#they were animated in 2d but existed in realistic environment Roger Rabbit style

[canisalbus]

Machete and Vasco made an appearance in my dreams last night and I'd like to formally apologize to them bc my dreams are always horror slanted lol they didn't have a good time poor guys.

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[mushbabe]

Mass Cartoon Crossover AU

heyyyyy its uhhhhhh another fucking au writing from me

ties into this comic i did here, which i am making a sequel to

so if you wanted to hear my explanation for how shit like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, CN City, and canon crossovers might possibly work, clicky that readmore friend it’s about to get deep and overly thought-out

so like. basically: when a creator creates something, the universe for this something exists on another plane. the characters are all real, just more or less materially inaccessible to people on our plane. there are points in the various planes of existence where our plane and their plane meet, be the points natural or artificial. these points of meeting were used to film things like Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Space Jam, where visceral, fleshy organisms like ourselves could stand alongside the 2-D manifestations of our own minds. both humans and cartoons could enter the opposing side’s realm, but by no means is it natural or healthy for the state of the worlds, not to mention for the individuals crossing dimensions. as such, the scenes in both WFRR and Space Jam where any one person was not in their respective domain were filmed in intervals...

so now we’ve got two planes: ours, and the plane of our creations. like previously stated, each creation has a universe in which it exists and lives, a place where it is given purpose, a story, stuff to do, etc.. compared to our universe, these worlds are all incredibly small.  though the sizes can vary wildly: from the universe of Ed Edd ‘n Eddy, which is more or less encompassed by the cul de sac that they live in, to the universe of Adventure Time (which feels expansive, but really is only made up of the places shown or mentioned in the show, and is by no means infinite like that of our own.) lets imagine that all of these universes are kind of tied together. think about wreck-it ralph when i say that there is a central location, a city probably, that they can all converge in and exist within. 

to keep things homogeneous and as easy to digest as possible, lets assume the only universes that are inherently tied together are the universes from the same kind of media. 2D televised cartoons would all be tied into one place. 3D televised cartoons would converge in a different place. Anime/Video Games/all that good shit would tie in somewhere else respectively. We could imagine that this is because these similar universes are close in proximity as a result of being similar. and because they’re all so close, they all have an established point where they all meet. contrasting this, the convergence of two different kinds of media would be extremely rare and hard to achieve, but is do-able, and has been exploited by characters before (cite the Jimmy-Timmy Power Hour). for the sake of keeping with the natural order, these ties are temporary and will break off easily. 

to illustrate this converging of similar universes, we could imagine this structure as a large central bubble with a bunch of other smaller bubbles surrounding it, each of them connected to the middle one by a thread. 

DIRECTLY CONNECTED WORLDS

but !! these small, individual worlds can also be connected to each other directly! some of these connections are inherent, as they were part of their design upon their creation. a good example of this: the universe of Gravity Falls and Rick and Morty would have a natural thread connecting the two. 

some of these connections can also be forged. these connections are typically the result of a crossover episode, and would exist between the worlds of Futurama and The Simpsons, and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Codename: Kids Next Door since they all had crossover episodes with each other. In all likelihood, the lifespan of these connections is probably dependent on factors like the earnestness of the episode(s) in question (whether they were done for a cheap cash-in or because the writers were genuinely invested in these characters meeting) and how compatible these universes are (things like similar visual styles and how much sense the crossover makes. the crossover between The Jetsons and The Flintstones makes way more sense thematically than the crossover between Kim Possible and Lilo & Stitch. 

THE HUBWORLD:

this is best understood when you think about the old Cartoon Network City bumpers that CN used to play in between commercials. They were large, semi-realistic urban environments where all of the characters from the programming of the time would interact with the world and with each other. CN City could be thought of as a district of this larger city where all these worlds converge. this is a place that, regardless of art-style or compatibility, everyone can just exist alongside each other. 

so not all of the cartoons live here. lots of them live in their respective worlds for their own reasons (their show may still be ongoing and they need to actually be there for it to happen, or maybe they just prefer their own world) but they may make trips into town to run errands, visit, attend university or even commute to their city jobs. however, after a character’s show has run its course, plenty of them make the decision to move permanently to the city. 

we know that each character can leave their original universe and travel to the central connecting one, but can they leave the central one to visit another person’s universe? i would say yes. probably not for extended periods though. unless there is an existing connector between the two character’s worlds, visiting wouldn’t feel comfortable, and the characters probably just wouldn’t want to. i imagine that, while it’s not exactly illegal or impossible to visit, staying for a long time is frowned upon. again, we can refer back to wreck-it ralph for comparison. visiting is fine, but eventually you need to go home.

IMPORTANT FIGURES:

a character’s role in the city and to others is determined by a lot of things. usually, one would find a job they can perform with their unique skills and/or powers. I’ve headcanon’d the roles of a lot of characters already. some ideas I’ve had:

The Powerpuff Girls are easily the ones in charge of protecting the city. They head Homeworld Security, the various police departments, and have a lot of people working under them. They can often be seen patrolling. 

the city is headed by a City Council and a Mayor (there is also a Head Judge in charge of the court system, but they don’t determine any legislation, they just enforce it.) The Mayor is kind of shadowy in the au at first, but it’s pretty obvious that it’s Mickey Mouse. He’s concerned with corporate interests for the most part.

the Council is made up of elected representatives, each coming from different big names in the cartoon world (Nick, WB, Disney, Hanna-Barbara, etc.) The Council Chairman tbh has to be Bugs Bunny. he’s iconic, charismatic, and experienced, and so has a lot of sway in how things operate; it only made sense that he go into politics. a crucial part of the “plot” of this au is that Bugs and Mickey are bitter rivals. It’s understood by most that Bugs should be the de facto mayor, but through underhanded means, Mickey stays one step ahead of him. while Bugs isn’t exactly innocent either, he certainly stands for different ideals. Bugs is definitely a man of the people. 

Professor Utonium is the dean of the university as well as the head of its robotics department, their most successful STEM department. he teaches a few robotics classes. Dexter, Edd, and Phineas would have all studied under him at one point

Without a doubt, Warden from SuperJail! is the warden of what’s probably the largest and craziest prison in existence. Only a mind like his could contain the biggest threats to the hubworld’s wellbeing. 

i’ve thought about the placement of a lot of other characters too, but i only wanted to list here the one’s integral to the structure of the city.

with that said, all of the villains original to the connected worlds are very much still real and still able to wreak havoc on this metropolis. some won’t have a reason to concern themselves with it, while others will certainly make it a target. this includes extradimensional entities like Bill Cipher, Him, and Aku, who wouldn’t exactly be contained in the city jail. a main concern of the city government is how to protect the town from these major antagonists. 

CITY DISTRICTS:

i was talking about districts of the city earlier. another district i was thinking about is Toontown, a space relegated to old fashioned, classic “toons”. Like, Animaniacs / Tom & Jerry / Merrie Melodies / Steamboat Willie / Roger Rabbit -esque toons. the one’s we all understand as the physics defying characters who can pull material from nothing (hammerspace) as well as take a shotgun shell to the face and live. The nigh-indestructible, goofy-ass, slapstick, foundational characters of animated comedy. this is gonna be one of the few districts that is actually somewhat segregational. I imagine that society views toons in a weird, kind of split way. on one hand, the Old Toons are to be respected. they forged a path and laid a foundation in entertainment and have helped bring all of this into existence. on the other hand, Toons are also considered outmoded. classic slapstick has largely reached the end of its run. the iconic white gloves, cigars, and dynamite have all come to represent a bygone golden era full of its own problematic ideals. their shows are analyzed now much like modern psychologists would analyze Freud: no one can doubt the significance of the impact they’ve had, but the faults are widely acknowledged. (for example, modern cartoons would probably criticize older toons’ shows’ lack of diverse protagonists, rampant themes of racism / antisemitism / blatant use of tobacco / objectification of female characters, for being unfunny or unchallenging to the viewer, or for just being visually unappealing as some newer cartoons might believe.) as a result of this mindset, older Toons are the target of some prejudice but also some high respect. it depends on which group you’re talking to. 

List of City Districts

New Townsville (the one filmed for the CN City Bumpers). town hall, banks, business hub.

Toontown (the one filmed in WFRR) - area reserved for Toons

Endsborough - slightly evil, run down part of town. bars, gambling, etc. hangout for the unsavory.

University District - the campus, dorms, student accommodations 

Hillwood Metropolitan Area - expansive, unspecific urban area, main marketplace, apartments, schools. underground cultural haven.

Jump District - upscale part of town, nice stores, ritzy condos. opposite of Endsborough. favorite hangout/residence of hero-types. 

Middleville - suburban residence area, lots of families living here.

Jellystone - large park

CITY GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

I am also going to list my ideas for these:

Mayor - Mickey Mouse

Chief Justice - MENTOK THE MIND-TAKER (he’s from Harvey Birdman and he’s a great judge ok google him)

City Councilmen:

Warner Brothers / Chairman - Bugs Bunny 

Cartoon Network - Grim

Metro Goldwyn-Mayer - Pink Panther

Nickelodeon - Phoebe Heyerdahl

Hanna Barbara - Top Cat

Disney -  Stanford Pines (not Stanley)

Adult Swim - Dr. Mrs. The Monarch

THE GUILD OF CALAMITOUS INTENT 

as one might imagine, the hubworld is going to be full of both heroes and villains. to manage the inevitable carnage, i thought i’d borrow an organization from The Venture Bros. the Guild of Calamitous Intent’s purpose (in this au anyway) is to fit villains with their arch-rivals and contain the amount of collateral damage their conflict creates. heroes and villains can only fight one villain/hero at a time, respectively. this is to prevent things like all-out fights between huge numbers of villains and heroes, which would destroy a good portion of the city. as well, there is a limit to how much destruction one pair of arch rivals can cause. charges are incurred otherwise. certain areas are entirely off-limits (schools, hospitals, etc. basically they follow the Geneva Convention here). the presence of the Guild would also be a good explanation for why villains only tend to target one hero most of the time. once one villain/hero is defeated, another one can take be fit to take their place. villains and heroes are both ranked in order of power and resources, and a villain is always paired with a hero of equal rank to allow for the fairest fight. arching outside of guild regulations is strictly forbidden and the Guild will hunt down a rogue villain/hero. groups of villains/heroes that are always together (the Teen Titans for example) will count as a single arch-able entity and will be ranked according to their combined power. So in this universe, Slade would be labeled as the Teen Titan’s arch-enemy. 

while the Guild is originally a service for evil characters run by evil characters, they generally play a neutral role in the struggle between good and evil. 

but there are bound to be evil doers who are too chaotic to follow guild regulations. these characters have to act in the utmost secrecy or simply be too powerful to be taken out normally; otherwise, the Guild will act upon them. the heads of the Guild are totally anonymous, and, while they’ve worked with the City before to impose certain regulations, they are independent of the government. All villains and heroes must be properly registered, but registered villains ARE NOT guaranteed safety from Homeworld Security. heroes and the police often work together to take down bad guys, and its a hero’s responsibility to keep their respective villain in check.

ANYWAY that’s what I’ve thought up so far for the overarching premise. I STILL NEED A NAME FOR THE CITY 

i could just call it Big City a la Sheep in the Big City, but thats.... kinda dumb. idk i’ll think on it.