#idk maybe that's too fanfiction tropey

[scribbletalks]

listen. more queer media is always a good thing

but I'm so sorry rwrb was not good (and I say this as a fan of Heartstopper)

I love loads of terrible tropey romcoms. Ones that feel like they could/should be (and sometimes have been!) fanfic outlines. Films like Maid in Manhattan, Notting Hill, and While You Were Sleeping, to name a few. But wow this did not do it for me.

I HATE using the term sanitized and it wasn't, necessarily. But it felt like... too shiny?

(oh but Kieren they had dick jokes and sex scenes! How can it be too shiny!) Well the sex is not what I mean at all.

They just seemed to want to tackle all these issues... US politics and the monarchy and coming out in a hostile environment and the right to privacy and... noooone of it had any weight. It was all sort of just in the background, which again, can be fine if you aren't going to make all the stakes in the story come from these external sources.

Also this is a personal thing but the side characters were more interesting than the leads (like significantly more interesting imo). The dialogue fell squarely into the overly-quippy category and I felt like only Zahra and Nora got away with their line deliveries. Honestly I was shocked at how well they handled some of the jokes that should not have worked at all. So kudos to Sarah Shadi and Rachel Hilson.

I don't know if it was a problem with the direction, the script, or the actors, but both main characters felt incredibly flat.

It's funny to me that I should have so many issues with this film when I'm sure I've read like dozens of nearly identical fics, but man something about it just really did not hit. Maybe knowing the characters and having an established love for them is what saves some fanfiction from feeling the way this story felt. idk. I wanted to like it, and I'm not opposed to "wholesome" queer media in general, so I'm not sure why it didn't work for me

Still glad it exists tho! One more queer film in the world is just fine by me. The more of them exist the more space they have to be bad (which is good).

[wannaliveattheholidayinn]

this is just such a... thing, but i've wanted it to happen since the first movie came out. basically, i just want to see charlotte or max morales-stacy (or both jsdhfjksdh) in a spider-verse movie, but for it only to be implied who they are to miles and gwen (and maybe even the audience)

just like, hey if you read in between the lines this is maybe our future kid but none of us are going to actually acknowledge that this Is Happening

[laughingpinecone]

Yuletide letter

I am laughingpineapple on AO3  

Hello dear author! I hope you’ll have fun with our match. Feel free to draw from general or fandom-specific likes, past letters, and/or follow your heart.

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (especially if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic (when in doubt, tell me what’s happening to them five, ten, twenty years in the future!), hurt/comfort, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, tropey plots that are already close enough to characters/canon, outsider POV, UST, resolved UST, exploring the ~deep lore, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played entirely straight, sensory details, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night, emphasis on non-human traits of non-human characters (gen-wise, but also a hearty yes xeno for applicable ships), emphasis on inhuman traits of characters who were human once and have sort of shed it all behind

Cool with: any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, IF, unrequested characters popping up.

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents are okay!), canon retellings, consent issues, actual covid (fantasy plagues are okay)

Les Cités Obscures: any

This is a very general “please, anything in the style of canon, just maybe with less thoughtless sexism” request. I want to lose myself in these cities again, and in the strange lands that connect them. I’d be happy to follow any of the known characters and/or OCs, or eschew characters altogether and write about the cities themselves. What caught your imagination in Brüsel, Xhystos, Taxandria, Alaxis...? The history of some cool building that was only marginally featured in one of the stories? Or an OC city! If you’ve got a favourite European city that doesn’t already have its obscure counterpart, please tell me all about it! Go big, go wild! What strange and classically surrealist happenings take place within its walls? Or even... outside Europe... Nerding out about architecture is of course very welcome. I would also love to read a story based on any Schuiten illustration, contextualizing it as if it were part of this ‘verse. Here’s a bunch of them, for example!

Ghost Trick: Cabanela

You know.. him. Dazzlingly OTT, untiring, rock-solid self-esteem, loyal to a fault, following a rhythm of his own, flawless intuition until it fails and it all burns down… him. I just want to see more of him doing stuff! The way he’s chill and open toward new people (like Sissel and Missile in ch15) makes him perfect to throw at most other characters and see how they react to the sparkles… I’d love some focus on how ridiculous his aesthetic is, half Saturday Night Fever half hardboiled detective half bubbly preteen (for a total of 150%) and yet he makes it work. Or how ruthless he can be, possibly for the sake of the people he cares for. The quote “The intimacy of big parties”. Him and Alma in the new timeline bonding over knowing (once Jowd has spilled the beans) but not remembering that terrible timeline. Some tropey scenario on the job. Snark-offs with Pigeon Man, by which I mean PM snarks and it bounces off him like water off a spotless white goose’s back.

Ship-wise it’s only Cabanela/Jowd whenever it’s not infidelity, Cabanela/Alma in what-ifs also if it’s not infidelity and Cabanela/Alma/Jowd for me (and Lynne/Memry and Yomiel/fianSissel on the side). There are a bunch of shippy prompts in all my past letters - I would however reiterate here that Jowd. is. the worst tease. always. Like, just saying, but assume he’s pining big time and Jowd and Alma figure it out - they’d make a national sport out of excruciatingly protracted teasing.

Conversely, Cabanela/Lynne and Cabanela/Yomiel are NOTPs especially from Cabanela’s side. So while I appreciate the thick tension of a good Yomiel VS Cabanela confrontation like everyone and their cat, and also really appreciate a roughed-up Cabanela, and I do love Yomiel in his own right… I don’t want Cabanela being into it. Adrenaline junkie he may be but this hurts and his coat’s a mess and there’s no perfect winning scenario so he hates every second of it. (JOWD being super into Cabanela being roughed up is another matter altogether and he should probably mind his own business. ...incompatible kinks, truly tragic. they’ll have to find some other common ground. they’re smart, resourceful, playful fellows, I’m sure they’ll manage)

Kentucky Route Zero: Donald kentuckyroutezero

I love everyone in the cast, all acts and interludes, and I am extremely into all the themes this incredible work of art ended up exploring. Agreeing with the overall doom and gloom up to Act IV, I was blown away by Act V’s strong affirmation of the importance of the arts and of the bonds we make and of carving up spaces for ourselves in capitalism’s wake. Donald was, indeed, not a part of any of that. Even the final interlude updates us on Lula and mentions Joseph, but the big guy is nowhere to be seen. So, you know, there’s fanfiction! He’s so static, defeated. I am fascinated by the chain of metaphysical spaces that goes surface -> Zero -> Echo -> Dogwood and even within that framework, the hall of the mountain king is like a hopeless dead end. Dude’s terminally stuck. So - once again, in the spirit of transformative works, how could he get... you know... unstuck? Did Lula’s momentous appearance in Act III shake him? Having a functioning Xanadu again, perhaps? How could he interrogate that oracle, what recursive wonders would it show him? If he decides to leave, what does it feel to be on the surface again after so long, or on the river perhaps? Maybe he is forced to leave by the flood, if not this one, the next... Having him meet any other character would be amazing. Past or future time spent with Weaver... seeing Conway again, changed... programmer guy chatting up musician androids... did he know Carrington from his college days or was Carrington only a friend of Lula’s?

As for Lula herself and Joseph too: “Flipping through the pages, Conway is able to gather that it’s a story about three characters: Joseph, Donald, and Lula. It’s something like a tragic love triangle, but much more complex. Some kind of tangled, painfully concave love polygon.” 😔 I ship them as a full triad, if you can nudge them in that direction, good. But I’m very open to non-romantic resolutions as well, going past their messy feelings to find each other as friends after so many years maybe. Or... a start. idk.

I’d be interested in fic that leans on the game’s adjacent genres: wanna go full-on American Gothic? Dip into surrealism? Take a leaf from Twin Peaks with tulpa / split narratives to explore the characters’ issues? I’m also open to AUs, real or through Xanadu. This also feels like a good place to stress that I really, really like caves.

And now for something completely different: FAQ:  The “Snake Fight” Portion of Your Thesis Defense is in the tagset this year. I’d say that the crossover with the snake portion of Here and there along the Echo writes itself, but it would not be correct, as in fact I would like you to write it for me. Feel free to not feature Donald if you focus on this crossover instead!

Uru would be a fun crossover too, for Donald specifically. He’s very DRC-shaped in how he tilts at doomed projects which just so happen to be deep underground.

Pyre: Volfred Sandalwood

This is a Volfred solo, Volfred&literally anyone or Volfred/Tariq, /Oralech or /Tariq/Oralech request. I adore everyone in that Blackwagon+Dalbert+Celeste, so if you want to add a Nightwing or two to any prompt, please do! I also love all the Scribes and find Erisa a compelling tragic figure, while out of the other triumvirates, I’m “love to hate them” for Manley, Brighton, Udmildhe and Deluge and would not like to see them featured in sympathetic roles. fwiw I also enjoy Jodi/Celeste and Bertrude/Pamitha a lot!

I feel deeply for all of Pyre’s main themes - literacy, degrees of freedom, the fragile time that is the end of a historical cycle, nobodies rising up to the occasion, building a better society, and of course found family, “distance cannot separate our spirits” and all that jazz, and Volfred is squarely rooted at the center of all of them. I really really love everything he stands for, even if he’s overbearingly smug in standing for it. Just please tell me things about my fave. His relationship to the Scribes (as a historian, a some kind of vision, via *ae or once he’s a star himself)? A ‘forced vacay’ Downside ending where he looks at the Union from afar and keeps living in this strange transformational place? Life in a cramped Blackwagon that was meant for like 5 people tops and is currently eight Nightwings, a herald and an orb? Since he picked him for the job to begin with, does he respect and cherish Hedwyn as he dang well should? What does it feel like to try and Read a herald? Was he ever in danger, in the Commonwealth or in the Downside? What daring act of resistance did he and Bertrude pull off at some point in their past? It’d be cool if one of his old pamphlets came up at some point. Does he puff up as prime minister because he’s nervous, and who can see past his hyper-professionalism and lend a hand? Please roast him big time about the votes he assigns to the various Nightwings in his planner? What’s his attitude toward the flame’s purification (what with being a tree but mostly like, as a general concept. He did nothing wrong!) (well he definitely said some things wrong and sometimes oftentimes the ego jumps out, but his intentions did nothing wrong)? When did his calculating approach fail him? Something with Pamitha along the lines of that edit that goes “Can we talk, one ten to another?“/"I am an eleven, my girl, but continue”? Dude could easily be voted sexiest voice in the Downside - how much is he aware of it? Does he sing? I love how he bears his ‘reader’ brand proudly. And speaking of scars, I have to wonder, looking at Manley for comparison, if the shape of his head, with that massive crack, isn’t also due to injuries.

As a refrain from my general likes: emphatically yes xeno to both shippy interactions at all ratings and to gen explorations of what a Sap is like… I’d love to read all your headcanons.

Ship-wise, I enjoy him with Tariq as this kind of esoteric connection of minds, guarded words full of secret meanings, long contemplative walks together (is any external pov watching...?), Volfred’s Reader powers brushing against Tariq’s mind and getting weak in the knees at the starlit expanse he finds there, so unlike mortal thoughts. Tariq finds his individuality learning from him; Volfred presumably gets a transcendent glimpse of the Scribes. And I enjoy him with Oralech as pretty much the opposite of that, Oralech is so very mortal compared to him, such a precious, fleeting, burning life especially after his fall. Oralech’s idealism is very dear to me, it was their plan, their shared revolutionary spirit, I find it deeply moving. And I am very interested in seeing them rebuild their connection now that Oralech is back, changed, and in some ways he can learn to let go of his misconceptions and slowly open himself to Volfred’s love again, but in other ways that’s who he is now, with this deep-set anger, and what does it even feel to realize that you’re the symbol of the end of an era (the end of the Rites, the fading of the Scribes). I’m interested in both topside and downside endings for all of them, as long as they end up on the same side, the revolution was peaceful and they don’t angst too much about the side they ended in. Tariq can ‘find his way home’ in the near post-canon somehow or even be summoned again, as a different aspect of the same ‘moonlit vision’ that once inspired Soliam Murr.

Strandbeest: any

https://www.strandbeest.com/

I would just like words to go with these, please and thank you so very much. Worldbuild to your heart’s content! Specifically: I’m fascinated by the premise that the strandbeest are living creatures that evolve and adapt to their ecosystem. A world where life is just wind stomachs and sandy joints, and the tide that can catch you unaware. I would like a story that feels distinctly inorganic. The wonder that is the existence of these creatures. Their unique struggles. Weird and experimental if you like. With a mechanical focus, maybe?

I nominated four critters as a selection of the different cool things they can do - Percipiere Excelsus is huge and has the hammer mechanism, Suspendisse’s tail senses the hardness of the sand, Uminami is my fave caterpillar and the caterpillars overall feel like a new paradigm after a mass extinction event, Ader straight-up flies... but they’re all wonderful. If you want to focus on different strandbeest, please do!

Twin Peaks: Lucy Moran

Case fic but they don’t find out jack shit, someone disappears, David Bowie was there, it’s complicated. Fragmented, shifted, mirrored identities. New Lodge spaces. The risks of staring into the void for too long. Gentle illusions. Transcendence. The moon. Static buzzing. Any title from the s3 ethereal whooshing compilation used as a prompt, actually. Whatever goes on on Blue Pine mountain or the even more mysterious things that go on on White Tail mountain where exactly zero canon locations are found. Twin Peaks is all about the mystery to me, the awe of mystery and unknowability and the human drive to look beyond and the risks of getting a peek, and about shared consciousness and trauma taking physical form in an uncaring world. Go wild with the ethereal whooshing! But I also love the human warmth at the heart of it all, and sometimes it’s enough to anchor these characters and let them have a nice day. A fic entirely focused on some instance of coziness against the cold chaotic background of canon would be great too.

For Lucy specifically, a big draw for me is how canon (...s2 need not apply) empathizes with her way of processing the world. Not just Peaks, but On the Air’s protag who is basically a Lucy expy also gets the narrative completely on her side and that’s great. And I love how in s3, her focus on the small things around her is always echoed by bigger, climactic events beyond her horizon (bunnies / Jack Rabbit’s palace, chair order / Garland’s chair, her first scene talking about the two sheriffs / doubles everywhere...). It feels to me like some kind of off-kilter mindfulness and I love it. She’s also got a loving husband and an amazing son, which, in this economy and also this canon? Damn. The one functional family, imagine that. I am not interested in focus on family dynamics, but singularly, either Lucy/Andy or Lucy&Wally are great - in particular, I’m interested in how strange they are and yet they make it work. With the ruthless critique of traditional family structure that’s all over canon, maybe they make it work specifically because they’re not doing any of that. A bit like the Addams family... but... not goth...? Anyway. I’d love to see Lucy interact with and maybe strike a friendship with any character she’s never shared a scene with in canon! In the tagset, there’s Diane for some secretaries bonding, Audrey because??? why not?, Albert because it’d be an epic enemies to friends slowburn, some version of Laura in the future, if we’re feeling really daring maybe even some version of Coop in the future, still fragmented... or anyone you want! Outside the tagset I’d be curious about Hawk, Margaret and maybe Doris in particular, I think, and Phil, and Nadine and the Invitation to Love fandom in general (Frost says it still airs - did it get as weird as TP s3 did?), but if you have an idea with someone else, absolutely go for it!

Canon-specific DNWs: any singular Dreamer being the ‘source’ of canon, BOB (let alone Judy) being forever defeated in the finale, Judy being an active malevolent presence in the characters’ lives, clear explanations for canonical ambiguities, ‘Odessaverse’ being the reality layer, the Fireman’s House by the Sea being the White Lodge, whatever Twin Perfect’s on about, Cooper/Audrey, Cooper/Laura

[fairy-made]

I dont think I ever said anything about this, but when I replayed the skyrim romance mod after it got an update a while back, it seemed like someone read my random comments about it and like....actually tweaked the mod?? which is really cool imo. putting this under a cut since I think the mod still generally has a bad rep, even though it seems like theyre working on that in some capacity. I didnt really even know what the drama was about in the first place.

literally everything I talked about that could be fixed within a reasonable amount of time was fixed. back then (~3-4 yrs ago) I was a little more tolerant of the “bad boy, borderline abusive” type and while the character himself seems to be intentionally pushy, it seems to be a bit better. if I remember correctly, I think they cut the rapey bits and just worked around it so that bishop was still a brat about your player not wanting to have sex, but not a scary horny nutcase. theres a big difference between “youre gonna have sex with me one of these days wench!!” and “ugh, fine, be like that!” its def not A+, but it is an improvement that still suits the character. I obviously wasnt too bothered with the earlier version back then (had some stuff I was going through), but now I can see the concern, and to me its less cringey. Id have to replay it again to see how I feel exactly, but Im sure its better at least.

they re-did the whole interaction with cael so instead of him talking about how he could give you orgasms like youve never seen, hes cautious of you yet still kind of flirty. a real sweetie. I mean, I like the new bit, but he could also let me know hes dtf a little bit. lmao thats just me though. 

the one thing I did not like too much was that they added animations for the sex scenes, and that you had no choice but to sit through them (unless you said no to sex altogether). since I literally set the camera so that I could not see the sex anims, I did get to hear bishops VA during the scenes and Imma just say.......... you should hear them. even if its just the once. lmao. I read that theyre gonna cut out the sex mod dependencies so that you can just have fade to black scenes, and I am for that 1000000%. 

now I just hope it gets ported it to the special edition, because it seems waaay too hard and time consuming to do it myself. I tried to start but the list of tasks was just too long to justify working on when I have homework and other stuff to do.

outside all that, I can see why there was such a bad vibe surrounding the mod at first. it all made sense when I read about the drama on reddit, but the harshness  was a bit... much?? from what I read, the creator made some bad choices and eventually acknowledged/fixed them. her reasoning and intentions for making them could be questionable, but people are human, idk what else to say. Im just... not grabbing a pitchfork over this and I fail to see any reason to continue that now lmao. she obviously still wants to hold everything together for the mod and do things better so... Im not gonna hold a grudge even if she made bad choices. she ultimately canceled the kickstarter, and this is all ultimately over a mod. a skyrim mod. you either wanna play and support it or you dont because of very valid reasons. its up to you. but either way it just will never be that serious.

I honestly got the impression that she might be a bad person from stuff I read until I got the chance to read about everything, and then I was like wow.. she fucked up, but the worst thing she did was undone the same day it happened so...like... yall couldve just went on about your lives and left this woman alone. 

anyway, long talk. it seems like the mods at a standstill, since it hasnt been ported to the SE yet and I dont think the creator herself has made any announcements about actual updates coming soon. but I actually hope things stay positive for the mod. 

(also psa, this is for my followers/mutuals if there interested in talking about it. Ive tagged this for the sole purpose of being able to be filtered by those who dont want to hear anything about it.)

Update: so I downloaded the beta for the SE. it wasnt working for me as the dialogue would seem to break anytime after I used racemenu. I literally cant play skyrim without changing my hair, and the person in charge of the beta said to try playing it on a no-rush new game so... I kind of gave up. I had started over twice after already sinking 4-8 hours into those 2 new games, specifically for the mod, and I just didnt feel like doing it again.

Replaying the bits that I could, I will say it is... kind of cheesy. Doesnt bother me much though. I used to write bad fanfiction, so its not the worst. Its just not impervious to being... cheesy at times. Idk how to put it lol. Maybe you could say its tropey? Like something youd read in a romance novel with those dramatic traditional cover illustrations. Not bad. Just, if you hate that kinda thing, you might not be into it. Im not very critical because the alternative is like. 1 other mod? So I just dont mind.

Outside of that I kind of have no idea what my complete opinion is on it now. I intended to find out, but gave up due to modding issues. I was a little younger when I first played it, so I may have different opinions on it now. As I mentioned before my opinion of sex and certain character traits used to be different, and its changed a lot since then. Its still kind of changing even now. I still go “yeah... that was the trauma” about stuff I used to think was not so bad.

To be honest I didnt even remember having an opinion of it as cheesy a few years ago, but now after replaying for the 3rd time Im like... from what little Ive seen so far, its some pretty sharp cheddar lol. So if it is a lot worse than you felt you were led to believe from reading this, Im sorry, and you can inbox me about it. Especially since I may not ever even play the newest version.

[shallxt]

😡

Imma be real I haven’t read an actual DB fanfiction in years.

It’s become tropey and I feel like I’m reading the same stories over and over again. I wanna blame MasakoX for all those What-ifs and folks just runningstealing those ideas. And it’s the neverending waves of Vegebul fanfics that I feel like I’ve read a million times.

Idk. Maybe I’m getting too old for fanfiction or I’m can’t read anymore sfghgfd

[rosiebrie]

for some reason for a split second when Scarlemagne was giving Kipo that ultimatum where he'd let her people go if she gilded her dad, i thought maybe she'd say something like "i'll do you one better dude; let Everyone go (dad included) and I'll stay here w/ you"

like,,, it's a total "sacrificial protagonist" cliche (and I feel like Kipo loves her dad and friendos too much to actually suggest smthin like that), but it crossed my mind briefly.

like I wonder what Scarlemagne would think of that tbh? I'm thinking about it in terms of canon divergent fanfiction now... Even if it's for an obvious ulterior motive, it would still technically be someone choosing him for once. Idk, maybe it'd conflict him, cuz he'd know she wasn't offering because she cares about him above all else (though she obviously does care, and maybe she'd consider it a better opportunity to get through to him if she had more time. Again, that falls into tropey territory that really would all depend on the execution lol).

well regardless of any fan speculation, I'm excited to see where canon takes their relationship next season cuz I'm a sucker for complicated sibling dynamics and Scarlemagne is an interesting character.

[the-cryptographer]

Sonic X!Rogue/Knuckles for the meme

B-But I haven’t watched more than five episodes ofSonic X  :’)  I actually hadn’t seen any of it prior to about a month ago? I’d like to watch more but it’s a work in progress, anon.

So the only real KnuxRouge content I’m familiar with is the second SonicAdventure. That’s where most of this is coming from. Under the cut~

when I started shipping it if I did:

When Knuckles saved her from falling after theirbattle at Meteor Herd. They had the hand hold moment. And then Rouge called hima creep that only saved her so that he could hold her hand. A+ dialogue. It wasgood. Very good.

my thoughts:

idk, KnuxRouge is very tropey, but I am weak. Therewas a femme fatale character. There was a sweet and strong and smart but inexperienceand dense af guy who probably wouldn’t know what flirting was if it kissed himon the nose. There was a conflict based in different ideological values. I’msorry, it was inevitable.

I suspect I would’ve started shipping it earlier ifI had played this game later in my life. At that time I was a little moretentative and relying on canon evidence before shipping. Now I’m all aboutmixing strong personalities and romance in hypothetical combinations and fuckcanon.

What makes me happy about them:

They’re both strong characters who seem to carrymore or less equal weight in the collision of their relationship. I’m actuallykind of surprised that the writers managed to not make it so that Rouge wasn’tovershadowed by Knuckles, despite the fact that he already had an established placein the series.

Also, I like that there’s a certain amount of…unseriousness to their struggle. A playfulness. Unlike Sonic and Eggman andTails legit murder attempts… For all the heatedness of Knuckles and Rouge clashingin their different ideas about duty and responsibility, when things ultimately startedtaking a more serious and fatal turn, they both came through for each otherinstead of for themselves. (I kind of joked about this before, but I do kind ofwonder if Rouge and shattering the Master Emerald do become part of a flimsyexcuse for Knuckles to justify leaving the tedium of sitting around on AngelIsland playing bodyguard to a rock.)

And, aw, the banter is fun.

What makes me sad about them:

That SA2’s plot is so, soooo bad. In terms of thisship in specific, it makes me sad that their big moment is the second time Rougewas damseled over the course of this game. And neither time she’s damseledmakes even the slightest bit of sense. What?!She’s going to fall from a great height into a pit of space lava?! She’s afucking bat!!! She can fly!!! And arguably she won that fightagainst Knuckles and, aaaaargh!!! Andthen the first time she’s damseled, she’s trapped in the military base by thepeople she’s working for as a double agent. It just makes zero sense. The plotof this game was so filled with holes and contrived BS. And I’m not evengetting into the gameplay mechanics. Ship deserved better.

In a less meta and more in-universe sense… I dothink in a romantic or otherwise emotionally intimate context, Rouge is aboutfive thousand times more adept than Knuckles. She could run circles around him,and I’m not sure you could trust her not to be manipulative about it, even ifshe had the best intentions. And she doesn’t always have the best intentions…

things done in fanfic that annoy me & things I look for in fanfic:

I haven’t really read any in detail. I pulled upsome Sonic stuff recently and was reminded uncomfortably of fanfiction relatedtropes specific to fandoms dominated by male fans. A lot of power fantasystuff, and dark morality themes that liked to think themselves complex but werereally simplistic and unsubtle, and female characters being victimised orotherwise uncritically robbed of their agency. None of this was about Knouge,but it kinda put me off the fandom. I’m sure there’s good fic hiding somewhere,but it put me off on looking for it for the time being.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

um, idk? I have a fondness for Julie-Su/Knuckles inthe comics, even though I do think the characterisation work wasn’t always veryclever. I like the other lady Echidnas with Knux too – so Knuckles/Tikal andKnuckles/Shade are both okay, imo. I think the Knuckles/Sally friendship in thecomics was really well constructed – the way it was set up around them havingthese similar but conflicting obligations was really clever – it couldtheoretically make a great romance. And for some reason I feel utterly charmedby the idea of Knuckles/Shadow after seeing those couple of comics about them.

For Rouge… I really don’t know… I know Rouge/Shadowis popular, and I think it could be good in the hypothetical – certainlythey’ve made a more stable team than Rouge&Knux – but… idk, in terms ofcanon it feels like there’s been quite a bit of Rouge taking interest in andcare towards Shadow as an individual, and not a lot of reciprocation whereShadow really considers Rouge beyond her capacity as an ally. It just seemslike a relationship very centred around /his/ needs and /his/ existential angst.Even when Shadow goes out of his way to save Rouge’s life, it feels like it’sset up as Shadow wanting to come to terms with his own morality and define forhimself what he’s spiritually capable of rather than ‘wow, I care about Rougenot dying’. All of which kind of turns me away from the idea that Shadow would everbe romantically interested in her in a way that could possibly respect that shehas her own needs and goals and values. I mean, I think this is up forinterpretation, and I think their relationship is interesting and could developin all sorts of ways… so I’m not really against the ship, but I remain kind ofunconvinced as of now.

Ugh, I feel like Rouge femslash should be where it’sat, but… who would I pair her with other than Amy? (no.) jfc, why are importantsonic female characters in such short supply?!? and why isn’t Rouge close toany of them?!?

My happily ever after for them:

Rouge decides to stash her hoard of gems on AngelIsland. She reasons that, because they’re stored with the Master Emerald, theMaster Emerald is also part of her collection. Knuckles humours her.

I think they’re often occupied with their ownobsessions and work. They probably spend long months away from each other whenKnuckles is doing Guardian work of one type or another, and Rouge is offtreasure hunting or working as a spy. They kind of reconvene and do battlecouple things together. They probably like travelling and treasure huntingtogether too, or otherwise visiting friends on the mainland.

I’m not sure how interspecies furry babies work, butthey may have a kid. ‘One. Only one,’Rouge says. The kid spends more time with Knuckles, training to be the nextGuardian. But they’re a little more enamoured with Rouge’s lifestyle – has a tastefor grand adventure and glamour. Knuckles’s life is struggle. Much compromise andreworking the system happens in the process of trying to reconcile expectations.

who is the big spoon/little spoon:

Rouge is little spoon.A little more like their animal counterparts, I imagine Knuckles is about twiceRouge’s size. So it’s very big big spoon, and very little little spoon.

what is their favorite non-sexual activity:

I think it’s included in that happy ending up there.Treasure hunting? Visiting friends? Digging through archaeological sitestogether, maybe. Does that overlap too much with treasure hunting? It’s aboutthe journey rather than the destination, though~

They both like swimming too right? They visit hiddenhot springs and oases and relax.

Thanks anon!!