#i love wormsies

[heart-forge]

If this feels too cans of wormsy please feel free to ignore, especially since you’ve talked about this before, but do you feel like your RPG critique applies to Cyberpunk 2077? In my mind that’s the game that failed pretty hard at being an RPG, not just from how it was marketed or its initial launch state, but also from a gameplay and narrative perspective.

I feel like if you put a top ten list of RPG critiques on a big wheel and then for flavour you added common film critiques and like a grocery list, no matter what you hit it would apply to some way to Cyberpunk. I cannot emphasize enough how wholly CB2077 failed. I have written fanfiction, I have thought about it at length, I'm deeply obsessed with the character arc of Johnny Silverhand, and I'm infuriated at the historical revisionism of something that happened in goddamn 2020. It failed. It is not a good game, it is not a complete game, and while you're playing it you know that it is not a complete game. If you happen to have worked in some level of gaming, you can observe the places in which it is incomplete. I can vividly taste the parts of Cyberpunk where something was cut or a concept was oversimplified to integrate it at all. I can see features that were haphazardly integrated and never removed. They never fixed the driving.

I'm gunna throw this under a read more. I don't think those are necessary anymore but I talk a lot.

They fail in very predictable ways. As I said, their biggest prior hit was with the Witcher, where they had Geralt and they had predetermined major milestone events. From there, they could get creative: they could add silly quests, they could add story moments, they could improvise dialogue, but all with a preexisting stone framework.

Playing an improv game within your favourite setting, writing functional playable fanfiction, is different than working from within a TTRPG system. Improvisation where anything could happen is hard, and with TTRPG systems that's the point. When you're playing a game with your friends, you need the structure to allow your buddies to be silly or serious, to engage with a well thought plot and to take that plot off the rails in a way that's still fun and enriching. The concept was just too foreign and their scope too enormous, especially for a first attempt (comparable to Bioware's Anthem, where I said very confidently at launch...why is Bioware doing this? I played DAI multiplayer, and it wasn't transcending the genre for me).

V isn't a player character. V is not the main character. The story could care less what happens to V: the V might as well stand for Victoria, from Cats (2019). No one cares what happens to V. V's connections are all superficial, even their dead best friend's mother might as well stop existing after he's been laid to rest. People think V is a cool tough guy badass, but because they pretty much have to: if they know V, then V has to be good at something or have some serious connection to someone that isn't "I heard you're the guy to call if we want the world state progressed". V is your cardboard cut out in every scene to experience the life and times of the actual protagonist, Johnny Silverhand.

See, Johnny has a reason to be pushing to the end against all odds (you're told very, very early in the game that V is going to die no matter what you do: one ignores it, because one assumes that there must be some reward to putting up with all this nonsensical bullshit, but no). Johnny has a reason to burn out and a driving force behind him. Johnny is the one with ties to the city, real ties: people that love him, people that hate him, people who just don't want to see him burn out or blow up. Johnny has grudges, Johnny has a history. Johnny is the one that ends the game becoming a better person. Johnny is the one who has something to lose, and something to learn.

V is just the audience proxy. V cannot be truly loved by anyone, because nobody knows V, least of all the game. River's entire romance happens before you tell him that you have a dead rock star in your brain that's killing you. Judy and Panam I have repeatedly described as the only romances, as they're the only ones that show up in the main plot literally at all which is a big glaring testament to who this game is for (and hint, it's not wlw despite Judy). Kerry might not even know that you're dying. Johnny isn't romanceable despite being the only person in the world who offers you any sympathy and encourages you to live against overwhelming odds. Keanu Reeves whispering "tell him it was your guardian angel" when your good buddy and doctor who repeatedly tries to goad you into suicide for some reason asks you how you even made it to the clinic in the first place, as sick as you are (the answer is that Keanu Reeves piloted the EVA) lives rent free in my brain.

V doesn't have opinions. Johnny as a million opinions, which range from Twitter levels of simplistic violence that assumes that the world hasn't been fixed because everyone on earth is too stupid to see there's a problem, and like, basic empathy for other people, but V almost antagonistically disagrees with him on literally every point he tries to make, sometimes playing devil's advocate like a total asshole just for the pleasure of fighting with Johnny. It makes their relationship early on annoying, because I don't always disagree when V disagrees. V isn't disagreeing because they hold morals to the contrary, they just agree with the popular narrative about Johnny Silverhand because agreeing with the news is the safest option and doesn't suggest that V is a right-wing loom nor a frothing anarchist.

Johnny is also constantly being, loosely speaking, racially insensitive. It's edgy garbage put in by the game developer and doesn't serve Johnny's character, especially as it's never acknowledged that Johnny himself, through virtue of being played by Keanu Reeves, is asian. I'm not asian so I can't speak to it, but he calls the Japanese Hanako Arasaka a lot of shit that I'm sure somebody would beat his ass for even if it isn't an outright slur. It's the same with the Nomads, who are a group of indigenous stand ins that specifically include white people in prominent roles so that the game developer feels safe from criticism about the way that they treat the stand in for indigenous populations in their game which is an issue spanning many, many game developers who want a cool nomadic population that faces the same prejudice that real nomadic peoples face with at least similar slurs but also don't want to be held responsible for making them zone enemies, mindlessly evil, and insulting barbaric. Anyway, the point of this section is that even though Johnny is one of the more principled characters in game, it's pushed to the point of absurdity: Johnny has to be a blue haired social justice warrior (but also a borderline racist insensitive conservative type, as to never express a political opinion in the political opinion TTRPG system) so that V's centrism never seems glaringly malicious.

I'm editing this section for detail. I got off the rails here, I'm talking about the narrative push and pull between Johnny and V. Johnny is the protag, you're V and you just ferry Johnny to and fro between events. You have no real life, no real friends, no real ties to the city. You want to be famous but it's never really explained why besides like, California malaise I guess. You have barely any options for origin: if you're a street kid, it tells you what street you lived on and eliminates the possibility of any wiggle room between there because other people will recognise you as a resident of the city (destroying one of my favourite V concept, an outcast Pacifican V who goes to work for a corp and returns in disgrace). A street kid V will also be told where they've been and why everybody is reintroducing themselves (you were in Atlanta for two years). A corpo V works the same position in the same company, and their motives are never discussed. The morality of it is barely addressed and they behave exactly the same as a street kid V. Nomad V operates exactly the same as a V who's always lived in the city with no real ties to their old clan and no real questions about city living.

V is a born killer, a mercenary and edgerunner who's good with a gun no matter what weapon you actually choose to use. V can run off to live with the nomads again (prompting kerry and river to leave you), stay in the city and become an asshole (Panam and Judy will leave but you still destroy your relationship with Kerry or River). V can die and let Johnny take over (in which case Johnny steals your life and runs but is a better person this time because he was nice to an abused kid which we literally have no reason to believe he wouldn't be anyway), or V can just die (in which case your friends all hate you for dying).

Also there's a thin veneer of transness over the character creator, but it's so bad. it's so transphobic that it wraps back around and suddenly it's just misogyny again. your voice pitch controls your gender, your voice gender is repeated over and over and over and over and over again, girl V small boy V big.

THEY NAME V. BASED ON YOUR GENDER. YOU GET A CANON NAME FOR YOUR OC FOR NO REASON AT ALL.

I have a lot more complaints about CB2077 not being good. It's a game of interesting concepts dotting a corporate frankenstein with Keanu Reeves' face on it, but it's now 1:30am and I've lost steam. This has been highly paired down because I got heated and lost the point, but yes, cb2077 failed because it didn't want to be an RPG, it didn't want to be a shooter, it didn't want to play strategy or politics...all it wanted was for a firmer structure, a clearer guiding hand, a more controlled scope, and a pre-built protagonist.

#talkForge #honesty in gaming !! transparency in gaming !! #which doesn't mean that gamers need to know about every phase of your production because it's meaningless to 90% of people anyway #no need to overcomplicate the extremely simply concept of not actively engaging in false advertisement

[cubexr]

h, ummm

hi??

remember wormsies?

yeah that thing about newsies selling worms on a string instead of newspapers?? that one exactly. that thing that made the whole (or like 90% of) fandom go crazy. nobody knows why. it made sense back then i swear who am i kidding, no, it didn’t but it was lots and lots of fun

well if you remember (congrats!),, today it has been 8 months since it happened

do whatever you want with that information

#i love wormsies #i still do #wormsies #newsies #newsies fandom #livesies #92sies

[dolokhoded]

race's full name is antonio rose higgins

trust me on this he told me himself

#DHSJTJ #wormsies discord i love u so #racetrack higgins #newsies

[h-anon97]

Oh my god I love him so much 😂😂😂 @mathletemadison @king-spot-colons

#newsies #lol #spot colon #i love him so much #thank you #wormsies

[autisticspirk]

Some people got married. I am crying. You little shits.

#im openly sobbing #i hate you all #love you too #what the fuck is wrong with us #yes my sister in law is also my aunt #newsies #wormsies #wormsies au

[house-of-stars]

I don’t think you understand,,, I am OBSESSED with wormsies and I love every single thing I’ve seen even slightly related to it

#I feel so many emotions towards it and none of them are bad #I LOVE THEM #WORMSIES #IM CRYING #djskanfksmsnks #send help

[an-inspired-eternity]

THANK YOU!!!

#answers #newsies #wormsies #i love it here this fandom slaps

[chaoticgremlinwholikescheese]

Me whenever I see a notification from the wormsies server:

#wormsies #I love y’all

[kkshowtunes]

Spinesies is making me feel like a terrified babysitter to the newsies fandom. I turn my back and they are stealing spines and selling worms. I swear and I’m on the younger end of the fandom. Guys what’s going on

#doodlebug talks about wormsies #had to start a tag #becaue im so confused #don't get me wrong I love it #just hhh #sorry to sound complain-y #just idk #spinesies

[apollosbitches]

circle

#i just really love my friends #like #at the beginning #of quarantine #i was so sad #very depressed #and then i met online people #and things started to look up #I suddenly had people to listen to me #and i sure as hell couldnt be more happy for them #because of those three #i got into newsies #and then newsies brought me back to tumblr #and honestly #it saved my life #three people i met on wattpad #saved my life #so flash forward to now #we have the wormsies server #always there for each other #i love them so fucking much #you dont even understand #so everyone say thanks #to online friends

[dirtylittlesinkrat]

i want to ask for the wormsies discord link but i’m scared of y’all (in the best way possible. you just seem very feral and i love it BUT wowza)! anyway yeah kdsafdjsakfdskfd

#wormsies #straight up? terrified. what the fuck is going on #but i love it v cool of u guys to be so funny

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

fic writer review

thanks to @delphiniumblooms for tagging me!!! :D

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

66 posted and one lonely little draft that's probably never gonna get finished

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

102,532

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

including things i've multiple-tagged for related fandoms, 24. but like i said, a lot of that is because of interconnected/related fandoms

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

tell me more than just the scars i've known - my first Sylki fic that i wrote while extremely frustrated by lack of cell service, it's not my favorite thing i've written but listen: sometimes a girl's just gotta write some whump, ok?

Dream Again (When One's Left Behind) - the one and only Tangled: The Series fic i've ever written. Varian angst and platonic h/c with one of the only alternating POVs i've ever successfully written.

for the bad decisions that we made - the Sylki fic i posted less than two days ago (writing for big fandoms is wild, guys); yet another take on an s2 reunion but this time featuring heart-to-hearts, hugs, and one of my favorite lines of prose i've ever written

Learn Me Right - Newsies sickfic that i'm not incredibly proud of, but it's where i started writing my favorite minor character, so it's cool.

We Are Broken - one of my other Newsies fics, bc yeah i had a phase back in January, and i saw some Wormsies post that gave me an idea.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

YES. i always reply to comments just bc i love talking to people, and i also love talking about my fics at any opportunity. also bc i know how nice it is to leave an author a comment and get a reply later on, it's just such a great feeling so i like to be that person :)

6. A fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

eurrgghh probably either Dust & Ashes or we're gonna sing it again and again, bc they ended with MCD, but i really kind of hate both of them in retrospect because i was trying to write them to be canon compliant, but i wasn't familiar enough with canon and they're just... very very off

7. Do you write crossovers?

nope, not unless you count different eras and contexts of Doctor Who stuff as crossover

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

nope again, AO3 culture is very nice and i really love it

9, Do you write smut?

biggest NOPE yet, i don't write it or read it. just.... n o p e.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

no

11. Ever had a fic translated?

again, no. but that would be really heckin cool if one of my fics ever did get translated!!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic?

i'm saying "no" a whole lot, wow... but yeah, no i haven't. i've considered co-writing something with my best friend, but we've never gotten around to it

13. All time fav ship?

i... cannot pick one tbh. it changes with my hyperfixation. right now i have Sylki brainrot lol

14. WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

probably my Gallifrey/DWEU buddy cop au?? i love it, it's my brainchild, but yeah :/

15. Writing strengths?

i've been told that i'm really good at packing a lot of emotion and meta into very short fics, and i'm pretty proud of that tbh

16. Writing weaknesses?

i suck at plot and dialogue can sometimes drive me nuts. i think my biggest weakness as i perceive it is that i find it hard to *not* make things in fics go very fast? like i write everything out that i want in a fic but it's still incredibly short and i worry that it feels rushed, even though other people don't usually think that.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

uh... the only language other than English that i know is Koine Greek (as in, the specific Greek that the Bible's New Testament was oroginally written in) and it's a dead language, sooooo.......

18. First fandom you wrote for?

Big Finish Doctor Who! (tho tbh i think back when i was 11/12 i wrote some random self-insert stuff for whatever little fandoms i was in back then 😅)

19. What’s your fav fic you’ve written so far?

ohhh i can't choose? usually i'm just most partial to whatever i've most recently written, which right now is for the bad decisions that we made. i think one of my Gallifrey fics, In The Drift, is definitely high on my list of favorites though.

here's my AO3 for anyone who might like to take a look!

tagging @fortes-fortuna-iogurtum and @picnokinesis if either of you want to do this, and anyone else who sees it if you want. :D

#Lu rambles #Lu writes #writing #fanfic #ao3 #tag game #my fic #fanfic pals #loki series #pro sylki #lovedaggers #newsies #newsies live #tangled the series #varian angst #dweu #doctor who expanded universe #gallifrey #big finish audios

[cubexr]

it’s been a weird night, here’s something i wanna say

surround yourself with the people you love. don’t let them go, they need you and you need them. it doesn’t always feel like people care, it is hard to remember because we don’t say ’i love you’ enough. but they do care. they do love you. they love you so much. never forget that.

and don’t let yourself go. you deserve all the love in the world, you deserve every sunset you see, every smile you get and every morning you open you eyes. you deserve it all.

i don’t care if you and me have never spoken, i still think you’re an amazing humanbeing. you’re here, you’re you, and i’m so happy that you are. i love you, keep on going, you’re doing amazing.

it’ll be okay, <3

#this for everyone #read it #i mean every word #love u all #newsies #wormsies

[dolokhoded]

Can I also have a worm?🥺

of course!!

#can u tell i love how worm crutchie turned oit #it's a little cute alright #asks #wormsies

[selfproclaimedspotconnoisseur]

Brooklyn’s Code

I originally came up with it in a rp with a friend, and then @wormsies-need-our-help-today helped me build on it! 

(ignore the inconsistent grammar please) 

So

The Brooklyn newsies (the 'birds'/spies specifically, but all of them use it) have a code

 Like a way of talking to each other when they're not right there

 It's whistles, so like there would be different short whistle patterns to mean different things

Like there could be one that 'some non-Brooklyn newsie has entered the terf'

and other messages they might need to send. 

that's how the spy network of brooklyn got the nickname of being 'birds', because the whistles high key sound like birds. 

only the brooklyn newsies know what the code means, and basically no one outside of brooklyn knows it exists at all

the above rule doesn’t apply to race

When race discovers the code exists, he learns it simply to spite spot

One day he walks in whistling the “king of Brooklyn” tune

And spot is just like “wtf race”

Anyway

There’s a code for every important newsie

Like

One for spot, the head of birds, race, etc.

But not a specific one for any borough leaders.

They have a code for each borough, and a code for ‘leader’, so they just use that

for other newsies that don’t have a specific code they just use 'newsie', if they know which borough they’re from then they’ll add that too

They have like a million different codes so they can pretty much send along anything

this is why news travels so fast in brooklyn, and why Spot always knows when someone is coming to visit him and stuff

It was inspired by morse code 

Which was invented in the 1830s

But our boys made one specifically for themselves

So it’s an age old thing, passed down from older newsies

but it was real simple until spot came along

He made it into a more complicated, and over all better working system

Spot is an extra mf but we love him

(i mean, all of Brooklyn is extra)

(they literally showed up to the rally in matching outfits)

(but more on that in a different post)

Anyway

Back to a touch of Sprace

So there was a code for ‘lover’ 

And people started jokingly doing it when Race came around

...they had no clue

and as we said, to spite Spot, Race learns the entire code

we dunno how. The boy is magic.

Like

 we know he bribed at least one of the birds to explain stuff

but for the most part he figured it out on his own

which makes no sense

because one newsie never, like, sends a code, gets one back, and then explains to the newsie he's with. 

they all know it so they never explain it aloud, 

so i dunno how race figured it out

But he did

Thats about it, let me know what you think! Feel free to add on to this or use this in your own fics, but please always credit! Also tag me, so I can see :)

#newsies #newsies 1992 #92sies #livesies #newsies broadway #spot colon #spot conlon headcanons #newsies headcanons #sprace #racetrack higgins

[we-are-inevitable]

okay its still January 1 so let me be sappy for a minute.

this? this is insane.

people have read my work 21,045 times.

when i started writing for this fandom, i wasn't really expecting much. it was a quarantine hyperfixation during my junior year of high school.

and now i'm entering my second semester as a freshman in college- where, by the way, i'm minoring in creative writing because of my passion for fic- and you guys are still here.

i don't know if i would have stayed with the fandom if it weren't for the amazing people i've met since creating this blog. all of my mutuals (love you guys more than life itself), all of the followers i've acquired, all of the anons who have sent asks, all of the requests and the headcanon posts and the content and the camaraderie. spinesies, wormsies, incorrect quotes. the fics that have taken the fandom by storm. the gift exchange, the deadcember traction, the fact that i see so many reblogs of the same post on my dash because we all follow each other and all care enough to share the love.

i'm honestly so lucky to be in the spot i am today with my writing, and i owe it to all of you. the supporters who are leaving comments and kudos, the followers who are liking and reblogging, the other content creators- the up-and-coming artists, the young writers, the pioneers of the fandom from the original 92sies, the 2017 fansies who sparked it back up again- who are all sharing inspiration and good feelings and support.

the growth i've seen from this fandom is insane. every week, there's a new fic that scratches the brain itch, and every week, there's a new piece of art that the day better, and with that comes progress. i've seen writers go from headcanon posts to full chaptered fics, i've seen artists who's style has developed so much with every single sketch.

i guess i'm just trying to say that this fandom- and particularly, all of you- have changed my life for the better, whether it be through supporting me or making my comfort content (lmfao).

i love you all, i'm proud of each and every one of you, and i'm wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2022!

#i started crying writing this lol #love u all sm sm #newsies #newsies musical #newsies on broadway #newsies live #livesies #newsies 1992 #92sies #newsies broadway #jac txt. #my sappy little love letter to the fandom hnghnfjng