TDL

Adding on to this real quick, Second's "attack mode" (as I call it) is only activated when he feels like his friends are in threatened, right?

Well this fight is probably because Red endangered Second's friends, including himself, by going through the portal. Especially since Second is blaming him in this moment.

Just a nice bit of consistent character writing ^^

I know that everyone and their mother has probably talked about the Lush Caves episode, but I need to add my thoughts or I will explode :)

(this turned out pretty long, so I put it under a cut just to be safe)

This fight has been set up since the end of the Witch episode, where Red basically convinces everyone else to trust Purple, going DIRECTLY against Orange.

Now, Orange had a good point. Every time the CG have gone into strange Nether portals they've ended up on a long traumatizing adventure that Orange has had to rescue them from. Rightfully, he doesn't want to go through that again.

But when Red (and subsequently the rest of the RYGB) don't listen, it causes tension, and sets in motion a time bomb that blew up when those two were stuck in the desert.

(Kudos to Alan and his animation team for getting this all across in a purely visual manner, they did an amazing job!)

They are both hungry and tired, their emotions are threadbare, and it turns into a blame-game.

Orange says that it's Red's fault that they're stuck out here because he went through the portal. If they hadn't, they could have been at home right now!

Red says that at least they had had fun, home was boring.

Orange bites back by saying now he and Red were going to die out here, and they didn't even know where Blue, Yellow and Green were.

Red ignores that and says that it's actually Orange's fault because it was his idea to use the beacons to glitch out of the parkour box.

And Orange snaps.

This is the part during my first watch-through where I was freaking out .

The two best fighters of the CG, in a wonderfully animated fight sequence, BUT THERE'S EMOTIONAL STAKES, and the sun has set.

Do you understand the turmoil I was experiencing.

Anyway this scene is amazing. Red and Orange are only focused on one thing; fighting each other.

It's a little funny sometimes, like when Orange one-shots a creeper, but then you see Orange literally throw more zombies/husks in Red's direction to overwhelm him and you remember that this might have ended in one of them killing the other if they hadn't fallen into the caves.

Because at this point Red has started to try to run away. It's Orange who seems to snap out of it when they stop fighting in the caves.

Maybe the youngest hollow-head has a taste for violence after all.

Anyway, they get a moment of reconciliation/peace before they are approached by alexcrafter28, and then they get their way back home. From here on, they're a team again. However I wish we could hear them speak because I would LOVE to hear the conversations during and after the fight.

they make me emotional your honor

HELP I LOOKED OUT FOR A FEW SECS AND WENT FROM ONE BOOP TO 47

(I'm not complaining)

Can you do one of those bingos with ship (💚 x 💙) or just with both of these characters separately??

I like it! They work well together, romantic or not (plus the colour scheme is great). Prefer it in a polysticks context though since that's my OTP (OT6?? IDK)

victim watching as alan gets a vpn and teleports haldway across the globe

This is from a million years ago but with ava 11 out i figured why not

Short animation :DD

This is to be based on Red’s and Orange’s fight in Lush Caves, the waitress was supposed to be alexcrafter28 but I got lazy TuT

———————————————————————————

You can also find it on youtube :P

why are you blinking so much? -veryoaki

The artist of this song “Red Flags” is by Tom Cardy

(transcription in alt if u cant understand the text)

The new family

The pigs were forgiven for the wedding incident

Might finish this sketch some day

perhaps overly rambly thoughts on the influencer arc

it is very hard to watch but i don't think it's contrary to what we know of green, and i'm enjoying it just fine.

we know green is a showoff and perfectionist. the color gang all like winning, but green likes making a big display of it too. he's quite a sore winner and loser, and hates having the spotlight taken from him when it is his.

he loves attention and praise. and like, that's okay, don't we all? he cares about his friends in the end.

but i get the feeling that, while they love him and appreciate his talents, his friends don't really give him that big attention that he might want. they're used to him winning and being good at art/performance of any kind. it's normal to them really. maybe even a little disheartening.

so i can easily see how getting that attention in the form of being an influencer is a huge thing for green. an addiction, even. he gets so drawn into it that he overlooks his friends' discomfort, so he can keep being the Perfect Celebrity, keep the hype going.

obviously this end outcome here isn't actually what he wanted, and i'm sure he feels guilt for all this on some level. but he's pushed that away in favor of the high of getting a number to go up, getting more of the spotlight. there's nothing else that matters right now but getting that new dopamine hit. again, it is an addiction.

surely his friends will come around. why don't they get it? this is a good thing for him. he's winning. he's harsh, yes, but he's just trying to be successful. his friends aren't actually hurt (they are), they're doing fine (they're not), what's the issue? (everything.)

i don't think current green is character assassination - right now he's doing horribly and hurting the people around him because he is at his lowest, the worst version of himself where his flaws overtake him. it can go up from here. i have no doubt that by the end of this green is going to get some sense shaken into him and make up with his friends. like, that's just the kind of series this is.

and despite all the character analysis i just did lol - i ALSO think it's important to remember that we are probably taking these characters infinitely more seriously than the creators are. while the series sometimes dips its toes (or entire face) into being a dramatic and beautiful story, it is ultimately a cartoon, and sometimes the character writing will be simplified in favor of a gag or an overall story arc. that's fine.

i get why some people might not like it, but i don't think they're doing anything totally unprecedented for the characters they've set up, and i think they'll wrap this up alright.

I Love Us

Honestly, I'm so, so very glad AvA is the first fandom I've actually been an active participant in.

LONG RANT INCOMING

Throughout the years, I have "been in fandoms", but I never felt like posting my own art or works, commenting on vids (i didn't have a youtube account back then, still don't), or being anything other than a silent observer.

Back in March, when I came home from that math competition, and found AvMath in my recommendeds, and just clicked on it, I did not expect to get dragged into a fandom about stick figures, of all things. I remember watching AvPhysics directly after, then finding "Wanted", and watching it with no context. I remember going to the wiki, seeing all of the content that was made, and and binging AvM and the actual shorts and literally everything else.

And most of all, I remember thinking, "I wish I could just erase all of this from my mind and experience the magic all over again."

-

In May, I took a chance and went to Ao3. I knew it was a site to post fanfiction, but it had never been something I was interested in. But I was just curious, to see if fanfiction about this amazing fandom really existed. I didn't have an account, no; I think I just wanted to see.

There were about 1600-1700 fics on there about AvA, during that time. I didn't know how hits worked or kudos worked, but I just remember scrolling down until I could find something that looked like a lot of people had liked it.

And even then, I clearly remember the first fic I touched. "Identity", by LeenaFreeBird (I'll link it at the bottom). I absolutely loved it. I spent the rest of the month simply reading, and consuming all of the cool hcs, learning what fan terms meant, having an idea for my own fic that I thought, back then, I could never write.

Because I didn't.

I never made an account or wrote. I never left comments because part of me though people without an account wouldn't be able to, and that was just habit, at this point.

And even though I stepped slightly away from there in the months of June and July (we were in the process of moving halfway across the country, I had just watched the new Demon Slayer season, and upon recommendation had binged all of Haikyuu in a week), I always made sure to keep updated on whatever new AvA/M videos had been posted.

In August, I went back on Ao3.

SO MANY AMAZING FICS HAD BEEN WRITTEN IN THE SPAN I WAS AWAY.

I remember binging all of them for the month. I sat alone at lunch (as I was new I didn't have any friends), just reading them on my phone and getting sucked back into there.

In September AvI began. On a whim I logged back into my tumblr account that I had made like 5 years ago in 4th grade to post random rambling stuff about my life (I tagged nothing but my username wth), and redid my entire blog. I was sooo happy when one of my posts reached 100 notes.

I felt way stronger, and way braver. I joined the invite queue for Ao3, because I decided I DID want an account, and I DID want to post my own fics.

And everyone was (and is) SO NICE about it. They love my fics and posts (which I still consider really crappy, btw) to pieces, and always give me good comments. Even my bad fanart (another thing I got the courage to post during this time). Shipping wars never happen here (if they did, I wouldn't know about it). Rarepairs are appreciated, and we unanimously know the ships that should be completely illegal (not naming ship names here).

Everything and everyone is loved, and this is like the one little corner of the Internet where mostly all is safe and your opinion is valued. Sure, your fan theory may be wrong, but people here don't go and tell you "that's so stupid lol, no way that's true". They'll give you actual feedback, explain the evidence that falsifies it, or add to it because they like it.

Even on YouTube, if someone posts a yellue ship video, for example, they'll get hate, or "the color quad are just siblings lol", or "they r stickmen why are u shipping them". If someone HCs Blue as a girl (ik that's been debunked where we are at rn), they'll get a comment saying "it's stickman for a reason".

Like, let people have their opinions. Alan has never confirmed the color quad as siblings, or their origin story. I know he has said that he would like to avoid romance by not making female characters, but it's not like the people who ship yellue or grapeduo barge up to his door and demand he makes it canon. They're just peaceful, and everything that you're saying is fanon. For all we know, four different animators could have collabed on the sticksfight website and each animated a different character (not saying that's true, but we don't know).

And even with hollowhead pairs. Alan created them, yes, but how does Creator transfer to father in this scenario? We don't know, because he hasn't confirmed the hollowheads as siblings either. They still get hate on YouTube.

But Tumblr just loves everyone. The AvA community, for example, will always make you feel like you posted something good. They lift you up, not put you down. They appreciate your headcanons because it provides a new way of looking at things.

They appreciate you.

I feel so much better about putting myself out there, and I know I will do so more in the future. I now cannot comprehend how someone can see all of this content and think "they are just stick figures". No they aren't. They are stick figures with trauma, feelings, pain, heroic qualities, fatal flaws.

You, tumblr, makes me feel this way.

Thank you so much.

(I did not expect to rant about my entire journey when I was supposed to be talking about how amazing the AvA tumblr fandom is, but now that I have I'll just keep it. Here's the fic I was talking about)