical contexts to make them truly real – the main driver pushing me away from mere fascination of war, since I suddenly felt the horrors of warfare through the characters that I loved. Things like Elizabeth I’s court, the conquests of Rome, the dissolution of the Kalmar Union, the battlefield of Somme, the invasion of America, damn slavery becomes different when something you already know is a part of it and you can see them in there. Hearing of people of the past should in itself be enough, and for the closest parts of history (WWII and afterwards) it always was for me, but we are human. We cannot understand the size of a billion, and we struggle understanding the lives of those living centuries before us, unless we are offered context.

I’m not blind to the issues of the fandom or the show. I was here for ‘the r*pist, the pervert and the p*dophile’, I know of South Korean and Chinese issues with the show, and I heard the gassing joke in the show’s dub and got nauseous from discomfort and anger. I’ve always been in the fringe of the fandom due to my social disabilities, so I don’t know everything that happened, but I’ve seen many racist OCs and disrespecting of historical sites. It’s not pretty, but I will believe these people, who were likely young, likely learned in time. And I may have been able to learn these things by other means, but not in the same way, and not through personal interest and research that’s helped me become sceptical and analysing of the world around me.

At its core, Hetalia is about watching a normal, nerdy guy learn how to draw, using stereotypic country personifications mainly from the perspective of Japan. It’s natural he chooses Japan, since he’s Japanese, and WWII is unfortunately the automatic historical event for most common people to focus on – but Hetalia doesn’t even solely focus on that, but is an amalgamation of vaguely correct historical situations played out by the characters, and often it is with the intent of comedy rather than the grimness often associated with historical settings which allows a wider audience than merely history nerds.

What I want you all to do is learn from your mistakes and forgive your younger selves for not knowing better. Maybe reflect on what you got from the show, rather than what you lost. A new generation of young Hetalians is likely coming with the new season, and us old timers might be able to help them avoid pitfalls if we stay around to teach them. The best of the show is compassion towards the people of the world combined and love of history, as I believe Hima wanted it – the worst is Nazi apologetics and racial stereotyping. We decide in what direction we take it, and what lessons we bring into the future.

TL;DR: As a lot of media intended for older audiences, Hetalia is a show which has to be watched critically, which makes it dangerous for young people to watch unhinged, but it also opens up for interest in the world beyond the borders you live within. We should be aware of the issues and learn from them, but in and of itself the show has a lot of good to offer in learning compassion for other nations and cultural groups.

#impressive how active I've become these last weeks #I kinda feel embarrassed #but Hetalia is coming back #and a lot of people are feeling dread because of it #my own feelings are mixed #but Hetalia is was gave me friends and started expanding my world view #other people might get a similar benefit from it #and I want them to have the chance #I'd love to hear the opinions of others tho #also #welcome to my usual iconic long posts

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gamebunny-advance · 4 years

Text

Kind of A Downer

I think I’ve come to accept that the stuff I make gets attention mostly based on subject rather than the content.

And that’s fine since I cover relatively niche subjects (or niche subjects within popular fandoms), so the folks that like that stuff must be really into it like I am which is cool, but still... I can’t help to be a little... I dunno, disappointed about that I guess? Everything about this situation is my own fault, I’m not blaming anyone for it. It’s just how I’m feeling.

Anyway, sorry to bring y’all down, it’s just something I had on my mind. They’re not finished, but I’m gonna go ahead and post what I’ve done for what I’m calling the “Mahou Smash Project” so far. Right now it feels less like, “What if all the Brawl fighters were magical girls?” and more like “What if all the Brawl fighters wore skirts?”, but I’m working on it.

This is roughly the first sketch I did to flesh out the concept. It’s a little more difficult to think of stuff for the non-human characters without just giving them bows, but I’ll try to think of more ideas. Kirby is actually based on an outfit he had from “Super Kirby Clash” that’s called “Magical Girl”. I like it as a shoutout, but I’d also like to do something more original.

No matter how many times I tried to let Mario keep his cap, I felt like it never really went with the rest of the outfit, so I chucked it. I really liked the idea of giving him head wings to call back to his “wing cap” from 64, but it conflicted with Pit being in his group that already has a wing motif, so in later sketches I scrapped it. (His stars also conflict with Kirby, but there are so many star/space themed fighters on the roster, so I don’t think that part is as noticeable). Otherwise I really fell in love with the initial design and it doesn’t really change that much over my several iterations of him.

Originally Link’s inspo was from “Ojamajo Doremi” since the hats were kinda similar. I tried to incorporate a lot of triangles in the design to represent the triforce, but I’m not sure how I feel about the inner dress yet. I like the shape, but I’m not sure if it suits him. I might wind up giving him shorts later.

I had a really hard time with Pit since his outfit is already kinda magical. The most I could really come up with was to add a few more embellishments and make some accessories less “bulky”.

I think Tabuu is actually the second sketch I did when I thought of the idea. At first I was planning on combining this AU with the human!AU to make designing the non-humans easier, but I decided to challenge myself and just keep everyone as they were. It’s a shame because I think this hair suits his design a bit better than the original, but if there ever is a final version of this project, he’s gonna stay bald. His ability is: Morpho Anguish

Of course I had to try these two at some point. R.O.B. has a royal motif to represent how he ruled over the lesser ROBs, but it’s a little difficult to think of accessories he can realistically wear while keeping most of his original silhouette and get across that he’s a magical girl too.

Unlike other designs where the idea for the costume preceeded the ability, I thought of GW’s ability first and then the costume. His ability allows him to “cook” anything into existence from food to people, but he can only do the “complicated stuff” with his cookbook, which is in Tabuu’s possession.

Another sketch of these two. This is when I realized that Mario’s wings would overlap with Pit’s. Speaking off, it’s not super obvious, but I eventually settled on “ballerina” as a theme for Pit so I could distance him a bit more from his original outfit. Specifically he’s inspired by “Swan Lake”, thus the first iteration of the feather skirt appears.

TBH, Wario isn’t super inspired yet. At first it was just a take on Mario’s outfit, but I think I’d like it come a little closer to his WarioWare design since that’s his default in Smash. The crown and cravat is supposed to represent a “W” though, so that’s something.

The most recent iteration of Pit. I let him keep his bodysuit so he could retain some modesty since I draw the skirts on so short, but I honestly think it clashes with the rest of the design. I’ll have to find a way to incorporate more blue into the design if he’s gonna keep it.

Mario is mostly the same from previous iterations, so Luigi takes a lot from him, just a “little” different. I like the striped socks as a shout-out to the Mario & Luigi games, but I don’t like how he takes some of Mario’s red when Mario doesn’t take Luigi’s green (I tried giving him the green striped-socks, but they didn’t look good). I might take them out if I iterate on him again. Luigi’s ability is: Electric Moons.

Another tough one since her design was already kind of magical. I feel like all I did was shorten her dress and add some bows, but sometimes that’s all you really need to do. Her ability is: Blooming Rosales

Originally she was going to be more “knight” themed and keep her helmet since her power suit reminds me of those medieval suits of armor, but I can’t really draw armor, so I chickened out of it. It’s not super apparent, but her skirt is supposed to be transparent. If I come back for her, I think I’m going to work on making her an actual suit of armor so that there’s more difference between this and her zero suit form. Her ability in this form is: Stellar Cannon.

I feel like this is less “magical girl” and more ”Judy Jetson”. I like it, but I think it should be frilled up a bit more. I wanted to add some more flower detailing to represent the pikmin, but I think it really clashed with the “old-timey astronaut” thing he’s got going on. It’s still on his helmet, but it really sticks out, doesn’t it? His ability is: Plucking Gardens

Last two. I might find a way to reintroduce their hoods, but I love the idea of a hat that’s comically small. The pompoms on their hats and shoes are supposed to invoke cherries since they’re often drawn as a pair, but I don’t think it really comes across that way. Popo’s ablity is: Icy Flurry. Nana’s ability is: Freezing Snowfall. Together their ability is: Twin Blizzard

#text #i like making it #i wouldn't make it if i didn't like drawing it #but knowing that it's what i'm known for #or rather what's expected of me #is a little disheartening #part of it is that my skill level just *isn't* quite where it could be #i don't think my style is really that distinct (partially because I mostly post sketches)#so even if I were to switch things up #I don't think y'all actually like my style enough to stay if my subject matter were to drastically change #i don't blame you guys #i'm just working through some stuff #since starting my meds #i've been able to draw a lot more #even on days when i have work #but i still haven't really finished anything #i think i need to go back to my studies #i'm not improving #because i keep going back to what's comfortable #i think if i could improve my ability to depict values #and light and shadow #i'd be a lot closer to where i want to be #there's a lot i need to work on #but i think those should be my priority at the moment

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