curious-ducky

[curious-ducky]

Holiday Hiatus

I shall be off to the land of my ancestors, but like hell am I roleplaying on mobile or logging in to the wonderful clusterfuck that's tumblr dot com on my work laptop, so I shall see you in just under 3 weeks.

You can reach me on @someidioticurl and discord:

[curious-ducky]

me: -soft blocks a couple of accounts before deleting one of the side blogs-

tumblr: did you mean to unfollow them on your main account? :)

me: ... what did you do?

tumblr: :)

me: I specifically blocked them on the side blogs settings page, not the dash to avoid exactly that

tumblr: :)

me: for fucks sake -re-follows those people-

[curious-ducky]

@martyslittleusedblog asked: (I'd just like to say to the mun, this is a fascinating concept for a muse! Nice work!)

Aww, thank you~ I've had Ruby for -checks- a week and a day but I adore it already.

As much as I'd like to say It was a though out decision, it was absolutely not. I just randomly decided to restructure my RP blogs for the 2957862876th time but this time found myself in need of a silly and chill muse that could fit into most if not all verses and fandoms to reign over this new main blog and so my silly brain recalled the concept of the Debugging Duck and ran with it.

Sure helps that I find rubber ducks to be cute and here's a fun fact: I have a rubber duck bike bell (which I had swapped out for a normal bell cause people were confused by the squeaks instead of instantly understanding there was a bike behind them) and a shirt with rubber duck print.

[curious-ducky]

Ruby watched dragonflies. Had It been a real duck, perhaps It would have watched them in hungry interest, but as It was - indeed - rubber, Its interest was purely aesthetic; the carapaces and wings of those dragonflies shone in wonderful colours and It could easily spend hours on end taking them in.

Alas, the man's idle wondering pulled pulled Ruby's attention without fail - while It enjoyed pretty colours, it liked troubleshooting more and it looked like that man was troubled.

"I am!" Ruby wiggled Its rubber wings and paddled closer to the green-haired man (Ruby liked this colour). "I'm a rubber duck toy and I like to help." It tilted Its head, looking directly at him, still paddling closer. "Can I help you?"

@curious-ducky gets a starter. 1 / 5

dead in his tracks, just out on walk. to his crewmates worry) the swordsman finds himself just bit out of town. a trail is where his boots were planted near a pond, nothing wrong but not the bar. he thought that's where he was headed...no bar. So no booze. just a pond...a duck.

"...rubber?" He mumbled, finding himself apporaching bit closer. small and yellow, no clear feathers. swordsman watches as it floats on the water, zoro looks around no one insight.

[curious-ducky]

@cpn13 asked: ☼:Which tropes do you find overused/boring? ♀: What is an AU, you really want to play with your muse?

Munday-questions "How do you rp" edition - accepting

I don't really find any tropes to be overused, or boring, at least not in terms of roleplay or fanfiction at large.

The thing with roleplaying is that it very much depends on the dynamic between both the muses and the muns. I could pick the most trope-y premise like fake-dating cafe AU and have an absolute blast writing it with someone and then take the most elaborate and unique plot for it to be an absolute slog because the muses are not vibing.

And I'm certainly not gonna police anyone else's fun so if someone wants to start a 219876532nd thread with the same trope, more power to them; they certainly know what they like and I love it for them.

The only 'trope' that gets remotely boring for me are 'first meetings' but those aren't exactly tropes, are they? More like necessary evils. Sometimes you wanna start interacting with someone but you don't know each other yet and nothing springs to either of you yet so you start an introduction thread. And muses might hit it off in a matter of seconds, but most often than not, it's this awkward dance around each other, like most adult interactions are - oh to be a toddler in a sandpit again and be best friends with someone you've just met in a matter of seconds.

But as I said, necessary evils because both muns learned something about the other's style and muse so now they might actually have plot ideas for sometime down the line.

As for the AU... Well, with Emil (@post-mortem-lullabies) I'm very much 'give me a setting and I'll make this AU!Emil in minutes' and it comes and goes depending on what's my current obsession. For a while now I've had this stupid idea at the back of my mind of making an AU for her that's either in Minecraft, Satisfactory or Planet Crafter, but dunno if people would be up for that.

With Ruby though, it doesn't have AUs yet, partially because Ruby's a brand new OC of mine (that I adore and I hope it will never fade and will stick with a vice-like grip for years to come just as Emil had) but partially also because I'm toying with the idea of it being able to travel between universes and being actually single verse. So there's no AU's because Ruby exists in a multiverse and the same Ruby that met Viola in the Lord Of The Rings world is the same Ruby that met your Ukitake and will be the same Ruby should I ever write with another Ukitake.

There's just something endearing to me about this silly toy casually walking between realities and not even realising that this is not normal xD

[curious-ducky]

Gender, Pronouns & Name

Ruby's gender is pretty much 'does not apply'. Not 'agender', but 'does not apply'. It's a toy, not a human, or even an animal. It shouldn't even be alive in the first place! Therefore human concept of gender simply 'does not apply' to It, same way as it doesn't apply to a brick.

I use 'it' when writing Ruby but it's 100% because that's the grammatical gender of 'duck toy' in English. If I wrote Ruby in Polish, I would use feminine forms because that's the grammatical gender of 'duck toy' in Polish. And if I wrote in Spanish, I would use masculine forms because that's the grammatical gender of 'duck toy' in Spanish (at least I believe so, I don't speak a lick of Spanish, but google translate says it's 'el').

All that being said, your muse is absolutely welcome to decide that Ruby is a girl, or a boy, or whatever, and call It as such, using whatever pronouns they see fit. Or even give Ruby a new name. It might introduce Itself as 'Ruby' but at the end of the day, It is a toy and toys are to be named and gendered by humans.

Not only welcome but I encourage it.

[curious-ducky]

Can Ruby fly? ... Define 'flying' xD

Can Ruby fly like a bird? No.

Can It reduce Its mass while enlarging the surface area to resemble a 'deflated duck balloon' and get carried by the wind like a yellow plastic bag? Yes.

Maybe Ruby will learn how to fly like a bird - or like a glider - at some point in the future; It simply doesn't have the innate skill, or instincts, to do it just yet.

And people are welcome to try to teach Ruby xD

[curious-ducky]

Ruby can't close Its eyes and it gets weirder

The closest thing to closing Its eyes Ruby can do is merging them inside Its yellow body... But then It sees with Its entire surface... Including the surface on the hollow inside :)

[curious-ducky]

Frowning, Ruby stared into the distance, a line of pines - or some other coniferous trees - on a slope of a mountain. It it had a previous self, just how scary the event would have to be for It to remember?

It wiggled its tail and looked into the woman's eye again. "If getting my whole rump bitten off didn't work, I'll pass on finding out if I have any 'Befores'." And that was how Ruby found out that It could regrow like that. Ir that it was inedible.

It shook Its head. "I don't eat, so I have no preference for that. I like the smell of food though." It bounced in her palms, flapping Its wings. "The stronger aroma the better. Why? Do smells and foods also jolt the memories of the previous selves?"

Ruby shook its head at the little boop and then cocked it the other direction, still eyeing the woman. "No?" Should it remember its previous self? "But maybe this is my first me?" It moved its wings a bit, in the closest thing a rubber duck toy could give to a shrug. "I've been a yellow duck toy since the moment I became aware - or 'woke up' if you prefer." It nodded, wiggling a bit to get more comfortable in the woman's grip. "So I know I'm a toy debugging duck, but toy ducks don't usually talk or walk, do they?"

Ruby had seen many other toy ducks - it had learned many new looks it could morph into from observing them - but none of them seemed sentient. "I don't know why - or what - makes me different like that."

[curious-ducky]

PSA: Send me things unabashedly

I came back to RPing on tumblr after a two years break and I've had multiple new mutuals ask me if they can send me an IM or an ask and it breaks my little charcoal heart. What happened to the gleeful sending of random shit at 3am to the mutual you've barely interacted with before? I wouldn't even require that from a random non-mutual I've never seen before, yet we are mutuals.

Yes. Send me things. Asks and IMs. No. I don't care our muses haven't interacted before, or it barely makes sense. Worst that can happen is I'll have a giggle and delete the ask. There's also a reason crack verses exist.

[curious-ducky]

Got all the possible expressions from this picrew so I'll be cropping icons from those and maybe I'll edit some more

[curious-ducky]

@cpn13 asked:

*wonders how you can exist*

Ruby stared back and wondered that too. How can It exist? How can the man exist? Is anything even real?

A silent buzz comes from inside of Ruby's head.

Has a fly gotten stuck inside of It again? Was this fly even real? Or maybe it was a bee?

"Can I help you?"

[curious-ducky]

@cpn13 liked a [starter call]

This garden was nice. Ruby walked in between bushes and other plants - whose names it didn't know - admiring the pretty colours and enjoying the smells. Each time it encountered a stepping stone, it made sure to enlarge its webbed feet to in-proportionally big sizes, slapping against the surface and giggling at the sounds.

Then another nice smell caught its attention, but it wasn't flowery. Curious, Ruby followed its nose and eventually stood in front of a man with long white hair at an edge of a building.

"Hello." Ruby eyed a nearby table where the smell came from, but it was too short and the table too high for Ruby to see what was on it. "It smells nice. What's that?"

[curious-ducky]

The bath house duck spirits from Spirited Away, taking a dip in this lava lamp

[curious-ducky]

Ruby shook its head at the little boop and then cocked it the other direction, still eyeing the woman. "No?" Should it remember its previous self? "But maybe this is my first me?" It moved its wings a bit, in the closest thing a rubber duck toy could give to a shrug. "I've been a yellow duck toy since the moment I became aware - or 'woke up' if you prefer." It nodded, wiggling a bit to get more comfortable in the woman's grip. "So I know I'm a toy debugging duck, but toy ducks don't usually talk or walk, do they?"

Ruby had seen many other toy ducks - it had learned many new looks it could morph into from observing them - but none of them seemed sentient. "I don't know why - or what - makes me different like that."

Picked up, Ruby wiggled its feet for a bit before fusing them into its underbelly - the more simplistic its shape was when chewed on, the easier it was to reshape any damage later. While the woman wasn't mentioning anything about eating it anymore, Ruby wasn't sure it was out of the question yet.

"I am sentient." Ruby nodded, tilting its head as it looked back into her one visible eye - it was a pretty colour. "But I don't know what I am. I might be a spirit as you are presuming, or something entirely different."

[curious-ducky]

Picked up, Ruby wiggled its feet for a bit before fusing them into its underbelly - the more simplistic its shape was when chewed on, the easier it was to reshape any damage later. While the woman wasn't mentioning anything about eating it anymore, Ruby wasn't sure it was out of the question yet.

"I am sentient." Ruby nodded, tilting its head as it looked back into her one visible eye - it was a pretty colour. "But I don't know what I am. I might be a spirit as you are presuming, or something entirely different."

Ruby blinked its beady eyes and tilted its head. So was it this woman's goal to pet the Unicorn in the end, or not? But before it could voice that question, she turned and exclaimed it was a new chewtoy.

"Please, do not eat me." Ruby sighed, resigned, with maybe just a pinch of annoyed, but no sign of fright whatsoever. "I'm not edible."

[curious-ducky]

Ruby with any directionally challenged muse

*cough*Zoro*cough*Leon*cough* would be the weirdest (and possibly most frustrating) game of hot or cold.

Because Ruby is not your personal navigator, it is your trusty debug ducky; it's there to ask questions and not to answer them!

It will keep asking something along 'why do you think it's this way?' for 'cold' and stay silent for 'hot' xD