Hey! My name is Indigo and I am from the great state of Idawahio. I am here on Tumblr and AO3, and my main fandom right now is Welcome To The Table.
I plan on posting head cannons, some fic snippets, and a few doodles. I’m also open to writing/head cannon requests for WTTT, so just let me know! I am willing to write angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, any ship, and most everything but not NSFW content. Most of my art will mainly focus on simpler things or backgrounds (because hands are the bane of my existence).
Iowa Headcannons (Since even if The Table Series was still going he would never get his own episode):
Every food name he uses is wrong (goulash is anything with beef, everything is a casserole somehow, don’t even ask him what pink salad is)
He spends 50% of his time at Casey’s gas stations holding employees hostage with his small talk
Iowa’s main sport used to be wresting (college-type wresting, he thinks WWE is a comedy) but he shifted away from it due to issues with cutting weight
Now his main sport now is cycling, especially when RAGBRAI (Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa) is going on
Whenever California, Washington, Massachusetts, and Texas are talking (i.e. Arguing) about tech, Iowa barges into the conversation because “ISU made the first computer” so he’s clearly the highest authority on the subject
He has a degree from each of the state schools: Agricultural Studies from ISU, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Uni of Iowa, and Middle Level Education at UNI
Iowa’s a farmer (obviously) and then teaches Agriculture at some local high school with a class of like 35 kids per grade
He was at one point involved with both 4H and FFA
Iowa is the most proud of his state’s agriculture and will talk anyone’s ear off about it for hours (He used to do the same for his education system, but not so much anymore)
During the Iowa State Fair he’ll take a couple neighboring states (probably Nebraska and Wisconsin) and head over to get a bunch of food and/or show off
Though, he’ll instantly hide if he sees a politician nearby
One time Gov was at the state fair and Iowa just hid in his car for a full hour
Iowa once brought deep fat fried sticks of butter to a Statehouse event and almost killed California just with the sight of it
He still sometimes slips up and calls the Casey’s Center the Wells Fargo Arena
Side Note: Iowa has a growing hatred for Wells Fargo, Hy-Vee, & Mediacom over the years because of various reasons
The Midwestern goodbye is strong with this one
Don’t ever call Iowa when there’s car trouble because he’ll fix it in five minutes and then hold the person hostage for the next hour asking about if their great aunt is still alive or something
Iowa is nice, but also pretty judgmental (ex. Illinois once got an electric vehicle and Iowa had the most passive aggressive comments about it for a month afterward)
He once got clowned on by Florida for calling Mason City a “big” city
Iowa can never make up his mind whether he likes being ignored by the rest of the country or if he wants other states to pay attention to him (his position switches daily around the Iowa Caucuses)
He is a hobbyist balloonist and goes to see the hot air balloons every year in Indianola
One year he trapped Ohio and Michigan in a hot air balloon because they accidentally tipped over his truck during a “The Game” fight the year before
Iowa is banned from stepping foot in Denmark due to a custody dispute over a windmill
The people have spoken. Also it's literally just a website where you larp as AI. Or ask questions for other people to pretend their AI. Its so fun. I love my handmade texcal drawing.
California is on the website pretending to be AI as a joke and Texas is there thinking it’s an actual AI website. They randomly get put together and California slowly realizes who it is as Texas keeps getting more specific. The entire conversation is either A) Texas asking the most ridiculous questions like can I shoot my neighbor for being Oklahoman or B) Texas uses it as free therapy without risking his pride by talking to a real breathing person about his issues. Either way, California will never look at him the same way again.
While I’m waiting for AO3 to go back online so I can actually try to update my fics, let’s do a thought experiment: How do DNA tests work with the states?
I see two possible scenarios.
The ancestry percentage just matches their overall population ancestry percentage. For example, 32.1% of people living in Minnesota claim to have Scandinavian ancestry, so in this scenario Minnesota’s results would pop up with him having around that percentage of his DNA traced to that region. Thus, DNA results would also roughly match their physical appearance.
The DNA percentages are constantly changing. Since the states aren’t really normal humans my other idea is that there would be a random distribution of ancestry that changes with every test. For example, one test might show like 0.05% Indian, but then the next time that state takes the same test it will have jumped up to 78% out of nowhere. Because of this, their DNA can often completely contradict their physical appearance. Bonus points if it even carries over to non-human DNA within the state like Arizona gets 63.2% cactus and Louisiana gets 41% alligator. This option is much less grounded in reality (as much as this fandom can be anyway), but I think it is the funnier option.
Wait, I’ve come up with a terrible addition to the first idea: States can even see transplant percentages (yes, I know that doesn’t make sense DNA-wise) so Florida’s entire pie chart is just “Other” while Texas got 2% Californian or something.
While I’m waiting for AO3 to go back online so I can actually try to update my fics, let’s do a thought experiment: How do DNA tests work with the states?
I see two possible scenarios.
The ancestry percentage just matches their overall population ancestry percentage. For example, 32.1% of people living in Minnesota claim to have Scandinavian ancestry, so in this scenario Minnesota’s results would pop up with him having around that percentage of his DNA traced to that region. Thus, DNA results would also roughly match their physical appearance.
The DNA percentages are constantly changing. Since the states aren’t really normal humans my other idea is that there would be a random distribution of ancestry that changes with every test. For example, one test might show like 0.05% Indian, but then the next time that state takes the same test it will have jumped up to 78% out of nowhere. Because of this, their DNA can often completely contradict their physical appearance. Bonus points if it even carries over to non-human DNA within the state like Arizona gets 63.2% cactus and Louisiana gets 41% alligator. This option is much less grounded in reality (as much as this fandom can be anyway), but I think it is the funnier option.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The official glances back toward the score board. “You’re free to stick around and watch it, but just make sure your partner is here the next time you try to do Team Roping.”
He went to bring the walkie talkie up to his face, but they were both suddenly surprised by a familiar Southern drawl.
California and New York are business partners—with some preexisting awkward romantic tension—flying from Los Angeles to New York City (or vice versa) for a work trip, but their plane has to make an emergency landing at a small airport with only one runway in the middle of nowhere Texas. They’re stuck there for the next week because a big snow storm is going through town that is making the runway impossible to fly out of.
Meanwhile, Texas, a local rancher, is losing his mind because he has never seen this much snow in his entire life. He’s driving home when he almost skids right into the Uber that California and New York are taking to the bed and breakfast they’re planning on spending the night at. California—unable to help himself—gets out and begins sassing him about how Texas doesn’t know how to drive in the snow (California is barely any better). They both finish arguing and eventually get back into their respective cars before slowly realizing that they all seem to be driving to the same place. Turns out, the bed and breakfast New York and California are going to is on the edge of Texas’s property and run by his brother Austin.
Over the course of the week, all three of them are subjected to classic Hallmark tropes and slowly fall for each other with some exceptions. For one, New York and California, who are Jewish and a traumatized ex-Catholic respectively, are not as easily endeared by Texas’s Christmasisms. Second, Texas doesn’t know how to function in winter weather, so he needs to keep getting help from New York, and to an extent California.
And that’s the basis for what is probably the most random AU I’ve ever come up with
The Western Family Regional Christmas Holiday Party
The entire West were gathered around the Christmas tree in Western living room. Ornaments from each state hung from the branches that could have only been bought from the weirdest tourist attraction Utah could find. Idaho in particular was staring at it, trying to figure out how a gaudy Texas ornament had gotten on the tree. He went to take it off and just came face-to-face with an even gaudier ornament from Oklahoma. Putting the first ornament back, Idaho retreated back to his spot on the bean bag next to Oregon.
Across the room, Utah arrived with a stack of wrapped presents that were each the shape of almost flat squares. Colorado came behind him with a second stack. The former cheerfully yelled over them all, “Who is ready for the regional gift?”
The two states passed them around to everyone besides Hawaii on Alaska’s phone who had gotten hers through the mail just the day before. Snickering, she shook the wrapped board next to her ear. “Wonder what’s inside, brah.”
“Yeah, I wonder.” Alaska deadpanned back to her.
“It’s not like we picked it out ourselves or anything,” Washington tacked on from his spot on the other bean bag.
“Okay, now open!” Utah clapped his hands, smiling. Everyone unwrapped the gifts with various levels of excitement to find a custom calendar. The cover of each had a picture of the respective state’s favorite national park and each month was a different western state’s favorite national park with a hand written note from that state. Utah flipped through the months until he got to July. He was met with a red picturesque landscape from the Valley of Fire and a not-so-picturesque drawing in silver sharpe from Nevada. Utah balked at the crude doodle. “Nevada! Did you draw this on everyone’s calendar?!”
Said state winked at him from the chair hammock, unashamed. “Of course I did.”
Hawaii squinted at them through the phone screen while Alaska showed her what was on everyone else’s calendar. “Ah, I got something a little different.”
“Me too.” California glared down at his calendar. “Nevada just wrote ‘get out’. Actually, that’s what everyone wrote besides Colorado. I can’t read what he wrote.”
Colorado leaned over to read it since he completely forgot what he wrote too. “Oh! I also said ‘get out’.”
“Why’d you write ‘RIP’ on my calendar?” Arizona called over to Oregon.
“Because my month was June for you.” Oregon leaned back with a shrug. “I thought I would just give my condolences in advance.”
Sensing that the room was getting away from him, Utah tried to get everyone’s attention again. “Uh, what if we just switched to Secret Santa?”
“Secret Snowflake,” California corrected him.
“Oh who cares?” Arizona groaned. “We already took the star off the top of the tree for you and replaced it with West Virginia’s creepy stuffed rat.”
“Don’t insult Mothman!” West Virginia’s voice came from down the hall, making half the region jump.
Alaska just looked at Utah for a solid thirty second before getting up with a grunt. He carefully stepped across multiple states before handing a gift bag to Washington. He just nodded to the smaller state before wandering back to his seat.
“Wait, how is this secret if we know who the gifts are from?” California piped up.
“Shut up, California!” Everyone else yelled back.
“It was an honest question!” He complained, slouching against the wall.
Ignoring him, Washington opened the bag and pulled out an unmarked bag full of coffee beans. “Oh, thanks. I was just about to get more of these from the store.”
“Yeah. I heard you complaining.” Alaska shoved his hands in his shorts pockets.
“Alright, I guess it’s my turn now.” Arizona stretched his arms and then pulled out a present from behind his chair. “Heads up Montana!”
Montana was barely able to catch the package before it crashed into his chest. Rolling his eyes, he quickly began unwrapping the box and pulled out a wooden sign with flowers on it for everyone to see. “It says ‘Live, Laugh, Leave me alone’.”
“It’s for your door!” Arizona grinned.
“It still wouldn’t stop you,” He muttered under his breath.
Next, California awkwardly wandered over to where Wyoming was leaning against the opposite wall. He practically shoved the present into his chest. “Uh, here. I wasn’t really sure what to get you so I just?”
Wyoming hesitantly unwrapped the ribbon securing the box and lifted off the lid like it was a bomb about to blow. Nothing happened, of course. Instead, he just pulled out what looked like a simple wooden board. “Oh.”
“It’s a boot jack,” California rushed to explain. “You’re supposed to use it to help take off your boots without having to—”
“I know what a boot jack is,” He interrupted him. “And thanks.”
“And then it’s Colorado’s turn.” Utah looked at him over his shoulder. “You had California, right?”
“Uhhh… I did?” Colorado squinted, rubbing at the back of his neck. “But Oregon paid me to switch with him.”
“Oh please no.” California ducked his face into his hands.
“Well, then who do you have now?”
Colorado looked down at the present and read the name. “Utah? I think it’s for you.”
“Oh, thanks!” Utah took the box from him and happily unwrapped it. Flipping open the cardboard flaps to see a helmet, rope, and a bunch of clips and other tools. “What’s this for?”
“It’s for us to go mountain climbing sometime.” Colorado giggled to himself. “You’ll need more stuff, but I have it at my place.”
While he wasn’t usually the daredevil type, some quality time sounded nice. Utah pulled Colorado into a hug, squeezing another giggle out of him. “Thanks so much!”
Utah didn’t even notice Hawaii motioning for Alaska to do something. The biggest state pulled out a shipping box and passed it to Nevada. He put a hand to his chest. “Aw, for me?”
His nails went to try and rip the packing tape, but they weren’t sharp enough to get the job done. Nevada scanned around the room. “Who has the scissors?”
All of the states patted down the area, but nothing came up. Eventually, New Mexico took pity on them and handed Nevada his utility knife. “Just use this.”
Nevada blew him a kiss and flipped open the blade to cut through the tape. With that out of the way, Nevada flicked out a couple of packing peanuts with his nail and retrieved a set of earrings. He held them up to the light, the dangling pieces of silver shining. It looked like a miniature animal skeleton with the bones attached through clear wire. Nevada’s eyes widened. “Are these?”
“Ichthyosaurs? Mhm.” Hawaii nodded with a grin. “Had to do some research, so better appreciate them.”
“I love them.” Nevada put his hand over his heart, honest.
While Nevada put his earrings in and admired the way they jingled in his ear, Idaho passed a bag to Colorado across the coffee table. “You don’t need to show everyone.”
“What is it? I—” Colorado froze, looking into the bag. He then met Idaho’s gaze, wide-eyed. “Where’d you get this? You don’t seem like you would…you know.”
“I can’t say.” Idaho hunched in on himself, giving Oregon a mean look as he laughed at him. “Montana, it’s your turn now!”
“I had Hawaii so she should have already gotten hers.” Montana nodded to Alaska’s phone screen.
“Oh, yes! My turn!” Hawaii grabbed a nondescript box from offscreen and briefly disappeared only to return with a pair of scissors. She cut through the tape and opened her box only to laugh. Hawaii pulled out multiple sets of eyeshadow. “Ha! How’d you know?”
“I asked Alaska and he said your niece used up all of your eyeshadow.” Montana shrugged.
She continued snickering to herself. “She wanted to experiment, yeah. Thanks, Santa!”
Montana nodded with a smile.
“Guess it’s me now…” New Mexico stood up and went to give Idaho his gift. “Feliz Navidad, Idaho.”
Idaho nodded his thanks and opened the small gift bag. He then pulled a small yellow-green rock that had been yet to be smoothed out. It was still oddly-shaped with cracks reaching toward the center and dirt clinging to the uneven outer ridges of the rock. “What’s this?”
“Olivine—for your collection.” New Mexico nodded to Idaho’s room. “Straight from Four Corners.”
“Hang on, let me go put this with the others.” Idaho jumped up from his bean bag, causing Oregon to fall inward as he scampered off to his room.
Oregon huffed out a breath, disturbing his hair. “While he’s off doing that, I guess I should get my gift out. California?”
“Oh no.” Said state closed his eyes and blindly accepted the small wrapped object from Oregon. “Do I have to open this?”
“Órale, just open it already!” New Mexico groaned.
“Yeah, just open it Cali.” Oregon crossed his arms, leaning against Washington’s should with a matching grin.
Reluctantly, California pulled back the wrapping to reveal a paper back book. It seemed innocent enough, but California’s face darkened in horror. “[Technical Glitch] you!”
Oregon shrieked as California chucked the book at him. Utah balked at the scene. “California! You can’t just throw things because you didn’t like your gift!”
“You CANNOT make me keep that!” California shouted, pointing an angry finger at a still laughing Oregon.
“I’m sure it can’t be that ba—” Utah kneeled down to pick up the book and glanced over the cover. It was a picture of a shirtless man wearing a cowboy hat and swinging around a lasso with the title ‘Her Texas Destiny’ written at the bottom. Utah instantly dropped the book like it burned him. “Ew.”
“See!” California pointed to him now.
“Okay, who’s next?” Utah looked around desperately. “Let’s just move on, please.”
“That’s you.” Arizona nudged his knee.
“Already?” Utah reached underneath the couch for his present and passed it down to Arizona on the floor.
Arizona shook the box and then stopped. “It’s not fragile, right?”
“It’s not.”
“Good.” Arizona mimed wiping some sweat off his face and removed the lid. Inside were different glass bottles of salsa, each individually wrapped with newspaper so they wouldn’t break. “Awesome! I’ll have to cook with these sometime. Thanks, Utah!”
Just then, Idaho wandered back into the room. He sat down on the bean bag with Oregon, forcing the other state to adjust again. “What’d I miss?”
“California assaulted me with his present.” Oregon whispered back, getting a shocked look out of the other.
While everyone else talked, Wyoming got up and silently handed Alaska his gift before going back to his spot on the side of the room. With nobody bothering him, Alaska opened his gift and pulled out a set of flip flops. He chuckled to himself and put them away before anyone could bother him about his gift.
“Wyoming! Your turn,” Utah called.
“Already went,” He shook his head.
“What? When?” Utah glanced around and noticed the present that had appeared by Alaska’s feet. “Uhm, Washington?”
“I had New Mexico.” Washington passed him the gift he got. “It isn’t wrapped because of the environment and all that.”
“You were just lazy.” Oregon flicked him on the arm, which earned him a light shove.
New Mexico grabbed his gift and just stared down at it. “These are name tags?”
“So Gov can remember who you are.” Washington smiled at him.
He rolled his eyes. “You must think you’re so funny.”
“Of course I do.” Washington crossed his arms and leaned back, face smug.
Sensing another round of bickering—or worse, fighting—Utah grabbed everyone’s attention. “Well, I think that’s everyone! Merry Christmas and happy—”
“Uh, [Technical Glitch] you? You just skipped over me?” Nevada glared at him. “How? I’m literally the most interesting person here.”
Utah froze. “Nevada! I’m so sorry! You can go.”
“Thanks.” He rolled his eyes before carefully sliding his present to Oregon. “Be gentle or you’ll ruin it. Don’t even tip it over.”
Confused, Oregon ripped off the wrapping paper to see a donut box with ‘Master Donuts’ written across the top. “It’s just donuts?”
“And I had to get up early for just donuts, so you better enjoy them.” Nevada rolled his eyes as Oregon opened the box. “Besides, there’s croissants and cinnamon rolls in there too.”
Oregon took out a blueberry croissant, taking an experimental bite out of it. “Thanks, Nevada.”
“If that’s everything, then I’m gonna leave.” Arizona jumped up from the floor and stretched out his cramped legs. Murmurs of agreement sounded out across the room as others got up to leave.
“WAIT!” Utah shouted. “We’re not done yet!”
“What could we possibly have left to do?” Washington sank back down with a tired sigh.
“We still need to watch the Charlie Brown special!”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Welcome To The Table - Ben Brainard (Web Series)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: California & Massachusetts (Welcome To The Table), Massachusetts/Virginia (Welcome To The Table)
Characters: California (Welcome To The Table), Massachusetts (Welcome To The Table), Southern States (Welcome To The Table), Virginia (Welcome To The Table)
Additional Tags: Sweet Tea, Summerville (SC), Mass swears every other sentence, Humor, Crack Treated Seriously, No beta we die like the tea that mass threw in the harbor, Weirdly philosophical at the end
Summary:
California doesn’t understand why the entire South loves sweet tea so much and gets questionable help in understanding from Massachusetts.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Welcome To The Table - Ben Brainard (Web Series)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: California & Massachusetts (Welcome To The Table), Massachusetts/Virginia (Welcome To The Table)
Characters: California (Welcome To The Table), Massachusetts (Welcome To The Table), Southern States (Welcome To The Table), Virginia (Welcome To The Table)
Additional Tags: Sweet Tea, Summerville (SC), Mass swears every other sentence, Humor, Crack Treated Seriously, No beta we die like the tea that mass threw in the harbor, Weirdly philosophical at the end
Summary:
California doesn’t understand why the entire South loves sweet tea so much and gets questionable help in understanding from Massachusetts.
The only time I remember Texas popping up in the CH fandom was when he was being shipped with the city of Moscow (Russia, not Idaho) and California was just there to be on fire but it’s been a while so idk
Art of @indigosoddsandends Teacher AU because it has absolutely wormed its way into my mind. This specific excerpt especially has had me blowing a gasket over them:
"California even shows up to some of the last home football games of the year (albeit in “disguise” since he’s technically still banned) with a coupon to the local ice cream place in his pocket just in case the team loses and Texas needs a good cry (he gets very competitive)."
I can guarantee that this disguise did not work. Either the student volunteer in charge of tickets didn’t care or California bribed them with gummy bears.
Also—Are those tears on Texas’s face? Poor guy! I wasn’t prepared to see a sad Texas today D: (never mind that I wrote the idea). At least it looks like California’s ridiculous disguise is cheering him up!
Teacher AU: I think you said something about California helping Texas get a Civil Engineering degree, which has made this plot bunny in my head.
Cal helps Texas right up until Texas' final exams, they are friendly, they fight and argue but in that way friends do. But as soon as the final exam is finished California goes cold on Texas, doesn't talk, even to fight, no more arguing, completely ignores Texas.
Texas has no idea what's going on but when the results come out he has to tell California he passed to which California mutters "good riddance"
This get Texas mad and after some pushing and shoving, California collapses on Texas's shoulder to cry that now Texas has his degree he'll be leaving just like everyone else in California's life.
Let me just………steal this
Texas would start late at the community college and begin during spring semester. That means he would get done with his Associate’s Degree around the fall semester of the third year in this AU. After that, Texas’s plan for the next two years is to go back to school full time at a state college an hour away to get his Bachelor’s Degree.
It finally sets in to California about a month from the end of the semester that this whole thing they have is ending soon. He’s most likely never going to see Texas again because he’s leaving the school district for good after this year. For the rest of their tutoring sessions, there’s just this voice in his head going, “Don’t get used to this it won’t last you can’t have this you can’t keep him”. Texas would notice him acting off, but he’d just assume California was having a normal type of bad day and that would be that.
Even other teachers at the school start noticing that something is wrong after the tutoring stops. At first, Gov is happy that there aren’t any more complaints about the two of them “fighting”, but then new complaints come in about Texas being spacey in class or California grading assignments late. Oklahoma is upset because Texas is ignoring him when he insults him during practice while New York goes so far as to bring food from home for them. Gov stops Austin in the hall one day and tries asking him what’s up with his brother, but he genuinely doesn’t know.
After the big confrontation, Texas is definitely still confused. He just assumed they would keep contact either through social media or plan some time to meet up on the weekends/after school. In a way he’s also a bit hurt that California thought Texas was the kind of person to just ditch him like that. Though he’s way more concerned at the moment with California crying on him and rushes to reassure him despite his own feelings.
Still cooling down from the argument, they make a tentative plan to drive over to each other at least once a week as soon as college starts. They’re both still feel extremely raw from the fight, but now they at least have something to look forward to instead of dread. Meanwhile, Florida (who was 100% eavesdropping on the whole thing) runs off to tell everyone everything he just heard.
So in a nutshell, the plot bunny is canon (fanon?) now. Thank you for your sacrifice to the AU :)
Absolutely adore your teacher AU :D. You mentioned Miami being Florida's little brother, is Austin a similar situation with Texas? Also, how do you feel about art of your AU?
Thanks so much! It’s similar in the fact that Austin is Texas’s younger brother, but he isn’t responsible for him like Florida is for Miami. Texas was an only child until Austin was born during his Freshman year of high school. However, their mother had some health conditions at the time and died when Austin was born. That left their father to raise them, who is very emotionally distant (if you thought I was going to make an AU where Texas didn’t have daddy issues then you thought wrong). While Texas was determined to make his father acknowledge him by trying to emulate him, Austin grew up to be a social butterfly to make up for the lack of interaction at home.
By the time this AU starts, Austin is entering his first year of high school and Texas is really encouraging him to join the football team. Austin IS involved with sports like soccer and basketball, but he isn’t interested in football for some reason. He also gets involved in a lot of non-sport extracurriculars like choir and (to Texas’s horror) DnD club.
Now on the topic of art for this AU, I’m totally okay with anything! I would just like to be able to see it :)
