#I know I've been a lot less active in comparison to earlier this year with posting original fan content

[perpetualexistence]

Bad news: I don't think I'm going to be able to write for ever day of TD horror week as I'd originally imagined.

Good news: The days I am going to be part of will be Cooking. I shan't spoil too much about it but one day already has 2.5K words and is only like a fourth of the way done.

[analyzen]

Italian Fandom Meta | Most Popular Types of Pairings on EFP vs. AO3

EFP (2001–, Fanlore) is the most popular writing archive in Italy, and it hosts both fanfic and original fiction. Under the cut you’ll find a breakdown of the most popular types of pairings on EFP in comparison to the most popular types of pairings in the Italian section of AO3.

The Italian version of this analysis can be found here.

TL;DR:

53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted

49% of the registered users on EFP have deleted their accounts

M/F works amount to 60% of the whole website

EFP’s three most popular fandoms (Harry Potter, One Direction, Original Fiction – Romantic) all have a majority of M/F works

On AO3, most Italian works are M/M (56%)

F/F doesn’t have much content on either site (4-5%)

Methodology

I’ve followed @olderthannetfic’s methodology from this earlier Fanfiction.net analysis. Basically, I picked a sample size of 666 chapters and organized them in four categories (M/M, M/F, F/F, Not tagged; more on this later).

Why I chose chapters instead of stories

On EFP you don’t have specific links for every single story. Instead, every chapter you post gets a unique id, which can be seen in the link itself. For example, at the time of writing this the last updated chapter on EFP was this one:

viewstory.php?sid=3974099

Which means that this was the 3'974'009th chapter ever posted on EFP.

Ids follow the usual numerical order, so if a link reads id=3, then there have to be id=1 and id=2, and the next link will have id=4.

So I’ve used a randomizer to select ~1200 unique ids to analyse.

Weren’t 666 chapters enough?

I started out with 700 chapters, but half of them weren’t working. That’s because 53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted from the website.

Thanks to the link of the last updated chapter, we know that almost 4 millions chapters have been posted on the EFP. But EFP's homepage shows different stats:

Registered users: 602395, 205974 of which are authors Last registered user: [blacked out] Total of stories: 517083 Total of chapters: 1869573 chapters Total of reviews: 6222695 Online users: 17 logged in and 53 visitors

While we should have almost 4 million chapters, the stats show ~2 million chapters. Why? Because the stats only show the stories, chapters and users that are still on the website, and they don’t show the stories, chapters and users that have been deleted.

(Sorry, I forgot to translate this one. It reads: Total of chapters posted on EFP between 2001 and today. Orange: deleted chapters. Blue: chapters that are still online.)

Thanks to the stats on the homepage we also have a link to the last registered user. User ids follow the same numerical order as chapter ids, so once again we know that 49% of the users ever registered on EFP have deleted their accounts. That's a lot of deleted accounts.

Categorization

After selecting 666 (accessible) chapters, I organized them into 4 categories:

M/M: contains all stories tagged as “yaoi”, shounen ai” and “slash”

M/F: contains all stories tagged as “het”

F/F: contains all stories tagged as “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash”

Not tagged: which contains a) poetry, b) stories tagged as “no pairing”, and c) untagged het stories.

As for the untagged het stories, there are two issues:

Many M/F fics simply aren’t tagged

Many gen fics include untagged M/F ships

If the description made it clear that the story included a heterosexual relationship, I added the story under the M/F tag. Otherwise I left it under not tagged.

Also, on EFP “yaoi”, “shounen ai” and “slash”, and “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash” actually mean different things.

This screenshot here is from the posting page on EFP. It reads:

Pairings * You must select at least one tag from the list, and you can choose up to three tags. Het: for heterosexual relationships Shonen-ai: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Shojo-ai: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Yaoi: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Yuri: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Slash: for male/male relationships from TV shows/movies/books FemSlash: for female/female relationships from TV shows/movies/books

The thing is. People either respect the rules and use different tags for different kinds of stories, or they use these tags interchangeably to maximise the chance to appear in other users' searches. Which means that you’ll find RPF tagged with “shoujo ai”, and Attack on Titan fics tagged as “slash”. (More info on this later.)

Findings

On EFP, the majority of the stories are M/F.

To confirm this, I checked some specific fandoms:

Some notes:

Because EFP doesn't have metatags like AO3, what I did was: 1) go to a specific fandom, 2) filter through every single tag, and 3) jot down the number of pages per search. Every page contains up to 15 stories, so for example searching for het in Original Fiction – Romantic gives you 846 pages, which amounts to around ~12690 stories.

The tag in red, “Nessuna”, means “no pairing”. It is used for gen fics but also for untagged M/F fics. This is especially true in some fandoms, ie. Original Fiction – Romantic, and Harry Potter.

EFP’s filtering system sucks. You can only filter through stories with specific relationship tags, but you can’t filter out relationships tag. So what you see in the graph is how often a tag is used... which brings us to some issues. For example, Harry Potter is the biggest fandom on EFP, so much that Harry Potter stories amount to 11% (!) of the whole website. But in the graph it looks like the One Direction fandom has more stories—wrong. Actually, One Direction has many stories tagged as both slash and het, while Harry Potter stories tend to be either one or the other.

EFP’s filtering system sucks, part 2. Because “shounen ai”, “yaoi” and “slash” are often used at the same time, you can't really smash together all three of the tags to get a total amount of stories. I'd say that around 50% of the stories tagged as shounen ai and yaoi probably overlap, but there is no easy way to find out because, again, EFP’s filtering system sucks. The same goes for “shoujo ai”, “yuri” and “femslash”.

Fandoms with a majority of M/M stories

While there are some fandoms with more M/M stories (ie. Death Note, Hetalia, Glee, Sherlock, Supernatural, Teen Wolf), these fandoms are simply extremely small in comparison to other bigger fandoms full of M/F fics. Which obviously skews the numbers in favor of M/F fics.

What about femslash?

EFP suffers from the same lack of femslash as AO3 as a whole. In the fandoms I've analysed, only two have a big enough number of F/F. The fandoms are Glee (which has more F/F stories than M/F stories) and Grey's Anatomy (which has as much F/F as M/F stories, with little M/M).

Original Fiction

I thought it might be interesting to explore the original sections too, especially because Original Fiction – Romantic is the third biggest fandom on EFP after Harry Potter and One Direction. These Big 3 all have a disproportionate amount of M/F stories.

By logic, this would mean the the majority of the userbase on EFP prefers M/F stories. But then, aren't fans always complaining about “too much slash”? If “Any Two Guys” were enough to find slash appealing, wouldn't it be easier to simply write original M/M?

I think that looking at original stories might help us understand why people might prefer slash over het in some fandoms. For example, the amount of M/F stories in Original Fiction – Romantic implies that, when authors have to chance to choose what types of stories to create from scratch, they might prefer M/F stories.

This would support the theory that many people might prefer slash because of the lack of (well written/primary) canonical female characters + how well M/M relationships, both platonic and romantic, are written in canon texts in comparison to M/F or F/F relationships.

Obviously, we have to keep in mind that not all fanfic writers write original fiction and viceversa, so I'm not trying to find a universal explanation here. Also because not every website has a majority of M/F stories.

Which brings us to...

AO3 vs. EFP

As per today 20/04/21, the Italian section of AO3 contains “only” 24777 stories, divided between many different fandoms. To make a comparison, the Italian stories on AO3 amount to 5% of all the stories available on EFP. To make another comparison, the whole Naruto fandom on EFP has 20129 stories in total.

EFP has also been active for 20 years, while the boom of Italian fics on AO3 only started around 2018. We can't really make a 1:1 comparison between the two archives, but we can still try to understand the preferences of their users.

M/M and M/F stories on EFP vs. AO3

EFP: 60% M/F, 25% M/M

AO3: 56% M/M, 23% M/F

The percentages are almost swapped.

This might be because of the archives themselves. EFP has always been the general website for any Italian fandom (and actually at first it mostly hosted M/F content), while AO3 has always had a big M/M userbase. I'm basing this statement on this AO3 analysis from 2013, in comparison to this FFN analysis from 2018 which showed a majority of M/F fanworks, and finally this AO3 vs. FFN vs. Wattpad analysis from 2019, which showed that AO3 has always been the outlier for its majority of M/M content.

Then again, M/M stories on EFP have always been subject to the “usual” type of borderline-to-direct harassment that M/M fans are used to, which is something that still happens to this day especially in certain writing groups on Facebook, where the Italian writing community is pretty active. It wouldn't be weird for slashers to move to AO3, where they know they'll find more like-minded people and less headaches. (Also, the Italian section of AO3 has a lot of M/M RPF that's banned on EFP.)

The “Multi” tag on EFP

The only thing that barely resembles a multi tag on EFP is threesome, which for some reason is often used as a synonym for love triangle. So from the tags it isn't easy to understand if a fic includes an actual threesome (as in, a sex scene), a polyamorous relationship, or a simple love triangle.

This doesn't mean that there aren't poly stories on EFP—it simply means that they're impossible to find using the search system.

And that's all, I think!

[ckret2]

So I've been deeply pulled into the Radiosnake pairing bc of your fantastic writing! Problem is, now I have fic ideas but no knowledge of the Hazbin background. Can you tellI me where I can get more Hazbin info? I've only watched the pilot and read your stuff. I heard there were comics??

That is an excellent question anon, because right now it is really hard to get Hazbin background easily.

Okay, so, the canon info on Hazbin Hotel can be sort of sorted into four tiers, from most to least canon.

Tier 1: The Definitely Canon

There is, of course, the pilot. And then there is an Angel Dust prequel comic, only seven pages of which have been released so far. We’ve been told it’s gonna be finished and we’ve had glimpses of in-progress prequel comics for a couple other characters—most prominently Alastor’s and Charlie’s—but so far that unfinished Angel Dust comic is the only one that’s been officially released.

Finding the in-progress comic pages is... a challenge. Nobody, as far as I can tell, has been specifically collecting all of the pages we’ve seen so far. I was able to scrounge up:

Couple more Angel pages

some Alastor pages

another Alastor page

a random Alastor panel

another random Alastor panel—I’ve seen the full page of this before, Alastor goes “Hello ladies!” and they go “HELLO ALASTOR~<3″ but I can’t find the full page now

There’s a smattering more canon panels on the artist faustisse’s twitter, but I haven’t dug them all out, and some of the posts I’m gonna link in a lil bit have a glimpse of another panel.

If you haven’t already heard of Helluva Boss, I recommend looking into it as well. It’s a second series being created by the same folks, different cast of characters but set in the same version of Hell, so any canon details we learn in Helluva also apply to Hazbin.

Helluva’s pilot is here. Plus a cute music video here.

Earlier this month, during a BLM charity stream hosted by show artist Ashley Nichols—she runs regular streams under the title “HuniCast”—they released a few sneak peaks of future Helluva scenes, all compiled here.

And that’s it for canon. Two pilots, a music video, a smattering of future scenes, part of one comic, a few WIP pages/panels from other comics.

Tier 2: Pseudo-Canon

Everything else we currently know about Hazbin (and Helluva) are things that the creators have told us. Consequently, they’re all pseudo-canon—and likely subject to change in the future as the shows and comics are further developed and released. Some details that were released/described in the past have been contradicted at other times, or else radically changed by the time the pilot came out.

(For example, when Alastor was first created years and years ago as an OC with no plans for Hazbin, he was a demon deer who could shapeshift into a human shape—now he’s a demonized human with a few deer traits. And Charlie and Cherri Bomb used to look very different.)

So until and unless they make it into canon, all these pseudo-canon details are subject to change and should be taken with a grain of salt—but, they also comprise most of what we know about the characters’ backstory and the as-yet-unaired characters.

Pseudo-canon info on Hazbin is scattered mainly between two sources: the creators’ twitter accounts, and livestreams where they take questions and talk about the making of the show. If you and livestreams do not get along (my ADHD and livestreams do not get along), or if you don’t want to wade years and years back into twitter accounts to dig up every scrap of info on the characters the creators have ever mentioned, collating all the pseudo-canon info is gonna be hard. (It’s gonna be hard even if you do want to sit through the streams and dig through all their tweets.) Lots of fans, me included, depend on the absolutely heroic work of various fans who are willing and able to watch hours-long streams and collate a list of canon factoids released during the streams. I’ve reblogged as many of these posts as I’ve been able to find:

Alastor’s sound design (on twitter)

Alastor's Sound Design (post I made with screenshots of weird—but very interesting—subtitles slipped into the aforementioned video)

Sir Pentious and Cherri Bomb’s sound design

Niffty and Husk’s sound design

Charlie, Katie, and Tom’s sound design

Intro song’s sound design

Happy Hotel’s sound design

details from Faustisse (including a pic of a couple costume designs. Most of these posts come from zatyrlucy, who’s been doing a fantastic job of going stream-by-stream to get lists of details from the regular streams by Ashley Nichols and by comic artist Faustisse.)

more details from Faustisse (including a pic of the Von Eldritch family dining room)

Faustisse 3 (better look at that table)

Dollymoon’s Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART ONE (Shoutout again to dollymoon for compiling these, we’ve never spoken but I am eternally grateful for this service. Dollymoon’s posts are THE single most reliable compilation of Hazbin Hotel’s nebulous pseudo-canon facts that I have found to date, including both links to the sources and timestamps where applicable. Dollymoon’s URL has changed since making this post so the “read more” link doesn’t work but the “source” or “reblogged from” links direct correctly to the new blog. Incidentally, the risk of other blog creators deleting their blogs/posts or changing their URLs is why in info posts like these, I always link to my own reblogs rather than their original posts—their original posts might vanish without warning, but I know I ain’t gonna delete my posts, so these links will still work in the future.)

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART TWO

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART THREE

Faustisse 4

HuniCast - Australian Wildlife Relief charity stream

I think this was a faustisse stream (the original source deleted these posts, so the comic pages that were originally behind that read more cut are now gone.)

Faustisse stream 6?

And those are all the masterposts of factoids I’ve managed to collect. If anyone has more masterposts, chuck ‘em at me.

Even this isn’t all the knowledge that’s been released about the show. The posts that dig the farthest back are Dollymoon’s, and even they don’t comprehensively cover all of Hazbin’s production. A couple of these characters, Vivziepop created as a teenager, so there’s some truly ancient concept art floating around out there that will have details that probably aren’t canon anymore... but might still be until something happens to actively contradict them.

Tier 3: The Wiki

The wiki is kind of an absolute mess. It’s a chaotic blend of things actually seen in the pilots/comic, things mentioned at some point in some stream somewhere, and wild fan speculation based on what they headcanon as plausible based on the above, all mixed together with very little indication for which is canon, pseudo-canon, fanon, or speculation. Most of the statements on the wiki don’t have citations.

(And, on top of that, half the main characters’ info gets split up into separate tabs instead of just having a normal-ass wiki page, AND their image galleries are on COMPLETELY SEPARATE pages that are linked to in one of the tabs, and the most important characters all have TWO SEPARATE GALLERIES. Which doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the facts hidden underneath those tabs, but nevertheless drives me up the wall.)

Some things on the wiki were added according to info released so long ago it’s probably changed by now. Some are possibilities that got reported as facts. Other things on the wiki have unambiguously changed, or else are just flat-out incorrect. (For instance, at this moment Alastor’s page still lists him as an overlord, even though it's been confirmed that Alastor is not an overlord despite his power level because he isn’t interested in and didn’t pursue that position, per this stream. For a little bit, somebody’s fanart of their headcanon human Alastor got added to the wiki as concept art.)

tl;dr: the wiki should never be trusted as a primary source. The wiki’s better than it used to be. Even so, at this time, it’s only trustworthy to fill in the gaps of what you already know is true from other, better sources.

The thing it’s good at is it more or less compiles all the known info all in one place. Trying to figure out who the hell this Vox guy is is really hard if you’re reading for mentions of him in compilations of a dozen different streams, much less if you’re trying to comb through those dozen streams yourself, plus a dozen more, plus three different artists’ twitters. In comparison, it’s really easy to, say, just go look at Vox’s wiki page, where all the trivia is compiled. (And Vox’s page is actually one of the better cited on the wiki. Look at all those numbers!)

So, if you need to find out who this character is you’ve never heard of before, if you want to see a full list of the thus far named characters, if you don’t remember whether Alastor likes coffee or tea, if you want to know what Angel’s twin sister looks like, if you need a reminder of Sir Pentious’s death year... check the wiki. It’s an okay starting point.

But, if you see a “fact” on the wiki that you yourself don’t remember from straight out of the pilot, and it doesn’t have a citation that links to a tweet or a stream... regard it suspiciously. And do not trust it unquestioningly as fact until and unless you have seen the source.

Tier 4: Noncanon Creator Shitposting

I’ve mentioned Ashley’s HuniCast streams a couple times. The biggest draw of them is that she usually gets several of the voice actors in the streams, where they’ll happily say nonsense in their character voices. For the most part, they’re not sharing any actual canon info they’ve been given on their characters, just goofing around pretending to be their characters. Nevertheless, a lot of the things that happen in streams get accepted as broad fandom headcanons, like Alastor being into dad jokes. (My favorite, for obvious reasons, is this one.)

It’s easy to find the source audio for all this wonderful nonsense by searching youtube for “HuniCast highlights,” and then rummaging around for animatics people make out of the audio. The only one noncanon video of this sort I can think of that didn’t originally come from HuniCast is a lone one from Alastor’s singing voice (who’s a different voice actor than his speaking voice).

So, obviously, none of these are canon. But they do come from some of the people actually involved in the creation of the show, and they are in the characters’ canon voices, so a whole lot of people treat them as semi-canon anyway. (Even the wiki lists “dad jokes” among Alastor’s likes, which to my knowledge hasn’t come up anywhere except for HuniCast streams.) Since they’re so broadly-known, they’re worth knowing about as important sources of fanon, even if you don’t want to adopt them into your own headcanons. They’re basically the same level of canon as blooper reels.

[lizziestudieshistory]

Books of 2020 - January

I'm going to attempt monthly 'wrap ups' for my reading as I completely failed with the haphazard groupings last year. I had a successful reading month in January, although there wasn't a lot of variety in what I read... However, I am very happy with what I did read! I'm going to hold back from giving in depth, complete reviews as I've got a lot of books to talk about and I've been properly reviewing books on Goodreads throughout the month.

Warbreaker - Brandon Sanderson

This was my first book of 2020 and I really enjoyed it. I could tell Sanderson wrote it earlier in his career, but it was a lot of fun and held some interesting introductions to the Cosmere lore that I've heard a lot about but not read before (do we capitalise Cosmere or not? Help fandom!) It's not my favourite book from Sanderson, however, it was a great start to the year and I'm so happy I met some of Sanderson's iconic (and reoccurring) characters on their own world!

Fool's Errand - Robin Hobb (Tawny Man Trilogy #1; RotE #7)

This book broke me and I loved it. I'm not someone who regularly cries at books or gets overly emotional but I cried on and off for a while after reading a certain moment in this book (you'll know it if you've read it...) I adored returning to Fitz and the Fool, as well as some of the other Farseer characters. The pacing was slow but I love this about the Fitz novels and it really allowed me to get invested in their lives after reading the Liveship series. It was an outstanding instalment in the RotE series and my favourite book I've read from Hobb so far.

The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien

I have always loved the Silmarillion and I really enjoyed rereading the entire book. I've only read it cover to cover once before and it was such a pleasure to see the entire story of the Silmarils once again. I'd highly recommend to those who loved Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit who haven't read this one yet!

The Fall of Gondolin - JRR Tolkien (ed. Christopher Tolkien)

This was a new Middle Earth book for me and I'd only read the Silmarillion version of the tale before. This book tells and retells the Fall of Gondolin across several different versions of the story that Tolkien wrote throughout his life, and initially it was a fascinating read and I fell in love with this story all over again. However, the editing style was exhausting after a while and I was left fatigued by the end of the book (even when I split the stories up over a week or so...) It was amazing to see more of Tolkien's thoughts about what happened at Gondolin and catch a glimpse at what the finishes story would have been but the editing really made the whole book a struggle. I would have loved a novel along the lines of The Children on Hurin, but I am glad I finally read this one.

The Path of Daggers - Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time #8)

I can't say much here and keep it spoiler free. However, I will say I am still infuriated by the Aiel Wise Ones and their hypocrisy towsrds the Aes Sedai, so much so am being to actively hate the Wise Ones... Perrin and Faile are boring and I'm really feeling the slog with them (as I had been warned previously that I would...) I'm in love with Elayne and Nynaeve's plotline going towards Caemlyn and the Succession War - I thought I would because that's my favourite type of fantasy story! Also BIG development I could actually stand Egwene and I was interested in her as well as the White Tower conflict (I was very excited about this development! Hopefully I will start to get on a bit more with Egwene as we go forward.)

The Final Empire - Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn Era One #1)

This is a difficult one for me to review. Part of me enjoyed it, didn't adore it like I did with The Stormlight Archive, but I did appreciate The Final Empire for what it is - a heist novel mixed with a subverted chosen one story. My big issue with it was the sheer hype around Mistborn, it seems like EVERYONE has read this series and loved it, which made me expect a lot more from this novel than it's supposed to give. (My views are slowly changing as I read Well of Ascension but that's a different story...) I had expectations on a story of equivalent impact to The Way of Kings - which is really unfair to this book as that's not what Sanderson was going for in this first novel. I'm trying to separate my expectations from the actual book but that's proving very difficult...

Nevertheless I did enjoy it and would really recommend you read it if you haven't. I'd also recommend reading Mistborn before heading into Stormlight because everything I now read from Sanderson feels a little bit less spectacular because I have the constant comparison between Sanderson's magnum opus and his previous work.

Currently Reading...

The Golden Fool - Robin Hobb (Tawny Man #2; RotE #8)

At p.249. This was on a bit of a break whilst I waited for the audiobook to come back on Scribd.

Winter's Heart - Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time #9)

At p.182. I'm enjoying Elayne's plot and the preface was great! But Perrin's plotline in the first chunk sucked and REALLY dragged...

The Well of Ascension - Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn Era 1 #2)

At p.549. This book is what I was expecting from The Final Empire. I'm in love with the politicking and development of the magic system along with Vin and Elend's character development!

I'll link my Goodreads when I get a chance and I'm still not spell checking these... Sorry ;)

[sandflakedraws]

Hey so I've been considering checking out abot for a while now. But before I do, I wanna know what the draw is for you. What do you like so much about it ?

Strap yourself in, we’re about to go through one longass hell of a ride. Fair warning that this gushy love letter has a good chunk of spoils for canon mp100 and abot alike, so do with that what you will. (though i keep most of the spoils to the earlier chapters so i can leave some firsthand experience left)

ABoT has 5 main (not all) attractions for me, most of which are incredibly personal :1. nuanced, actually mature depiction of abuse2. lack of a ‘perfect savior’3. plotting cause+effect4. scene setting (okay this one is more a taste thing that i happen to really love)5. incredible writing all around

Part 1. Nuanced, actually mature depiction of abuse.

I was an abused and neglected child. As such, it’s very easy to see where some of the appeal of this type of fanfic would come from. Course, I’d encourage a looksie regardless because it’s written with respect to the subject matter, and because fics like these have great potential to expand on human understanding and empathy.

THAT SAID ! In order to talk about the depiction of abuse in abot, I first need to talk about the abuse in mp100 canon.

To be frank, I think phantomrose96 handles it better than mp100. Especially the execution and aftermath of said topic.

For comparison I’m going to use the Mogami arc (an arc i do like, perhaps less than the majority of fandom, tho this’ll likely shed a light on why)

The depiction of abuse between abot and canon have some similarities. In both cases, Mob is uprooted from his foundations of support, and the strain goes on for a lengthy amount of time. Canon!Mob’s experiences are 6 months long, and abot!Mob is 4 years. The differences start hereafter, though.

For starters, with canon!Mob, we learn about his torture mainly through his own POV, with Mogami making commentary. His firsthand experience is bolded and put at the forefront, and functions as the end note of the scenes which feature them. Mob is isolated, ostracized, and bullied. He is beat up at several points. One such instance sees him lose a tooth. His bullies torture a cat to death, smash a brick on his head, and stab him with an exacto knife.The ‘maturity’ of canon!Mob’s abuse comes firstly from the severity and cruelty of it. And secondly, for how it could drive him into using his psychic powers against people willingly. It highlights that one can be as shaped by their surroundings as by their choices.It’s dark, and it’s weighty.

However, the abuse in the arc is used a mechanic, and is glossed over once its primary use is over with. No abuse in this vein crops up after this arc.

The point of it’s presence is to raise the stakes, to showcase “this is fucked up” and then move on when the lesson is learned. We only get 2 peaks that Mob even remembers it. Once is with Mob acting quite fearful when Mogami shows up again, and the other when Mob goes to help a cat off a pole.

Still, the fact remains that it’s never mentioned for the rest of mp100. 

And thusly, Mob is presented with no means to process or deal with the trauma other than to, presumably, remain quiet about it. Or otherwise, for the reader to assume that the experience was relegated to subconsciousness. After all, we’re told expressly with Minori that the memory begins to fade as early as a day after. 

This stance can be detrimental to those who experience abuse, as it can imply that no help exists for the survivor to seek. That it’s better to simply forget about it, and move on without guidance.

Which, y’know, could work fine if it was ONE’s intention to showcase that some people don’t deal with trauma outright, keeping it hidden.

But there is a difference between “purposefully writing someone to seem unaffected when they really are” and “purposefully writing a macguffin to clear the way of an old arc to make room for a new one" 

I love ONE’s writing, I do, but it seems very clear to me that he was giving himself an out for having to write long reaching consequences of such a brutal arc going forward. Folks can get from the arc what they want, and that’s hella valid. I mean, shit, my trauma was never front and center either when I was Mob’s age. 

However, there’s a clear delineation between coincidence and intentionality. 

By having the abuse all happen in a dreamlike world, he gives himself an out. The characters are more or less able to skirt around the issue, or otherwise forget about it.ONE thereby dodges having to write further complications to the story he wants to tell.

Enter A Breach of Trust.

In Abot, the aftermath of being abused is a part of Mob’s day to day life, like actual trauma do. And here, the process of dealing and coping with said abuse is the main function of it’s appearance in the fanfic.

The four years Mob spends on his own are broadly covered in a punchy ~1k words at the beginning of chapter 4 (the fic is 133k words long, for comparison). They are to let you know the nature of Mob’s problems, without lingering unnecessarily on them, exploiting them, or making them voyeuristic. And in fact, Mob gets out of the Mogami house in chapter 8 (again, in a fic 24 chaps long).

The rest of the chapters where Mob makes an appearance are about addressing what he went through, and trying to help him. 

As opposed to mp100 canon, we learn a lot of information as to the nature of what mob experienced through Reigen. He often has sad or horrified responses, as one could expect to have in his shoes. But his response is not the end note of the scenes which feature them. Instead, it’s the actions he and Mob take, in equal turns, to bring about change which gets the end note.

I’ll use the milk scene in chapter 11 as an example.

Reigen learns a piece of information about Mob’s life, namely that he was denied milk:

“You have milk?”

“Uh…yeah. Not even expired. I bought it like two days ago.”

“But Shishou said…” Mob swallowed the words. His breathing picked up, eyes flickering across the single carton of milk in Reigen’s fridge. Slowly, his voice almost choked, Mob answered, “Yes, yes please…”

Reigen’s response:

He couldn’t fathom what sort of world the kid had just escaped, but he knew now he didn’t want to. And he didn’t want to make Mob relive it, not if it was something so horrific that a single glass of warm milk could move him to tears.

The end note of the scene (literally the last line):

“Here,” Reigen said, sliding his mug across the oaken table. “Have mine too…”

Abot, unlike a good chunk of media, seeks not to use traumatic experiences as a throwaway mechanic for a separate, main focus. Or as a stand in for faux character depth or grittiness. I’m lookin at you Kaneki Ken.  Or worse, as an inevitable reality. No.

The actual maturity of abot!Mob’s abuse, which I’ve been hootin about with the title card, comes from its application to Mob.

It will not be brushed off as a bad dream. It will not be relegated to subconscious, or forgotten. It is not a ‘shortcut to coolness’, or a ‘dark history’ to earn abot!mob some tragic backstory cred. Nor will it be “solved” with a single long talk, or hug, or even to just put Mob back in his house.

Abot seeks to offer a more layered, real world approach to it. That trauma, fictional or not, does not make you cooler. That it takes several, seemingly small steps to start on the path of recovery. And that there is no reaching your “before” status, but just changing the shape of your “after”.

For that matter! Mob also has agency of his own. It is not Reigen that springs Mob from the Mogami house, but rather Mob himself, taking matters into his own hands. 

There was no plan to it. Mob moved. He raced to the door and the inky world beyond. His feet collided with cold stone. Stone became grass, which sheared away before each footfall, leaving wet pulp and mud beneath his beating steps. The vastness of the open sky and the world stretching off in all directions, even after four years, could not overwhelm him more than the image of his dead Shishou scorched behind his eyelids.

Mob will fight on matters he considers important, calling the cops, for example.

Mob’s jaw moved, his wide eyes steeled over, harder now, resolve tight in his face. He looked up to Reigen. “I…wouldn’t like that, Mr. Reigen.”

He’ll voice his own opinion, draw his own conclusions, set his own goals.

His hands twisted in his lap, eyes dropping to them for a moment before they flickered up with new, burning resolve. “…If you could teach me…”

“Teach you?”

Mob nodded vigorously. “How you’re getting rid of it.”

And Mob is not relegated to cowering at all times either.  He’ll enjoy things he likes, build himself up, amongst other things.

The rain drenched him. Through the blues and pinks, water could pass. Water wasn’t living, so it wasn’t stopped, it wasn’t shredded. But it felt alive enough to Mob. It felt like something that wanted to reach him, and could.

Mob shut his eyes and smiled. Even if he couldn’t suppress the barrier now, that wasn’t reason enough to give up, not this time around. This time was different.

Rest assured that this journey is as much an active choice on Mob’s part, as it is Reigen’s. Reigen is simply a guide for Mob. And he’s meandering through his guidance half the time, which brings me to part deux.

Part 2. Lack of a perfect savior

I will be the first to admit that Reigen is hilariously flawed. Abot!Reigen likewise. And yes! This is another reason why I like Abot ^^

Preface in place before I talk about this, I am. a tough ass customer. We just had a whole previous section of analysis to illustrate that (which confession time, i cut that down by half), but to go more in depth - It is extremely easy to take me out of a story. And this is because, ironically, I love storytelling.

For better or worse, when I’m consuming media, I cannot turn off the storytelling part of my brain. Ergo, if I see something that can be improved, I’m launched back into a 4th person perspective, no longer engaging directly with the content. Sometimes it’s minor enough where I don’t mind any. But unfortunately, more often than not, it’s enough to get me to drop things when too many instances pile up. 

And as one of those Hoity Toity Connoisseurs of the hurt/comfort genre, the human version of the Messianic Archetype™ is both a common occurrence, and a surefire way to get me to drop your story upon first sight.

I cannot engage with media that have regular ass people know exactly how to react, what to say, what to read into, on the first try, when the nature of human existence so chaotic and varied.

Maybe that kid is hiding under the table because you’re wearing fuchsia, maybe it’s because your voice sounds like someone they had a nightmare about, maybe its because the lights hurt their eyes, maybe it’s because they feel safer in cramped spaces, maybe they’re eating ants. You don’t know. They don’t know. Getting things wrong is as much a part of the process as getting things right.

SO!!! ONCE MORE WITH FEELING!!! ABOT!!!

Phantomrose makes it clear, as early as Reigen & Mob’s first meeting, that we’re dealing with a regular ass human fuckup, even in the midst of the rose filter from Mob’s POV.

In the scene, Reigen is presented as being undoubtedly ignorant as to the true nature of what the hell is going on. He, mistakenly, does not believe that the barrier is real. All he knows that is Mob has come from some Yikes and needs help. Oh, and in Reigen’s limited knowledge, he thinks there’s a confirmed Dead Man off somewhere too.

And yet, despite the pressing circumstances, or y’know, having a presumed corpse he should probably mention to somebody, Reigen does not call the cops.

“Okay. Okay… Do you—just—do you want to come to my house? Just for tonight. It’s…late. Don’t feel like dealing with any more police officers tonight anyway. Maybe we just…go sleep. Get you some clothes or, a shower probably. It’s…I’m tired. You’ve got to be tired too.”

We get an explanation for this later on, in chapter 14…

What if he ran off again, back to his dead Shishou’s basement…?

…but. Were the audience not clued into Mob’s circumstances, one would argue that though well intentioned, Reigen’s messing up. And despite the many things Reigen does to help Mob (which he does, he really does) this motif continues throughout the fic.

With Reigen sometimes saying insensitive things to Mob.

“No, I’m…” Mob paused. He hiccupped, voice still hitching, body still trembling. “I’m sorry Shishou is dead. I did something to make him kill himself. I know it.”

“Good, Mob. Good…”

Mob stared up, jaw slack, baffled.

With Reigen often acting as much as his own interest as in Mob’s.

“Toast, Mob, it’s going to be toast. And eggs. And yes. This is breakfast for both of us, and you’re going to help.” Reigen looked the boy over, and the feeling in his chest was almost manic. He was looking at something maybe he could fix.

Where Reigen will make logical assumptions, but false ones nonetheless.

“I’m going to grab just a handful of things from those aisles, okay? Not going far. I just want you to stay here, with the paper, and pick up our order when it’s ready. Okay? It’s another exercise. I’m still here. I’m still suppressing the barrier. I just think you’re strong enough to stand here for a moment by yourself. Can you do that?”

–carved things up, sliced them, killed them…

Mob’s mind filled with static.

He nodded. It was the only thing he could think to do.

Reigen smiled, and stood up from his crouched position. He turned on his heel, toward the left side of the store. He rounded the edge of the counter, and suddenly he was gone.

And yes ! As a survivor, this shit is important to me. 

These scenes showcase that comfort does not have to be found gift wrapped, pure and untainted, and delivered by an angel spluttering down from the shiniest parts of heaven. No. It can be found in people who are flawed and sometimes selfish and who are just trying. It can be found in folks like abot!Reigen.

In folks who weren’t predestined by some holy undertaking, but rather who are just making the best of the circumstances they find themselves thrust into.

SPEAKING OF WHICH,

Part 3. Plotting cause + effect 

I’ll be honest and say this is something I learned very recently from Phanrose. 

From my creative perspective, as long as an action is in character for someone, I can find a way to make it happen. A good showcase for this is, ironically enough, Attic Au, and it’s many incarnations. I can adapt to circumstances to cause what I want to happen. 

This is, again, a tie-in to the way I rationalize the chaotic nature of human existence. Sometimes shit can just do, and as long as you pull hard enough emotionally, you can get people on board. So I spend a lot of time on the “why”, with my “hows” remaining fairly lose and interchangeable.

Abot takes this in the opposite direction. She says ‘okay but what if I use the chaotic nature of human existence to cause everything to bump into eachother’.

And honestly I’m kinda tripping over it ?? Like it’s extremely fun ? Connecting all these dots? And it doesn’t feel convenient either. It feels like a logical progression.

To use early examples, as I have been for the most part:

Jun hires Reigen to investigate her husband Tetsuo disappearing at weird hours.

“That’s really all I want from this.” She looked up now, palms in her lap, eyes set to Reigen. “I want you to just figure out what’s going on because I can’t.”

Reigen then discovers that Tetsuo is being possessed.

A thousand memories assaulted him at once, tainted with the raw smell of incense, the grittiness of salt between his fingers and under his nails, dimmed lights and candles and incantations and that dread in the air, like pressure, that he felt whenever a Spirits and Such case turned out to be real.

Reigen decides to confront Mogami 2 different times. The first time he learns his identity, and the second time Reigen gets too close to hitting on Mob’s presence for Mogami’s comfort.

“Why did you buy cough syrup today?” Reigen blurted out. “You miss that taste too? Tetsuo doesn’t have a cold. It’s not for him. You got other puppets I don’t know about?!”

Mogami threatens to kill Tetsuo and take Reigen, so Reigen makes a bargain (with newly cut up hand to make his 1 sigil out of 1000 work).

Reigen thrust his hands down and out, body displayed unprotected. Sweat slid down his face, soaked through his suit, mixed with the blood in his palm. “Come possess me! Space for rent right here, y-yeah? Yeah! Not gonna resist. Not gonna fight. All I’m gonna do is slam you with these tags if you get too close!” 

The tag works, banishing Mogami. Mob notices the lack of Mogami’s presence, and goes looking for him.

Even when Mogami left the house, his aura only ever grew fainter, steadily diffused as Mogami established distance between himself and the house. It was an easy blip to detect at all times. It was a constant thrumming presence in Mob’s life for the last four years.

And it had vanished in an explosion that left Mob’s psychic core ringing.

“…Shishou?” Mob called through the door.

Upon finding Mogami’s corpse in the attic, Mob makes for the streets, thinking Mogami has freshly killed himself and that he can no longer stay there.

Mob shot down the hall, took the stairs two at a time with his hand skimming the banister. His mind wasn’t clearing. His thoughts weren’t forming. The reality of what he’d seen beat in heavier against him with each passing second. Mob let out another keening crying, finding no response in the black house.

Another brush of wind, Mob turned toward the foyer. He’d been right—the front door had been left open.

This makes for a wonderful storytelling device. Firstly, it makes the audience both wary and excited for the consequences of any actions in the future. If any action can seemingly build off one another, what’s to say a throwaway moment wont come back to haunt us? 

Plus! Aside from making scenes engaging, it also subverts some tropes while it’s at it.

Reigen, despite literally being a PI, does not find Mob on a missing person’s case. And does not discover Mob either of the times he followed Tetsuo into the Mogami house. Instead he only finds Mob by the boy crashing into him. Which only happens again because of a set up in chapter 3.

This carries on and spills over into Ritsu’s plotline too! Which nbnmbxn, I haven’t touched on as much in order to leave a good chunk of story there to peruse as you will.

I’ve learned a lot just from watching pr96 chisel out a story. And you wanna know what else I’ve learned?

Part 4. Scene setting 

OKAY I FESS UP THIS IS JUST ME HAVING A THING FOR SETTINGS BEING INCORPORATED INTO THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE SCENE OKAY, OKAY.

With that out of the way, she’s damn good at it yall.

Phantomrose96 likes to employ what I call mood scenery. Where the physical objects present in a setting take a backseat to how the characters feel about it, and therefore flesh it out all the better.

Compare how Reigen sees his apartment:

Reigen cringed a bit as he looked about, taking in, remembering the mess decorating the living room. The ashtray on the table overflowed with cigarette butts, staining the wood around it with sooty acrid residue. Three empty plates were pushed to the table’s edge, scraped of food and left to stagnate for…how many days, Reigen wasn’t sure. Empty beer cans gathered in a herd near them, a few on the floor, leaving sticky coagulated rings around their rim and smelling of staleness, of stagnant fermentation.

With how Mob sees it:

Mob’s apprehension eased off. The look was replaced entirely with something like confusion. He pulled out of his blanket cocoon, let his eyes rove over the apartment in full inspection. The confusion never left his face.

“It’s so much cleaner than Shishou’s house.”

Scenes like this are peppered and expertly handled throughout the entirety of abot. 

As a comic illustrator, I often struggle with coming up with backgrounds that tell you a bit about the circumstances of the people who live there, and about the mood of someone viewing it. But Phananarosa does it.

And, like. every setting is like this. Instead of getting fatigue at scene changes, I eagerly dive in because what’s not to love !!! It captures just enough details that it can be fleshed out, without boring the audience with a surplus of inconsequential details.

Teruki walked past the rows of lockers. Further back were bathroom stalls. Three sinks lined up beneath a wall-length mirror. This area existed as its own pocket, seemingly separate from the rest of the lockers, and the light only scarcely touched it. The shadows grew heavy along a gradient, the farthest sink half shrouded in darkness. Even farther back, crowned by a single burnt-out hanging light, was a row of four showerheads, no curtains separating one from the next.

It is no coincidence that some of the backgrounds I consider to be some of my better ones, are ones I made for abot.

It’s very apparent that Phanro9 knows what she’s doing with the words she chooses to dress these with. And, you guessed it, TIME TO SEGUE INTO

Part 5. Incredible writing all around

Okay now I can just gush about some the extra little details that GhostFlower96 uses that just make her tale that much more fun to read.

Amazing dialogue. Especially in Reigen’s case.

“Gottaswirl the eggs to seal in the moisture. Gotta just…put extra butteron the toast, I guess, so you don’t taste the black part cuz that’sprobably bitter, so you—never mind I’ll make different toast thatisn’t burned, gimme your plate.”

You ever tire of reading fics where the characters sound the same ? Spectreblossom has got you covered!

He thrust a hand out, palm open to Ritsu. “My name is Teruki Hanazawa. I’m the esper who’s better than you.”

Ritsu stared at the offered hand. He fought the instinct to step back. “The spirits didn’t say anyone owned them.” He paused, and weighed his options. “And who says you’re stronger than I am?”

Say you wanna feel ur heartstrings tugged because god oh god he’s a mess but he’s still good for something. we got a fresh supply

Beside them, the rice pot boiled over, glutinous water dripping down the black pot’s side and charring against the newly cleaned grating. The sauce bowl sat stagnant and undissolved, a colloid of new and stale ingredients perhaps unsalvageable for the recipe. Broken spoons, filthy sponges, open containers of starch and sugar and soy sauce littered the counter tops, the smell of something burning lingering overtop.

And at the center of the mess, Mob sliced the knife clean through the red bell pepper.

You wanna be haunted by singular closing lines? Already on it.

Thebarrier swept back around Mob, like the curtain drawn at the close ofa play.

Kids ? Being written like kids ? In phantomroseyboboeybananafanafofoseyfiphimomoseyphantomrosey’s fanfic? It’s more likely than you think! 

“After this, can we go back to the park?” Mob asked. He wobbled, tilting his head over his shoulder to ask Mogami directly.

“We go to the park every day.” Mogami answered. He walked the sidewalk, thin silver hair catching sunlight and twists of icy wind. The hollow pockets beneath his eyes were deep, but not unkind, intently watchful of Mob who dipped and wavered with each balance-beam step.

“Yeah, because I like it.”

You want some de-glorification of teenage violence? Boy have I just the thing.

He felt 9 again, scared, weak, unsafe, and he cried quietly while he watched the consciousness leave Teruki’s body.

Limp and loose, Teruki’s hands dropped from the tie around his neck.

You like metaflours and symbopolism ? WE GOT THAT TOO

Reigen looked over his shoulder. Mob shut the door behind them, turning to investigate the apartment with wide captive eyes. “…It’s warm,” he muttered, and stepped in line behind Reigen.

You wanna feel like you got punched in your chest ? Even on things you knew already ? Even things you had every tool in your belt to see coming?

Reigen stopped. He lost track of his own words as his focus fell entirely on the sight in front of him. The kid was standing halfway between the bathroom and the living room, his hair still a bit wet, and his borrowed clothes soft and loose. He stood a head shorter than Reigen, and his wide eyes stared back, lost, waiting for instruction. Waiting as though he needed permission to even get his sheets and go to bed.God, it really was just a kid…

fuck ing , d we . g o t       tHat    t o o         goddammit

If you wanna read, you can start here ! Or here, on tumblr.