#monster writer’s dilemma

[dark-moonlust]

A monster writer’s day can be full of challenges… like, today I’m stuck on how I should write an egg laying scene. 😅

[dnangelic]

i'm a horror writer at heart but i like shoujo and big feelings which is why i'm here in gothic vkei central with daisuke

[writersbeware]

Release the Monster!

            Imagine a scene in which a frightening monster arises, eating, mauling, destroying, everything and everyone in sight. Who comes to the rescue? Does it depend upon what kind of beast? For example, if it crawls up from underground, are there special forces that arrive? But what if it’s from outer space? Who then?             Perhaps it’s not a fantastical monster but rather a…

[thingstol00kat]

Monsters by Claire Dederer

Easy to read, interesting take on male & female monsters. Ultimate conclusion not that insightful: that we’re human and emotional and we can love what we want despite everything else. I really wanted to know if she has a husband, lots of mention of her parenting and her own trauma but none about a partner, and that felt relevant. Beginning was stronger than the end, but I enjoyed the chpts on women monsters, how we glorify men who harm themselves but we blame women who do (ex Sylvia Plath)

[chiikasevennn]

Ironically Horny

Sung Jinwoo x Fem!Reader

Warning(s): SMUT, 18+, YK THE DRILL 🙄😠 (i hate writing but woowoo x reader/oc writers are not that many and it kills me), ugly writing i did not proofread anything, aphrodisiac, no plot just porn, belly bulge, lmk if I'm missing smth else! Thanks

A/N: guys, idk what i'm doing /srs, so please beware—I might be insane as I wrote this. I'M LOOKING AT YOU. This ain't canon ok? Also, [N. Name] means nickname!! Guys, pls comment....

"Hu… angh!" You clenched the bedsheets abrasively as you realized that indulging feeling kick in your lower belly again.

A bulge continuously vanished and reappeared with each thrust this bastard, Sung Jinwoo, gave you. With a numb mind, you looked at the headboard with your eyes remained moist with tears as the raven haired man ruin you completely with his cock.

He was big. A bit too big.

"Jin'oo, ah… hic," your head attempted to raise but failed and fell flat against the pillow. The sound of his grunting made you weak although you knew this sort of act wasn't romantic at all.

Jinwoo flipped your body, making you view his rock-hard and impressive abs—but he realized that it was completely useless as you clearly couldn't even see it properly as your mind had gone blank long ago because of his relentless pounding.

In the stillness of the night, his rough shoving echoed through your bedroom. Jinwoo watched you cry, you, who was always tough-looking.

Jinwoo traced his fingers along your neck and placed a hickey there. He did it once, twice, and before he knew it, he couldn't stop until he realized he finally came again for the nth time.

So, how did you guys end up like this? Well—

"What the—I-I'm poisoned?" Your displeasure was clear as Jinwoo looked at you, and it appeared that you were looking at your system albeit not visible in his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"System said ordinary potions wouldn't work, not to mention, I'm no healer either."

"What?"

You contemplated the words written on the blue screen despite the multiple times you've analyzed it. When new words began to appear and soon you understood, your face went pale.

"[Name]?" Jinwoo had never seen you like this before. He felt a knot of worry twisting in his stomach. It was so unlike you to be this troubled.

"Jinwoo, please kill me."

"What???"

He saw your lifeless eyes, as if you failed to accept something too deep. "Kill me. Living is already humiliating enough."

"What's wrong with you? What did the system say, anyway?"

"I'd…" cheeks burning in mortification, you ended up crouching. "Oh, Lords, this is so fucking embarrassing. The hell." You whispered the last part.

You cursed like a mantara and Jinwoo watched as you slowly lost your mind.

"Just—" he almost sighed. "What does it say?"

"I… I have to…" The other player had never once witnessed you falter with your words nor look as if you wanted to disappear right this instant. "Sex… Do intimate shit. Oh…? …! Fuck, it also told me it's not poison, but an aphrodisiac!"

Jinwoo was speechless.

"... Where in the world am I gonna find a sex partner?"

That was a problem, until he offered himself.

He was just being… helpful.

Your body trembled. Letting out a strangled moan, your eyes began to be coated with tears as you recognized Jinwoo's hot spill inside of you beginning to form.

He was a quick learner, once he grasped how much touching your clit and hitting that sweet spot slightly above pleasured you, he didn't back down. No, not after he was told that possible complications might arise if he didn't help you sooner. Not to mention, there was a time limit. A time limit that he had to cum inside you (he was given 2 hours to spill his seed inside for at least 7 times, just what the fuck?) to cure whatever dilemma that monster had thrown at you. It was ridiculous.

Initially, he didn't think it'd work in one hundred and twenty minutes, but after he'd made you cum and squirt for the first time, God knew how much he wanted you right then and there.

One more to go. Jinwoo pulled you closer to his pelvis, not daring to pull his cock out. Sweat was all over the two of you, but he had no time to stop, for he only had 10 minutes left to finish this.

He unexpectedly stopped his plan momentarily when you whined. What? Had he lost track? Maybe you were starting to get uncomfortable since he'd been rough on you for almost two hours. He should stop—

"Jin'oo…" you sobbed softly. He swore he'd never seen anything so beautiful before. "'t hurts… Hurry… D-don't stop… Please."

He looked down at you like a predator and breathed heavily at the sight of you. He sat up, shoulders broad as he held your waist, his dick twitching inside you. Was he getting worked up? Fuck.

Ablush crept up to his face at your adorable begging, but he knew you were out of consciousness as we speak. If you keep nicely pleading him to fuck you, then he might not be able to stop.

He scrutinized your gorgeous body that he secured in his hold. Jinwoo tried to push his dick deeper to which you cried at—and seeing that bulge on your lower stomach made him slightly (so) proud. It was nice that he could touch something that could stand as a proof that he was inside you.

"You…" He leaned down and kissed your temple. You grabbed his cheek and caught his lips into a deep kiss. Jinwoo wasn't able to help himself but return the gesture with equal reason.

The raven haired man didn't pull away until he felt your breath running out and again, he blushed red as he gazed at your panting situation.

He ruined you in a good way.

"Let's finish this, all right?" He kissed your temple so sweetly. "I'm sorry, I have to go rougher since we only have a few minutes left, but I can't risk any future difficulty happening to you, [N. Name]."

You nodded eagerly, and before you knew it, you were being pounded into oblivion again.

[tobiasdrake]

Thinking about redemption yesterday got me thinking about fallen heroes today, and how rare it is to see a character initially painted as a hero be driven to heinousness for legitimate reasons.

Often times, if a hero goes bad, it's because of an external force corrupting their mind. Or it's a misunderstanding and they were secretly still good all along. Or they were just having a rough day and they'll be good again in five minutes.

We rarely see get to see heroes go sour purely on their own merits. Maybe because their values weren't so benign as they'd seemed when pushed to a natural conclusion. Maybe because they expected too much of themselves or of others. Or maybe personal experience taught them to believe something else.

Whatever the case, as often as writers will attempt to examine the transformative power of better angels, we rarely get to see the transformative power of worse devils.

Which brings me to....

Sayaka Miki is a character that holds a special place in my heart, not for overcoming her flaws but for being consumed by them. She's a cautionary tale into the perils of righteousness.

I need to preface this by bringing up that the characters of Madoka Magica are children. They're irrational, judgmental, ignorant of risk, and quick to throw themselves into horrible mistakes with absolute confidence. Because they're children. That's how this works. The villain of the series is a psychological predator who feeds on the impulsivity and poor judgment of youth, grooming them into self-destruction.

The entire system of Magical Girls exists to give these children enough rope to hang themselves with and then to kick the ladder out from under them. That is the plot, with Sayaka being the primary means by which the show demonstrates the complete journey from rope to ladder.

I just. I need you to understand that even at her worst, Sayaka is a victim of predatory incentives and calculated coercions meant to cultivate her worst traits while stripping her of hopes and dreams. To drown her in mistakes she could never take back. She didn't have the life experience to know better. That's why her predator targets children.

Sayaka's rope is woven from virtuous self-image. It's not immediately apparent when we meet her, but Sayaka's fatal flaw is ego. Her moral compass is wound extremely tight, and it's only later that we realize it's wound around her neck.

Like many children, Sayaka is trying on an identity moreso than expressing her inner self. She wants to be altruistic. She wants to be selfless. She wants to be a true hero. She wants to live by nothing more than high-minded ideals, expecting no reward for her efforts (but receiving it all the same).

She wants to be the kind of person that Mami was.

But she has no idea who Mami was. She wasn't there to see Mami fracture. To see her break down in vulnerability and express the isolating misery she lives in.

Sayaka didn't see that. She only saw how cool Mami looked when she was killing Witches. So when she tries on an identity, she's specifically trying on the identity of Mami - blissfully unaware that her interpretation of Mami was nothing but a mask. She is emulating the behavior of a victim already consumed by the predatory incentives she's accepting.

Sayaka was doomed from the moment she made her wish.

Once again, the show does a brilliant job of concealing this at first. Right off the bat, it's easy for Sayaka to be the hero. She saves both her BFFs Madoka and Hitomi from a Witch in her debut adventure, before being immediately thrust into a moral argument that's super easy for her to win.

This is what a hero looks like! Should we stand by and let monsters eat people YES/NO

Sayaka says no. Sayaka says letting monsters eat people is bad. Solid Bioware-level moral dilemma she's got here. Sayaka won +10 Paragon points for the choices she picked out of this conversation tree, lemme tell you!

Moments like this work to disguise what's going on here with Sayaka. Obviously Sayaka's making good choices and doing the right thing when the alternative is Kyoko going "Want me to break your crush's limbs so he needs you for life support?" That's awful, so since Sayaka's against it then that means she must be right. Right?

Kyoko is the devil. Sayaka is the paragon.

But this is a story about nuanced and complex people. Sayaka isn't that person. Sayaka likes the idea of being that person. She's being dishonest - With herself, with others around her, and with the universe.

She's trying on an identity, not fully understanding who she really is or what her limitations are.

Incidentally, so is Kyoko, which is what makes their Yin and Yang dichotomy so potent. Having never been tested like this before, Sayaka is more selfish than she truly understands - While Kyoko, damaged by trauma, is more selfless than she wants to believe.

The thing Sayaka doesn't quite grasp is that, to an extent, it's okay to be selfish. It's okay to want things for yourself. Again, the identity she's trying to live up to was a lie to begin with. She only saw the mask; Never the humanity underneath. So she fails to recognize her own humanity; Her own needs and wants and desires.

She imprisons her own mind in a cage of altruism.

Sayaka is warned multiple times against spending her wish on another person. But she doesn't understand the perils of it. She lacks the necessary perspective to grasp the level of sacrifice she's making. (Because she is a child. I cannot stress this point enough.)

When she makes her wish, Sayaka wants her sacrifice reciprocated. She wants to be rewarded. But she doesn't want to want that. She wants to be the selfless hero for Kyosuke. To silently grant him a miracle because it's the right thing to do for her friend. But she expects, without consciously thinking about it, that the universe will deliver her nice things because she is good.

But life doesn't work like that. It doesn't give you things you aren't willing to reach for. Sayaka said she just wanted him to be happy. She just wanted to help people. She just wanted to dedicate her life to virtue and altruism, with no wants or needs or desires of her own.

Kyoko was being cruel and unfeeling when she suggested crippling Kyosuke; She was trying to express a mask of selfishness, the same way Sayaka's been trying to express a mask of selflessness. But she wasn't the only person telling Sayaka that it was a mistake to do this. She's just the only person who said it after the fact.

So the universe calls her bluff. While Sayaka waits for her sacrifices to be rewarded, fracturing more and more from learning what those sacrifices truly entail, someone else claims her prize. The work gets harder, not just physically but emotionally. And she only gets what she asked for. Nothing more.

This is what a hero looks like. She wanted to be Mami.

Remind me. What was Mami's reward for her sacrifices?

Oh. Yeah. That's right.

The thing of it is, there is a reward for a Magical Girl's sacrifices. There is a prize you're meant to receive for the unjust hardships and self-destruction that you're volunteering to undertake.

It's the fucking wish.

That she, in her righteousness, gave away.

Sayaka's rope is woven from virtuous self-image. Her fatal flaw is ego. She was undone by arrogance expressed in ignorance, not of glory the way we often think of egotistic people, but of righteousness. She held herself to a standard no reasonable person could ever live up to, and it crushed her as it came crashing down.

And yet, she was a victim all the same. Because she was walked, hand-in-hand, to that pier by a predator. Children are meant to learn from their mistakes. Not to die for them.

[liveinfarbe]

Quoting myself pre episode 8 here:

But who knows maybe show runners are gaslighting viewers here and he’ll be killed off just like that next episode Mirdania-style (hoping against hope she survived). But Sam Hazeldine’s interviews sound like he’ll be in it for a bit longer. Good🤞

Whatever you hope they do it’s not going to be innovative, but the road most traveled.

Sam’s interviews sounded like that because he had integrated into the cast so well and would’ve liked to stay.

If you ask me it was a capital mistake. Adar outshone all other characters in season 2. But the course was set. Simon Tolkien apparently intervened to keep him longer. I suppose because he saw his incredible potential. And yet they offed their outstanding original character, carelessly, unsympathetically. It sucked big time because it left most fans struggling emotionally. I did not need that.

I’m venting…

Yeah, it mirrored the first episode, a thematic frame, cool visuals, full circle blah blah - a clichéd way of doing this to establish symmetry and a means to get rid of him fast and visually pleasurable and still make it look oh so meaningful.

There could’ve been another outcome of course. Adar wasn’t alike Sauron, he was not a monster. Adar was superior in heart and mind, a large part of him untainted from dark poison.

He should have had a better end because this show is all about symbolic messages and this one sends a message that he was not deserving, although he had suffered the most of all characters and was truly repenting - he apparently deserved something far worse.

Ironically it wasn’t even an end to Sauron what Adar did to him in the beginning. Sauron was goo for a thousand years then quickly bounced back eating worms and people and is fine now. Adar though looks terminally dead. He’s gone. Can you imagine he resurrects in a cheesy painting like Galadriel? He’s the vaguely queer coded villain, he’ll stay buried (you wish he was buried), it’s the law.

And shouldn’t have Sauron ended him, if it was meant to be symmetrical, shouldn’t there have been a fight?

Shouldn’t there have been a fight with Arondir?

Shouldn’t Galadriel have at least voiced her disapproval of the murder? I’ll give it to her that Adar’s death gave her the wrath to withstand Sauron finally. She fought him with anger in her heart, totally over him, but not over her twin flame Adar.

What happened to Adar was worse than what happened to Sauron. Adar was betrayed of his final hope to get better, betrayed by his children whom he loved and thought loved him back, knowing his aim to prevent enslavement for them has been futile. You can shoehorn a symmetry with Sauron’s situation in the beginning but it substantially isn’t. Adar’s actions always came from a place of love, care and solidarity, of accountability.

It should’ve been Sauron dealing him the final blow, not Glûg. It was never shown why Glûg would suddenly want to murder him brutally and in cold blood. It was just for shock value and done with the intention to show how irredeemable Uruk truly are, even the most humanized ones. As if Adar was delusional about them deserving dignity. Probably the story needs them to be bad again, after all the Third Age hasn’t improved concerning the othering of Orcs. One dilemma less for the show, it seems…

He may be in Valinor now, perhaps, who knows with these writers… The thing is, I don’t care because I won’t see it on screen.

Nothing will come of anything Adar has done and fought for, he is erased from the narrative and I hate it.

It lowers expectations for season 3 and, not gonna lie, I kinda resent the show for doing that.

[ananke-xiii]

ah yes, of course I have more to say. This time it's not about a specific comparison/trope, more about how angels are perceived by viewers (but also partly by writers, too, tbh).

anything about angels being ethereal and divine etc: I think sometimes the non-in-universe view warps what's canon when it comes to angels. For instance, the way we the audience commonly perceive angels sort of interferes with the in-universe depiction of said creatures. Like, maybe we see angels as ethereal, celestial, incomprehensible figures but in SPN they're anything but. We can very much understand their motives, their feelings and what their agenda is. It's totally not beyond human comprehension, as amatter of fact, it's very much human but it's also NOT human at the same time because angels don't have the same morality as humans do and their notion of "good" and "evil" is quite peculiar, if they even have one. This is also why the "halo and a harp" joke is thrown around quite a few times as a reminder that SPN angels are not "our" angels.

The same misrepresentation happens when it's about angels and love (and sex). It's pretty clear that in SPN (hashtag not all but many) angels are actually very, very, very much interested in sex and love. I'll concede that they tend to confuse obsession for love and that there's a lot of repression/suppression/sublimation/you name it going on in that department but, frankly, it's not something so inherently alien that humans can't relate to.

Anyhow, I don't think it's only the audience's fault, though, as I see SPN writers implicitly inserting their own personal view into the story as well. For example, the idea that Lucifer is the "primary agent of evil" in s14 after we've spent a whole season dealing with how God has traumatized and abused both his own sister and his own "son" and how said sister has, in return, abused and traumatized Lucifer doesn't exactly hold up. I mean, if there must be one primary agent of evil in SPN everything seemed to point to Chuck well before s14's big "reveal". Moreover, from their first appearance in S4 angels have perhaps wreaked havoc more than demons and other monsters combined. Lucifer is admittedly a big problem (among other things because he is an abuser and a general piece of shit) but he's not the only problem in paradise (lol).

Related to the first point, how Dean's in awe with Cas because he's a celestial being etc: this is something that I read in a lot of fics so it's just both my own personal taste and my fic preferences (I like when fics stick to canon as far as possible because I like to see how different minds might have developed a particular storyline) that differ from others and that's fine, to each their own. The thing is, I don't really see it. Maybe S3-4 Sam was more in awe with the idea of angels but after Lucifer I don't think the guy's particularly moved by them. As far as Dean's concerned, I actually see him hating on angels the most. Vampires can be okay, werewolves maybe, he's surprisingly okay with demons as well, but angels? He doesn't like them at all. And I mean this, this is actually interesting because out of all the creatures in the world he hates (and who have hurt him and his family) he ends up getting a best friend/consort who belongs to that particular flavor he just can't tolerate and who probably hurt him and his family the most ("Angels are just monsters with good PR"). As in: Dean finds Cas amazing because he's Cas, not because he's an angel but he IS an angel nevertheless and that alone causes some problems. It makes for a very interesting moral dilemma and an engaging angle to explore where a good chunk of their issues stems from.

[teleit]

I've fucking had enough

Tiktok PISSES ME OFF. It's unbearable. The number of media-illiterate people per square meter has exceeded my tolerance. At some point, I won't be able to stand it and will break my vow not to explain to idiots on the Internet why they are idiots - this will make me an idiot, because I will waste my strength, time, energy and nerves on useless attempts to hand over grains of common sense to empty-headed consumers who have never opened a book in their lives, and therefore are not capable of analyzing more complex moral dilemmas of My Little Pony.

HOWEVER

Stop driving me crazy with the "poor show!Luke was only five years old in Driftmark, an innocent baby, this is the worst death in the entire Dance of the Dragons" bullshit comments and tiktoks BECAUSE IT'S NOT

Yes, in the book, Lucerys Velaryon was five years old when he gouged out the eye of Aemond, who was ten. He died at fourteen, while Aemond was nineteen. This was not an adult killing a child, these were two teenagers with a five-year age difference. Still bad, I agree.

However, in their wisdom, unavailable to us mere mortals, the writers of HOTD stuck the chronology in a blender along with their fetishes, poorly executed agenda, sexism, racism, nepotism and a dozen other problems, turned it up to maximum and fed us the most vomit-inducing smoothie ever.

For some reason unknown to me, Aemond is officially sixteen in episodes 8-10 of season one. God knows why, but he left us and so we can't ask him. Lucerys is officially fourteen, so there's a two-year age difference between him and Aemond.

So in Driftmark, which takes place in 124 AC (again, unlike the book, which took place in 120 AC, but there's no point in complaining, believe me, I tried), Aemond is ten, Lucerys is eight. That's not a big age difference, right?

Moreover, since Jacaerys, Baela, and Rhaena are also sixteen at the end of season one, we get the following picture - Aemond is not fighting little kids, but his peers. He's 10, the twins and Jace are about 9-10, Luke is 8.

Yes, it was different in the book, but you know what else was in the book? A sound timeline, sound logic, complex characters, moral dilemmas, need I go on?

Lucerys was fourteen, making conscious decisions like mocking the man he had mutilated, knowing there would be no consequences, and running away like a coward when he was alone with the man. He was wrong about that. He still didn't deserve to die, but calling him an innocent angel wasn't right.

Aemond was sixteen, making conscious decisions like threatening his nephew to remind him that his ass couldn't be covered forever. He couldn't expect Luke to fail to discipline Arrax, who would provoke Vhagar. He could assume that an angry Vhagar would retaliate despite her orders. He was wrong about that. He still deserves blame for his actions, but if the fandom is so vocal about how a fourteen year old boy is not responsible for his actions, shouldn't a sixteen year old boy get the same innocence card?

But if we go back a little earlier, say six years, shouldn't a ten-year-old child receive the same treatment as an eight-year-old? Why is one boy, who had to fight off four peers, considered a monster, since he took a stone and insulted the offenders, and the second is a little defender, since he took a dagger to hit his neutralized enemy with it?

This wasn't the "hydrogen bomb vs. coughing baby" situation the book portrayed. This was two teenagers, one with a bigger stick than the other.

[delta-drawsarts]

Revisited an old comm I made, gave it a big overhaul rework for my friend plus fellow fic writer CupofFoxes

Go check out his fic 'A Brother's Dilemma' for Koji's/Ivan's story as he's reborn as a kitsune monster with a human soul attached to his monster soul!

And also, clingy Kanako action as well :]

[betterbemeta]

I feel like some things in the Jurassic World movies are actually a step backward in the science-fiction zone from Jurassic Park III. I think that was the one where it was revealed that the raptors had a 'language' and complex communication that implied not just 'intelligence' but 'sapience'-- and I understand that some people felt this jumped the shark a little.

(yes I know its a dream sequence, SHUT UP, they went there,)

But I remember seeing it when I was little and it made perfect sense to follow the original beats of how the raptors were scary in previous movies because they could interact with human environments like doors. They could use deception, 'tactics' and could not easily be contained.

If you're implying that these are beings that can reason, and further acting as if this reasoning ability is more threatening than the reasoning ability of a chimpanzee or something, then you're not afraid of 'what' is hunting you, but 'who.'

And that they could have reasons beyond being hungry bloodthirsty animals to be aggressive toward you.

That you have imprisoned 'people' and not 'animals' or even 'beneath animals' (creatures that have no natural existence, creations, toys, etc.)

But there's something disappointing to me about the stuff with Blue and Chris Pratt and all of that. It feels more like the fantasy of an animal tamer at a circus who has mastery of dangerous creatures (something that most modern circuses have cut) than it feels like a relationship with an intelligent creature capable of complex communication.

(Tell me how this is different from the image of a 'lion tamer' with a chair between him and his 'beasts?')

It doesn't even feel like the level of communication that you should be having with your dog, or cat. But the raptors of course obey Chris Pratt's fantasy expertise and fantasy rules surrounding their social behaviors because the point is to depict Chris's character as skillful. 'The right way to approach raptors' is whatever the writers want it to be, unlike real dogs, cats, horses, bears, big cats, etc.

In reality, there are a lot of failed 'animal whisperers' out there, hucksters that fake being an animal behaviorist to impose fantasy-like rules on animals while abusing them, and dominance-based trainers who get sued for animal abuse if they aren't attacked by the animals first.

The Jurassic World movies seem to mitigate this idea with that the raptors are not natural creatures (but living 'in the wild' seems to be a conclusion for at least one of them?) and that they vary in intelligence level, with Blue being the most intelligent. My issue with this is that complex communication required for coordination also requires multiple parties that understand it. Why aren't the raptors basically having constant misunderstandings between their differing mentalities, or misunderstanding their handler who doesn't seem to vary his approach between them?

Basically my point is. The place Jurassic Park was going, it was fine. You made Frankenstein's Monsters, classic sci-fi dilemma. It kind of sucks that they downgraded Dinosaur Frankensteins into... the emotional replacement for circus animals in the modern day when we know dancing bears and elephants aren't ethical. However 'cool' they are on their own, that type of creature in a narrative is there to demonstrate the bravery of their 'tamer' and any 'trust' the animal has with that tamer is just the same. It's not about any creature actually making its own decisions, let alone a highly intelligent one.

It doesn't really matter that Jurassic World movies try to have it both ways, with some lip service to 'respecting' the raptors, and sometimes other dinosaurs, showing the antagonists being 'disrespectful' by contrast. If we continued the themes from JPIII, the type of 'respect' that is supposedly the 'good' position, is not the kind of respect you'd want to give to a person.

[ozzgin]

Hi sorry to disturb you or bug you I just want to tell you that I love your writing and you're a great writer I also have a question how do you feel about one of the monsters or the reader being autistic or having ADHD or OCD also how do you like my writing and do you have any requests on what you want me to write next monster wise also I have a request my request is can you please write about female reader giving birth to a baby monster like any type of monster would be fine it's up to you or it could be a hybrid of the mom and the dad it's your choice I understand if you don't want to write about this but if you do write about it thank you very much I also hope you have a wonderful summer stay cool stay out of the hot sun don't forget to wear sunblock if you're going somewhere that is summer related and have a wonderful weekend also I have high functioning autism you know when I was talking about autism and stuff like that sorry to bother you 😇♥️❤️♥️❤️

Hi there!

Regarding your question: while I don't go into specifics when it comes to the stories themselves, you may consider my OCs and Readers as ASD/ADHD-friendly. It's 100% doable to have them displaying these characteristics and more, especially given they're written by someone neurodivergent to begin with. :D

Funnily enough, your request is something I actually doodled previously! It goes back to the monster harem saga, specifically the baby-daddy dilemma. Predated by the cursed nursery doodle. Hell, the discussion went as far as to assume that the original Reader mothered some of the future generations of monsters and readers. So there's many possibilities to play with, haha. Maybe this is something that could inspire your own future story?

Thank you for the nice words, I wish you a fantastic summer! ☀

[cantsayidont]

Mirror, Mirror

I said before that STAR TREK TOS is explicitly not a post-scarcity socialist utopia, but rather a liberal imperial state preoccupied with resource extraction, which is a central issue throughout much of TOS. One of the clearest statements of the tensions this produces between the Federation's expressed values and its actual strategic priorities is in "Mirror, Mirror," the Mirror Universe episode, written by Jerome Bixby, where a transporter accident sends Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura to a parallel universe where the Federation is a brutal Terran Empire and Starfleet full of ruthless backstabbers who seem to rise through the ranks primarily via assassination. What viewers (and later STAR TREK writers) seem to take from this episode is mostly the way it lets the regular cast ham it up as sluttier, more evil versions of themselves, but it's instructive to also consider what's actually happening in the plot.

At the very beginning of the episode, Kirk is negotiating with the Halkan Council regarding the possibility of the Federation mining dilithium on their world, which the Halkans refuse to permit. Kirk's arguments have hinged on offering historical evidence of the Federation's benevolence and commitment to peace, but the Halkans aren't convinced, making the reasonable argument that even if the Federation is presently benign, it may not remain so, and that they are firmly morally opposed to fueling the Federation's war machine "even to the extent of the taking of one life." Kirk is plainly frustrated by this, and I think we're supposed to sympathize — by the time this episode aired in October 1967, viewers had been conditioned to reflexively impute likely counterarguments (e.g., "Starfleet weapons are defensive!" or "The Enterprise defends innocent Federation colonists from alien aggression and monsters!") — but the Halkans make a compelling point, and there's nothing in TOS to meaningfully contradict it.

When the characters shift to the Mirror Universe, we learn that mirror-Kirk is dealing with substantially the same dilemma: His Enterprise has also been sent to secure access to Halkan dilithium, and the structure of the plot strongly implies that just before the transporter accident, he's had a similar confrontation with the Halkan Council which presumably left him as frustrated as prime-Kirk is. "Mirror, Mirror" repeatedly emphasizes that the Mirror Universe is a close parallel to the Prime Universe in most respects (down to McCoy's realization that his counterpart had spilled a beaker of acid in the same place prime-McCoy had days earlier), and that the Terran Empire is a close counterpart of the Federation, differing primarily in (superficial) ideology and methodology rather than in strategic objectives. The Empire needs dilithium for precisely the same reasons the Federation and Starfleet do: to expand and secure the borders of the imperial state and to maintain its internal order. (That's what the entire franchise is primarily about!)

The plot of "Mirror, Mirror" creates a ticking clock with the revelation that mirror-Kirk has orders to use the Enterprise to bombard the Halkans from orbit if they don't cooperate, committing genocide as an example for other worlds. This raises unsettling questions about what prime-Kirk's orders say, which we're never actually told. Presumably, prime-Starfleet, as the good guys, would never explicitly order a retaliatory genocide to secure a strategic resource … but, we see throughout TOS that Starfleet gives starship captains a great deal of leeway to accomplish their missions, and is willing to accept or overlook a certain amount of shenanigans if the strategic objective is achieved. Indeed, in "The Omega Glory," Ron Tracey, captain of the Exeter, is firmly convinced that the "fountain of youth" he thinks he's discovered will be of such value that his deliberate violation of the Prime Directive (along with the literally hundreds of natives he has killed in that violation) can and will be reconciled. So, even if prime-Starfleet has not told Kirk that genocide is on the table, they have likely told him to get the dilithium however he deems appropriate, leaving the means to Kirk's discretion. It's clear throughout STAR TREK that the Enterprise and ships of its class would be formidable terror-weapons, and in several TOS episodes, Kirk uses explicit threats of planetary bombardment as a negotiating tactic. "Mirror, Mirror" essentially confirms that the Enterprise IS equipped and its crew trained for that purpose, even if prime-Starfleet is more reluctant than its Mirror Universe counterpart to exercise it.

Kirk's eventual argument in this episode for doing things the Federation's way (i.e., peacefully and cooperatively if possible) is not that it's more morally righteous, but that it's more efficient as a means of resource extraction and of securing the survival of the imperial state. As Kirk famously argues to mirror-Spock:

SPOCK: You have two minutes and ten seconds. KIRK: In that time I have something to say. How long before the Halkan prediction of galactic revolt is realized? SPOCK: Approximately two hundred and forty years. KIRK: The inevitable outcome? SPOCK: The Empire shall be overthrown, of course. KIRK: The illogic of waste, Mister Spock. The waste of lives, potential, resources, time. I submit to you that your Empire is illogical because it cannot endure. I submit that you are illogical to be a willing part of it. SPOCK: You have one minute and twenty three seconds. KIRK: If change is inevitable, predictable, beneficial, doesn't logic demand that you be a part of it?

In this ethical schema, not seeking to punish the Prime Universe Halkans for their refusal to cooperate with the Federation is not primarily a moral decision, but a practical one: It's in the Federation's strategic interests to maintain its veneer of benevolence and civility because doing otherwise would eventually trigger costly resistance that the state would not ultimately survive. If the Halkans continue to refuse to cooperate, we can probably reasonably assume that Kirk will argue to Starfleet that allowing the Halkans to say no will have strategic advantage, demonstrating to other worlds the Federation's beneficence, just as annihilating them would demonstrate the Empire's ruthlessness and resolve — a parallel objective rather than an oppositional one.

We aren't told what comes of Kirk's negotiations with the prime-Halkans, but the episode is nonetheless very revealing of what role prime-Starfleet and the Enterprise play in promoting and defending the economic and strategic interests of the imperial state, which is quite explicitly a liberal vision rather than a progressive one — and a fairly ugly one if you look past the speechifying.

[sotwk]

Last updated: 6/13/24. Newest entry is marked.

Welcome to my Masterlist! I write exclusively for Tolkien, specifically the LotR and The Hobbit series.

For more information about my writer preferences and specialties, please refer to my Fanfiction Request Guidelines.

All my works are also posted in my Ao3 Account.

Sins of Our Fathers (Thranduil x OC Elvenqueen - ongoing series - Second Age 1358) Over the course of a century, Thranduil and Maereth meet and develop a friendship that is destined to become Mirkwood's greatest love story. In Progress.

The Crown (Thranduil x OC Elvenqueen - one-shot - Second Age 3441) Thranduil’s queen comforts him as they prepare on the evening of his coronation. Completed.

A Stab to the Heart (Thranduil & Royal Family - 2-part fic - Third Age 1012) The Elvenqueen is injured in a surprise orc attack, and Thranduil gathers their sons to discuss the ramifications. In Progress.

Yuletide in the Elvenking's Realm (Thranduil & Royal Family - 12-part fic - various years, Third Age) Collection of 12 ficlets in chronological order; stories of Yuletide celebrations in the Woodland Realm through the eyes of Thranduil and his family. In Progress.

Greenleaf's Tree (Child Legolas & Thranduil - one-shot - Third Age 248) Six-year-old Legolas goes on royal progress with Thranduil for the first time. Completed.

Greenleaf’s Day Out (Child Legolas & Family - Complete Series - Third Age 250) On a single day in 8-year-old Legolas’s life, he shares bonding moments with each of his 4 older brothers. 6 Chapters. Completed. Full work on AO3.

The Best Gift (Legolas x unnamed OC- one-shot - Third Age 556) Legolas wishes a "dear friend" a Joyous Begetting Day--but anonymously. Completed.

Unnecessary Guardian (Legolas x unnamed OC - one-shot - Third Age 1254) Legolas wants to guard his friend in her new role as a Mirkwood Spiderhunter. Completed.

Transformed (Gelir x unnamed OC- one-shot - Third Age 1554) A Mirkwood huntress is attacked by a dark beast and begins a slow and gradual transformation into a monster herself. Completed.

The Baker from Lórien (Haldir & OC Mother - one-shot- Third Age 246) A visitor from Lórien brings some excitement to the kitchens of the Elvenking's palace. Completed.

Breathe (Boromir x unnamed OC- one-shot - Third Age 3008) You have harbored a deep, secret crush on Boromir for years, and have now been asked by him to dance. Completed. (Will be continued in an upcoming long fic.)

Dandelions (Boromir x unnamed OC - one-shot - Third Age 3015) Boromir brings flowers to his lady love. Completed.

Taken (Eomer x OC - 3-part fic - Third Age 3019) A shield-maiden learns her hidden love for the Marshal of her Eored, now the King of Rohan, may not be unrequited as she had always assumed. Completed. (Sequel in progress.)

The Broken Shield (Thorin & Frerin - one-shot - Third Age 2791-2799) The young Princes of Erebor forge a surprising alliance with the Elves of Mirkwood to fight together in the War of the Dwarves and Orcs. Entry to the Thorin's Spring Forge 2023 event. Completed.

The Task of Living (Thorin x unnamed OC - one-shot - Third Age 2943) The re-throned King of Erebor returns to his former village in Dunland, seeking the woman he has loved since long ago. Completed.

The Only Gold (Fili x OC - ongoing series - Third Age 2941) Fili, heir presumptive of Erebor, befriends a mysterious elf-maiden during the Company's sojourn at Rivendell. Their bond will shift the courses not just of their individual destinies, but that of their peoples. In Progress.

Cinder Girl (Fili x unnamed OC - one-shot - Third Age 2945) The Crown Prince of Erebor faces the dilemma of losing his heart to a lovely yet humble palace servant. Completed. [New!]

OTHER USEFUL LINKS:

Introduction to SotWK

Headcanon Masterlist

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Mahiru Shiina: Trial 2 Synthesis Theory

Hello everyone! For the “I Love You” drop, I’m just going to jump straight into a full-length theory because I have a LOT that I want to cover and it’s much more comprehensive than my initial thoughts posts usually are. This is partially because all four other admins helped me out, as well as our 6th roommate who isn’t an admin!

As always, I will be using the very fast translation done by @onigiriico, which is linked here! I’ll also be using @iaobug ‘s wonderful translation of Mahiru’s 16 step guide in This Is How To Be In Love With You, which I’ll put here. 

T/W: Suicide, stalking, kidnapping/abduction, toxic relationships, murder, hanging, drowning, malnourishment, force feeding a rat. There WILL be images so please read at your own discretion!

Alright, let’s jump into it!

Mahiru’s murder took place in Aokigahara, AKA the Sea of Trees, AKA the Suicide Forest.

This is based on an initial post by @tomoesan, which has since become unavailable. I’ll post a photo of it here, though:

It compares Mahiru’s murder location on her card from Undercover to a real place in Japan: Aokigahara. From the pictures, it’s very clear that this was an intentional move by the artists to place Mahiru’s murder somewhere actively recognizable through some google searches. I firmly believe that the forest that they move through in the MV is Aokigahara. 

That’s not all, though. From this image, you can pretty clearly see that the photo seems to be taken from inside a cave. We’ve determined this specific cave to be Ryugu Cave, or The Dragon Cave.

This article shows the exact same photo in the earlier post, citing it as being from the Ryugu Cave. 

The Ryugu Cave also contains the Seno Umi Shrine, within it. You can read a bit about it here, but I firmly believe this to be the shrine mentioned on Day 15 of This Is How To Be In Love With You; more on that later.

Furthermore, the shrine is to Toyotama-hime. In mythology, this references a goddess who falls in love with a prince at a water well. However, he breaks a promise not to spy on her, which results in him seeing her in a monstrous form. Given the lyrical translation of daisuki (which should just mean I love you repeatedly) in the chorus to “monstrously in love,” “monstrous cause I love you,” “monstrous dilemma”... I think that the writers absolutely knew what they were going for, and they were giving a nod to this specific story and the shrine, with Mahiru being the lover turned monster.

Based on all of this, and the fact that I do believe Mahiru’s lover committed suicide, I think that all signs point to Aokigahara, specifically Ryugu Cave, being the location of the murder. I’ll be using this assumption throughout the rest of my theory.

I’ll follow along with the guide, starting at Days 1-8.

I think that Mahiru portrays Days 1-8 approximately correctly.

Days 1-7 are, I think, completely correct. Mahiru meets this guy, assumes it’s fate, and does small things to try to get closer to him and get to know about him. At this point, things probably seem completely normal to him, so there wouldn’t be any reason for him to reject her jogging with him or whatever.

Day 8 is when she waits outside his work, takes him to the park and presumably confesses her love to him. This is where her first inconsistency is. 

She says that they talked the night away, but she also says that she “chooses not to believe they talked the night away” and that “it felt like no time passed at all.” She also very notably doesn’t actually say what his response was, though she implied it was positive.

I think that it was actually very short; rather than them talking the night away, he probably swiftly rejected her. This, therefore, ends Mahiru’s attempts to get him into a relationship normally. If he won’t love her the way she wants him to, she’ll find a way to make it happen, no matter what.

Mahiru sets a plan into action, starting Day 9.

This is the first page in her journal where the text switches from normal, pristine rows to slanted text. That’s a sign that something is going wrong.

She mentions that her “boyfriend” is really cute when he’s blackout drunk. I think that it’s possible she drugged him, but even if she didn’t, she used this to get some kind of information. It’s possible she brought him back to his house, getting his address, possibly even stealing keys or something like that. 

I’d theorize that, rather than going here together, she followed him to the bar. Once he was pretty drunk, it’d be a lot easier to convince him to go along with her.

Day 10 is her talking to her beautician; I think that’s all correct. The beautician simply heard about the story through Mahiru’s eyes.

Day 11 is, I think, similar to the bar; she probably followed him to the “date” location. She says it “can’t be a coincidence” their tastes are so similar and that she’s become a different person. That indicates that this isn’t actually a shared taste: he went to the location and she followed him there.

On Day 12, Mahiru abducts her lover.

Day 12 is the day when Mahiru goes to his house for the first time, but somehow, she can’t actually seem to remember anything.

While that alone is suspicious, there’s also the mirror. We can see her beautician in the mirror, so the fact that he isn’t in the mirror at all seems to imply that he isn’t within the camera’s view at all. Why is she in his entryway without him there to greet her?

The answer is that she’s uninvited. She enters his home, and she takes him. That’s what I think the shot of her jumping on the couch spreading the flowers in This Is How To Be In Love With You is:

Rather than this being her killing moment, I think that this is her going in and snatching him from his own house. I firmly believe that Mahiru took him to Aokigahara, and I think that this is when she did it.

The scene in the house with the feathers immediately follows Day 12, so it makes sense chronologically. Additionally, for Day 13 onwards, the text switches from just being slanted to being stitched together from smaller boxes; it seems like it’s mimicking a ransom note that’s patched together from magazine or book clippings. This indicates that this is when Mahiru is more actively committing a crime: in this case, kidnapping. 

Days 13-15 are Mahiru moving the body.

If we assume that Mahiru’s end destination is Ryugu Cave based on earlier research, Days 13, 14 and 15 can be interpreted as movement.

Day 13 may seem strange, given that it’s Mahiru seemingly attending a wedding. However, if you pay careful attention to her phrasing, she does not say that she actually attended. She says that she was invited, and that soon, her dreams will come true. I think it’s possible that the wedding location was closer to Aokigahara–it’s near Mt. Fuji, so I’d imagine there could be some scenic locations or something–and she’s mentally using the wedding as a justification for heading that direction. Maybe she even did attend, if it was over that way.

Day 14 is an outdoor date under the stars. She practically begged him to come along. This is her taking him into the woods. I’m not sure exactly how compliant he was being and if she literally dragged him or if he was in more of a “resisting seems like a bad idea” kind of headspace, but I believe that Day 14 is them arriving at the forest and entering. 

It’s notable that, in the scenes in I Love You, Mahiru seems to be leading her lover into the forest. Here’s a screenshot from around 1:37:

At this point, it doesn’t seem like he’s being forced. However, this ends with him groveling on the ground at 1:55.

Comparing that to the image immediately after, we understand that Mahiru isn’t seeing the situation clearly. Given that he’s in this kneeling position in both shots, I think it’s safe to say that the shots with the golden lighting are the situation through Mahiru’s eyes. 

He’s very clearly actually beaten down and miserable, but Mahiru depicts them as a cute and happy couple. In fact, at 1:20, the lyrics support this interpretation:

This too-perfect image of her relationship is captioned with “I actually believed that.” It’s telling us, the audience, that while she actually, genuinely believed that these fantasy segments were reality, we, perhaps, should not do the same. These fantasy segments aren’t real.

Mahiru has already proven her capability of being an unreliable narrator in the past, concealing a lot of information within the text of her 16 Day Guide. I don’t want to completely discount these fantasies, but I’m trusting the side by side comparisons it gives us that they are NOT, in any way shape or form, what she portrays them as. I don’t want to take any of it at face value.

Anyways, Day 15 is the end destination of their journey: the arrival at Ryugu Cave. This is the shrine that she mentions. 

As stated earlier, Ryugu Cave contains a shrine. Though the cave isn’t available to tourists, that just increases the chances that Mahiru could get away with imprisoning her captive there without being spotted by the patrols that go through.

For reference, this cave is very deep: 96 m, or approximately 315 ft. It would be pretty hard for him to escape once they’re there, which resounds with her wish: they’ll stay like that until the end of time, and no one will stand in her way.

Day 16 is… a snapping point.

Day 16 is when we see Mahiru prepare her lovely boyfriend a wonderful meal of all his favorites. I think that this is when the 2:13/2:14 fantasy split happens:

While she sees herself giving him cake pleasantly, in reality, she seems to be… force feeding him a rat?? 

I know some people think that the cake is a metaphor for toxicity, and that because he feeds it to her first in the video, it means that the relationship is mutually toxic. From what I’ve seen, this theory completely disregards both the rat aspect and the fantasy filter over the cake scene. I think it’s far more likely that him feeding her cake was Mahiru idealizing the real events. Maybe she ate the rats, too, and she liked to think he’d feed her, too. It’s them eating together; if the cake can be a rat, him feeding it to her can be a similarly significant misperception. 

In any case, given that this is the last day in the guide, I think that this is the end of the line for him. He can’t take being her captive anymore, and sometime when she’s not away, he commits suicide.

I’m not entirely sure how. Obviously, we see him hanging at several points in the video, most prominently at the end:

But we can also see that he appears to be soaked with water at the very beginning.

There are lakes within Ryugu Cave. They’d also likely be cold enough to give him some form of hypothermia, explaining the blue tint to his skin in the second of the two images (he seems to have dried off by the second). Because of this, I’m somewhat inclined to lean towards drowning because it seems like it would have been more accessible to him. In that case, though, I’m not sure how he ends up hanging. I don’t feel like Mahiru would put him there; it feels much more likely to me that she would jump into the lake with him so that they could be together forever or something. 

So, I’m not sure whether he hangs himself or drowns himself, but the gist is, he ends up dead. That’s what Mahiru blames herself for.

VOTE: GUILTY

I know that she’s currently leaning innocent and many people feel strongly about it, but please hear me out here.

In Mahiru’s audio drama, she very clearly does not grasp the gravity of what she did. If she really did kidnap him, bring him to the suicide forest and force feed him rats… that is NOT loving someone “normally,” as she’s so insistent that she did.

Her current perception is that when she loves someone normally, it’s wrong. That’s what she’s said about her guilty verdict. However, if we switch gears and vote her innocent, what will that tell her? 

I think it would tell her that her love is okay–and, to the delusional Mahiru, that means saying that all of what she did is okay. If she believes this is loving someone normally, then I’d rather tell her not to love anyone like this again. It’s going to be hard for her to accept, and I recognize we might lose her between trials, but I think telling her that this is okay is even worse.

I do meta vote, but I do it in the context of trying to secure as many viable innocent votes for the third trial as possible. I think that, if we vote Mahiru innocent, she’ll go back to her fully delusional self. I think guilty is the only way to make the message stick, and the message has to stick if she has a chance at getting an innocent verdict in the end. I really urge you to consider it, because I think that voting her innocent will be a huge mistake on the fanbase’s part (which is the same exact way I felt about the Kotoko vote in Trial 1).

[smokefalls]

Every good artist knows this is true of the best work: It takes some plundering of the self. You go in there and you have a look around and you bring back something that might make people uncomfortable and you write it down—even if it’s awful, even if people don’t want to hear it, even if it makes you, the artist, seem like a freak. Because the great writer trusts that the most terrible feeling is hardly unique.

Claire Dederer, Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma