#series: foxes of '08

[6kate1bishop6]

The day had dragged slow and painful the same way it had for the past two weeks, the same way it had ever since Chae-won had declined her place with the Foxes unless they sign Valentina. She wasn’t sure which was more crushing: the anticipation of the answer itself or the distant hope that this might truly be her chance to go to college.

---

valentina gets a visitor after chae-won made her stand

part two of my oc future foxes series

[nothatsmi]

Nicky "shut up bitch I'm hilarious" Hemmick

Hiii long time no see! I just finished a big school project so yay I'll have half a day before getting drowned in work again haha..

Anyway here's a Nicky Hemmick apreciation post :) I love this guy so much, I remember liking him from the veeery beginning but as we get to know more about him he becomes even more likeable holdable. The fact he gave up a good life in Germany with his boyfriend for years to raise the MINYARDS - honest respect.

[thebestofoneshots]

SERIES MASTERLIST

Gilded Constellations | (wolfstar x reader)

Summary: You meet Sirius and Regulus at a family vacation in the Caribbean, but things don't go as planned and you end up losing contact once the trip is over. Years later your family moves to England and you get accepted at Hogwarts where you finally meet Sirius once again, along with all of his friends. One of them with a mysterious secret, that you'll uncover as you embark on your own Hogwarts adventure. Mostly canon-compliant. This IS a wolfstar x reader fic, but it's incredibly slow burn. They won't start all dating each other until we're very deep into the story, but I promise the long wait will be worth it.

Read Gilded Constellations on AO3

Read the French Translation by @nagareboshi-chiyo

Paring: Sirius Black x Reader / Remus Lupin x reader / Wolfstar x reader

Chapter average: 5k - 6.5 k

Content: Smut in later chapters, Poly!Marauders, throuple, graphic descriptions of violence, MAJOR and minor character death (this is The Marauders Era guys, you know), jealousy, angst, pining, love triangle, LGBTQ+ themes, The Wizarding war 1.0, implied child abuse, possible proofreading errors, mental health struggles, hurt no comfort, hurt with comfort, period typical attitude, first war with Voldemort, canonical character's death, fluff, Requited Love, F/M/M, mostly canon-compliant.

Status: Ongoing (Weekly updates)

♡ Indicates SMUT

PLAYLIST

01 | Summer Breeze

02 | Escape

03 | Bitter Sweet Symphony

04 | Rainy Days and Mondays

05 | Good times

06 | Crazy Little Thing Called Love

07 | Peaceful Easy Feeling

08 I Fooled Around and Fell in Love

09 | The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke

10 | Black Dog

11 | Do Ya

12 | You really got me

13 | Rebel, Rebel

14 | Maybe I’m Amazed

15 | No One Like You

Interlude (Q&A Event)

16 | Boogie Wonderland

17 | Tonight’s What It Means To Be Young

18 | Friends will be Friends

19 | Silver Bird

20 | Bad Moon Rising

21 | Fox on the Run

22 | Long Long Way From Home

23 | Hungry Eyes

24 | Peace of Mind

25 | I’ll get Even With You

26 | Hooked on a Feeling

27 | Can’t Take My Eyes Off You

28 | If You Want BIood, (You’ve Got It)

29 | With a Little Help From My Friends

30 | Bridge Over Troubled Water

31 | Strange Magic

32 | Come a Little Bit Closer

33 | More Than a Feeling

34 | You Belong to Me

35 | Chill of Desire

36 | Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy

37 | Gimme, Gimme, Gimme

38 | Let the Good Times Roll

39 | Running With the Pack

40 | Hot Stuff

41 | Urban Adventure

42 | Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

43 | Sympathy for the Devil

44 | No One But You

45 | Hold The Line

46 | Comfortably Numb

47 | Let Me Take You Home Tonight

48 | Dust in the Wind

49 | High Hopes

50 | Love the One You're With ♡

51 | Some Guys Have All The Luck ♡

52 | Twentieth Century Fox

53 | Too Much Love Will KiII You

54 | Sail Away Sweet Sister

55 | Noone Together

56 | Who Wants To Live Forever

57 | Play the Game

58 | Staying Power

59 | Break on Through

60 | Stone in Love

61 | Mr. Blue Sky

62 | Born to be Wild

63 | Something About You

64 | Put Out The Fire

65 | Spell Binder

66 | Hot Love

67 | What's On My Mind

68 | Mysteries and Mayhem

69 | Livin' Thing

70 | Back Talk

71 | We've Only Just Begun

72 | Relentless 

73 | Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’

74 |

75 |

.

.

.

BONUS TRACKS:

Your Theories, The Note, The Costumes, Sirius and the Chimney, Sirius and Vix after the bad moon, Evans and Vixen, Remus and Vixen at the infirmary, Remus holding Sirius at DADA, Remus and Sirius’ height difference, the FOXSTAR picture, Art by @nineloseteeth, We're going French,

Leave a comment telling me if you want to join the tag list

A/N: Most Poly!Marauders fics are oneshots, where the relationship between characters is already established, and they're all happy and pleased with it. No issues, no drama, but I WANTED the drama. Couldn't find it, so I set myself up to write the story behind the stablished relationship. I wanted to know how they started dating each other, the jealousy, the will they won't they, because getting into a poly relationship can't be an easy task, and I wanted to explore that story. If you're interested: Welcome to Gilded Constellations!

[henreyettah]

Foxes chair series masterpost

01. Dan Wilds

02. Kevin Day

03. Andrew Minyard

04. Matt Boyd

05. Aaron Minyard

06. Seth Gordon

07. Allison Reynolds

08. Nicky Hemmick

09. Renee Walker

10. Neil Josten

[daflangstlairde-art]

DaFlangstLairde's Whumptober 2024 Masterpost

Tag: #dfl's whumptober 2024

The fanfic series on ao3

Prompt 29: FATIGUE | "Who said you could rest?"

lightning in our fingertips today

Chapters: 3/3 Total word count: 12,810 Summary:

Donnie and Leo get hit with a wayward body swap spell. You could say it gives Donnie a new perspective on the matters of his dear twin. When was Leo going to tell them that his Ninpō hurts him?

Prompts covered:

06. Not Realizing They’re Injured | Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms 07. Unconventional Weapon (sort of) | Magic With a Cost 24. Collapsed Building | Equipment Failure 31. "I'm alive, I'm just not well.” .x. Body swap

attached, severed (you're here, you're not)

Chapters: 1/1 Total word count: 4,763 Summary:

The Technodrome never wanted to let Donnie go of its own volition. Krang One quite literally had to pull him out. Something terrible lingers, not quite gone. (Alternatively, The Prison Dimension never wanted to let Leo go of its own volition. Mikey quite literally had to pull him out. Something terrible lingers, not quite gone.)

Prompts covered:

09. Obsession | Bruises 16. Necrosis | Wound Cleaning 20. Emotional Angst | “It’s not your fault”, 21. Spirit Possession (kinda) | “Let the bedsheet soak up the tears.” 22. Bleeding Through Bandages | Reopening Wounds | "Oh that's not good.” 30. Hospital bed | “What have I done?” .x. Regret

A Catalog of Non-Definitive Acts

Chapters: 3/3 Total word count: 15,500 Summary:

Love was cauterized out of him young, because that is how you survive. But coming back home with the Splintersons, Leo craved. He craved and he ached and he hungered. Because the Jitsu family loves. They love ardently, fervently, they love in a way Leo has never, ever seen before, they love in a way Leo could never even conceptualize much less dream of. (She’s always taught him, by word but much more by example, to take what he wants and settle for nothing less.) 

Prompts covered:

02. Trust Issues 11. Loneliness 13. Team as a Family 15. Childhood Trauma | Moment of Clarity | “I did good, right?” 26. Breakfast Table | "I'm haunted by the lies that I have loved, by the actions I have hated."

Turtle and the Fox

Chapters: 12/12 Total word count: 53,527 Summary:

And it was embarrassing. Leo could choke down the pain, he could choke down the anger and hatred, he could turn hope into a sickly sweet thing like a mirage. But the embarrassment. It was always so strong. It was humiliating, always sharp and churning. Always made him far, far too aware. — Instead of getting evil hair and going to a spa, Leo ends up kidnapped by some weirdo. Shockingly, he has a bad time.

Prompts covered:

01. Search Party | Panic Attack 03. Set Up For Failure | “I warned you” 08. Isolation Chamber 10. Blow to the Head | Slurred Words | Passing Out From Pain 12. Starvation | Underground Caverns (…sorta) 18. Revenge | Unreliable Narrator | Loss of Identity | “I see what's mine and I take it” 25. Being Monitored | "It's for your own good.” 27. Muzzled | Voiceless 28. Denial | CCTV | Exposure .x. Secrets Revealed .x. Shivering

Love is Love is Love is

Chapters: 1/1 Total word count: 2,488 Summary:

Leo's always been an affectionate thing.

Prompts covered:

19. Blood Trail | "Is there anybody alive out there?” .x. No-Holds-Barred Beatdown .x. Vermin

[ar1mas]

- a rant

no because ive watched this stupid show 5 years ago, and i only noticed this now?? how???

ok. some context first. this is about fox' gotham, a prequel series to batman. or at least a potential one with slight changes. one of those changes is the relationship between oswald cobblepot and edward nygma (spelled with a 'y' for mayhap legal reasons? idfk its silly). whats their relationship like in the show? well...

theyre gay af. idk what to tell you.

okay so oswalds gay as fuck. edwards... ambiguous. totally ambiguous. he had a girlfriend or 2 and a half (kristen kringle, the-woman-who-shall-not-be-named (aka kristen but... blonde? this show is weird), and lee. not comfy counting lee, but technically shes one, hence the 'and a half')! very straight, much hetero (on another side note how tf is oswald the gay one, like i know he wears make-up and shit but eddies all about theatrics and showmanship and flair and hOW IS OSWALD THE GAY ONE NEXT TO HIM?? ok anyway).

so oswald was (is. be real.) canonically in love with ed, ed was.........., and 'penguin in love' is a piece of music composed by david russo for season three in which the whole "im in love with my best friend" thing took place.

that song has been used all over season three, as far as i can tell not once in season four, and once in season five.

.....or so i thought.

because yesterday, while in another obsession phase (of which i get one a few times a year. ive only ever watched the show once, in 2019, when it ended. still dream about nygmobblepot though. i dont dream about media, like ever, but with them, its different), i saw 5x8 to satiate my never satisfied craving of nygmob scenes, obviously skipping the main story bc i dont care about that straight shit. i got to the scene where oswald kills mr. scarface and frees arthur penn from said mr. scarface, after which ed shoots him in the head because thats what one does in such a situation, thought "aw how cute", again, as one does, and then realised.

what was that background music just now? rewinds.... oh. oh haha, its 'penguin in love'. how fun.

WHAT.

WHY IS THAT IN THERE. WHY DID THEY INCLUDE IT.

correction. it wouldve made sense to have it here. they used it in 5x5 for the speech about not backstabbing each other (wedding vows for murderers fr fr), so using it again after their relationship has solidified wouldve made sense.

note how im saying 'would have'.

because it would have made sense, if they used it when ed said "i accept you for the person that you are, just as you accept me for the cold logician that i am. thats why this friendship is great." they didnt, though. they used another equally heartfelt song for that. dunno what its called, it sounds a bit like 'penguin in love' but isnt, not sure if that one has a specific meaning like 'penguin in love' does.

so when was the song used? at 36:08 – 36:17. barely ten seconds, right before eds lines, right before ed kills penn.

...right when penn was sitting in oswalds lap because theyd been fighting for the gun and os fell on the ground.

now. the most obvious answer to "why in the fucking hell" would be because ooh this dudes on his lap so sexy, but no. no. 'penguin in love' is about one specific thing: love. the pure kind. the kind that makes you giddy with butterflies in your stomach, kicking your legs, while youre on your bed, writing in your diary about this guy you have a crush on. and oswald and penn do have history, oswald was more or less fond of penn, but not in love (i mean where would he have found the room in his heart if it was already filled with EDWARD EDWARD EDWARD martin my sweet boy EDWARD EDWARD EDWA-). im also definitely not thinking that penn was so happy about being free from mr. scarfaces influence and not having to kill oswald (oh yeah, the horror. who would wanna kill oswald, the guy with the big ego, who never does anything for anyone without some kind of endgoal- well, unless your name is edward of course) that he instantly fell in love with the guy. i can deal with the homicidal kind of crazy, but that? no. thats where i draw the line.

the next most obvious answer is that it was about oswalds love for ed. more believable, since its what the song was made for, but more believable doesnt mean believable. or likely. because even if i 100% believe that hes been loving this dude for so long its not something he has to think about anymore for it to be true, im pretty sure that itd be very random to suddenly focus on that when oswald was just about to die. so no, even if its what the song is intrinsically about.

so next most obvious answer is- wait. thats it. huh? theres no obvious answer anymore? everything else is brainrot? oh. oh well. its been five years, im sure its too late to worry about it now. what the hell.

im sure you know where im going with this. or maybe not. honestly idk what the fuck im talking about-

youre smart. you know what im about to say. if it wasnt about what oswald was feeling because he was otherwise preoccupied, and it wasnt about penn because that makes no fucking sense, then who was this song used for? who else was in the room?

...oh.

YOU.

YOU FUCKING IMBECILE. YOU STUPID DENSE PIECE OF-

inhale, exhale. no. don’ get mad, you know he cant help it. you know hes totally helpless when it comes to emotions. just breathe. ok.

i hate him. i hate him so much.

if the song wasnt for oswalds sake, it was for his. because i know hes in love with oswald, but does ed? does the producers??

'penguin in love' is about oswalds love. its about his love for edward. its about their love, their relationship. its about edward just as much as it is about oswald.

a-fucking-PPARANTLY, I DIDNT KNOW THAT!! I JUST THOUGHT OH YEAH OZZY BE THE GAY ONE HAHA FUNNY, I DIDNT KNOW IT COULD BE ABOUT ED DIRECTLY!!!

(why am i like this? what is my life? i will never be normal.)

ed has always been the obsessive one. first kristen (and the woman who shall not be named is just an extention of that ofc), then oswald, then lee. and as weve seen with kristen, when hes obsessed with someone, he can become possessive. absolutely not on the scale oswald is on, but still. theres a wee bit of jelly there. oh you have a boyfriend? better get rid of him! oh you wanna run away from me bc i murdered your boyfriend? better keep you right in place and- oh shit did i kill you? ono D:

this is a huge oversimplification, but you get the point. its there. or at least it has to be there because why else do you get so angy that someone is sitting in the lap of your just friend because they were fighting and they ended up in that position totally accidentally? like thats not normal behaviour, for anyone, unless you have possessive tendencies.

i mean its not like penn was a threat in any way. "he wasnt the threat, the dummy was the-" like i understand ed told penn about the submarine which was supposed to be a secret, but come on, like they couldnt make sure penn wouldnt say anything. so why would ed shoot him? its not even like penn was a random dude where that type of thing would be very inconsequential, oswald knew him. hed worked for oswald, and like i said, oswald was more or less fond of the guy. penns just a poor little meow meow, y u kil him eddie? 🥺

unless this fondness was part of the problem. unless ed saw how happy oswald was to see him, got annoyed but let it slide, then used penn attacking os and knowing about the sub as an excuse to kill him. and why would oswald being happy to see penn be a problem to ed? it wouldnt be. it wouldnt be, unless ed thinks oswald is his.

which makes sense. i know im calling him names and calling him out, but like. oswald told him he loved him like 5 times 2 years prior, i dont blame him for believing that maybe theres something to it (especially since that was the point of 3x14, oswald really being in love with him and surprising himself with it). but i thought ed didnt feel the same way? because hes very hetero? because he had a full-on girlfriend before, twice, technically? because-

"the truth is oswald, you would sacrifice anyone to save your own neck. even me."

"like i said! you will always fail, because youll never change."

hm. i know this is a bit off topic, but i just got a war-flashback and... why did ed sound so hurt when he said that? "youll never change." "you would sacrifice anyone. even me." why does he care? they were friends, best friends, yes, but why does he sound like a heartbroken wife who just found out her husband cheated on her again? why does-

"honestly you deserve this. you are opportunistic, your loyalty is.. shaking, at best, and you will hurt anyone, anyone, to get what you want."

"and yes, i was not a good friend. to you or anyone. its why im alone. but i saw you for what you are and i valued that!"

...why would edward nygma, the man who literally said "i dont love you" to oswald, be jealous of even the idea that maybe penn could have something going on with oswald? and why would he act on it if hes usually so careful to not reveal his feelings (unless its about kristen. the original obsession, the american dream, the just be normal, show them you are normal, and people will accept you)? he wouldnt.

unless oswald just told him that he knows he messed up. that hes sorry for it.

and unless that made him think that maybe theres a chance.

"love is about sacrifice. its about putting someone elses needs and happiness before your own."

"you gave up your revenge for me?"

a chance... for what?

"life begins anew."

"shall we get to work?"

and if theres a chance, hes not about to risk losing it. not this time.

so maybe 'penguin in love' is about more than just oswalds feelings. maybe they were trying to tell us that, yes, we see you traumatised gay kid, were sorry this is all we can give you, but here you go, eds in love with him too, but don’t tell the channel. subtlely. just for barely ten seconds. and maybe it can be enough.

nope, it wont be. im gonna sit here crying about the injustice of not having them kiss on screen in the finale as was originally intended for the rest of my life. seriously though, what is this, nbc's hannibal, where im noticing something new details every single time i watch the show, causing me to spiral? no, i was already spiralling. the spiralling was the reason i rewatched the scene. the scene simply made it worse.

so yeah, im done freaking out about a mediocre show that was cancelled 5 years ago and is honestly not worth anyones time (like, its ok. it might even be better than i remember since its been so long. i doubt it. but its ok).

tl;dr: ive only now realised that a specific gay song plays in a specific episode of a show i watched 5 years ago and the only reason theyd include it in the episode is if the dude that was not canonically in love with the other dude was in fact gay, they just werent allowed to make it canon, so they added the gay song to subtlely tell us about it.

have a wonderful day, hellsite. dont do what i did and go crazy about fictional gay people. i know you will though, that’s why im here too. i hate gay people. these two make me homophobic so bad, i wanna gauge my eyes out and skin myself-

[takaraphoenix]

March Schedule

As with last month, I figured I'd give a more detailed schedule. Though this time with shorter summaries, because writing this thing out took forever in February. If anything intrigues you, feel free to shoot me an ask about it to hear more ;)

03/01: Chapter 3 of Little Red and the Black Fox (Stetopher)

In this chapter of my superhero AU, Chris and Peter have to cope with the fact that Stiles used to be a model at Neckz 'n Throats... they cope by tracking down every single issue Stiles was a part of, of course

03/03: Mischief Monday's Stiles Stilinski’s Five Year Business and Romance Plan (Steter)

In this prequel to Welcome to the Mean Bean, we'll dive into how Stiles became an Emissary in training with the Hale Pack and how a certain wolf first caught Stiles' attention

03/05: Second Spring (Stetopher)

Medieval-esque fantasy AU set in the ABOverse, where alpha King Christopher agrees to marry the omega Prince Stiles of a neighboring country, because it's a strong alliance and because his love with his general and fellow alpha Peter is a forbidden one

03/07: Friday Ficlet Mission in the Jungle (Stetopher)

Chris, Peter and Stiles go undercover to the Jungle trying to track down the latest threat and Chris and Peter may get some sense talked into them by a group of overprotective Drag Queens

03/08: Chapter 9 of The Clever One (Steter)

In chapter 9 of my season 2 rewrite featuring True Mates Peter and Stiles building the pack together, we're finally hitting the rave and letting Stiles embrace his Spark!

03/10: Mischief Monday's Large and Satisfying (Steter)

The third installment in my Size-verse (where a freshly resurrected and still Alpha Peter takes care of Stiles after the Gerard take-down because they're True Mates and thus accidentally acquires two betas in Boyd and Erica) and we're finally hitting the Darach plot, more specifically the virgin sacrifices (listen, ONE of the fics in this unfortunately named series HAD to be a dick-pun, okay)

03/12: The Demon Wolf’s Distraction (Stalion)

The Alpha Pack comes to town to test the Hale Pack, but it proves to be dreadfully boring to Deucalion... until he finds a worthy distraction in a curious young Spark

03/14: Friday Ficlet Kitten Treats (Steter)

Listen, there's not that much plot to this one, @lunastories keeps very unsubtly making me want to write more pet play kitten!Stiles so we're gonna put a collar on that twink and make him meow for Peter, okay?

03/15: Chapter 1 of A Spark Into a Flame (Stetopher)

The real reason Gerard kidnapped Stiles is because Stiles is a Spark - a phoenix - and he wants some of that regenerative immortality, but when Chris breaks Stiles, Boyd and Erica out of the basement, Stiles has to deal with the fact that there are now people who know his best kept secret

03/17: Mischief Monday's Tutors and Trials (Steter)

The final installment of my Tutor-verse (a No Hale Fire canon divergence where Stiles is Malia's tutor and also Peter's True Mate but Peter is doing So Good at not giving in to temptation... until he learns Stiles turned 18 a few months ago)! Time for Stiles and Peter to finally seal their matebond!

03/19: Cowboyz ‘n Lassos (Stetopher)

Neckz 'n Throats is booking the Hale Ranch for a cowboy-themed shoot and Stiles, the model, and his husband Chris, the photographer, quickly catch the attention of ranch owner Peter

03/21: Friday Ficlet Lost Memories and Gained Trust (Steter)

The pack suffers temporary memory loss after a spell goes wry and Stiles finds himself trusting Peter blindly during that, something he has to reevaluate once the spell's effect wears off

03/22: Chapter 1 of The Alpha Pack’s Spark (Stetalion)

Deucalion comes to Beacon Hills because he heard about Peter waking up from his coma, just to find his former lover awake and freshly resurrected... and bringing along an omega who had apparently just been kidnapped and tortured by Gerard

03/24: Mischief Monday's Pollen Problem (Stetopher)

The pack is hit by a magic flower's pollen that makes them horny, but the pollen only acts to heighten already existing attraction and desires, but the pack doesn't know that so when Peter and Chris wake up with a freshly deflowered and sore Stiles in their bed, they are overcome with guilt for what they must have done to their boy

03/26: Run, Little Bun (Stetalion)

Stiles is an omega bunny shifter who kind of dreads the mating run because he doesn't think any alphas would give chase to him - the mating run has long tradition in their town, where alphas chase omegas to prove themselves worthy of the privilege to court them and Stiles doubts any alpha would want to court him, because no alpha ever pays attention to him (because they are all deadly afraid of the mated alpha pair who threaten anyone who gets to close to their chosen bunny)

03/28: Friday Ficlet He Should (Not) Be at the Club (Steter)

Peter owns a club and Stiles has lately been frequenting it, maybe partially because the owner is really hot and snarky and fun to talk to but it's all just friendly banter, right? Well, until a sleazy werewolf hits on Stiles a little too insistently and Peter's possessive Alpha nature forces him to intervene

03/29: Chapter 4 of Little Red and the Black Fox (Stetopher)

Part-time hero, part-time vigilante and full-time (paycheck wise, anyway) investigative journalist Stiles... might have gotten himself abducted while on the job... it wasn't his fault, okay?

03/31: Mischief Monday's How to Seduce Your Best Friend's Alpha (Stalion)

AU where the Alpha Pack is a regular pack and, more specifically, a pack located in London and the one that Jackson joins when he moves there. After the Nogitsune, Stiles and Jackson texted and called a lot and became best friends, so after graduation, Stiles packs up to move to London... and gets to meet Jackson's new pack and his very handsome and charming Alpha, Deucalion

[mostlysignssomeportents]

On September 22, I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

It's been 21 years since Bill Willingham launched Fables, his 110-issue, wide-ranging, delightful and brilliantly crafted author-owned comic series that imagines that the folkloric figures of the world's fairytales are real people, who live in a secret society whose internal struggles and intersections with the mundane world are the source of endless drama.

Fables is a DC Comics title; DC is division of the massive entertainment conglomerate Warners, which is, in turn, part of the Warner/Discovery empire, a rapacious corporate behemoth whose screenwriters have been on strike for 137 days (and counting). DC is part of a comics duopoly; its rival, Marvel, is a division of the Disney/Fox juggernaut, whose writers are also on strike.

The DC that Willingham bargained with at the turn of the century isn't the DC that he bargains with now. Back then, DC was still subject to a modicum of discipline from competition; its corporate owner's shareholders had not yet acquired today's appetite for meteoric returns on investment of the sort that can only be achieved through wage-theft and price-gouging.

In the years since, DC – like so many other corporations – participated in an orgy of mergers as its sector devoured itself. The collapse of comics into a duopoly owned by studios from an oligopoly had profound implications for the entire sector, from comic shops to comic cons. Monopoly breeds monopoly, and the capture of the entire comics distribution system by a single company – Diamond – was attended by the capture of the entire digital comics market by a single company, Amazon, who enshittified its Comixology division, driving creators and publishers into Kindle Direct Publishing, a gig-work platform that replicates the company's notoriously exploitative labor practices for creative workers. Today, Comixology is a ghost-town, its former employees axed in a mass layoff earlier this year:

https://gizmodo.com/amazon-layoffs-comixology-1850007216

When giant corporations effect these mergers, they do so with a kind of procedural kabuki, insisting that they are dotting every i and crossing every t, creating a new legal entity whose fictional backstory is a perfect, airtight bubble, a canon with not a single continuity bug. This performance of seriousness is belied by the behind-the-scenes chaos that these corporate shifts entail – think of the way that the banks that bought and sold our mortgages in the run-up to the 2008 crisis eventually lost the deeds to our houses, and then just pretended they were legally entitled to collect money from us every month – and steal our houses if we refused to pay:

https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-58325420110720

Or think of the debt collection industry, which maintains a pretense of careful record-keeping as the basis for hounding and threatening people, but which is, in reality, a barely coherent trade in spreadsheets whose claims to our money are matters of faith:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/#fair-debt-collection-practices-act

For usury, the chaos is a feature, not a bug. Their corporate strategists take the position that any ambiguity should be automatically resolved in their favor, with the burden of proof on accused debtors, not the debt collectors. The scumbags who lost your deed and stole your house say that it's up to you to prove that you own it. And since you've just been rendered homeless, you don't even have a house to secure a loan you might use to pay a lawyer to go to court.

It's not solely that the usurers want to cheat you – it's that they can make more money if they don't pay for meticulous record-keeping, and if that means that they sometimes cheat us, that's our problem, not theirs.

While this is very obvious in the usury sector, it's also true of other kinds of massive mergers that create unfathomnably vast conglomerates. The "curse of bigness" is real, but who gets cursed is a matter of power, and big companies have a lot more power.

The chaos, in other words, is a feature and not a bug. It provides cover for contract-violating conduct, up to and including wage-theft. Remember when Disney/Marvel stole money from beloved science fiction giant Alan Dean Foster, whose original Star Wars novelization was hugely influential on George Lucas, who changed the movie to match Foster's ideas?

Disney claimed that when it acquired Lucasfilm, it only acquired its assets, but not its liabilities. That meant that while it continued to hold Foster's license to publish his novel, they were not bound by an obligation to pay Foster for this license, since that liability was retained by the (now defunct) original company:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/30/disney-still-must-pay/#pay-the-writer

For Disney, this wage-theft (and many others like it, affecting writers with less fame and clout than Foster) was greatly assisted by the chaos of scale. The chimera of Lucas/Disney had no definitive responsible party who could be dragged into a discussion. The endless corporate shuffling that is normal in giant companies meant that anyone who might credibly called to account for the theft could be transfered or laid off overnight, with no obvious successor. The actual paperwork itself was hard for anyone to lay hands on, since the relevant records had been physically transported and re-stored subsequent to the merger. And, of course, the company itself was so big and powerful that it was hard for Foster and his agent to raise a credible threat.

I've experienced versions of this myself: every book contract I've ever signed stipulated that my ebooks could not be published with DRM. But one of my publishers – a boutique press that published my collection Overclocked – collapsed along with most of its competitors, the same week my book was published (its distributor, Publishers Group West, went bankrupt after its parent company, Advanced Marketing Services, imploded in a shower of fraud and criminality).

The publisher was merged with several others, and then several more, and then several more – until it ended up a division of the Big Five publisher Hachette, who repeatedly, "accidentally" pushed my book into retail channels with DRM. I don't think Hachette deliberately set out to screw me over, but the fact that Hachette is (by far) the most doctrinaire proponent of DRM meant that when the chaos of its agglomerated state resulted in my being cheated, it was a happy accident.

(The Hachette story has a happy ending; I took the book back from them and sold it to Blackstone Publishing, who brought out a new expanded edition to accompany a DRM-free audiobook and ebook):

https://www.blackstonepublishing.com/overclocked-bvej.html

Willingham, too, has been affected by the curse of bigness. The DC he bargained with at the outset of Fables made a raft of binding promises to him: he would have approval over artists and covers and formats for new collections, and he would own the "IP" for the series, meaning the copyrights vested in the scripts, storylines, characters (he might also have retained rights to some trademarks).

But as DC grew, it made mistakes. Willingham's hard-fought, unique deal with the publisher was atypical. A giant publisher realizes its efficiencies through standardized processes. Willingham's books didn't fit into that standard process, and so, repeatedly, the publisher broke its promises to him.

At first, Willingham's contacts at the publisher were contrite when he caught them at this. In his press-release on the matter, Willingham calls them "honest men and women of integrity [who] interpreted the details of that agreement fairly and above-board":

https://billwillingham.substack.com/p/willingham-sends-fables-into-the

But as the company grew larger, these counterparties were replaced by corporate cogs who were ever-more-distant from his original, creator-friendly deal. What's more, DC's treatment of its other creators grew shabbier at each turn (a dear friend who has written for DC for decades is still getting the same page-rate as they got in the early 2000s), so Willingham's deal grew more exceptional as time went by. That meant that when Willingham got the "default" treatment, it was progressively farther from what his contract entitled him to.

The company repeatedly – and conveniently – forgot that Willingham had the final say over the destiny of his books. They illegally sublicensed a game adapted from his books, and then, when he objected, tried to make renegotiating his deal a condition of being properly compensated for this theft. Even after he won that fight, the company tried to cheat him and then cover it up by binding him to a nondisclosure agreement.

This was the culmination of a string of wage-thefts in which the company misreported his royalties and had to be dragged into paying him his due. When the company "practically dared" Willingham to sue ("knowing it would be a long and debilitating process") he snapped.

Rather than fight Warner, Willingham has embarked on what JWZ calls an act of "absolute table-flip badassery" – he has announced that Fables will hereafter be in the public domain, available for anyone to adapt commercially, in works that compete with whatever DC might be offering.

Now, this is huge, and it's also shrewd. It's the kind of thing that will bring lots of attention on Warner's fraudulent dealings with its creative workforce, at a moment where the company is losing a public relations battle to the workers picketing in front of its gates. It constitutes a poison pill that is eminently satisfying to contemplate. It's delicious.

But it's also muddy. Willingham has since clarified that his public domain dedication means that the public can't reproduce the existing comics. That's not surprising; while Willingham doesn't say so, it's vanishingly unlikely that he owns the copyrights to the artwork created by other artists (Willingham is also a talented illustrator, but collaborated with a who's-who of comics greats for Fables). He may or may not have control over trademarks, from the Fables wordmark to any trademark interests in the character designs. He certainly doesn't have control over the trademarked logos for Warner and DC that adorn the books.

When Willingham says he is releasing the "IP" to his comic, he is using the phrase in its commercial sense, not its legal sense. When business people speak of "owning IP," they mean that they believe they have the legal right to control the conduct of their competitors, critics and customers:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

The problem is that this doesn't correspond to the legal concept of IP, because IP isn't actually a legal concept. While there are plenty of "IP lawyers" and even "IP law firms," there is no "IP law." There are many laws that are lumped together under "IP," including the big three (trademark, copyright and patent), but also a bestiary of obscure cousins and subspecies – trade dress, trade secrecy, service marks, noncompetes, nondisclosues, anticirumvention rights, sui generis "neighboring rights" and so on.

The job of an "IP lawyer" is to pluck individual doctrines from this incoherent scrapheap of laws and regulations and weave them together into a spider's web of tripwires that customers and critics and competitors can't avoid, and which confer upon the lawyer's client the right to sue for anything that displeases them.

When Willingham says he's releasing Fables into the public domain, it's not clear what he's releasing – and what is his to release. In the colloquial, business sense of "IP," saying you're "releasing the IP" means something like, "Feel free to create adaptations from this." But these adaptations probably can't draw too closely on the artwork, or the logos. You can probably make novelizations of the comics. Maybe you can make new comics that use the same scripts but different art. You can probably make sequels to, or spinoffs of, the existing comics, provided you come up with your own character designs.

But it's murky. Very murky. Remember, this all started because Willingham didn't have the resources or patience to tangle with the rabid attack-lawyers Warners keeps kenneled on its Burbank lot. Warners can (and may) release those same lawyers on you, even if you are likely to prevail in court, betting that you – like Willingham – won't have the resources to defend yourself.

The strange reality of "IP" rights is that they can be secured without any affirmative step on your part. Copyrights are conjured into existence the instant that a new creative work is fixed in a tangible medium and endure until the creator's has been dead for 70 years. Common-law trademarks gradually come into definition like an image appearing on photo-paper in a chemical soup, growing in definition every time they are used, even if the mark's creator never files a form with the USPTO.

These IP tripwires proliferate in the shadows, wherever doodles are sketched on napkins, wherever kindergartners apply finger-paint to construction-paper. But for all that they are continuously springing into existence, and enduring for a century or more, they are absurdly hard to give away.

This was the key insight behind the Creative Commons project: that while the internet was full of people saying "no copyright" (or just assuming the things they posted were free for others to use), the law was a universe away from their commonsense assumptions. Creative Commons licenses were painstakingly crafted by an army of international IP lawyers who set out to turn the normal IP task on its head – to create a legal document that assured critics, customers and competitors that the licensor had no means to control their conduct.

20 years on, these licenses are pretty robust. The flaws in earlier versions have been discovered and repaired in subsequent revisions. They have been adapted to multiple countries' legal systems, allowing CC users to mix-and-match works from many territories – animating Polish sprites to tell a story by a Canadian, set to music from the UK.

Willingham could clarify his "public domain" dedication by applying a Creative Commons license to Fables, but which license? That's a thorny question. What Willingham really wants here is a sampling license – a license that allows licensees to take some of the elements of his work, combine them with other parts, and make something new.

But no CC license fits that description. Every CC license applies to whole works. If you want to license the bass-line from your song but not the melody, you have to release the bass-line separately and put a CC license on that. You can't just put a CC license on the song with an asterisked footnote that reads "just the bass, though."

CC had a sampling license: the "Sampling Plus 1.0" license. It was a mess. Licensees couldn't figure out what parts of works they were allowed to use, and licensors couldn't figure out how to coney that. It's been "retired."

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/

So maybe Willingham should create his own bespoke license for Fables. That may be what he has to do, in fact. But boy is that a fraught business. Remember the army of top-notch lawyers who created the CC licenses? They missed a crucial bug in the first three versions of the license, and billions of works have been licensed under those earlier versions. This has enabled a mob of crooked copyleft trolls (like Pixsy) to prey on the unwary, raking in a fortune:

https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator-5f6360713299

Making a bug-free license is hard. A failure on Willingham's part to correctly enumerate or convey the limitations of such a license – to list which parts of Fables DC might sue you for using – could result in downstream users having their hard work censored out of existence by legal threats. Indeed, that's the best case scenario – defects in a license could result in downstream users, their collaborators, investors, and distributors being sued for millions of dollars, costing them everything they have, up to and including their homes.

Which isn't to say that this is dead on arrival – far from it! Just that there is work to be done. I can't speak for Creative Commons (it's been more than 20 years since I was their EU Director), but I'm positive that there are copyfighting lawyers out there who'd love to work on a project like this.

I think Willingham is onto something here. After all, Fables is built on the public domain. As Willingham writes in his release: "The current laws are a mishmash of unethical backroom deals to keep trademarks and copyrights in the hands of large corporations, who can largely afford to buy the outcomes they want."

Willingham describes how his participation in the entertainment industry has made him more skeptical of IP, not less. He proposes capping copyright at 20 years, with a single, 10-year extension for works that are sold onto third parties. This would be pretty good industrial policy – almost no works are commercially viable after just 14 years:

https://rufuspollock.com/papers/optimal_copyright.pdf

But there are massive structural barriers to realizing such a policy, the biggest being that the US had tied its own hands by insisting that long copyright terms be required in the trade deals it imposed on other countries, thereby binding itself to these farcically long copyright terms.

But there is another policy lever American creators can and should yank on to partially resolve this: Termination. The 1976 Copyright Act established the right for any creator to "terminate" the "transfer" of any copyrighted work after 30 years, by filing papers with the Copyright Office. This process is unduly onerous, and the Authors Alliance (where I'm a volunteer advisor) has created a tool to simplify it:

https://www.authorsalliance.org/resources/rights-reversion-portal/

Termination is deliberately obscure, but it's incredibly powerful. The copyright scholar Rebecca Giblin has studied this extensively, helping to produce the most complete report on how termination has been used by creators of all types:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/04/avoidance-is-evasion/#reverted

Writers, musicians and other artists have used termination to unilaterally cancel the crummy deals they had crammed down their throats 30 years ago and either re-sell their works on better terms or make them available directly to the public. Every George Clinton song, every Sweet Valley High novel, and the early works of Steven King have all be terminated and returned to their creators.

Copyright termination should and could be improved. Giblin and I wrote a whole-ass book about this and related subjects, Chokepoint Capitalism, which not only details the scams that writers like Willingham are subject to, but also devotes fully half its length to presenting detailed, technical, shovel-ready proposals for making life better for creators:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Willingham is doing something important here. Larger and larger entertainment firms offer shabbier and shabbier treatment to creative workers, as striking members of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA can attest. Over the past year, I've seen a sharp increase in the presence of absolutely unconscionable clauses in the contracts I'm offered by publishers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/27/reps-and-warranties/#i-agree

I'm six months into negotiating a contract for a 300 word piece I wrote for a magazine I started contributing to in 1992. At issue is that they insist that I assign film rights and patent rights from my work as a condition of publication. Needless to say, there are no patentable inventions nor film ideas in this article, but they refuse to vary the contract, to the obvious chagrin of the editor who commissioned me.

Why won't they grant a variance? Why, they are so large – the magazine is part of a global conglomerate – that it would be impractical for them to track exceptions to this completely fucking batshit clause. In other words: we can't strike this batshit clause because we decided that from now on, all out contracts will have batshit clauses.

The performance of administrative competence – and the tactical deployment of administrative chaos – among giant entertainment companies is grotesque, but every now and again, it backfires.

That's what's happening at Marvel right now. The estates of Marvel founder Stan Lee and its seminal creator Steve Ditko are suing Marvel to terminate the transfer of both creators' characters to Marvel. If they succeed, Marvel will lose most of its most profitable characters, including Iron Man:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/marvel-artists-estate-ask-pre-trial-wins-superhero-copyright-fight-2023-05-22/

They're following in the trail of the Jack Kirby estate, whom Marvel paid millions to rather than taking their chances with the Supreme Court.

Marvel was always an administrative mess, repeatedly going bankrupt. Its deals with its creators were indifferently papered over, and then Marvel lost a lot of the paperwork. I'd bet anything that many of the key documents Disney (Marvel's owner) needs to prevail over Lee and Ditko are either unlocatable or destroyed – or never existed in the first place.

A more muscular termination right – say, one that kicks in after 20 years, and is automatic – would turn circuses like Marvel-Lee/Ditko into real class struggles. Rather than having the heirs of creators reaping the benefit of termination, we could make termination into a system for getting creators themselves paid.

In the meantime, there's Willingham's "absolute table-flip badassery."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/15/fairy-use-tales/#sampling-license

Image: Tom Mrazek (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An_Open_Field_%2827220830251%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

--

Penguin Random House (modified) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/707161/fables-20th-anniversary-box-set-by-bill-willingham/

Fair use https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property

[d-criss-news]

Darren Criss, Rachel Zegler and Broadway's Best Strike a Pose for PEOPLE Backstage at Elsie Fest 2024 (Exclusive)

Darren Criss kicks of Elsie Fest 2024 at The Rooftop at Pier 17 in New York City. Photo:Jenny Anderson/Laurel Hinton/Elsie Fest

Elsie Fest, the theatre-themed music festival created by Emmy-winner Darren Criss, returned to New York City for its seventh installment on Sunday, Sept. 8 with a star-studded panel of performers belting the best of Broadway and beyond to a crowd of eager fans gathered at The Rooftop at Pier 17.

The fun kicked off as the sun set on the city and continued as the lights of Manhattan and Brooklyn lit up the late summer sky.

"It's important for me to keep this distinctly New York, but also distinctly about showcasing the breath of talent and strength of this industry," Criss, 37, tells PEOPLE of the festival, which he first launched in 2015 (it returned this year after a two year absence). "It is a personal investment; not a financial one, but a spiritual and emotional investment in this community that has given me so much."

Criss, who is a veteran of Broadway and will tread the boards again this fall in the upcoming new musical Maybe Happy Ending, shares that he's in "the service industry."

"For me, this is a service to our community of people who love this world, this material, these people, this music, this tradition," Criss says. "So anything I can do to try and give more back to those that I've also been a part of my whole life is also of great importance to me."

Among the performers taking the stage were Rachel Zegler, Jordan Fisher, Joy Woods, John Gallagher Jr., Will Butler, Lizzy McAlpine and RuPaul's Drag Race alum Alaska.

----------

03 Jordan Fisher The Hamilton vet also duetted with Criss on "Dear Theodosia," the ballad from the Lin-Manuel Miranda hit.

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06 Darren Criss

[HQ] Darren Criss. PHOTO: Jenny Anderson/Laurel Hinton/Elsie Fest

Criss offered Glee fans plenty to cheer about with five nods to the show that made him a household name, beginning with "Teenage Dream" — the Katy Perry hit he famously covered when his character, Blaine Anderson, was first introduced on the series. He also sang "Cough Syrup" and "Arthur's Theme," two others tunes he covered on the Fox hit.

Later, Criss reunited with "Warblers" Telly Leung and Curt Mega, as well as Max Adler (who played Dave Karofsky on Glee) for a performance of "Sincere" from The Music Man.

The special guests kept coming when former costar Chord Overstreet came out to end Criss' set, reprising another song they duetted on while on Glee: Billy Joel's "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)."

07 JC Chasez Elsewhere in his set, Criss brought out Chasez — who is penning the musical to the upcoming Frankenstein musical, Playing with Fire — for a performance of two *NSYNC hits: "It's Gonna Be Me" and "Bye Bye Bye."

"I’ve known JC Chasez for a long time from my time in Los Angeles," Criss tells PEOPLE. "I met him and we got on really well. We were writing music together and he’s just been such a bench in my life. I’ll ask him to show up for shows that I’ll play, if I’m doing ‘90s songs, he’ll come up and say yes, which is beyond my wildest dreams."

"I have to play it cool as if I think I belong singing his songs with him on stage," Criss adds." I was — I think people say this to be nice in interviews, like, ‘I was such a fan.’ But I was a f---ing fan! I am a f---ing fan of *NSYNC. I know that whole album like the back of my hand, No Strings Attached. And he was always one of my favorite singers so getting to be with him is pretty amazing."

08 Jordan Fisher, Dez Duron, Helen J Shen Other guests in Criss' set included an appearance from his Maybe Happy Ending costars Dez Duron (center) and Helen J Shen (right)

Criss and Shen performed the title track, while Duron sang the ballad, "A Sentimental Person."

09 Dez Duron, Andrew Barth Feldman and Joe Serafini Shen later joined Criss and boyfriend Andrew Barth Feldman (center) for a performance of "Granger Danger" from A Very Potter Musical.

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16 Darren Criss and Rachel Zegler

[HQ] Darren Criss and Rachel Zegler. PHOTO: Jenny Anderson/Laurel Hinton/Elsie Fest

Of course, no musical could be complete with a finale. And for Elsie Fest 2024, Criss brought out the full-lineup of performers and guests for a group singalong of "Defying Gravity" from Wicked.

[unofficial-book-of-quotes-tm]

Alex Horne: Sian Gibson, I saw you running in front of the main building. Sian Gibson: No, it was a fox! Alex Horne: The fox was wearing a boiler suit.

Alex Horne, Sian Gibson (series 08, episode 01: Hello) Get as close as you can to Alex without him noticing you.

[6kate1bishop6]

"You’re her last chance, and I won’t abandon her.”

--

the foxes approach their newest recruit, but chae-won has a few conditions before she agrees to join the team

everyone please meet my foxes ocs i finally posted something

[marcmarcmomarc]

Super Smash Bros. Fighter Presentation

Introduction

MASTER HAND: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the presentation of the fighters of the one and only “Super Smash Bros.”! I am Master Hand, here with my erratic counterpart, Crazy Hand!

CRAZY HAND: All fighters will be presented in the order in which they joined the roster!

MASTER HAND: Without further delay, here we go!

MASTER HAND: The first game in the series is "Super Smash Bros." for Nintendo 64! The first fighter is the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom. For over thirty years, he's been stomping many foes of all kinds into oblivion. Presenting “Mr. Video Game Himself”, number 01, Mario!

Theme: Victory! Mario - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

(Mario steps to center stage and gives a thumbs-up.)

MARIO: Let’s-a go!

CRAZY HAND: First appearance, “Donkey Kong” for Arcade.

MASTER HAND: Also introduced in this game is “The King of the Jungle”, who fights all kinds of reptiles to retrieve his massive banana hoard. He is number 02, Donkey Kong!

Theme: Victory! Donkey Kong - (Unique Version) by LUCKYRICK

(DK steps to center stage and beats his chest.)

DK: Hoo-hoo!

MASTER HAND: Next is one of many incarnations of the spirit of the hero and the chosen champion of the Golden Goddesses. Grown from an ordinary boy to a legendary warrior, “The Hero of Hyrule”, number 03, Link!

Theme: Victory! Link by Comet Mystic

(Link steps to center stage, then holds the Master Sword in front of himself with both hands as its blade shines with a light blue gleam, indicating its Power to Repel Evil.)

LINK: Hyah!

CRAZY HAND: First appearance, “The Legend of Zelda” for the Nintendo Entertainment System. His Champion’s Tunic comes from “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” for the Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo Switch.

MASTER HAND: The next fighter is the galaxy’s most feared bounty hunter. She has torn through galactic threats, killed giant monsters, and destroyed planets, always ensuring the safety of the galaxy from any evils lurking within. Meet “The Bounty Hunter Extraordinaire”, number 04, Samus Aran!

Theme: Victory! Samus - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

(Samus steps to center stage and demonstrates her Arm Cannon’s Zero Laser configuration.)

CRAZY HAND: First appearance, "Metroid" for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

MASTER HAND: Next up, Mario’s dinosaur pal from Dinosaur Island, “The Omnivore of the Year”, number 05, Yoshi!

Theme: Victory! Yoshi (New Arrangement) by GB6

(Yoshi steps to center stage and dances around in a circle.)

YOSHI: Yoshi!

CRAZY HAND: First appearance, “Super Mario World” for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

MASTER HAND: Next up is a young resident of the planet Pop Star. The pink puffball who sucks enemies into his mouth and copies their powers to use himself, “The Pink Demon”, number 06, Kirby!

Theme: Victory! Kirby - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

(Kirby steps to center stage, leans at the audience and waves his arms.)

KIRBY: Hi!

CRAZY HAND: First appearance, “Kirby’s Dream Land” for the Nintendo Game Boy.

MASTER HAND: Next up is “The Leader of Star Fox”, a team of mercenaries, handed down from his late father, James McCloud. Number 07, Fox McCloud!

Theme: Victory! Fox - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

(Fox leaps out of his passing Arwing, lands at center stage, and lays a finger on his earpiece.)

FOX: (into earpiece) General Pepper, this is Fox McCloud. I have finished my mission and am returning to base, over.

CRAZY HAND: First appearance, “Star Fox” for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

MASTER HAND: The Electric Mouse Pokémon is up next, and the most famous Pokemon of them all. A key partner to several trainers across the various regions, most notably Red and Ash Ketchum. “The Overexcited Rodent”, number 08, Pikachu!

Theme: Victory! Pikachu (Super Smash Bros. Brawl Arrangement) by GB6

(Pikachu steps to center stage and waves at the audience with one paw.)

PIKACHU: Pika! Pika!

CRAZY HAND: First appearance, “Pokémon Red and Blue” for the Nintendo Game Boy.

MASTER HAND: The next fighter has played second fiddle to his famous brother for a long time, but did get his own year in 2013. Welcome Mario’s cowardly ghost-busting younger brother, “The Eternal Understudy”, number 09, Luigi!

Theme: Victory! Luigi by DIMON • CAMI

(Luigi steps to center stage and points his fingers like guns.)

LUIGI: Bang, bang!

CRAZY HAND: First appearance, “Mario Bros.” for Arcade.

MASTER HAND: The hero of EarthBound is next. A kind child with psychic powers, born and raised in Onett, Eagleland. Welcome “The PSI Powerhouse”, number 10, Ness!

Theme: Victory! Ness by GB6

(Ness steps to center stage and nods at the audience.)

NESS: Okay.

CRAZY HAND: First appearance, “EarthBound” for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

MASTER HAND: Our next fighter is a championship racer and renowned bounty hunter, frequently standing up against rival bounty hunters and the nefarious Black Shadow. “The Supersonic Slugger”, number 11, Captain Falcon!

Theme: Victory! Captain Falcon - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

(Captain Falcon leaps out of his Blue Falcon, lands at center stage, and salutes.)

CAPTAIN FALCON: Show me your moves!

CRAZY HAND: First appearance, “F-Zero” for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

MASTER HAND: Next up, the Balloon Pokemon. It puts others to sleep with its singing, and its elastic properties allow it to float. “The Sleepy Singer”, number 12, Jigglypuff!

Theme: Victory! Jigglypuff by Groovy Monkey Music

(Jigglypuff steps to center stage and twirls around.)

JIGGLYPUFF: Jigglypuff!

CRAZY HAND: First appearance, “Pokémon Red and Blue” for the Nintendo Game Boy.

[bizarrequazar]

GJ and ZZH Updates — August 13-19

previous week || all posts || following week

This is part of a weekly series collecting updates from and relating to Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan.

This post is not wholly comprehensive and is intended as an overview, links provided lead to further details. Dates are in accordance with China Standard Time, the organization is chronological. My own biases on some things are reflected here. Anything I include that is not concretely known is indicated as such, and you’re welcome to do your own research and draw your own conclusions as you see fit. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or additions. :)

[Glossary of names and terms] [Masterlist of my posts about the situation with Zhang Zhehan]

08-13 → Second anniversary of 813.

→ Fox Factory posted a bonus clip from their interview with Gong Jun. [subbed video]

08-14 → Hogan posted four photos from their Qixi commercial featuring Gong Jun that was released the previous week. (1129 kadian)

08-15 → The clothing brand GXG posted then quickly deleted a photo ad of Gong Jun, announcing a livestream for 08-29 at 16:40 (kadian!). It's assumed that this was a mistake, as no endorsement with them has been publicly announced yet.

08-16 → The Instagram posted six photos of "Zhang Zhehan" in his native habitat (airports).

→ HZ Baobao, one of the scam's million brands (the one with the ugly leopard mascot), posted an ad announcing sunglasses made in partnership with Zeiss, a high end lens company. Within a few hours, Zeiss responded to a post on Weibo made by a Zhang Zhehan anti, denying involvement and saying they would be taking action against the unauthorized use of their name. HZ Baobao hid the listing for the glasses shortly after, then reposted it with the references to Zeiss removed. Whalers proceeded to harass Zeiss on social media.

→ Gong Jun allegedly sued 100 antis including 34 whalers, with one of the whalers having made posts insinuating that Gong Jun had involvement in 813. The lawsuits are unconfirmed at the time of this post.

08-17 → Gong Jun posted a commercial he did for Hogan. (1129 kadian) This was reposted by Hogan.

→ Hogan posted four photo ads featuring Gong Jun. (1129 kadian)

→ Gong Jun's studio posted six behind the scenes photos of him from the Hogan shoot. Caption: "Seasons go by, and inspiration is throbbing. @ Gong Jun Simon moves with his heart, releasing the free and easy autumn."

→ Gong Jun's studio posted a douyin of behind the scenes footage from the Hogan shoot. Caption: "Ready for... @ Gong Jun Simon autumn!" BGM is Why Mona's cover of Wannabe.

→ QuelleVous posted a Twitter thread about Yajing (a livestream host who worked with Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun a number of times in 2021), explaining connections she has to Songcheng and the scam. In July 2022, Yajing posted a photo of herself wearing slippers from the EHz.Z brand only to delete it shortly afterwards when fans mass-unfollowed her, later telling marketing accounts that she was attacked by Gong Jun's fans. QuelleVous' findings suggest that Yajing was involved with the scam early on but likely backed out because of this. Follow ups: [1] [2]

08-18 → Flora began translating an article about money laundering in the Hong Kong entertainment industry. On a similar note, a family from Mainland China were arrested this week for involvement a billion dollar money laundering scam. If you want to know why all of this is relevant, refer to the roughly twenty companies registered by the scam gang within the last year.

→ The Instagram posted eight photos of "Zhang Zhehan".

→ Gong Jun posted nine scenery photos. Caption: "Chasing the sky. ☁️" (in English) He also posted ten photos to his Instagram with the same caption, including four that were not included in the Weibo post. The photographer Sheng Sheng left a comment on the Weibo post complimenting his photography, which he replied to, and his studio reposted the post with the added caption: "The handsome photographer awakening the Chinese bloodline @ Gong Jun Simon is on the line" Fan Observations: - The Instagram post was made at 14:43, the same time that Gong Jun made a post on that date in 2020. The date was the anniversary of the BAZAAR joint photoshoot; it is not known if the time has a specific significance. - One of the photos (below) is of a streetlight at sunrise, recalling the line from Zhang Zhehan's unreleased song Running To Meet You, "hurry to see you before the streetlights go out." 🥺

08-19 → Hogan posted four photo ads featuring Gong Jun. (1129 kadian)

Additional Reading: → N/A

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[aftgficrec]

Anonymous asked: anything around Wymack and Kevin having father son bonding or something like that.

Our fandom loves Dadmack! -A

NB: find the original ask here in this new twinyards bonding post

previous recs for Kevin & Wymack:

Kevin & Wymack 1 here

Kevin & Wymack 2/Kevin with a child here

post canon Kevin & Wymack here 

Wymack raising Kevin here

Kevin & Wymack paternity convo here

‘domestic bliss’ here

‘Somewhere Other Than Here’ here

‘the prince in the raven tower’ here

‘And Then There Was One’ here

‘How You Live On,’ ‘Missed Signs (accepting help),’ and ‘how did i get here’ here

‘A Record of Life,’ ‘Welcome,’ ‘Home,’ A Dad By Any Other Name’ and ‘Those days we rise above the stars’ here

‘Call it new’ here 

‘Searchlights’ here

you may also like:

‘Right Where It Begins’ here

‘The Way We Are’ (completed) here

‘Oh my Queen, we are here again’ (strained relationship) here

‘quicksand’ here

‘lionblood (flowin' through my veins)’ here

‘Made of Stone’ here

‘the name of the game’ here

‘The Cards We're Dealt’ (updated) here

Father’s Day, ‘08 by rekikiri [Rated G, 1717 Words, Complete, 2023]

twenty two years late, kevin finally gets to spend a fathers day with wymack.

tw: implied/referenced alcohol abuse/alcoholism

unexpected pride by teddy_writes_not_ted_talks [Rated T, 959 Words, Complete, 2023]

Part 1 of Disability Pride Oneshots (etc), NB: part 8 is Wymack-centric 

Kevin Day struggles with staying grounded in a body that doesn't always feels like his. He learns that sometimes all you need to do is ask for help. The first in a series of Disability Pride Month fics.

tw: dissociation, tw: ptsd, tw: implied/referenced abuse

the lovers, the dreamers and me by dayurno [Rated G, 26315 Words, Complete, 2023]

“Coach,” Neil starts, parsing the words in his head to digest them into something more believable. Fortunately, before Neil further makes himself sound insane in front of his father-in-law, the door to Coach Wymack’s office swings open, revealing Andrew with a small child tangled in his legs. Andrew is as blank-faced as always, but the child peers at the room warily, his eyes big and green. Even without words to introduce him, they all know who this is. Coach Wymack audibly sucks in a breath. Alternatively, when the adult Kevin Day regresses in time to his six-year-old self, the Palmetto State Foxes are forced into a state of disarray. It is as the saying goes: it takes a village to raise a child.

tw: implied/referenced abuse, tw: disordered eating

And I wanna kiss you, make you feel alright by Harmonique [Rated G, 3181 Words, Complete, 2023]

Part 3 of AFTG whump, part 2 here 

Kevin is sick, but it's fine. He's been raised in the Nest, he's not allowed to be weak. He'll be fine. (he won't :) )

tw: vomit, tw: nightmares, tw: implied/referenced abuse

Consequences of Coaching by Bookworm1063 [Rated G, 4812 Words, Complete, 2022]

Sometimes, the line between being an Exy coach and being a parent is very thin indeed. Or, five times Wymack was more father than coach, and one time being a coach had nothing to do with it.

Cats In The Cradle by emmerrr [Rated T, 2019 Words, Complete, 2017, Locked]

“Maybe you should go down there,” Abby says. “Keep him company for a little while.” David takes a long sip of his coffee without breaking eye-contact with Abby. She acts casual, but David knows what she’s getting at. “I’m sure he doesn’t want me getting in the way,” he says. “David,” Abby says gently, then seems to struggle to figure out what she wants to say next. “It’s just — have you spent any time with Kevin alone at all since finding out he was your son?”

an imperfect picture is still just right by belncaz [Rated T, 3784 Words, Complete, 2017]

After Wymack learns Kevin is his son, Kevin leaves to go on vacation with the other Foxes. Here's what I imagine happens on David's end as he grapples with a new part of his identity.

The truth in the dark by KweenKevin [Not Rated, 489 Words, Complete, 2018]

Part 3 of Does that make me crazy?, part 5 here

The truth is this: all Kevin ever learned was Exy, and were he used to play for his mother, he now a new person to play for

let me know what piece i've lost by orphan_account [Rated G, 799 Words, Complete, 2018]

Having a son was a new thing to Wymack. A new, very confusing thing. Kevin was a, and he would say this reluctantly through gritted teeth, fully grown adult.

An Understanding by wesawbears [Rated G, 730 Words, Complete, 2016]

The conversation between Kevin and Wymack when Kevin finally gives him the letter and tells him the truth in The King's Men.

trans Kevin and Dadmack prompt fill by @willowbird [Tumblr Fic, 2023]

Dad’s trip bullet fic by @jeanmoreaudefensesquad [Tumblr, 2022]

Sign language education! Dadmack by @this-is-my-main-i-follow-from [Tumblr, 2021]

wymack getting married and wanting to have another child + kevin’s reaction hc by @gthechangeling [Tumblr, 2020]

Kevin thoughts on his father meta by @robincross [Tumblr, 2017]

Art

let me and Andrew do the talking and My father comes to all of my games art by @rainbowd00dles

endless list of families-david wymack & kevin day edit by @mint-and-memories

They all deserve a different childhood art by @masslowart

#1 Dad and Dadmack art by @nerdzewordart

[adarlingwrites]

Series Begun: 2023-01-02

Series Updated: 2023-08-12

Description:

A fox and a vixen try to outfox the other, flirting with the thin line between love and hate, only to realize that what they play runs deeper than a mere game. Welcome to the devil's playground.

Notes:

8/10/23: Now that the full game is out, I will be closing this series with one last spoiler-heavy story, and will be focusing on my new fic, The Devil's Canvas, which takes place in a continuity where Raphael meets Fortune before the events of the game. Thank you to all of the sinners who stopped by to read. I haven't felt this creatively fulfilled in a while. - In summary: this is a collection of stories about two walking red flags who can't seem to admit that they care for each other. This series started during Baldur's Gate 3's Early Access, so please excuse any inconsistencies with the lore or moments that might seem out of character once the full game is released. I might rewrite scenes once I play the game when it comes out in August!

[high-potential]

ABC’s ‘High Potential’ Marks Another Week of Record-Setting Linear Growth Becoming Top Program of the Night in Week 3

Acclaimed Freshman Drama Grows to 8.74 Million Total Viewers and 1.56 Rating in Adults 18-49 With Multiplatform Viewing

After three days of viewing on linear, the third episode of ABC’s acclaimed new drama “High Potential” hit a series high and stood as the top program of the night among Total Viewers (6.10 million), ahead of its closest competition, NBC’s “The Voice-Tue” (5.84 million).

In fact, following its record-setting linear growth in week two – the largest audience uptick from a series premiere to second week in over 16 years (since 9/9/08) – “High Potential” became only the second new broadcast drama since FOX’s “Empire” to grow in viewership for two consecutive weeks after its debut.

After three days of viewing across ABC, Hulu, Hulu on Disney+ and digital platforms, “High Potential” continued its remarkable multiplatform performance in week three, growing +19% in Total Viewers (8.74 million vs. 7.32 million) and +17% in Adults 18-49 (1.56 rating vs. 1.33 rating) over its series premiere on 9/17/24.

Source: ABC