#its a failboat reference

[bffnf]

istg if that mimicker bot blog mimicks that ploopy ask, im gonna screech

[kats-other-stuff]

Last post before I go back to working on my Sky: CotL animation series.. maybe

So… why does Failwhale have the power to open portals and travel the multiverse?

And more importantly, why can he both revert the designs of other characters and change other characters’ artstyles? I don’t think even c!Fail can do that.

To be honest, I have no clue.

…

actually wait hey hold on lemme get the corkboard I’VE GOT SOMETHING.

You know how the Land of Forgotten Memories is connected to every single universe (within the Failboat Lore)? It’s simple: Failwhale is using the power of the Land of Forgotten Memories to do all this. He’s using its link to travel to other universes, and during the Divergence301 cutscene he’s simply manipulating the properties of that space to do weird fourth wall sorcery. Proof? Look at Rapper Failboat, another character who has the ability to partially control the Land of Forgotten Memories (which I’ve realized I should shorten to LoFM from now on for brevity’s sake.) He can:

break the laws of physics to instantly kill people (rip bagel)

create portals(?)/other entrances to the LoFM

create versions of characters that are in different artstyles and also mess with the artstyle of preexisting characters (c!Failboat)

And last but definitely not least, travel the Failboat Cinematic Multiverse.

Failwhale can do 3/5 of these things, and I think he can instakill some characters but chooses not to so he can maximize the suffering. Like Beamy. He has not demonstrated the ability to create replica versions of characters, but he changes the artstyle to Minecraft for some characters for a large chunk of the cutscene. But how did he gain that ability? We don’t know the details of what Failwhale was doing between LoS 4 and the Rapper Failboat Arc. It could have to do with the Ender Dragons, who he made some sort of agreement with. I don’t know what that would entail, but it’s the only thread I’ve got. Oh, and one more detail.. when Failboat does that thing in the Miitopia S2 Finale, which I think is safe to say is him using the Power of the Scythe, he draws power from memories. When he uses it again at the end of Divergence, he draws power from Chat, who are all making references to the past and thus drawing on their memories. When Failwhale reverts Rapper Failboat to nothing more than a photoshopped png, the same noise that can be heard when a portal to the LoFM is opened plays. Rapper Failboat became more powerful by being remembered by other people, so it’s possible that Failwhale is destroying or displacing those memories to kill Rapper Failboat. Is whatever power Failwhale has some sort of anti-Power of the Scythe?

[phoebelovingcare]

Because Why Not 2: ID-F86 Is GNC AF

Because I am easily entertained I like listening to youtubers who weren’t paying enough attention guess the pronouns of the thing they’re fighting. The first post about this was about Flamberge - given that she has a few masculine traits, I have heard he, she, AND they used for her by mostly well-meaning but confused gamers.

Now, however, we face a new challenge.

Canonically, these are the pronouns of Fecto Elfilis - every instance they are ever given a pronoun:

-  Based Leongar is supportive of his tyrannical angelic psychic overlord: "They're incomplete without their other half." - Elfilin uses "it" during the end cutscene before the truck segment: "it wants your planet to collide with this one!" - Fecto Forgo Larva Figurine: "When ID-F86 arrived, it began attacking all of the native wildlife. [] The native inhabitants used it to create tech beyond their wildest dreams." - Fecto Forgo Figurine: "Their only refuge was the realm of their dreams. [] the animals they reached." - Fecto Elfilis Figurine: "Without a soul to temper its power, [] now that they're whole again, they're already planning their next invasion..." - Forgo Leon Figurine: "[] fled to Forgo Dreams to plot their next steps: [] as their own [] to force them out, ID-F86 had no choice but to reveal their own phantom form." - Leon's Soul Figurine: "After their fight with Kirby, ID-F86's body was destroyed, but their powerful mind remained. They fled to the isolated isles of their own dreams... [] they cast out Leongar's soul,"

In conclusion, Elfilis uses they/it pronouns! Hell yeah, gender!

Youtubers playing through the game however, might not notice such a thing. Plus, with the addition of the he/him Elfilin in the equation, some people are even MORE confused.

I present to you, a compilation of Elfilis being The Most Gender Ever Of All Time.

Kirby Saves The Forgotten Land - Vernias “OH NO! OH NO THEY’RE LITERALLY EATING EVERYONE!” “Oh god he’s gooping all over the place-” “It seems to be calming down a little bit-” “Oh god don’t tell me that’s a fricking Void Termina reference with its attack-” “Very cool man very frickin’ cool-” “THAT’S NOT EVEN A GOOD IDEA DUDE!!”

So the ending of Kirby... - Failboat

“...top five things I did not want to happen. One through five, it opening its eyes.” “I didn’t like it while it was moving-” “gONNA SHOOT IT IN THE GODDAMN HEAD-” “FINISH ‘EM! That- that did not finish ‘em they’re doing the thing in the boss fight where I killed them definitely but they’re not dead-!” “oh what are they doing...”

can always count on Failboat for those nice neutral pronouns :)

I was WRONG about Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Choctopus

“Oh I can just j- okay. He’s getting hit with my backslash.” “If he’s got any more forms you gotta tell me-” “Oh my GOD, it’s a Pokemon. YO he’s got like like, a giant spear?!” “What’s he got like, light beam attacks?” “We got him! Finish him off, Kirby!” “Shouldn’t he revert back-? Oh he’s melting.” “Hell yeah, man! We’re gonna kamikaze it!” “It’s like ‘you DARE test ME?!’” “Dude- he’s getting hit by a truck!” “He died the same way.” *interesting note is that this one started using it right after Elfilin did before going back

FINAL BOSS - Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Part 15 - ENDING (Blind) - Roamer

“Bu- it’s not complete though right?!” “Ohhh and he- he even absorbed the lion!” “They’re, they’re holding us back a little bit! Oh, do we have to fight it?” “No-! Ohhh now it’s gonna be complete...” “It’s actually beautiful, like- I always feel bad destroying it!”

and now for the reason I wanted to make this Kirby and the Forgotten Land [16] “ID-F86″ - Fatguy703 *two-player

“Fecto Forgo. Okay it’s infection let’s go!” “Is he not gonna stretch towards us anymore?” “Is it still gonna be a weird blob?” “[Elfilin] you’re being a-! Meanie-boy-pants right now!” “...wait [Elfilin] was a lady cuz this definitely- feels female-! [is stabbed, rightfully so]” “I thought she was targeting you, she’s facing you!” “aaaand she’s targeting me again.” “I stabbed its butt multiple times,” “I burned it.” “I let him- I don’t-” “Did he heal?!” “Oh no they’re going for you-” “It’s not dead. It’s not dead!”

BEHOLD: THE COMPLETE BINGO CARD OF GENDER.

what have we learned today? Idk. Pay attention when the game offers you some pronouns, I guess? Elfilis is the most gender of all time? Youtubers/gamers have a bad habit of defaulting to he/him? Doesn’t matter. I made this for almost no reason at all anyways.

[pod-together]

Day 7 Reveals!

Hamster Show (Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)) written by Aibhilin, performed by Wereflamingo Summary: This is it. This is the moment Phichit’s been waiting for. This is the grand event he’s been working for for so long. The one dream he’s had for forever. Well, at least for however long he’s been skating. (and that’s been quite a while already) It’s marvellous. It’s hectic. It’s stressful and everybody’s busy. Triple Threat (Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Venom (Marvel Movies)) written by Opalsong, performed by GodOfLaundryBaskets, mistbornhero, Moon raccoon (yue_ix), olive2read, bluedreaming, and sisi_rambles Summary: A Symbiote, A Heat, and a Sith Threat Gone Awry. Three clones, Three very different experiences, One threat (the chips in their heads). A story told through Helmet Cam footage, emails, and news reports. Michael James Way, Goatbuster. A.K.A. Ray is a haunted failboat (Bandom, My Chemical Romance) written by ermengarde, performed by dapatty Summary: Mikey does not enjoy goat references, Ray does not enjoy things getting in the way of his morning cup of coffee. The Phoenix Suite (Star Wars: Rebels) written by lady_mab, performed by litra Summary: The Bendu leans in closer still, until its eyes are the only thing that Kallus can see, and its hot breath washes over him. “If you could do this over again, would you?” Now is not the time for logic and reason. Now is the time for gut instinct, in trusting something bigger than himself, bigger than the Empire. Alexsandr Kallus, no longer an ISB Agent, no longer Fulcrum, dead man walking, looks the Bendu straight in the eyes and says, “Yes.” It happens all at once. (It happens over the course of an eternity.) [It happens in juddering starts and stops and flashes of moments strung together.] Kallus feels like he’s being plunged into a pool (into the dead cold of space) [like he’s being torn apart and reconfigured]. There is a weight on his chest that saps the air from his lungs and before he can get a chance to wonder if he’s made a mistake, everything goes black. ((Kallus tries to get a message to the Rebellion, but he fails -- tries to get a message to the Rebellion but he fails -- but he fails -- he fails)) King of Cocksuckers [text, audio] (Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types) written by Hangebokhan, performed by Elle_dubs Summary: Boys have needs and poor Geralt keeps on getting kicked out of brothels. Jaskier is more than happy to assist. Perfect way to procrastinate (幽☆遊☆白�� | YuYu Hakusho: Ghost Files) written by alchemicink, performed by bluedreaming Summary: Kuwabara finds himself with a mystery on his hands after he gets a strange, garbled phone call from Yusuke. Or rather, Yusuke's ghost? The Ties That Bind (Tortall - Tamora Pierce) written by IndigoNight, performed by rhythmia Summary: “Get your ass back in that bed or I’ll put it there for you, Master Numair,” she retorts, but it comes out much more gentle than it would usually be. Numair’s huff would have been a chuckle if he’d had enough breath for it. “That a threat or a promise?” He somehow finds enough energy to shoot her a flirtatious grin; although it’s a ghost of his usual smile and it’s easily overshadowed by the deep lines of stress and exhaustion on his face. Snippets of Viktuuri Being Idiots (Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)) written by FandomisOhana, performed by Bananabishes Summary: What is says on the tin [Podfic + Text] Chicken Noodle Soup for the Four Seasons Souls (山河令 | Word of Honor (TV 2021)) written and performed by Haoppopotamus and elrohir Summary: The chicken flapped its wings in Chengling’s face, filling his nostrils with tendrils of feathery barbs. Chengling tried to dodge the attack but was interrupted by a sneeze. The fowl beast took the opportunity to barrage him with flapping attacks mixed with sharp claw slices. As the Thirty Six Stratagems state: if all else fails — retreat. Chengling did not hold such hubris that he would not heed the wisdom of the ancients. “Da Wuuuuuuuuuuuu! Save me!!!!” --- Five people who try and capture a chicken for dinner, and one who succeeds.

[reconditarmonia]

Dear Yuletide Writer

Hello, lovely writer!

I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3 (and have been since LJ days, but my LJ is locked down and I only have a DW to see locked things).

General likes:

-- Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

-- Loyalty kink, whether commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms, and the trust associated with it. Sometimes-but-not-always relatedly, idealism. I guess the two combined might be, in general, the idea of nobility of character and what that means.

-- Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

-- Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff.

-- Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

-- Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

-- Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

-- Eucatastrophe.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; Christmas/Christian themes; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex.

Fandom: Dòu Máah Dáan | Peking Opera Blues (1986) 

Characters: Tsao Wan

This film is so much MORE than I ever dreamed. More hilarious, more shippy, more dramatic. I think what I want most from this fandom is something on a similar emotional scale - not necessarily something where the plot itself has a national or international scope, but something that has room for opera slapstick, corpse puppetry, and torture; material concerns, and high aspirations; saving each other’s lives, and having sleepovers. Thematically, I’m really interested in the way the film shows friendship and familial love sometimes dovetailing with ethics and ideological goals and sometimes conflicting with them, and in the various ways women can find, or seek, their own independence.

Tsao Wan is the only character I’ve put in my request. I was fully expecting to come out of the film with femslash ships, and instead I have a big OT5 and a huge crush on Brigitte Lin (okay, that part I could see coming), so I’d be happy with any combination of the main five, including the two men, who were not nominated, as long as Tsao Wan is there. Some combination possibilities: how do any of them meet up again after the events of the film, whether by chance - do Bai Niu and/or Sheung Hung happen to be making a tour stop somewhere Tsao Wan has a mission? does Tsao Wan and Ling’s work take them near Tung’s village farm? - or intentionally - how would a new opera about Tsao Wan and Ling’s exciting adventures be created by Bai Niu and/or Sheung Hung, in terms of research and role creation? Or maybe Tsao Wan needs Bai Niu’s skills for a mission. In fact, maybe she needs everyone’s skills for a mission. Recruitment road trip! Some solo possibilities: what was Tsao Wan’s time in Europe like? Was she involved in any political activity there? What does she do post-film as History continues? In anything set post-film, I’d like to know that all five characters are important to each other, even if they’re not actually in the fic and/or sexually involved.

If you want to get really plotty, I love heist and con stuff like Leverage, Ocean’s Eleven (remake), and The Italian Job (original), where there’s a Plan with steps and roles, and then it plays out. If straight-up casefic isn’t your style, it could be fun to throw some shippy tropes at this canon (fake marriage where Tsao Wan is pretending to be the husband? hurt/comfort or sickfic? hell, I’d read accidental baby acquisition), but tropey stuff is not necessary - I’m just trying to throw out some ideas to get things moving. Ideally there’d be at least a figleaf of plot in the background, even if it’s not casefic.

Fandom-specific DNW: Explicit references to torture are still a hard DNW (I covered my eyes during the scene in question when watching the film), but I recognize it’s part of canon and consequently might be part of the world of the fic. If someone is tortured or creatively executed in your story, it’s fine to mention it but I do not want to know how.

---

Fandom: Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

Characters: Bathsheba Everdene

I didn’t nominate this and it didn’t occur to me that it would be in the tagset, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it! One thing that always sticks in my mind about this novel is the way Hardy calls Bathsheba “the young farmer” just as he refers to the men as farmers - which, just saying, is more than most people writing about this story can do - and so, that being the case, what I’m most interested in is something about Bathsheba as farmer. One day in the life or four seasons in the life or five plantings/harvests in the life, or pseudo-academic fic about a case study of a woman farmer in the Victorian era, or a conflict between the farm and nature that Bathsheba has to decide how to solve.

Feel free to bring in the other nominated characters or other major characters if it suits what you’re trying to do, but what I’m really looking for is a focus on Bathsheba’s work, determination, and process of learning. I’d also love to read something like a merchant ship AU (as the first alternate setting that came to mind where it would be not exactly the done thing for her to captain her inherited ship and make commercial decisions herself - although I do have to point out that contrary to popular belief, there were a lot of women on shipboard in the age of sail, may this be useful - but also where nature and luck/fate are as influential as they are in the original setting), or something in which the land, superstition, and ritual were more overtly magical.

---

Fandom: 月刊少女野崎くん | Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

Characters: Kashima Yuu, Nozaki Umetarou

Pick a trope. Have them fuck it up.

That’s one of the things that makes me love this canon - the simultaneous send-up of and indulgence in tropes, in a very good-natured way. (Another way I’ve described its genre: “nothing happens, but very dramatically.” Everything is shocking or devastating or the pinnacle of bliss.) Kashima and Nozaki are two of the characters whose propensity to do this is most likely to set a story in motion, due to Nozaki’s experimentation/observation for his manga and Kashima’s princely self-fashioning and going 120% on everything; I also love Kashima’s bifauxnen-ness, acting talent, and earnest failboating, and the way that Nozaki could have been written as a tall-dark-handsome-stoic cipher guy and instead is just as quirky as anyone else. That said, this is an OR request, not an AND, and I’d also be happy to read stories about pretty much anyone from the nominated tagset (except Mikoshiba or Mayu; I don’t know Mayu very well because I originally got into this through the anime, and Mikoshiba just isn’t my fave, although I have no objection to his appearing in the story).

There are all sorts of lists out there of common shoujo(/romcom/fanfic) tropes if you’re not sure where to start. And, because Nozaki is all about subverting gendered characterization and role-boxing, and also about people trying to make their lives conform to narrative, go ahead and apply those tropes to whichever characters you feel would be the most interesting or fun. Feel free to pick non-high-school-setting ones, too, if there's magical/historical/high-society shoujo you want to see them tackle, or to take a play that Kashima (and whoever else) is involved in as a jumping-off point.

As you may have gathered, I love the way the canon plays with romance tropes, but I would prefer no overt Shipfic. If you’d like to include a ship, whether slash/femslash or het, I’d like for it to be handled without much seriousness, and for friendship with characters who aren’t part of the ship to be a significant part of the fic, as per canon. I do really like the show’s variety of friendships between characters of different temperaments, interests, and sexes.

If you’re really getting a “why don’t you just rewatch/reread the canon, reconditarmonia” vibe off this, which I’m kind of giving myself, you could try sex comedy future fic? Give them magical powers? What I’m most interested in, wherever you go with this, is the playing-with-tropes thing.

Fandom-specific DNW: I love Hori and Kashima’s relationship, but I’d strongly prefer that her feelings for him not be written as overtly romantic. High levels of ambiguity/intensity/tropey-ness are fine and great.

---

Fandom: Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett

Characters: Any (Alice “Wazzer” Goom, Jack Jackrum, Magda “Tonker” Halter, Maladict, Polly “Ozzer” Perks, Tilda “Lofty” Tewt)

Give me all the loyalty kink for this fandom. Characters rescuing each other from peril, risking their reputation or position or ethics to defend each other, accomplishing the impossible or sacrificing things without even thinking twice because one trusts the other’s orders or judgment. Or A not going off the leash or into danger to defend B because B said not to, to protect A’s conscience or life or reputation. Can be romantic or platonic - I ship Polly/Mal and Tonker/Lofty, but I would also be delighted with Polly&Jackrum, Wazzer&Polly, or other non-romantic twosomes or moresomes in situations of loyalty and trust. Maybe Polly sends Mal on a dangerous mission, or Tonker is captured after she and Lofty burn down another place where women and girls are being abused, or Polly protects Jackrum’s secret/s from someone who could reveal them, or Wazzer ends up in the field again with the general’s retinue and Polly and Mal rescue her from danger (or vice versa!!). What strengths or sacrifices do they have at their disposal for each other?

Pratchett-esque voices would be great. He’s really, really good at sucker-punching the reader with sincerity in an overall satiric mode, and I think that style lends itself well to this sort of thing.

I’m not going to lie, Polly is my fave. I like that this could have been a generic coming-of-age or women-in-war story, where the protagonist learns that she’s brave or worthwhile and then the crisis is past, but instead Polly learns that she’s a cunning bastard and a hell of a sergeant, and being a one-off hero in a country that’s at peace and making slow social progress isn’t good enough for her. That said, just because I’m better able to articulate what I like about Polly doesn’t mean I’d be less excited for fic about anyone else! I think that’s something I’d want to explore for any of the characters who enlist in the course of the story - what are these women good at? What lets them fulfill their potential? What do they want when their hand isn’t being forced? Or for Jackrum, who’s already gone through that whole process by the time the story begins, any more backstory would be fabulous.

If you’re going the Polly/Mal route, I also love ludicrous levels of sexual tension in a military context (I think it’s the unavoidable proximity + the presence of others making it hard to act on it).

Fandom-specific DNW: vampire romance tropes (such as turning and/or immortality) as focus; non-female pronouns/headcanons.

--

Fandom: Simoun (Anime)

Characters: Any (Aaeru, Dominuura, Halconf, Mamiina, Neviril, Paraietta, Plumbish Priestesses, Rodoreamon)

Simoun somehow ended up being a really weirdly meaningful show to me. I loved how all these women got to be flawed and fucked-up, noble and loyal. How, in the mold of all my favorite epic shoujo anime, it starts off beautiful and fine and then Shit Gets Very Real and that’s actually one of the themes of the show - we had a little debate a few weeks ago on FFA as to whether or not Simoun was a military canon, and the fact that circumstances have remade a team of priestesses in fancy quarters and magic flying machines who are there to pray to God, put off their choice of sex, use their talents, maintain or claw their way into a social position, into a military force involved in a war - that’s an idea that the characters themselves struggle with in the show. (Neviril’s scene in the hearing is one of my favorites.) How everyone gets character development, in the sense of learning and changing, and even what seem like annoying mandatory straight subplots actually end up serving that thematic or character development, to say nothing of the more focal relationships between the leads (not just Neviril and Aeru, but also Mamiina and Rodoreamon, Neviril and Paraietta...)

I’d really like to read a fic where an individual character’s development or two characters’ relationship is similarly tied in to plot developments; it doesn’t have to be a plotty fic as such, but I was very interested in the way the developments of the war and the pilots/priestesses’ actions in it precipitated changes in their relationships. So how might Neviril and Aeru’s relationship develop in the other world (what are they doing?), or Mamiina and Rodoreamon’s on the Messis when they’re not the narrative focus before Mamiina’s last mission and the braid thing? (Or if this is more your speed, dig into that and see how a character grows or the relationship between characters develops when that’s not being moved along by outside events in the same way, especially if they’re aware of that being an issue. When Neviril and Aeru are outside the normal flow of time, or Paraietta and Rodoreamon are civilians, for example.) I’m also interested in all the permutations of loyalty we see in the show - like loyalty to a position over loyalty to a side (as with the Plumbish priestesses’ siding with our Sibyllae), loyalty that develops before liking or friendship, the devoted loyalty to Neviril. I like the show’s military themes despite its magical-girl visuals. I think this is also a canon where it would make sense for sexual first times to be part of a fic - what does that mean for the characters you choose?

I should also say that due to all the magic and timespace warping in the show, I am more than okay with post-canon fic that gets characters back together who were separated by canon, if that’s what you want. You can resurrect Mamiina, or have Neviril and Aeru visit the main reality/timeline again. Or play with timespace even more - time loop fic? (Edit: This didn’t even occur to me until I found out about the IF post, but this fandom might lend itself to interactive fiction, too.)