#might try to reuse parts of it later

[rapono-writes-stuff]

BONUS:

Unfinished scenes from "Snap my neck with care" that were sadly scrapped due to issues with pacing and/or tone, but I still liked:

(#1 alt intro)

You want to go home.

It’s the one thought rattling around in your head with any clarity, among the cacophony of anxiety. Body high-strung and tense, radio clenched tightly in one fist, flashlight in the other. It flickers, for just a moment, but it’s enough to make your heart leap with a jolt of fear.

The light stabilized, and no monsters emerged, no footsteps or creaking vents. Your body sags with exhausted relief, tense shoulders slumping, as you allow yourself a moment of weakness.

-------

(#2 hand holding)

Curious, you grabbed at one of the hands holding you, the Bracken hesitant before it let you, your two hands gently holding its one.

Big, so much bigger than yours. It was hard to feel much through your thick gloves, but you still touched and explored. The long thinness of the fingers were deceptive of their strength, tipped in sharp claws you gently poked at.

-------

(#3 protective panic)

The sound of invertebrate footsteps broke the peace, as you raised your head to look, spotting a hoarding bug poke its head out the doorway.

You didn’t get to react before the Bracken moved. Your only warning was feeling its body tense against you, before it shoved you forward, underneath its chest, claws digging into the carpeted floor. It glared at the bug as its leaves rattled rapidly with fury, and sound that made the hair stand up on the back of your neck, the sound you heard before a coworker who stared a moment too long, had their neck broken in front of you. You'd heard the snap, a gurgle, before he was gone.

The bug scurried away quickly with a chirp, as your breath hitched

[idy-ll-ique]

mr grumpy man

pairing: mob boss!bucky barnes x f!reader

genre: angst, fluff, smut

warnings: smut, mentions of abuse and wounds, adultery

requested: nope

word count: ~4.3k

summary: bucky kidnaps y/n because her husband owes him money. what happens when he finds out her husband is abusive?

author's note: hi guys! i crossed 1450 followers today, plus my masterlist is about to reach 1000 notes, and ngl i'm kinda excited for that, so i wanted to post. i have been writing fanfiction even though i stopped posting weekly (it's a great stress reliever). so yeah... enjoy! (also lmk if you want me to write and post a part 2, since the ending to this imo feels kind of incomplete) also ik i am reusing names but go with it, it's difficult to come up with names :(

masterlist

-

The sound of her gasp echoed around the garage as the blindfold was lifted off her eyes. Y/N blinked in the dim light, her hand trying to reach up to soothe her aching head, but— She struggled to free her tied hands, to no avail. Finally collapsing against the chair, she looked around the room as her eyes adjusted to the lights. Or the lack thereof.

A bunch of men stood ahead of her. In the centre was a tall, brunet man, his blue eyes glistening with… mirth. He seemed happy, even though his face didn’t betray an emotion. “S-Sir… Who…” Y/N choked out, thanking the Gods that her mouth was still usable. “Oh, sweetheart, you’re awake,” the man crooned, walking up to her. She peered up at him, a little scared and a lot confused. 

Bucky blinked at her. Why… Why was she looking at him like that? There wasn’t an ounce of fear he could see on her face, just— perplexion. “Mrs Silverstein,” he began. “Yeah?” He internally heaved a sigh of relief. At least he had the right person. But then why wasn’t she scared? Surely, being married to a mob boss meant she knew the danger mob bosses posed. “I’m James Barnes.” Y/N cocked her head to the side. “M-Mr Barnes, have you— kidnapped me?” 

“If you know that, why aren’t you scared?!” Bucky burst out impatiently. This woman was starting to get on his nerves with her nonchalance. “...ooh, ah, save me…” Y/N mumbled a couple seconds later, pursing her lips to keep herself from smiling. She never thought she would be, but here she was now! Kidnapped! Meaning, away from her husband! Bucky growled in annoyance. “Are you fucking mocking me or something?”

She hurriedly shook her head, lowering it in shame. “Sorry.” He huffed. “Your husband—” Y/N nearly flinched at the mention. “—has stolen a huge sum of money from me. So now, my dear, you’re going to live with me until he returns the money.” Bucky wasn’t a monster. As annoyed as the woman was making him, he had no intentions of hurting her. He simply wanted to lure Edmund, her husband, to him by using Y/N as bait.

“Wait, seriously?” Y/N realised she might have come off a little excited because Bucky raised an eyebrow at her, his men exchanging glances in shock. “You’re— happy about that?” Bucky asked, bewildered. “No I’m not,” she muttered, clearly lying. Bucky shook his head, deciding to let it go. Surely she was so… scared and traumatised that she was acting bizarrely. It had to be that. “Okay… um, untie her, I’m taking her to her room.”

Two of his men stepped forward and untied her hands and legs. Bucky expected her to kick and scream upon being untied but instead, she simply stood up, dusting her clothes. “My room, sir?” Bucky stammered incoherently. “Uh, sure,” he ended up mumbling, leading her into the mansion whose garage they were in. He kept alert; maybe once away from the guards she would act up. “Intelligent,” he thought.

But even when they were away from all the guards, just the two of them, Y/N kept demurely following him, looking up at the mansion. “Wow,” she whistled, “This is your house? It’s pretty solid, dude.” Bucky stopped in his tracks, turning to face her. “Okay, what stupid fucking game are you playing with me right now?! You really think I’m that dumb, Mrs Silverstein? You think I don’t know what you’re doing?! Playing nice until you get a chance to run back to your husband?!” 

This time, she did end up flinching at Edmund’s mention. Bucky noticed and paused, his brows furrowing in suspicion. “I don’t— I’m not playing any games. Look—” She rummaged through all her clothing. “I don’t have any weapons on me and plus my hands are recovering from injuries, so I’m not even strong enough to kill someone like you. Have you looked at yourself? You think I will be able to hurt you?” Bucky released a breath.

An awkward silence fell between them. “What are your hands recovering from?” he finally ended up asking as they commenced their walk. “Broke my bones in both hands, just a little accident, heh,” Y/N chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck. A few more minutes passed. He glanced at her. She was looking at the decoration around the house, lips pursed, as if she was about to burst into tears.

And without thinking, he asked the one question a kidnapper never asks their victim.

“Are you okay?”

A teardrop leaked down Y/N’s eye and she hurriedly wiped it off, clearing her throat. “Yeah.” What the fuck was her deal? They soon stopped outside a bedroom; Bucky opened the door, revealing— “This is the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen!” Y/N gasped, awed. The colour scheme was pretty, there was an attached bathroom and also a balcony! "This makes my architect heart really happy."

"You're an architect?" Bucky couldn't help but ask again. "I was, before I got married. Edmund didn't like that I worked, he then started keeping me at home," she revealed. Bucky found himself getting annoyed again but this time not by Y/N, by Edmund. "Well, uh, you've seen everything. Spare clothes are in the wardrobe, um, the shower has clean water if you want to clean up… there's facewash and body wash in the bathroom and also toothpaste and a toothbrush."

"Aren't you, like, my kidnapper? Why such nice treatment?" Y/N wondered. "I have no personal vendetta against you, I'm after your husband. And I'm using you as bait. So don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you. That's how my mob functions." A smile bloomed on her face. "That's a nice way to function. Uh, I'll see you then, Mr Barnes." Bucky licked his dry lips. "Yeah, s-see you."

He left her room, closing the door behind him. But he simply stood there, his thoughts racing. The way she wasn't upset that she was kidnapped, the way she flinched earlier when he mentioned her husband, and how sad she looked when she told him her husband didn't allow her to work after they got married. All the proof was there— She disliked him. Y/N disliked Edmund. But was there more to it?

Was she only upset about her job, or maybe something more? Bucky shook his head, heading to his own room. Now that he knew, her previous behaviour didn't seem so… annoying anymore. 

-

The next morning, Bucky woke up with Y/N on his mind. Immediately upon getting out of bed, he rushed to Y/N's room, pausing before knocking. When she didn't open the door, his nose scrunched and he pushed the door open, freezing when he saw her naked in the middle of the room, a pair of his shorts in her hands. The spare clothes he'd given her. Y/N froze as well, the water from her wet hair dripping on the floor. She had just finished taking a shower. 5 uncomfortable minutes later, both of them snapped out of it.

Bucky was staring at her body. "My men didn't raise a finger on you," he whispered as she hurriedly covered herself with her towel. "Mr Barnes—" He entered the room, slamming the door shut behind him as he closed the distance between them. "I told them not to. Then what is this?" Her body was covered in scars big and small, and also healing bruises. Some that looked an angry red, some black and blue, while the almost healed ones looked yellow-green.

Her arms, her legs, her torso… except her face. Every body part was injured. "Y-Your men didn't do it," Y/N quietly assured him, avoiding eye contact. Bucky's chest heaved with anger. "Then who?" Y/N gulped in fear. "E-Edmund did." Bucky was hoping it wouldn't be the answer. "I fucking knew it," he growled, "I suspected it last night—" He stopped when Y/N touched his arm. "L-Let me get ready?" He left the room on her insistence.

Blood boiling, he stormed into the dining room, startling the housekeeping staff as he sat on a chair, glaring at the innocent table in front of him. He didn't think Edmund would be able to anger him more than when he stole Bucky’s money but apparently knowing that he abused his wife too did the trick. Maybe it was the way Edmund’s behaviour reminded him of his own father— that was a can of worms for another day.

He turned towards the door when he heard footsteps behind him. Y/N had just walked in, wearing a grey t-shirt that was too big on her as well the pair of shorts he’d seen previously. She silently sat in front of him, her head hanging low. “The broken bones, that was him, no?” A beat passed and she nodded. Bucky was so furious now he couldn’t speak; they ended up having breakfast without speaking to one another. Afterwards, Bucky sent Y/N back to her room.

The hours began passing. When Y/N noticed that the sun was about to set, her stomach hungrily growling being the thing that snapped her out of her trance, she wondered if she would be let out of the room and given some food. Turns out she didn’t have to wait for an answer— just as the thought passed through her head, the door opened and Bucky walked in, tongue in cheek.

“I’m back home.” Y/N didn’t know he’d left. “Did you… did you have lunch? I forgot to remind the housekeeping staff to give you lunch.” She shook her head no. “I’ve been here the whole day.” His face showed… remorse? An apologetic look crossed his face. “C-Come downstairs to eat something now.” Without a complaint, she got off the bed and followed him towards the dining room. On the dining table was a big plate of cut-up fruits.

Bucky beckoned her to have the first bite. Like in the morning, they sat quiet, until Bucky spoke first. “I called… Edmund today.” Her gaze lifted from the fruits to his face. “What did he say?” she whispered, somewhat dreading the answer. “I asked for a huge ransom, basically something along the lines of what he stole from me. He said… It'll take time. He also threatened me.” This time a chuckle escaped his lips. “If you do anything to my wife, I swear,” he mimicked, causing Y/N to laugh as well.

“Bold coming from him,” she sighed, a tiny smile showing on her face. The mood dimmed again— as “fun” as the conversation was, they weren’t… friends. Y/N was still his victim, Bucky still her kidnapper. There were boundaries they knew they couldn’t cross. But still, there was something…

After finishing the fruit, Bucky took her back to her room. “I’ll see you at dinner,” he cleared his throat, poking his tongue in his cheek again. Y/N pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, clasping her hands as she swayed back and forth on her toes and heels. She was about to speak when Bucky began walking away, thinking the conversation was done.

She only stared after him.

-

The days began passing quicker. In what felt like a mere minute, a week passed since Y/N's kidnapping. There was still no sign of Edmund, and Bucky was getting impatient. Impatient not because of money, impatient because Y/N was growing on him. He’d started finding her and her mannerisms tolerable and dare he say it— cute. He had started finding her adorable.

Her hair, her eyes, her nose, her lips, her figure— the figure he’d seen all of before. Y/N was pretty, no doubt, but Bucky mentally hit himself with an imaginary stick every time she was around. He couldn’t possibly think his victim, another man’s wife, was beautiful. But there was no doubt about the fact. Bucky was steadily falling.

Unbeknownst to him, so was she. As little time as they spent with each other, Y/N found herself eagerly awaiting the next time she could see him. She found herself admiring his looks when he wasn’t looking. His steely blue eyes, his long brown hair, his stubble, his physique— the upper part of which she had managed to catch a glimpse of one time— him. She admired him.

Not to mention the fact he treated her way, way better than Edmund ever did. Always gave her food and water, checked on her from time to time, and gave her good living conditions. This was much less a kidnapping and much more a vacation of sorts. The only difference being? While Bucky actively hated himself for falling for her, Y/N didn’t mind in the slightest.

If anything, she had subconsciously begun to pamper herself, as well as she could, so Bucky would notice. He gave her a reason to distance her thoughts from her husband; when they got married, and when the abuse began, she used to think no one else could like her, and the fact that Edmund was still willing to keep her as his wife— she should accept that. But the previous week, she hardly ever thought of him.

She was staring out the window of her room when there was a knock on her door. Her hands flew up to flatten her hair as the door opened. Like she hoped, Bucky stood on the other side, wearing a black tank top and grey sweatpants. She blinked owlishly at him. “Come with me.” Y/N hurriedly got off the bed and waddled behind him. To her surprise, he began leading her out of the mansion.

Y/N hadn’t been out of the house since the first night. Dread filled her mind— was Edmund here to pick her up? Instinctively she stopped in her tracks, her eyes filling with tears as she grabbed Bucky’s arm, stopping him as well. He whirled around, startled to see her crying. “Wh-What happened, why are you crying?” A choked sob escaped her lips as she shook her head.

“He’s here, isn’t he? P-Please don’t hand me over to him, please,” she croaked. Before Bucky could speak she piped up again. “Just kill me— I b-beg, Mr Barnes, please!” Another sob left her lips and Bucky felt his resolve breaking. Somehow freeing his arm from her grasp, he walked towards her and hugged her tight, holding her close to his chest. “Shh,” he whispered, rubbing her back.

Y/N slowly stopped crying, her fists clutching the back of his tank top. Bucky rested his chin on her head, one arm wrapped tight around her waist as the other continued to rub her back, helping to even out her breathing. His resolve cracked fully— no, Edmund was not getting her back. “He’s not here,” he assured her quietly, “I promise.” She finally calmed down.

“Then where are you taking me?” The way her voice had become so tiny suddenly… Bucky wanted to hit himself for unnecessarily scaring her. “For a walk. I-I thought we— I mean you, should take a walk in the garden for some… fresh air. And I’ll come along… to keep an eye on you,” he stammered. A second passed and she nodded. “I’d like that.” He internally heaved a sigh of relief and they began walking to the mansion’s garden again— this time holding hands.

Y/N was so shaken up and frightened that she refused to let go of Bucky’s hand. Each time he tried pulling away, she whined and held his hand tighter. “Y/N.” Hearing his stern tone, she reluctantly let go of his hand, only to be surprised as he draped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into him. They fell quiet. After spending an hour outside, Bucky noticed it was dinnertime. 

They had dinner. And then it was time for Y/N to go to her room again. Try as she might to fall asleep, she couldn’t. Each time she closed her eyes, Edmund’s face appeared in front of her, scaring her awake. Quivering, Y/N stood up, walking out of the room. She wanted to see Bucky. But she didn’t know where his room was. Sighing in defeat, she slid down in front of the door, sitting with her knees pulled to her chest. The bedroom felt too unsafe. 

What she didn’t know was that Bucky wasn’t in his room. He was in the living room, having a glass of whiskey. An hour would pass before he made his way upstairs; since Y/N’s room was nearer to the staircase than his own, he had to pass by in front of her room to go to his. And he was shocked to see her sitting outside, rather than inside. “Y/N?!” She looked up at him, pressing her lips shut to keep herself from crying in front of him again.

Also sighing in defeat and throwing his morals and ethics aside, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. A gasp left her lips as Bucky pinned her against the wall. Her hands were held over her head, Bucky holding her wrists with one hand as the other rested on the wall right next to her waist. “Fuck you for being so adorable and perfect, honestly,” he mirthlessly laughed before pressing his lips to hers in a noisy, wet kiss. 

Y/N involuntarily moaned as the kiss got too overwhelming. Bucky, hearing that, grabbed her waist with his free hand and shifted closer to her, grinding his steadily hardening cock against her most sensitive area. “Mmh,” she breathed out. “Liking that, princess?” His hand let go of her wrists to take off the t-shirt she wore. When her breasts came into view, Bucky groaned. 

“Ungh, M-Mr Barnes, ah,” she whimpered when he bent forward, taking a nipple between his teeth as his hand toyed with the other one. “Fuck,” he hissed when she rolled her hips against his. Not wasting more time, he knelt in front of her and yanked her shorts down, the cool night air colliding with her wet cunt making her moan. Bucky smirked as he smeared some of her juices around with his fingers.

“So fucking wet for me,” he hummed, grabbing the back of her thighs before burying his face between them, lapping greedily at the juices. His nose rubbed against her clit; Y/N’s fingers curled in his hair, gently pulling him closer. Bucky didn’t even feel like coming up for air. She had the prettiest cunt he’d ever seen, and she tasted sweet, just like her personality. “Bu-Bucky, I’m gonna cum!” When he heard that he finally stopped and looked up at her.

Her face was flushed and her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted as she rested her head against the wall, her chest heaving. That picture drilled itself into his head; he would never forget that look, how ethereal she looked as he made her fall apart on his tongue. “Cum for me, my love, you won’t be doing so for anyone else for a long, long time.” Hearing those words Y/N let go.

Bucky drank everything she offered. It was like an elixir to him. “So gorgeous, so delicious,” he whispered and stood up, holding her by the hips when her knees buckled. That orgasm had been her most powerful yet. Bucky definitely knew what he was doing. “Come.” He gently carried her in his arms bridal style, allowing her to rest as he took her to his room, kicking open the door with his foot.

Y/N passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow, but Bucky suspected she’d fallen asleep earlier than that, in his arms, rather. His cock was throbbing hard; lying down next to her, he lowered his pants and took his length in his hand, leisurely stroking it as he thought of Y/N— the look on her face. No matter if he got or didn’t get the money from Edmund, he wasn’t giving up on Y/N. She was his now, his to care for. His to fall for. 

He felt his orgasm coming. With a whisper of her name he let go, spurting hot, white liquid onto his thighs and hand. Bucky then cleaned himself and pulled his sweatpants up over his limp cock, turning on his side to envelope Y/N in his arms. She, still asleep, turned into him too, burying her face in his chest, curling into him.

For the first time since forever, a genuine smile bloomed on his face.

-

The next morning couldn't arrive sooner. Bucky woke up before Y/N, and when the previous night's memories resurfaced, one more smile tugged on his lips as he turned to look at the woman asleep next to him. Her lips were turned upwards, and he wondered what kind of a dream she was having. "Oh, Bucky," she suddenly whispered, humming as she turned to lay on her back, facing away from him. Bucky didn't contain his chuckle; the noise woke Y/N up and she blinked her eyes open.

"What was I doing in your dream?" he asked her in a whisper as soon as she gained her senses. "We were in a park eating ice-cream together," she sleepily whispered back, accepting his invite to snuggle closer to him. "But you moaned my name," he cheekily pointed out, "So what was I doing exactly?" At that her cheeks heated up. "I— I had some ice-cream on my lips and you—" She couldn't finish her sentence out of embarrassment. Bucky laughed quietly, trying not to ruin the serenity of the morning.

He leaned in and gave her a peck on the corner of her mouth. "I did that?" Squealing a little, she hit his shoulder and buried her face in his chest, hands covering her eyes. By then Bucky was smiling so wide, he thought his mouth was going to tear open. He wrapped his arms tight around her, holding her impossibly close as they simply lay there, basking in the quietness and bliss of the early morning sun's rays coming in through the closed, white curtains of the window.

Alas the bliss didn't last long; Bucky's phone began ringing, snapping them both out of their trance. Bucky reached for the night stand and grimaced when the Caller ID came into view. "Why him?" Y/N groaned as well, wrapping her arms around herself. "Yes, Silverstein? Do you finally have my money ready?" Bucky drawled, his arm snaking around Y/N's waist. "How is my wife? Is she alright? Let me talk to her!" Bucky glanced at Y/N.

"He wants to talk to you," he whispered to her and her eyes went wide. She tried saying no but Bucky had to be convincing one way or another. So she decided to help him. 

Taking the phone from his hand, Y/N held it to her ear. "Hello?" She heard Edmund's sighs of relief. Fake. "My love, are you okay? He hasn't hurt you, has he?" If by hurt you mean making me pass out by giving me a strong orgasm then yes, yes he hurt me. Badly. "No he hasn't." Edmund mumbled something on the other end. "Listen, I have the money ready, okay? I'm getting you back, I promise! You're mine, my wife, and I'll never let anyone hurt you."

"Then why are you the one hurting her, asshole?" Bucky muttered to himself, rolling his eyes. Y/N cracked a half-smile at his tone before clearing her throat. "Y-Yeah. So when are you… coming to pick me up?" Bucky snatched the phone from her hand. "I'll be there this evening, my love. I'll assure him that I've come alone, but I will bring some of my men— once I have you back, I'll have them attack him and we'll walk away with the money. You have to play along, hm?"

Bucky smirked. He held the phone away and covered the speakers, turning to Y/N. "Say okay, I'll see you in the evening." She nodded and Bucky gave her the phone. "I'll see you in the evening, okay," she told Edmund, who ended the call. Y/N kept the phone down on her bed, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms. "What did he say? He's coming in the evening?" Bucky laughed loudly, startling her.

"That's the thing! He thought he was still talking to you, so he told you this really elaborate plan that I wasn't supposed to hear. And now I'm one step ahead of him." Y/N laughed at his words too. "Really?! That's so awesome! Now you can plan accordingly, and take the money back!" 

He tugged on her hand to pull her close. "Take the money and keep you by my side." Y/N's cheeks flushed. "And that," she mumbled shyly. "Well, now that I know he's coming in the evening, there's still plenty of time that we have, you know…" Bucky hinted coyly, making her lie down on the bed and hovering above her, propped up by his arms. Y/N smirked and wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing him in for a kiss. "Show me what you got, then."

"Oh, trust me princess, I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve, let's see if by the end of it you can even walk."

-

a/n: thanks for reading, leave a like if you enjoyed!

[rius-cave]

Ok, hear me out.

Charlie uses the sticker system to get the others to do chores around the hotel. Why? You might ask.

No, its not because Charlie thought it was cute and fun, (though that is a bonus) its because its the only way they get Adam to do a full good job on his stuff.

Like at the start of it Adam was like 'Yeah whatever, I'm not gonna clean shit just to get a stupid sticker' and after he finished a chore a few hours later and showed Charlie (it was not a good job in the slightest) she just smiled and gave him a sticker and the ADHD part of Adam's brain was like:

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

STICKER!

(No, but thats how my Mom used to get me to do things)

But when he did another half assed job, Charlie told him to finish it and THEN she would give him a sticker.

So the only logical thing for Adam to do was drop the chore for a bit because "this is fucking stupid" and he mostly forgot about it, until later when he walked past the room he was working on and his brain was like 'we could still get that sticker' he brushes it off and goes to do something else.

But he can't stop thinking about it now, so he eventually folds and goes back to finish the chore.

There is now a sticker cork board in Adam and Lucifer's room that's just, fucking over flowing with stickers.

This trick also works on Angel, so I can imagine those two fighting over chores in the house to get a stupid pun sticker for their room.

safsdjhgdsfsd that's funny and cute, I dig it. To reuse a meme someone sent me once, *slaps Adam* this man can fit so much desperation for praise and validation. Any kind of affirmation or praise is like a drug to him, especially in Heaven. He'll try to fight it, and pretend he doesn't care, especially about Charlie's approval, but fuck if it doesn't feel good.

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

The Chapter 4 Essay Part 1: Kokichi Ouma

A metapost on my thoughts on Kokichi’s overall motivations and Gonta’s actions during ch4. Split into two parts. You can find the Gonta half here: (LINK)

I think the way Kokichi acts when he’s telling the truth says something crucial about his personality. When he’s telling the genuine truth, his expression becomes carefully neutral.

(post trial, chapter 1)

To me, it feels like he’s trying very hard to keep this face of neutrality. Normally, he’s able to expertly express any emotion that he wants to. In these moments, its almost like the emotion he’s feeling is so overpowering that he’s trying to repress it in order to maintain control over the face he presents to everyone else, but isn’t quite able to do so.

Kokichi is very careful about keeping people from seeing the parts of himself that he doesn’t choose to show. His villain persona and constant lying is part of this- He wants to keep people away from him. During the events of the killing game, he uses the distance that he creates in many ways. Part of it was that not having many close alliances allowed him to go off and do whatever he wanted during daily life. This let him explore the school and investigate the truth of the killing game without interruption or much attention. Lying also gave him distance between the game and himself. Pretending that the killing game was fun might’ve been his way to cope with everything that was happening. I think Kokichi is really damn good at separating himself from his emotions, lying to himself to do what he thinks needs to be done. This line from Chapter 1 is pretty telling…

(post trial, chapter 1)

This was also something he says himself to Kaito in the exisal hanger during chapter 5.

(post trial, chapter 5)

I’m inclined to believe everything that Kokichi says to Kaito in the exisal hanger. As Kiibo says when Kaito questions it, “I think his dying words may have been the honest truth.” Knowing he was about the die, and that he absolutely needed Kaito’s help to get his plan to break the killing game to work- to achieve his genuine, true goal- I don’t see any reason for him to lie.

This emotional distance extends past just the killing game. I think it's a key part of how he interacts with others around him.

Kokichi is an ultimate leader. I think he uses his talent throughout the game in an attempt to “lead” everyone from the shadows. He wanted to stop the killing game and escape with as many people as possible. However, his methods are very ends-justify-the-means. I believe that he did genuinely care about everyone at the ultimate academy, but in the detached way a distant king might care about his subjects. On the other hand, if he had to use or sacrifice a few as pawns for the greater good, that is what had to be done. It’s not like it didn’t emotionally affect him, but I think he was deliberately trying to keep his distance so that it would not impact him as much, and so that he could continue trying to tear the killing game apart with as many tools in his arsenal as possible.

(post trial, chapter 5)

With this core motivation in mind, this brings us to Chapter 4.

In my opinion, the Killing Game Busters was never a plan that was meant to succeed. From an in-game perspective, the idea that he was originally going to follow this mercy kill plan doesn’t make sense to me. Firstly, Kokichi already had suspicions that they were being watched as early as chapter 3.

(post trial, chapter 3)

…and he later confirms that he was fully convinced of this fact when Monokuma agreed to reuse the chapter 4 motive in the virtual world.

(post trial, chapter 5)

He knew that this killing game was for somebody else’s entertainment. I’ll go a bit into the secret of the outside world in a moment, but considering this, I don’t think he ever fully believed in it. Choosing to mercy kill everyone, in the name of a “truth” that was incompatible with what he had discovered… just doesn’t make sense to me.

Not to mention, from a narrative standpoint, I think the idea that he was completely for this mercy kill plan, decided to throw out the plan mid-trial, and then start an entirely different plan to end the killing game in chapter 5, isn’t very compelling. It weakens Kokichi’s overall character by making his motivation less cohesive and making him seem less organized over all, which I think is one of his strengths as a character. A Kokichi that is this fickle with what he’s trying to do would not have been able to write the script for chapter 5.

I think he always had different goals in mind with the Killing Game Busters. The first was something that is made very clear in chapter 5, but started here in chapter 4: He wanted to stop the killing to give himself room to break the game while minimizing deaths. The second was to further villainize himself, for all the reasons I talked about above, and some more I will get into in a little bit.

Seeing the secret of the outside world was undoubtably disturbing, regardless of whether he believed it or not; there is a noticeable shift in how Kokichi acts before and after he swipes that card key. Combined with discovering that Miu, someone he’d been working with closely, was planning on murdering him, I believe that seeing the destruction of the outside world pushed him towards more drastic measures than what he had been doing in previous chapters. He decided that in order for his plan in chapter 5 to work (which he had almost certainly already been planning at this point, considering how elaborate it was), he needed to make everyone question if pursuing the truth was the right thing to do at all.

After Miu’s body discovery, nobody was really worried about losing this class trial. Everyone had seen how Shuichi had guided them all to the truth and caught the blackened three times in a row, despite the unique difficulties in each case. They had full confidence in his abilities.

(investigation, chapter 4)

Shuichi is also not really doubting his abilities as a detective anymore. One of Shuichi’s core internal conflicts is his fear of the consequences of revealing the truth. Up to this point, it seems like he’s been moving past it. Especially after catching Korekiyo “Actual Serial Killer” Shinguji, who had no regrets or grey motivation for his killings. Shuichi’s morale, and subsequently everyone else’s, was at an all time high. (Of course, he was starting to feel a lot of pressure to solve these cases and save everyone on his own… but that’s another issue. ily Shuichi)

If Kokichi could take the wind out of Shuichi’s sails, really destroy the confidence he had built up so far, he could set up his impossible trial in chapter 5 to be more likely to work as intended. Everyone will be less motivated to try and figure out what happened if they are uncertain that finding the truth would actually result in anything good.

And I do believe he was trying to knock Shuichi off balance specifically. Damaging his confidence is one thing, but he was also deliberately trying to drive a wedge between him and Kaito. He antagonizes Kaito all chapter 4 investigation, including making up a nickname for Shuichi (“Shumai”) that directly riffs off Kaito’s closeness with Maki. He insists into the trial that he and Shuichi are partners now.

(class trial, chapter 4)

(Sidenote: Kokichi’s behaviour during trial 4 is genuinely really interesting to me. On top of the direct digs like this, he says a lot more subtle things to get under Kaito’s skin during trial 4 that I think are super neat to pay attention to.)

Theoretically, pushing Kaito away from Shuichi, combined with the powerlessness he’ll feel in the wake of the truth of both trial 4 and the outside world, could make him easier to convince to join Kokichi’s “side”. He even directly asks Shuichi to team up with him before leaving the virtual world:

(daily life, Chapter 4)

This leads me to believe that Shuichi was originally the one that Kokichi intended to use to build his impossible trial. I mean, if Shuichi was the one in the exisal hanger and presumed dead instead of Kaito, the chances of everyone else solving that mystery drops Significantly. Everyone else, aside from maybe Kiibo, was 100% convinced that Kokichi was the mastermind at that point. No one except Shuichi would’ve tried to dig as deep as he did, for better or for worse. I think this idea is supported by the note that Kokichi wrote next to Shuichi’s face on the whiteboard in his room (“trustworthy?”). He was clearly considering Shuichi as a person for one reason or another, and I believe this is it.

By condemning Gonta, who everyone else perceived as a kind soul who would never hurt anybody, someone who was struggling to understand what the virtual world even was with his amnesia, would be perceived by the others as kicking someone when they were down. Gonta has an absolutely miserable time through the accusations and wholly blames himself for how things turned out in the end. That, and Gonta’s actions were even well-intentioned. The secret of the outside world was apparently so horrible, Gonta thought it would be kinder to mercy kill everyone rather than force them to face it. This result would make everyone question if the truth was really as undoubtably good as they had come to think so far; Not only did Gonta suffer because they had to find the truth, but seeking the secret of the outside world would apparently also only lead to suffering. This would make them hesitate during Kokichi’s impossible trial.

(class trial, chapter 4)

As I said before, Kokichi’s second goal for trial 4 was villainizing himself even further. He says that this was a goal himself to Kaito in chapter 5.

(post trial, chapter 5)

Part of this villainization was just adding to the persona he had already created for himself and that I already talked about his motivations for before. The other part was what he says here. He specifically wanted everyone to think that he was the mastermind. This gave him leverage in two main ways. First, making himself appear to be the mastermind with an actual mastermind as hands off as Tsumugi genuinely gave him power over everyone else. He used this in chapter 5 to put a pause to the killings and give himself more room to enact his plan to break the killing game from the inside.

(daily life, chapter 5)

Although he then says “You guys can commit suicide together or kill each other… / Or, you can change your mind and stay here! You’re welcome to do that too!”, having experienced the secret of the outside world already, I think he’s pretty confident in what they will be feeling in this moment. No one is going to kill each other, and he knows that. He wants them to take that second option for the time being while he sets up his plot.

Making himself appear like the mastermind also benefited his impossible trial plan directly. Everyone would be much more likely to vote for someone they were convinced was the mastermind rather than one of their friends. No one would suspect that it was really him that was the victim.

“Using Gonta and making him into a murderer” was a significant part of how he villainized himself, but the way he treated Gonta during this whole experience was also a major factor. Starting as early as just after Miu was killed, he begins to be really aggressively mean to Gonta. He just straight up bullies him throughout the second half of the trial.

(daily life, chapter 4)

(class trial, chapter 4)

And then, after all this, he acts remorseful and sides himself with Gonta at the very end. It isn't genuine emotion like he felt before Kaede's execution, shown by his neutral expression. To me, this uncharacteristically open expression of grief feels like it was just set up to exacerbate the impact of his cruelty after Gonta’s execution. At this point, everybody’s little faith in Kokichi has been shaken significantly. With the shock of the trial, maybe you Could start to believe they were on the same side, as a team. Then, at the reveal of the extent of Kokichi’s manipulation, that is all ripped painfully away again.

(post trial, chapter 4)

(post trial, chapter 4)

Even if these parts of trial 4 make my stomach turn, I don’t want to imply that Kokichi is completely cold-hearted and unfeeling. Actually, I think there were multiple moments in chapter 4 that show him struggling to regulate his emotions and keep face around everyone else while he enacted this plan.

1: I don’t think Kokichi initially planned to make the reveal that Gonta was the killer as dramatic (or frankly, a bit traumatic) as it ended up being. He had been carrying himself a certain way during the first half of the trial, and I think Shuichi lying to his face in front of everyone about Kokichi’s own alibi dramatically changed his attitude. I mean, Shuichi lied (as he had done almost every trial and gotten 0 flack for) and Tsumugi even called him out on it, but everyone believed him over Kokichi anyways. So when Kokichi lies, it’s completely inexcusable, even though he’s been working tirelessly on his own trying to save everyone?* But when SHUICHI lies, and gets caught in it, people go along with him? They don’t doubt their trust in him for even a second? This double standard infuriated him. It’s at this point that he completely shifts in energy. If Shuichi, no, everyone, is going to disrespect him like this, he was going to make them suffer for it.

(class trial, chapter 4)

2: Kokichi only goes full villain after Kaito says “Kokichi, If you really cared for Gonta, explain yourself to everyone” in the post trial. I think that even though he was always going to paint himself as the villain, he was legitimately affected by the things that had just happened (Gonta’s death, Miu’s attempted murder, the secret of the outside world, even if he knew it wasn’t real) and what he’d just done. Even if he was trying hard not to be. The sudden shift he has from not saying anything to cackling about how little he cared about Gonta feels to me like he was kicking himself back into gear after trying to process some genuinely difficult emotions. 3: After Kokichi punches Kaito down, and everyone completely ignores him in favour of helping Kaito up, Shuichi says these iconic words to Kokichi: “Kaito always has us by his side, see? But no one wants to be around you. / You’re alone, Kokichi. And you always will be.” Kokichi responds like this:

(Post-trial, chapter 4)

There’s something about the way he cuts himself off, pauses, and then his mask falls. I think Shuichi’s words got to him more than he wanted them to. Honestly, Kokichi’s attitude towards cooperation, keeping everyone at arm’s length, and insisting (to himself) that he (as a leader) must fix the killing game completely on his own just seems so lonely to me. Even if he is intentionally trying to alienate himself and get everyone to hate him, being so viscerally cut into like this must have hurt. Especially from someone he was trying to work to get onto his side. It’s no wonder he quickly left after this moment.

This is what I think drove Kokichi in chapter 4. He’s a leader who wants to “lead” his classmates into safety, but he isn’t afraid to use underhanded, cruel tactics if he thinks it will get him ahead in the game for the greater good. He viscerally represses his emotions in order to keep himself going and keep everyone else away from him. He tried to destroy Shuichi’s confidence and drive a wedge between him and Kaito to get him on his side for his plan. He used and made Gonta into a murderer to villainize himself and discourage everyone else from seeking the truth.

Whenever I imagine Kokichi on his own, out of the spotlight of the Audience or the eyes of his castmates, he’s never as expressive as he is in the open. I think in reality, Kokichi is a pretty depressed and lonely person. His clownish personality isn’t entirely a facade, and outside of a killing game scenario, I think he would act pretty similarly to how he does in game. But I do think that he uses it as a mask for his true emotions. While I feel like the “evil villain” persona is a genuine part of Kokichi’s personality, outside of the killing game he probably doesn’t act on it as deeply as he does in-game. I also think Kokichi struggles with letting people become close to him, even without anything on the line. The killing game just caused him to lean into these aspects of his personality hard, and in potentially the worst ways.

*I feel like here it’s important to mention that personally, I still think the collateral damage he caused in his attempts to stop the killing game matters. A lot. I don’t think he should be excused for the things he did, even if he had good intentions. This makes him a really interesting, morally grey character, and I like that about him. EDIT: I can't believe I have to add this, but please do not use this essay as ammunition for harassing people who ship ougoku… I don't agree with doing that at all. I hope I made it clear that I find Kokichi to be a complex character whose mistreatment of Gonta was never targeted, and more just an aspect how how he isolated himself and how he manipulated others to end the killing game, even if it caused suffering to them in the moment. Kokichi cares about everyone in the ultimate academy, in his own weird, detached way. He's not completely heartless nor is he an abusive monster. And even if none of that was the case, it's never an excuse to harass people for disagreeing with you. Please be cool!! Thanks <3

[5ummit]

Rumlow & Bucky threatening people with a custom SIG Sauer P226 SCT

At first glance Bucky's gun in TFATWS may not look particularly special or appear to have any narrative significance, but I’m here to tell you that’s almost certainly not the case, whether intentional or not.

I already thought the parallel was fascinating when I first noticed these guns looked similar, but the deeper I dug the more compelling the story got. They aren’t just similar, they’re the exact same gun. Which ordinarily wouldn't be that all that special either, since many people use the same type of gun, but this isn’t some generic off-the-shelf model. In fact, I now think this custom P226 SCT is so unique as to be intrinsically linked to Rumlow, and I’m going to make the case that its reappearance in TFATWS is so remarkable that the gun (and therefore likely Rumlow himself) must hold some sort of significance for Bucky.

Buckle up, I’m about to overanalyze the shit out of this gun.

First, let’s look at the facts:

Out of the dozens of guns seen and used in CATWS, the only person to use a P226 is Rumlow. Even after he loses his customized SCT in the scene above, he's seen with another standard P226 in the next scene, which suggests he heavily favors this model. Side note: Knowing this, my new headcanon is that Rumlow is a former Navy SEAL since P226′s are famous for being beloved and carried by SEALs. Plus, everything we know about him lines up perfectly with that background.

Excluding the Winter Soldier’s P220, no one else in CATWS is seen carrying any SIG handgun model. All other SHIELD and HYDRA agents pretty much exclusively use Glocks, which further confirms this custom P226 SCT is undoubtably meant to be Rumlow’s personal handgun (he’s also seen with this same gun in the scene where they’re hunting Steve down at the mall).

Out of the dozens of guns seen and used in TFATWS, the only person to use a P226 is Bucky. Yet again, no one else in the show carries any SIG handgun model with Glocks by far the most common.

This is the only gun Bucky uses in the entire show. The only other gun Bucky even briefly holds is the submachine gun he takes from one of Selby's goons before dropping it seconds later. Additionally, the fact that Bucky has this gun in two completely different scenes, set days apart in different locations, confirms this isn’t just some random gun he borrowed temporarily in Madripoor, but his own personal gun that he purposefully chooses to carry.

Not only are Rumlow and Bucky’s guns the same basic model, they’re specifically the Super Capacity Tactical (SCT) variant, which is already fairly uncommon, but on top of that and more importantly both guns appear to have the same very specific, very unique customizations to the point where I’m almost certain it’s the exact same prop. While the standard P226 SCT is pure black, multiple parts on both of these guns (hammer, takedown lever, magazine release, decocker, etc) have a silvery finish instead, which you may be able to see a bit more clearly here and here. Some of the parts are reminiscent of the Equinox version of the P226, but it’s not a perfect match and notably the SCT doesn’t seem to have ever been made in an Equinox variation anyway. The most interesting features to me though are the bare-metal front and rear cocking serrations, which again are reminiscent of the Equinox except the rest of the slide is still all black. In all of my research that’s not something I’ve been able to find on any other P226 and is not just a part you could potentially buy and swap out. To achieve that look the slide would have to be very deliberately hand-sanded or machined. This detail, combined with the other custom parts, undoubtably makes this gun one-of-a-kind.

Now some may try to argue that if we look at other Marvel movies we might find that this particular prop has been reused before and this gun is not as unique in-universe as it might seem. Don’t worry, I’ve looked into this too. At least according to IMFDB’s current records, not a single P226 SCT, much less one with these customizations, has ever been identified in another Marvel property. Rumlow’s gun in CATWS and Bucky’s gun in TFATWS are the only instances this gun, or anything like it, has shown up.

Maybe the reappearance of this gun was just meant to be a cool Easter egg for eagle-eyed gun enthusiasts. Maybe it’s meant to be something more. I don’t know and I honestly don’t care. Because here’s the thing, regardless of what was originally intended (death of the author and all that), the facts remain and they paint an undeniably compelling picture of something that has actual narrative weight.

Whatever Doylist reasons this gun may’ve been chosen for Bucky out of the dozens, if not hundreds, of potential options, if we just look at the facts and try to make sense of them in-universe one thing is clear: there’s no way Rumlow and Bucky would both have this exact gun by pure coincidence. It’s not standard issue for SHIELD or HYDRA and it’s not some run-of-the-mill, off-the-shelf weapon Bucky could’ve easily picked up somewhere on a whim. He made a deliberate choice to acquire and carry this gun. And given this custom P226’s extreme uniqueness paired with Rumlow and Bucky’s likely history, there are really only two possible scenarios that I can see:

Bucky sought out and somehow recovered Rumlow’s gun from the wreckage of the Triskelion at some point, making it quite literally the exact same gun.

Bucky tracked down the same already uncommon model and specifically customized it to match Rumlow’s favorite gun (which he would’ve had to have been very familiar with to get all of the details just right).

Either option is intriguing, to say the least. It certainly brings up more questions than answers, namely: What is the significance of Rumlow and/or his gun to Bucky/the Winter Soldier, and why does Bucky care about it so much that he took the considerable time and effort to either recover the original or recreate an exact copy?

[Disclaimer: By no means am I a gun expert, but I did try to be thorough in my research. A lot of my conclusions are based on info pulled from IMFDB, though not all of it. While IMFDB isn’t perfect, as it’s just a publicly run database and not an official source, I’ve found it to be quite comprehensive when it comes to popular shows and movies and its contributors are generally very skilled at identifying weapons. However, if any gun experts think I’ve made a significant error, let me know!]

[rmwb-fanfics]

How to remake Harry Potter:

(A step by step guide)

We’ve already had one god-awful adaptation that way too many people think is good. This is our one chance to have the book characters represented correctly, along with the plot they support.

I’ve put YEARS of thought into this. I’ve written scripts for episodes of a hypothetical tv show. I’ve drawn concept art. I’ve done shit. So I figured I’d share my thoughts.

1. Stick to the books*.

Stick to the books has a massive asterisk next to it because I mean the plot and characters. Some stuff (as you’ll see later) should be changed.

Nothing in this show should feel out of character. Harry should be closer with Ron than he is to Hermione. Snape should be a real d*ckhead. Hermione should be judgmental of those who don’t think like her, etc etc. The way these characters navigate their relationships is why the fandom is still relevant. It’s why canon-compliant fic is popular in the first place. We like their dynamics. SHOW THEM APPROPRIATELY.

Plot is a sticky thing because I’d say there’s wiggle room, but not too much. Certain characters have to die. Certain events must happen. You cant change that stuff.

2. Use the Medium.

You’re using film as a format to tell your story. Ideally you’d us animation, but I know Warner Bros has less creativity than Disney’s remake department, so I won’t even try and pitch that.

Use colour and saturation. It can help contextualize emotion. It can make us subconsciously recognize things. For instance, the scene growing more saturated when Ron walks into the room when Hermione is wearing the horcrux, or any multitude of other uses this could bring.

Bring in costume design that (actually fits the world) but also helps show how that character is feeling. What they’re thinking, their personality, their future, etc.

Make magic fun™️. The books sort of sidelined magic in 5-7. Don’t do that. Divert from the books. Magic should feel alive. Colour-code them so we as an audience can recognize spells and what they might do before we see it. Implement sound design to make each spell unique and vibrant. Make this world subtly bursting with magic like it was in the first few books. Have it weave around characters, wrap them up. Be creative with action scenes. Force transfiguration into battle scenes. Choreograph your duels. Show don’t tell us that a wizard/witch is powerful. Turn people into portraits. Lock them up as mice. USE MAGIC.

Your set design should reflect this. Everything should be bursting with personality. Don’t just use the shitty movie sets. Inject some colour, have the surroundings aid you in telling the story. Get weird with the camera. Use these tools to their fullest potential.

Actually fucking try.

3. Utilize Music.

Music is just… such a massive part of film. It’s frustrating how often even the best filmmakers overlook its use. Characters should have themes that mature and develop as the series goes on. Have action arrangements of the themes to play with heroic moments. As the series progresses, we grow attached to these themes. When they appear, the audience FEELS something. Don’t reuse great pieces to force emotion. (Dumbledore’s Farewell in The Prince’s Tale. Are you fucking kidding me?)

For example: Have a theme for Neville that starts out timid and uses very shy instrumentals, but we first hear a change when he stands up to the trio at the end of PS. Then it gains more instruments until OotP, when it grows again. Once we get to DH, it can be used in this heroic swell as he chops the head off the snake in front of Voldemort and everyone watching. The audience, consciously or not, will feel that moment even more.

Have a theme for Ron and Hermione that might not even be romantic until HBP when it gains that element. PLAY WITH MUSIC.

Themes for mystery, adventure, loss, love, friendship, LOCATION. Let them come back throughout the series to highlight various moments. See Lord of the Rings and The Hunger Games, as well as (surprisingly) the Fantastic Beasts films.

Let music affect the visuals. Magic can bend and swivel with the music. Use it to tell the story. Use it to show emotion. Use it to progress a character’s arc. USE CONSISTENT MUSIC.

4 . Be Bold.

This is the big one and it may seem like I’m contradicting myself but I’m not. Rowling’s work hasn’t aged crazily well to modern fiction standards. This is your chance to rectify that. Fill plot holes, actually think through the politics. Introduce world-building elements that enhance the story/characters. (The house system, and how Slytherin fits in. The logic behind avada kedavra???) Get creative with solutions. Contradict the original work when it comes to description of location. If it doesn’t work for the film format, don’t force it to work here.

Spend more time with characters we know are relevant, but maybe not to the plot. These are your Ginny Weasleys, your Seamus and Deans, Nevilles, etc. Really fill them in. Give them more scenes. Ginny has two phenomenal arcs that play completely off-screen, explore them. Show us her friendship with Hermione. Show us her insecurities and her faults. Give us more of her and Harry’s friendship. We know they get married, so maybe fix the whole “Rowling wrote the epilogue first, but didn’t realize she was waiting too long to introduce these characters until HBP”.

Add scenes. Add jokes. Add smiles and covert looks. You have more time, which means you have a chance to focus on friendships, and romance, and world building.

Tell multiple storylines. Give Remus and Tonks a cool spy/thriller subplot interjected with the main story in OotP. Show us more of Fleur staying in England. Give us more of Harry and Sirius bonding. All of this stuff can fit loosely into canon, and be welcome creative additions.

BE BOLD.

And finally,

5. This is your chance to not only retell the story, but to do it better.

RECOGNIZE THIS. Take advantage of this opportunity and enhance canon, don’t fight it.

Don’t add Hermione and Harry dancing because *YOU* don’t like where the romantic pairings went. Don’t add Draco sympathy because you want him to have a redemption arc. Don’t dumb Ron down because you don’t like the fact that he’s just like the teenage boys you dated in High School, and he was a bit immature.

Make changes, be bold, use music, stick to the books*, use the medium, but take this as the opportunity that it is to enhance what came before.

Thank you.

[glade-constellation]

“We’re going to literally spell out why the bad guy is bad, and how to help them, but do nothing about it because they are Bad Guy™️ and bad guys can’t change.”

The current running theme for every single fucking villain in TSAMS. A running theme I viscerally hate with my entire being. I think KC was the only one to escape this, but even then they just killed him off later.

For a show that seems to want to handle sensitive and heavy topics, they sure as hell never handle them well. Listen, if a majority of your audience is young teens, you need to be careful with the story you tell and what might be taken from it. TSAMS is teaching its audience that bad people will never change.

That’s just not true. At all.

Often people who act out do so because of past trauma. Trauma can be healed with time and therapy. Yes, it’s difficult, especially when the person says they don’t want to heal. But you can do it. Did you know that rejecting help can be a subconscious survival tactic? It doesn’t instantly mean that the person wants to be bad, or wants to stay bad. They are simply living in survival mode, and their brain thinks the way they currently act is the only way to survive.

Just because Bloodmoon says they can’t be helped doesn’t mean it’s true. And it definitely doesn’t mean they immediately deserve death. Yes, they have done terrible things, but nearly everything they’ve done has been ordered of them by another person. That, or their coding. The coding may be a harder thing to fix, but listen. Look at your current cast. You can’t tell me Moon and Solar couldn’t work together to fix it. Or Earth couldn’t help them with therapy and they’d eventually turn to killing just animals. There are so many ways Bloodmoon could be helped, but no. Just no. They don’t want to be helped, so we won’t go out of our way to try.

It’s just so unbelievably frustrating that several fans have pointed this out and the show doesn’t seem to care. Bloodmoon has room to be redeemed, even now, but the show doesn’t want that. They seem to be stuck on this idea the Bloodmoon can’t be redeemed.

And it’s not like this is a new theme they’re trying to tell for the story. No, this has been around since Eclipse. Yes, Sun and Moon did try to help Eclipse in the beginning, but help is a strong word. It was more like they tried to bargain with him. No one actually tried to help. And the moment the bargaining didn’t work, they just dubbed him the villain and turned against him. In the end, Eclipse tried to help. It was pretty terribly done, yeah. But he was trying. He even gave up his one piece of power and told Moon he could send him anywhere in the multiverse. But no, the only way out was through death. I get that Eclipse did a lot of terrible things. I get that a large majority of the cast had their own trauma because of Eclipse. But he could have been helped. We have seen moments where he wanted help, but would immediately turn back to his survival tactics. Eclipse was bad, but he didn’t have to die.

Anyways, they already taught the “villains always bad” story with Eclipse. They don’t need to retell it with Bloodmoon. That’s just reusing old parts of the story.

The only reason I don’t bring Ruin up is because Ruin was different from all the others. There wasn’t anything that made him a villain besides the fact that he was a virus. There was no “sad backstory”. He just was evil. That is how you write a villain you want your audience to love but still want to kill off in the end. Ruin was fun to watch, and a great villain, and I wasn’t mad when they got rid of the virus. I was attached but not at the emotional level as I am with Eclipse, KC, and Bloodmoon. He had no backstory to make me want him to live. I love a villain that is enjoyable to watch but don’t mind when they’re gone. That is how you write a good villain you don’t want people to riot about afterwards.

This has just turned into me ranting about storytelling and character analysis, but honestly. TSAMS. Do better. A good portion of your fan base is screaming for a Bloodmoon redemption. Why are you pushing so hard for people to hate them? You’ve already told the plot line you’re currently trying to sell. What is the point of just upsetting your fans?

[fullofgutsndopamine]

all the earth around me (around you)

or: a drunk confession

tw: drinking

part of wcbah universe. not required reading, but you might enjoy it if you liked this.

charlie doesn’t drink.

this is a known fact, one of the first things you’ve learned about him.

he’ll say it’s too damn expensive to drink, or it all tastes like bread water anyways, while the truth is covered in the corner: he’s seen what alcohol can do, how it can turn you into someone you aren’t, betraying yourself.

So when charlie comes over as your outside, getting clothing down from the clothesline, a storm brewing on the horizon you aren’t sure what to expect.

“charlie?” you can’t hide the smile when you see him, “what’s up?”

and like, you didn’t expect to see him, but it’s always a pleasant surprise, a face you don’t mind seeing finally, someone you can hang up the responsibilities of the world at the door and just be yourself with-

his voice is low, “I have a surprise for us.”

his hands are tucked behind his back and he still has a towel tucked into the front of his pants, was obviously doing chores before he raced over. it made sense; you had heard his fathers old beat up truck slowly, painstakingly, turn out of the gravel driveway, chug and groan down the street-it was finally safe.

“oh?” you tease, “I hope it’s chocolate.”

and you’re laughing, because like-that’s such a rare occurrence and such a small thing, but when you’re burning overdue bills and notices to keep warm last winter the little things get overlooked.

“better, sweetheart.” his eyes are shining, the smirk pulling at his lips, “i’ll go get set up inside?”

it’s a question, not a statement, and you’re nodding, he’s laughing at you as you crane your neck to see what’s behind his back but he doesn’t loosen the grip, doesn’t try and stop you.

instead, he takes a step forward, his hand cups the back of your head as he gently brings it to you, kisses your forehead and he finishes by walking backwards into the house, narrowingly missing running into the wall.

and as your fingers go to your forehead where he kissed, where it still lingers and feels like static, and you remind yourself: this is friends. just friends. this is what they do when they’re forced to survive.

by the time you’re inside, charlie has two small plastic cups on the dining room table.

they’re reused and rewashed from the gas station but it doesn’t make a much a difference when you see the bottle on the table.

“thought you didn’t like that stuff.”

he shrugs, takes the dark bottle in his hands and rolls it around. it’s half gone, his fathers favorite bottle, but charlie will insist he won’t notice it, that it won’t be missed.

“It’s different with you,” he’ll say gently, like he knows the weight of it, says if with a shrug to try and hold the weight down, “safe with you, yknow? Nothing bad will happen when i’m with you.”

he shrugs: “you don’t have to, i just thought-“

and you aren’t going to be the reason he doesn’t drink. even if he’s been around it forever and has stayed away from it. if he wants one good night who are you to deny him it? and besides, maybe he’ll get some sleep finally.

“Pour me one too,” you say, opening a cabinet in the kitchen, “i’ll get us a snack.”

and he’s grinning now, standing and pouring the amber liquid into the bottles slowly, can hear the sound as it hits the bottom and slowly doubles in side.

you’re at his side, pulling into a seat as he hands you a cup.

“To us.”

he says, his eyes dark, biting his lip before you clink sides of a plastic cup with him:

“To us.”

you repeat back, throwing it back

the problem is, you’ll say later, is it tastes so bad you keep thinking one more drink will make it better.

you’re nearing the third cup, face bright red and charlie’s shirt sleeves rolled up, hiccups between the two of you.

“charlie,” you hiccup, “Shh. I-I gotta tell you somethin’.”

and you’re both giggling, he’s reaching over to tangle his fingers into yours, trying to move hair out of your face but failing, doubles of you.

“Go ahead.”

“I love you.” you’re giggling.

and he’s laughing.

this is something you two say all the time, after all. in passing, in letters.

he rolls his eyes, “honey-“

“no, no.” you huff, eyebrows one, “like. actually love you. like, can’t see you with anyone else-“ a pause for a hiccup

and this is wrong.

charlie realized this as soon as it leaves your lip. not how he wants your first meangiful i love you to go, wants you to remember it, not be under the influence of cheap alcohol.

it’s after he’s done dancing with you, no music playing but he hums a song he’s been working on forever, drawing you close to his chest as you two dance around the creaking floor boards, the house moans and groans in protest against you two as he spins you around again and again

“charlie-“

“Shh.”

charlie feels sober suddenly, like someone dropped cold water over his head.

“Cmon,” he puts the lid on the alcohol bottle, not much left anyways, stands and takes your hand: “let’s call it a night.”

you huff, pause for a second before your voice comes back lighter, suddenly the scared kid he remembers growing up with:

“you’re staying, right? keep the monsters at bay?”

and you’re too old for this. for him to stay the night, to believe in monsters of that he’d keep you save from them, but he takes your hand and tangled his fingers into yours, leads you up the stairs-let’s you out your weight on him as he guides you to your room, closes the door gently and helps you out of the old dress that’s two sizes too big that you’re constantly sewing up, let’s you rest against him as he goes through your closet, tries to ignore that all your pajama tops are his old shirts, still smell like him and are ripped and worn with age and their own stories-

when you’re dressed he slides you into bed, undoes his own jeans and crawls in next to you, you’re immediately curling into him, both ignoring how his feet hang off the edge of the bed, far too tall but doomed to live a life of twin sized mattress forever.

“alright, honey.” the pad of his thumb draws constellations across your arm, “close your eyes. i’ll take first watch. you’re safe.”

and it isn’t until you’re snoring, when he’s sure you’re fast asleep and won’t remember this that he pressed his lips against your forehead and speaks:

“i love you too.”

[canmom]

Animation Night 169: Sex. 2.

So. Storytime.

Two years ago, we had a joke. "We should totally show some hentai on Animation Night 69." we said. Having said that, we were honour-bound to totally commit to the bit. Teaming up with @mogsk, I wrote a massive post on sexuality in animation and the history of 'hentai', from the hentai seiyoku discussed in 20th-century sexology journals to the modern subcultural kaleidoscope.

It is, genuinely, one of my favourite posts I ever wrote in this project. It's definitely not perfect - the sections on BL and the lolicon boom are especially weak, but still! There's no way I'm beating that.

Mogs, meanwhile assembled a perfectly pitched playlist of animation dealing with the theme of sexuality, from classic oldschool BL like Kaze to Ki no Uta to charming little comedies like Oruchuban Ebichu, and a scattering of actual h-anime like Weather Report Girl. For my part, I led with the genuinely classic film Kanashimi no Belladonna (Belladonna of Sadness).

So somehow - somehow! - we managed to make the idea of getting together with your online friends to watch a bunch of anime about sex just... plain fun and uplifting, to the point that @footsteps-on-the-dance-floor will tell me years later how much she enjoyed it. Not to mention, we got a pretty good cross-section of the different dimensions of sexuality in animation as well!

I didn't even get banned on Twitch.

This week, the counter has drawn the sex number. So can we do it again? Well, my friends, we're gonna try~ Tonight, @mogsk and canmom present: the long-awaited sequel to sex. Sex, 2.

This time we're narrowing our focus a bit. One of the distinctive elements of eromanga, by the analysis of Kimi Rito in The History of Hentai Manga, is how particular images get encoded as signs that can be reused by other mangaka, and these signs can become the seed for particular subgenres. So, our selection tonight is in part designed to give a brief cross-section of some of these visual tropes.

So let me introduce you to our program. CWs: sex, obviously; also a couple of these films (Cleopatra, Parade Parade) cw for rape. Here's the programme, read on for brief descriptions of each item and a lil cultural context~!

Cleopatra (1970) - oldschool Tezuka weirdness

Boku no Sexual Harassment (1994-5) - 90s salaryman BL

Interspecies Reviewers (2020) - monstergirl sex comedy, and an instance of the trend of recent cable TV h-anime

Agent Aika (1997-9) - panty shots to the most ludicrous degree

Comical Psychosomatic Medicine (2015) - ONA comedy framed as fetish education

Parade Parade (1996) - futanari + yuri

Golden Boy (1995-6) - 90s sakuga and a classic comedy

Queen's Blade (2009) - kyonyuu

Colorful (1999) - panty-centric comedy skits

after that: if you still have energy, I might take requests~

[n.b. a lot of these are TV series - we will only really be getting a 1-2 episode sample of each one, for runtime's sake.]

Cleopatra (クレオパトラ), 1970

Last time we led with certified classic, genuinely moving and good as hell film Belladonna of Sadness. This was part of a last gambit by the struggling Mushi Productions, the studio of Osamu Tezuka, credited with inventing TV anime back in the day with Astro Boy. Long before there would be such a thing as an h-anime subculture, Tezuka experimented with creating erotic animated films based on history and mythology.

Belladonna is the best remembered of the three, and with good reason. Tezuka was largely not involved by this point. The others, though... are some plain fucking weird movies, I'll tell you that much. So tonight we'll be watching Cleopatra (1970). I may have shown you the trailer before - this is the Caesar trampoline movie. That is only the beginning.

I recently finished reading Osamu Tezuka's manga Ayako, written in 1972-1973 - not long after this movie, actually, during Tezuka's gekiga phase. I'm sure it's common knowledge by now, but Tezuka was one horny old guy! Ayako has all manner of skulduggery: incest, murder, gangster stuff, more murder, etc., but the core story is about a girl who is imprisoned in an underground cell for 20-some years by the machinations of her family. As she grows up, she ends up in an incestuous relationship with her protective brother - and once she finally escapes, she is highly agoraphobic but also throws herself at nearly every man she meets.

It's very much a story of the sins of the past echoing down into the future, shot though with post-war history and gangster movies, but its central fixation is the figure of Ayako herself: the soft cloistered object of obsession and attraction. Whether they want to protect Ayako, seek absolution from her, fuck her, or exploit her.

But it's also in places a really wacky manga, with a lot of very comical contrivances or hyper-cartoonish panels with extreme squash and stretch. It's a completely different way of displaying action.

I think this gives me a sense of the sort of wavelength Tezuka was on when he draws a scene where Cleopatra is tied down by stakes and a bunch of guys line up to rape her while she shouts at them defiantly. It's all very theatrical, a huge contrast to the much more internally oriented Belladonna. Just a plain strange movie, but it's one I've been fascinated to watch for ages.

Whatever we make of Cleopatra, we'll jump into the program that Mogs drew up! Once again she's come through magnificently.

My Sexual Harassment (僕のセクシャルハラスメント), 1995-6

Our next act is some old school yaoi! One day I'll get to do that big effortpost on the history of BL, but not this day. In any case, Boku no Sexual Harassment is an OVA from the mid 90s about a young man called Junya Mochizuki trying to fuck his way up the company ranks for the sake of himself and his partner Kazunori Honma. In particular, he has an affair with his boss, Mr. Honma, running across the whole OVA.

This is perhaps best known for an infamous scene involving corn. It's here as a window into this period of BL - not quite as high-mindedly aesthetic as its 80s predecessors, and with its erotic focus being on like... 90s salarymen, which is quite a specific thing!

Interspecies Reviewers (異種族レビュアーズ), 2020

Next, a series which has the dubious distinction of proving too steamy for Crunchyroll. Interspecies Reviewers enters the general milieu of modern videogame-inflected fantasy anime, a comedy dancing along the line of whether it's too overtly porn to air on TV. The story tells of a group of fantasy characters who are the clients of monstergirl sex workers, hoping to encounter as many different species as possible. This is a frame device for a series of episodes focused around what it would be like to have sex with various kinds of monstergirl.

This is an example of a recent trend in TV anime, namely very overtly sexual cable TV anime such as High School DxD, which have in a way come to fill the gap left by OVAs. This is a niche that also includes the likes of Goblin Slayer and Redo of Healer. In contrast to those series' "big grimdark plot with a side of rape" approach, Reviewers is light-hearted fantasy sex comedy mixed with (if you live in China) a certain amount of actual porn, which fansubbers have kindly spliced back in to the censored release for us.

Agent Aika (AIKa), 1997-9

The panty shot is one of the more popular visual tropes in eromanga, to the point that Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga dedicates a whole two page spread to the history of the trope. (Surprisingly, I can't find any more substantial account in Kimi Rito's History of Hentai Manga).

You'll see it often enough in anime, overtly or subtly, and certainly in the early works of Katsuhiko Nishijima, who debuted in 1986 with Project A-ko, a classic Kanada-inflected OVA that still bears signs of its hentai roots. But there is nothing that takes the panty shot to the same extreme as Agent Aika (1997). The degree to which the camera in this action anime contrives to show panties at a machinegun rate... it crosses over into a level where it feels less like outright fetish material and more like experimental art.

This is a series that is only coherent through the erotic focus. And yet, it's not generally categorised as porn. Nobody actually fucks. Lines are very arbitrary...

Comical Psychosomatic Medicine (アニメで分かる心療内科), 2015

This ONA adapts a gag manga series themed around the idea of an education series on fetishes, paraphilias, and so on - not so different in concept from Peepoodoo and the Super Fuck Friends, from the sound of it! The ONA is produced by Shin-Ei Animation, a venerable studio known for beloved characters like Doraemon; it's a bunch of five minute bite-sized chunks which I plan to sprinkle in between the other stuff we watch as a palate cleanser.

Parade Parade (パレードパレード), 1996

Having warmed you up sufficiently, this is the point in the evening where we pull out the futa porn.

Parade Parade is an OVA by the studio Pink Pineapple, one of the giants of the 90s erotic OVA scene - I wrote about them a bit last time. It's a relatively "tasteful" example of the futanari (二形) trope, literally 'two forms', referring to basically a character with a mostly cis woman-typical body except for a penis (generally in addition to a vulva), which she will typically use in penetrative sex. This is typically represented as either the result of magic, an intersex condition, or just a fantasy world where it's not unusual.

Depending on your subcultural corner, this might be further distinguished from other niche variants of dickgirl (e.g. a futa must have both sets of genitals).

In anime and manga, the futa trope apparently traces back to the introduction of American trans porn magazines to Japan, inspiring mangaka such as Kitamimaki Kei to start drawing futanari characters. Futanari manga first spread through dōjinshi in the 80s, and became popular in eromanga in the 90s, before circling back to the West. So actually yeah I guess this one is on us trans girls! I always assumed it was like, an independent invention. The more you know...

Here we have succesful idol Kaori, who's secretly intersex - and only her girlfriend Yuko knows. She's very careful to let nobody know, for the sake of her career, but a rival lesbian idol is about to find out...

Golden Boy (1995-6)

Now here is a true classic.

Golden Boy is a comedy series about a wanderer named Kintaro, who dropped out of uni to travel around Japan getting into sexual escapades. Each episode, he runs into someone and hopefully falls for them while coming across as an idiot pervert, but gradually reveals that he's actually a decent and resourceful guy - and yet, having found love, there will always be a reason he must move on. A setup to hang all sorts of plots, carried by some honestly unreasonably impressive animation from the realist school, most notably Mitsuo Iso. It's just... very very well done.

The above clip did the rounds on here a while ago (I think maybe the dubbed version), and we will indeed be watching episode 4 to put that in context.

Queen's Blade (2009)

So this is a studio ARMS OVA - the guys who did stuff like Mezzo Forte with Yasuomi Umetsu - a fantasy story about a warrior tournament. But for our purposes it's standing in for the 巨乳 kyonyuu subgenre - meaning 'huge boobs'. So if you wanna do the meme in Japanese, that's the word you need.

This has a rather specific history in eromanga, recounted by Kimi Rito in The History of Hentai Manga. Per Rito, the popularity of the term dates back specifically to 1989, where it was used to promote porn star Kimiko Matsuzaka, as well as Western gravure porn magazines. Gradually displacing other terms like 'D-cup', the onomatopoeic ボイン boin and portmanteau デカパイdekapai, kyonyuu soon became cemented as the term for a type of character design. It grew in popularity in the space opened up by the bishōjo genre established by the lolicon boom.

So under the pen of mangaka like Kei Keitamimaki (him again!), designs with massively exaggerated boobs became very popular, defining a subgenre of their own. Artists would sometimes express anxiety over whether they would be 'allowed' to draw such extreme designs, but it became widespread in seinen magazines. Gradually, these genre boundaries dissolved and boob size started to become a symbol of characterisation.

Queen's Blade is a fairly longrunning series but as far as I understand, it's broadly a silly ecchi anime about women with very large boobs fighting to become queen. It's not the most comical example of this trope necessarily (nothing can really beat High School of the Dead's supersonic bullet dodging tits) but it's pretty up there.

Colorful, 1999

Colorful is a comedy series of brief (~7 minute) skits about boys trying to see panties and suffering many consequences. As a late 90s anime it's got some interesting stylstic Y2K stuff - look at that rotoscope clip! - as well as strong animation from people like Norio Matsumoto of Naruto fame.

So!

Mogs's encylopedic knowledge of weird obscure horny anime once again coming to the rescue: I'm fascinated to see where this night will take us. And whether I'll still have a Twitch account tomorrow.

I realise this is a much later start than we'd like with such a big programme, but I hope you will come join me for some weirdly educational sexy animation! Dip in and out or stay for the whole programme, the choice is yours - see you at twitch.tv/canmom, going live now, programme starts in about 30 minutes at 22:30 UK time!

Animation Night 169 is gonna be a little postponed - we'll be going at 7pm UK time on Tuesday (29 August) at twitch.tv/canmom! Hope to see you there! I will try to write a little more interesting info as we lead up to that~

[queen0fm0nsterz]

Thoughts on how TSON will tie into the lore of LN3?

As of the location of the last episode, as well as explaining some more small chunks of lore and locations to expand the world, I think TSON is preparing us already for what we will see next with Low and Alone. Give us something to expect, as well as a minimal explanation of how the Nowhere works, because this is information we need to know for Low and Alone's story to make sense.

Six's story, which was the main plot line of Little Nights up until now, explained how she travelled the world only to end up right at the place waiting for her. A destructive cycle of events that had set locations (the Pale City, the Tower, the Maw -- the Nest being a small detour but an interesting addition to the bunch) and events. Whether you believe Six left the Maw or not (I like to think the former), hers was a story about losing a part of herself to the world she tried to desperately to flee, and while she "won" that piece back, she will never be the same again. It did not necessarely need to elaborate on whether the world itself was her "home" or not -- though it was always strongly implied it was not.

It did try, though. The discontinued comics were an attempt at showcasing that the world beyond the Maw was vast, and that there was even ANOTHER world beyond that same dimension, with the tales of the Refugee Boy and the Humpback Girl respectively. However, at the time, it was confusionary: we didn't know anything but the Maw, so many fans misconstrued what was trying to come across, and ultimately this partially led to the decisions that had the comics be discontinued and the DLC be made instead.

The podcast to me is just that: to make up for those discontinued comics. Some of these storylines sound very similar to the ones you would read about in the Little Nightmares comics in structure: I would not be surprised to find some concepts from them were reused, modified to fit the plot of the podcast and even added to the lore of Little Nights III.

A lot of people seem to think that Mirror Man and North Wind will both make an appearance and frankly, I can see why. I am leaning more strongly on Mirror Man: I wish to see him in action in his own realm considering Low's abilities.

I've heard some concerns about the game potentially reusing the comic characters, but personally I find it a brilliant opportunity to expand on them. Mirror Man in particular is a... blank slate, essentially. He does have a minimum of characterization (<- post where I analyse just that) but besides that you could go wild with him. I'm interested to see if they do bring him forward.

Anyhow, sorry for derailing. As of episode four, we have been brought to a location that seems to match the circus we see in the trailer of Little Nightmares III. Considering the information we are given, it seems that it is suspended in the sky, with it being a literal ship floating above land.

(Two images depicting the "carnival" as seen in the trailer [top] and the steam page for LN III [bottom])

The idea of such a location is an interesting one and, considering the nature of the Spiral, possibly not that far out of reach. It was mentioned that Low and Alone would be travelling behind the Spiral... considering the nature of the Necropolis, which was mentioned to be a city powered by wind, I wonder if the spiral is... a giant hurricane. Or storm. And the locations are all in the middle of it - in its eye, stacked on different points in altitude.

It would be just as Noone said if that was to be the case: places who are on top of each other, like the building she's in, but that do not work together. I think that for this reason, the locations we have seen in the podcast such as the Stone Giant and the Mall might return later on as locations in LN III in some shape of form.

... We have seen a stone giant already...

.. although it would be more metaphorical than literal in this case as the Stone Giant was not really described as a giant baby thing, and the location is different, but you get what I mean hopefully!

[crossing-into-your-parallel]

the adventure begins!

welcome to CROSSING INTO YOUR PARALLEL, a kirby AU centered around magolor and the master crown, mistilteinn.

this part will be updated later with a summary; we want to get the ball rolling first! all we'll say for now is that both magolor and mistilteinn have had their own share of experiences already.

our tag directory is here!

this blog is run by two mods, both adults:

MOD VANILLA (it/its, he/him), who handles coming up with ideas, doing a whole lot of sketching, and writes for magolor

MOD JUKEBOX (they/them, he/him), who handles writing in a more broad sense, drawing the longer comic sequences, and writes for mistilteinn

art will vary in style as a result, and you'll see nilla's drawings more often than you will jukebox's.

rules for asks, and the answers to some questions you might have, are under the cut!

RULES FOR ASKS:

no NSFW asks (this isn't the place for it)

some asks might not get answered- they didn't fit with the story, we couldn't figure out how to incorporate it, or a particular ask may be getting saved for later. try not to worry if yours doesn't get answered; it's nothing personal, we promise

you're welcome to ask us mods about stuff if you want! just be respectful, please :]

QUESTION SECTION!

Q: Your blog is a little... A: we know; that's what gives it charm! (on a serious note, we're just really excited to get this blog going. it'll look nicer as time goes on)

Q: Is there any significance behind your names? A: nilla has cookie run autism, and jukebox likes the jukebox from RTDL/DX

Q: Why do we see Nilla's drawings more often? A: jukebox has health issues, plus they tend to draw on big canvases with small brushes.

Q: I want to draw something for you! Do you have references? A: sure do! here:

Q: Can I send you constructive criticism regarding a drawing? A: no. if you do anyway, jukebox is going to make fun of you.

Q: My ask didn't get a new drawing! A: yup, that'll happen sometimes; for many reasons, sometimes it'll be easier for us to answer questions with colored text, or we might reuse an old drawing. we're not content-creating machines :P

Q: I like your art and want to follow you! Can I know your main(s)? A: reply to a post asking, and we'll DM you!

Q: What disease does Nilla have? is it contagious? A: yes. you will begin coughing within 5 minutes. Run.

[avelera]

I'm not sure where to ask this, so I thought I could ask you, maybe?

Do you know, if I expand on a magic system in a fanfic, meaning actually define what it is, create names for concepts and lay out rules that.... could be guessed from the orginal but aren't stated, sometimes, and sometimes just make up things, can I put that magic system, my parts of it, on a later date, into orginal fiction? Or, if I transform the world in the fic through the use of plot into a world which would resemble (or be, really) a world I'd use as setting for orginal fiction but, without the context of the fanfic, you wouldn't guess that that's that, can I do that? Can I reuse a plotline I would use for a fanfic, and portray it in an orginal work as something which happened in the past of the orginal work, with the events in the fic even as they were being plausibly, but not explictly, a part of the, uh, fanfic's orginal material?

I feel this may be a silly question, and the answer feels like it should be "obviously yes, those are your ideas", except for the last one which feels more iffy, but, I'm still worried? I dont want to start writing orginal friction right now, I want to try something more casual, but I feel that if I put the cool ideas about plotlines and worldbuilding into a world of something which doesn't belong to me then I'm like, giving it up? Like it doesnt belong to me anymore, it belongs to... I don't know, the collective conciousnes of the fandom in question or something.

Um. To ask in a way that is less, these long and confusing sentences up there: can I put something orginal into a fanfic (like an oc) and then use it in an orginal thing I'd sell for money? (without renaming the oc?) If you dont feel like you can/don't want to answer this, could you still post it, so maybe one of your followers might? 😅 Thanks in advance! ❤️

I think what you’re asking in a roundabout way is “can I file off the serial number and use something from a fanfic in original fiction?” And the answer is yes, it’s so common we have a term for it. Just look at 50 Shades of Gray, which is perhaps the most famous example of this, in which a Twilight fanfic was turned into original fiction.

Now for the next part of your question as I understand it with regards to the magic system: the things that get copyrighted, if you have a legal concern about using bits of another magic system, for example, in your own work tend to be things like proper nouns.

I can have a school of warrior monks who fight with magic swords made of light and channel the power of the universe to move objects, I just can’t call them Jedi. And if you look closely, many many magic systems in original fiction are borrowing bits from other magic systems. No one is getting sued unless you use specific proper nouns or original words that are unique to other stories. Otherwise it’s all plausibly deniable.

Now the bigger thornier question is: are you providing enough foundation in your own story once you make it original that a reader can understand what’s happening without knowing about the fanfic you wrote or the other universe? Because that’s the difference between a good original story and an incomprehensible one. You have to rebuild those foundations in your new story without leaning on the old one. The best way to know if you’ve done that correctly is to pull in a beta reader who is unfamiliar with the other work and ask if they understand your story as it stands on its own (and, of course, if it’s entertaining).

Hope that helps!

[darlingdarkly]

🥳🍾 Ok, if you encourage me, then I'll go ahead - though I would hate to distract you from FWTD (Haven't read it yet, I'm still too focussed on 141 and can't cope with splitting my attention too much.) Feel free to ignore this, no pressure.

Would you be interested in hearing about my favourite passages of NYNY, like chapterwise, in case you don't find that boring? I enjoy sharing favourite parts because I find fascinating to see what exactly caught other people's attention and what they like best - especially when it comes to the authors themselves. 🤗

Are there passages you love and are specifically proud of? Like for example you had one sentence/passage/setting in mind and felt the need to create a whole chapter, story or even world around it?👁👁🧠💥💋

(Is that too private to ask? In case you wouldn't want to answer (in public), just let me know.🤫)

((It might sometimes take me a bit of time to answer but I would never NOT react at all sooner or later. Hope that's not too frustrating a prospect...👉👈))

Enjoy the day/night 🤘

YESS OMG! Ok so I’d love to answer this with you but it’s gonna be lengthy LMAO so I’m gonna drop it under a read more 😅

Ok so I’ll give you a little secret about where the idea for him came from in the first place. I came up with this idea back in December of last year, a new movie came out on Netflix called “The Killer” it follows this hit man around who botches a kill and then the people he works for try to clean it up by taking out him but they end up really hurting his wife and so he goes rogue and takes out everyone who had anything to do with the job. His final target is this rich guy who put up the money for the job and he finds out he goes to this fitness club and he goes there while he’s working out to get access to his house. The fitness club/ bougie gym in question was called “Baliquinox” and while I was sitting there watching it the idea came to me and I literally stole the name of the gym and reused it as like a little homage to where the idea came from.

And thus personal trainer Johnny was born! When I sat down to actually write it I had three main scenes I wanted to write, their first ever introduction where he picks her out or part 1, the scene in part four where they fuck for the first time (let me tell you that scene lives rent free in my head for months!) and the ending (specifically like the last paragraph) your girl wrote that WHOLE fic with just those three scenes in mind at the start. Everything else, literally all of it was thought up on the spot.

Funny enough the whole FitBit present he gives her was thought up as I wrote that part. I heard a commercial on Spotify for it, did a little more research and saw all the potential it had. And I had no idea when I wrote it in just how big a part it was gonna end up being in parts down the road. It was kinda just improvised haha

Two of my favorite little tidbits!

The first is in the second part when he’s sitting her down and asking her all kinds of questions that get increasingly personal to the point where she thinks he’s fucking with her (because he is) but I wanted to show that he’s intelligent enough to masquerade his gross intrusiveness as part of his job and then when he’s got you suckered he drops the facade completely and reveals his true intentions. It’s the first of Johnny showing you his true colors and I absolutely loved writing it, it was such a blast and I really enjoy writing manipulations like that. And then when reader heads to the locker room to recompose and dress she has her mind set to set him straight and draw some boundaries which when confronted by them Johnny just pliantly agrees and makes her feel kinda small for making such a big deal of it but we all know he’s pulling the wool over readers eyes again.

Secondly! I loved the morning after the club incident when she wakes up and she’s in Johnny’s bed and she can’t remember anything and Johnny writes the narrative for her and plants a seed. It’s really all it takes. He tells her that it’s OBVIOUS she was drugged last night and there’s no way she can go back home because she’s in DANGER!! (A danger he created the whole time) He played her right into his hands, swept her right off her feet without her even protesting because he’s helping her and doing it for her own good.

A man like Johnny is hyper intelligent and hyper dangerous. When he has his sights set on something he wants he will get it every time because he’s not afraid to play outside the lines. There are no boundaries and no limitations, there’s just the object of his desire and the obstacles in between him and it. And when you’ve walked into the trap and he’s got you, it won’t even seem like a trap. You’ve just suddenly gained a boyfriend and he’s moved you into his home and the sex is amazing and you never have to care for anything ever again. He’s just all in one move wrapped you up into his arms and secured you and it’s where you’ll be for the rest of your days if he can just keep manipulating things in his direction, which is much easier now that he’s got you right where he wants you.

This became so lengthy omg haha but I love him so much! He’s obsessive and he wants you all to himself and he’ll do anything to get it! Please, feel free to reblog this and tell me your favorite parts or add onto mine or discuss!! I would love it! 🫶🫶🫶

[honkceasar]

Okay big infodump that might not make any sense about The guy who didn’t like musicals, Black Friday, and genloss!!! They’re very similar and I think that’s very cool!!!! I love finding similarities between media I enjoy!!!!!!!!!!

‼️Spoilers for all 3 episodes of generation loss, Black Friday, and The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals!!! Also various descriptions of gore!!!‼️

-So this isn’t really an actual in-depth comparison but both the hatchetfield musicals and genloss are live comedy-horror shows that reuse actors and have an edited version posted on YouTube later and I think that is a really funny coincidence lmao

Okay so the first real thing that stuck out to me is that the comedy to horror balance of genloss is SOOO reminiscent of the hatchetfield musicals!! It’s part of why I adore genloss so much honestly. Starkid already has such a place in my heart, so watching something that gave that same comedy-to-horror balance made me fall in love with it immediately.

- Tgwdlm and Spirit of the Cabin I think are most similar in terms of tone. Both genloss and tgwdlm have that quality of “not scary until you think about it but once you do it’s HORRIFYING” concept and I’m SUCH A SUCKER FOR THAT. Granted, the horror of the first ep of genloss doesn’t hit that hard without the revelations of the second, but I feel like my point still stands. Also they both kind of poke fun at the horror genre in general?? Tgwdlm is supposed to parody the ENTITE horror genre, and I feel like with the amount of references to old horror movies in spirit of the cabin, I think it’s safe to say ranboo was doing something similar. (Also they both involve strange colored goo that replaces the appearance of actual gore?? Like when I realized what the slime was in genloss I couldn’t stop thinking about Charlotte’s blue intestines in Join Us And Die)

- While I don’t think it’s as great of a comparison, ep 2 and 3 of genloss definitely have a tone similar to Black Friday. Black Friday and The Mastermind of the Warehouse both have parts of them that are so absurd you start to wonder how it’s ever going to get that scary and then a bombshell drops out of NOWHERE. Like the feeling I got between What Do You Say and Feast or Famine in BF was the same as Charlie’s silly slime dissection turning to real blood and guts. I’d say towards the end of Black Friday it starts to feel like The Choice, but I don’t know how similar I could really say they are without reaching lol.

Okay here’s where I might just really want these to be more similar than they are BUT there’s also some really fun plot similarities between the hatchetfield musicals and generation loss!

- Mind control!! They both kind of have mind control! With tgwdlm, the weird goop shit can make people do things they normally would NEVER do. (Paul participating in a musical, Charlotte hurting people, Sam literally pointing a gun at his wife’s head and later ripping her insides out.) Wiggly in Black Friday also alters people’s perception in that way, making them more violent and desperate. The comparison of tgwdlm and genloss gets me the most though honestly. I think about how Professor Hidgens sings “you’ve just got to give up your choice” in Let It Out a LOT in terms of genloss ranboo. Nothing gl!ranboo does is HIS choice. He has to comply with the various games showfall makes him play if he wants to live or have any free will at all. Any time he breaks through the control and the filter, he becomes even more of an npc. None of his choices are his own.

- Okay this one’s more funny than serious but all of the hatchetfield shows and genloss have fucking time loop theories that make me insane actually. I keep desperately trying to make What If Tomorrow Comes make sense for genloss cause of the time loop implications but I’m really just grasping at straws lol let me BELIEVE.

- THE PROTAGONISTS DONT WIN (and it makes me so sad every time). Literally everyone in tgwdlm eventually dies/becomes a weird singing zombie. They even lure you into a false sense of hope with Paul and Emma that they managed to escape, just for it to be revealed that Paul has already been transformed and Emma has no hope for survival. In Black Friday, Wiggly remains undefeated, and the implied ending is that they get nuked by Russia due to the misplaced bomb. (tomorrow never comes!!) In generation loss, Sneeg is always so close but never truly reaches freedom, Charlie dies the moment he understands what has happened to him, and ranboo…..well. ⬛️ He even gets that same false sense of hope!! He defeats showfall, shuts it all down!! The exit is right there!!!!! He’s going to escape!!!!!! Just for him to get captured and crucified. The audience doesn’t even get to know if death really freed him. It’s that same kind of cruel ending where the protagonists efforts just,,,, don’t accomplish anything. The hero doesn’t succeed, and suffers for trying at all.

-there’s also like,,, religious imagery in Black Friday and genloss but nothing really to compare there, just neat

Okay silly rant over!!! I just really like genloss and the fact that it feels so similar to previous fixations I’ve had just makes it even more special to me :^)

[leynaeithnea]

Eeeeee I'm super happy to learn stuff about you :)

I'm pretty sure the cause of the block is too many ideas tbh. I'm trying to get a first chapter for my new book, but it's just not coming because I've basically written it in my head, and all the ideas seem like too much to fit in :(

Also all the happy stuff that's happened today is so great and soft and awesome!!!

🤍 hiii eheh

So, when you say you have it already written in your mind does that mean you have a whole plot and figured out storyline, or is it a whole bunch of scenes, ideas and all of that mixed together into something you cant bring into one line yet?

If its the former and you mostly struggle with getting it out on the page due to overthinking or sum then Id say: put words on the page without thinking about it, without trying to pick the "right" words to express what you mean and without going back to edit it, if its chapter 1 thats giving you specific isssues, skip it and move to a scene you have better figured out, first drafts are there to make the story exist, all the other drafts after are there to make them functional and effective and good ;3 the first draft is allowed to be trash

If its the later, I would say the best might be to look at the core story: the theme and the character and their goal and whats standing in their way, the core story you want to tell and ruthlessly cutting any ideas that might really really cool but simply dont purpose on express what that story is about, you can save the ideas on a seperate document or something like that to reuse in future projects

Generally if you havent yet, mayve trying to figure out some plot structures and sorting things into can help

I'm a plotter type writer for the most part, I need to have my core story in order to be able to do some discovery writting to figure out the things inbetween; but every writer works a bit different so you just gotta see what works best for you!

Mmhh another idea would be if its about struggling to sitting down and writing it down is giving yourself some repeated sensory imput (specific songs, specific lights, smells, etc etc) whenever you sit down with the goal to write, it will eventually condition your brain to associate this sensory imput with writing and it will help getting into the "writing zone"

And if its idea overflow: write them down, figure out a note taking structure that works for you so you keep an overview over everything and write it down, when things are trapped in your mind they might be beautiful dreams but its only once you read them that you can fully grasp them and sort through them

I hope any of these ideas might work for you 🤍

Id be curious to hear about what youre working on sometimes :3

[jazzypizzaz]

DRAGONCON 2023... in which I wax romantic about what amounts to a whole lot of silliness

My husband and I have been going to Dragoncon since the very first summer we got together, and every year our approach is a little different - a mix of fun traditions + trying new things - and every year we get a little better at actively contributing to the collective fun. This year held several "firsts"!

interviewed by DCTV in character as our Ferengi cosplay

were also a key element of the Star Trek scavenger hunt, as the only Ferengi around that day, which made us quite popular for like two hours

later, as a Klingon got a laugh on stage during Miss Star Trek Universe contest (part of an opening skit, not a competitor... yet)

handed out badge ribbons in costume and collected them from others; a great way to interact with strangers.

For the first time actually sang a song at Klingon karaoke! Well, "sang" might be too strong a word -- more like completely butchered ONJ's "Physical" while doing Klingon battle aerobics, but hey it was fun.

reused clothes/props from our hobbit wedding for "A Night In Bree"

Another difference this year was how the SAG strike made celebrity panels weirder than usual (they can't talk about any of their shows, but hey now I know Jewel Staite makes a mean lasagna). However this con has always been first & foremost about the fans, the energy we bring with us, & what we create here together - it's not about mindless consumption of corporate product, but active fan participation in remixing, retelling, remaking it our own. It's not celebrity worship, but celebration of artistry and storytelling. We lose ourselves in extraordinary fantasy/scifi worlds in order to better connect with ourselves & others in this one... Because Dragoncon at its heart is a celebration of the innate human need for stories and the power they hold for us.