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i-just-wanna-be-called-sparkle · 3 years ago

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Okay. Killer Teddie AU time. Full spoiler warning ahead for P4 and even a bit of P5. Full timeline of all events in order up ahead. Smaller details and ideas at the very end of it. Some of this might not make sense or have an explanation because, at the time, I hadn’t finished base game Persona 4 and had no idea of stuff like Izanami, Sagiris, and so on and so forth. Even now, I haven’t yet finished P4G. The next time I work on this AU will be after I’ve finished P4G and have a good grasp on everything to change what doesn’t make sense and add stuff that does. For now take what I’ve worked on thus far. Sorry if some of my explanations are a little wonky. Extremely fucking long post ahead, I’m seriously not joking around this time.

And, before I start, I’m not the only one who worked on the AU! This is a team project between me and my gf! I know it’s not much to say, but I want to give half of the credit to her rather than taking all of it for myself, cuz while a lot of these ideas came from me, a lot came from her, too.

So, let me explain why Teddie’s a killer in the first place. It starts when he’s still just a mindless Shadow, and he comes face to face with a group of Persona users that existed long before the investigation team, consisting of Tohru Adachi, Mayumi Yamano, and a lot of miscellaneous unnamed characters who may or may not be made into proper characters in the futures. Why this first group existed and consists of those characters is one of those things that hasn’t been fully thought through yet. But, one thing’s for sure, they love going into the TV world and just beating up Shadows for fun every once in a while. At this point in the story, Shadows aren’t necessarily hostile yet, so basically, Teddie witnesses a bunch of his own kind get slaughtered for no reason and, probably because he’s starting to grow some kind of consciousness at this point, goes buck wild and kills the whole group save for Tohru Adachi, who manages to escape. This is how Mayumi Yamano meets her demise and also, how Teddie grows a proper body - it isn’t that bear suit of his though, it’s a human body, most likely the result of humans being the only thing he was exposed to aside from Shadows in that world. From that point forward, a fiery hatred for humans begins to develop within him.

Y’know how Teddie’s real crafty, making those glasses for the Investigation Team to use to see better in the TV world? Well, after a while, he decides he’s tired of walking around bear naked and makes himself some clothes to wear. Those fingers aren’t dexterous for nothing. Not too long after he makes these clothes, Saki ends up in the TV world - for another reason that wasn’t thought through well enough yet, but it’s something like she has a Persona too. This AU is very generous with who gets Personas, I know, please bear with it for now. She ends up bumping into Teddie, the two interact, and because Saki’s a little bitch she finds Teddie to be quite strange, what with the way he talks and how he apparently “comes from the TV world,” and is very verbal about it - very rude about it, too. This first impression with a new human + Teddie’s already intensifying hatred for humans = Saki’s gruesome demise. “Are all humans like this?” Is what Teddie thinks. “Are they all cruel? Are they all mean?” Teddie now has a stronger hate for Humanity that only grows stronger and stronger the more he’s forced to sit in that quiet TV world and think and think and think and think about it.

And along with that hate for humanity, comes a hate for his current human form. So he crafts himself that bear suit of his, and wears it all the time - I believe he also makes it so whatever he bumps into next doesn’t think he’s weird sounding or weird speaking or weird… looking, which, I’ll describe now rather than at the end of the post. Teddie doesn’t look all that different, but the main changes are that his eye colour is now a duller, greyer shade of blue, he is overall even paler, and he is also a lot skinnier. No real reason for these design choices aside from self indulgence without going too overboard. Moving on from that, not too long after he makes the suit is when Chie and Yu and Yosuke go in for the first time. Teddie keeps on a facade of innocence and happiness for a “good first impression,” and nothing changes from then up until the appearance of Yosuke’s Shadow. Since a Shadow is the side of oneself that they don’t want to acknowledge or see, it’s chock full of bad traits and negative emotions - further solidifying Teddie’s belief that all humans are just awful, sinful, nasty creatures.

One thing that Isn’t well thought out at all, and something that I have no clue where to put on the timeline, is this whole deal between Teddie and Namatame. Basically, Teddie communicates with Namatame through the TV (can’t remember if he just talks through it, or sticks his head through), and convinces Namatame to start pushing people in not to save them, but for something along the lines of how he “secretly wants them to die.” Maybe it was because Namatame shares Teddie’s beliefs of humanity being repulsing, but it’s too vague a memory to make heads or tails of it. Don’t know how things would work out without it, though, so it’s sticking around as is for now.

Also, as of right now in the AU, the IT is completely unaware of Teddie’s human form hiding right under his bear form/bear suit. Good lord, I am already tired of typing this all out, this post is so long. Still got a long way to go, kind of.

Here’s another loose idea that hasn’t been fully thought about, and it’s when Teddie encounters his Shadow in Rise’s dungeon. My memories are a bit foggy on this one, but I’ll try my best to remember. So, his encounter with his Shadow stays largely the same, with maybe a couple of his Shadow’s lines being changed to represent how not only is he hiding originally being a Shadow from his teammates, but also how he’s hiding the fact that he’s the killer they’re trying to find - all of it is too vague for the IT to piece together, though. But also a thing that’s changed is his reaction to his Shadow is a LOT more aggressive, a slip up to show a small glance of his true personality - but again, the IT doesn’t think anything of it because, Teddie’s facing his Shadow here, of COURSE he’s going to act different when he’s coming face to face with a part of himself he wants to ignore. Eventually, he manages to accept his Shadow, but for one way or another, a second Shadow starts to develop within him. Maybe it’s because he only partially accepted his Shadow, maybe it’s because of something else - like he didn’t accept his Shadow for the right reason, I can’t remember. But it starts to develop. I remember wanting to give him a second persona akin to what Akechi has in p5 - one for lies, and one for truths, but this is one of those things that will either need to be completely cut out or heavily modified in my opinion.

Teddie kills more frequently in this AU. In between when he’s helping the IT rescue people from the TV world, he’s throwing in people on the night that it fogs up so the IT doesn’t have time to see people appear on the TV/doesn’t have time to go in and save them, resulting in their deaths. Teddie so far has only thrown in people who have been assholes or scum in his eyes, and these are the only people that end up dying in the TV world even with the advent of the IT. Teddie gets away with this by sneaking out at night sometimes and either witnessing these people do disgusting things, or overhearing about it. Two candidates/victims are the two girls from Yosuke’s social link (hopefully you know who I mean) and the bully/bullies from Chie’s social link. Though, for the two girls, I like the idea of it being AFTER Teddie comes to the real world for real and shows off his human form, and starts working at Junes. He’s “working overtime,” late at night, calls up those two girls and asks them to come to Junes to “help him stock shelves” - “I’ll make sure you and your friend get payed extra for it. I’ll take it out of Yosuke’s paycheck.” Next thing you know, they’ve been knocked out and thrown into the TV because they’re heartless assholes in his eyes.

Only way Teddie would get away with a killing like that, though, is through having an outfit to disguise himself from Junes’ security cameras - so, at some point in the timeline, that’s what he does. Repurposes his old clothes from the TV world into an outfit to disguise his identity, to let him keep killing, and he keeps it tucked away either somewhere in the real world or in the TV world. He probably does this before he “becomes human,” so that his clothes are kept secret from the IT team, and that whole “I’m like a newborn in here” scene can happen.

Also, just for clarification, that hate Teddie felt for Yosuke’s Shadow? And how it solidified his hatred for humanity yet further, and his belief that they are all scummy beings? This keeps happening for every single Shadow he sees. Chie’s, Yukiko’s, Kanji’s, etc.

Mitsuo Kubo is the only one thrown in by Teddie who doesn’t die, so that the plot can progress normally, but also because it probably went something like this. Teddie sneaks out late at night to find more disgusting humans to kill, to “purge the earth of such horrendous beings,” and comes across Mitsuo killing Morooka. A human? Committing murder? A human being slaughtering another human being? How sinful. How disgusting. How treacherous. Teddie has to deal with this immediately. So he throws Mitsuo into the TV world without waiting for the fog to settle first (it’s too dire of a situation to ignore, after all). He’s kind of hypocritical, thinking Mitsuo is a terrible person for committing murder (he is, though) and then going right ahead and throwing him in the TV, aiming to kill. He’s just cleansing the world, though - that’s how he sees it.

Also, I believe for most nights when he decides to sneak out, he’s wearing his disguise outfit, so that he doesn’t get caught if he’s in a situation like that where he kills someone on a whim - or just to avoid being caught when he’s out so late snooping around for more victims. Random fun fact by the way: the idea for this whole AU started from the fact that Teddie could use his knowledge of the TV world and how it works to easily get away with using it to commit crimes. Moving on now.

Another thing that doesn’t yet have a place in the timeline is this small thing. I like to think Teddie has a tendency to stay up later into the night because of his occasional nightly outings, and he doesn’t really have enough time to fix his sleep schedule - or he actually just CAN’T. But anyways, he’s keeping himself busy at night while he can’t sleep, maybe playing on an old console in Yosuke’s room, when Yosuke wakes up and starts talking to him until he also gets tired enough to fall back asleep. He says to Teddie that he’s worried about him. “You’ve got bags under your eyes, and you’re basically made of flesh and bone.” He says. Maybe Teddie’s skinny enough his ribs show a little. “This isn’t the first time you’ve stayed up this late, either. Like you’re restless about something.” Sometimes Teddie just paces around the room until he gets tired enough to pass out. “And, what time is it, like, 2:00 AM? I’m really worried about you, Ted.” And that really gets to Teddie. He starts to cry. Here he is, devoting his time to hating humanity, to killing humans, to putting on a happy go lucky, innocent facade around his “friends” to hide his true nature and keep himself emotionally distant from them - and poor Yosuke over here is oblivious to it all, worrying for his dear friend and roommate like this is all unnatural when it’s what he truly is on the inside. And for just a moment, Teddie feels truly bad, and he just keeps crying and crying and crying, probably while Yosuke holds him and tries to comfort him, until he exhausts himself, goes to sleep, and pushes it all out of his head the next morning. But on that night, he had let his guard drop, and he had let himself be vulnerable, and he had allowed himself to get a little closer to Yosuke - a little more attached to him than before. It was only a little, but it was enough to be concerning… it was “just a little” too much for comfort. He can’t let himself get close to that thing.

Oh no, I’m starting to lose focus. We’re nearing the end now. So, you know how Teddie makes that promise to Nanako, right? That he’ll stay in their world to play with her and such? He probably makes the same promise in this AU.

I say probably, because depending on wether he did or not leads to two separate endings, and I can’t decide on which I like more.

So, if he DOES make the promise, HE’S the one who pushes Nanako in. The reason? He’s getting too attached. He’s letting his guard down around a human, and that scares him. He’s getting emotionally attached and invested, and that scares him. He’s starting to care about something that he hates with all of his heart, and that scares him. So he pushes her into the TV, because he’s not allowed to do that, because all humans are evil - no exceptions. This results in Teddie being outed because, when Nanako dies in the hospital (don’t know how that happens yet without Namatame, plothole), he can’t handle the guilt anymore. It’s overwhelming him, suffocating him, drowning him. He falls to the floor, completely breaking down, screaming and sobbing about how it’s all his fault. Then, he either runs out of the room and throws himself into a TV after realizing he’d outed himself, or Yosuke throws him into a TV in a fit of rage and because he feels like Teddie betrayed his trust by pretending to act all innocent when he was the killer.

If he DOESN’T make the promise, or at least, doesn’t get attached, Namatame throws her into the TV and things play out the exact same until they get to the top of Heaven, where Teddie completely loses his shit at Namatame. Maybe he goes to beat the fuck out of him, maybe he’s screaming and shouting at him, in any case, he’s showing his raw personality now. That isn’t what outs him, though - it’s Namatame. “I recognize you.” He says, either through his voice or his appearance. “Why are you so mad at me? I’m doing what you told me to. I’m doing what you want.” Something along those lines. “What?” The IT reacts. “Teddie, is this true? Have you been lying to us?” And the only thing Teddie can do is freeze up, and run away, out of the dungeon - probably not without beating up Namatame a little more for outing him. “Fuck you.” It’s like an endless stream of insults and vulgar language pour from his mouth. “You’ve gone ahead and exposed me, you bitch. You little shit. I hate you. It’s all your fault.”

Now on to Teddie’s dungeon. This part is, uh… Pretty dark. General content warning for death ahead.

So, to contrast Nanako’s dungeon Heaven, Teddie’s dungeon is Hell. There are two concepts for this dungeon though - one is that it’s just conventional catholic/christian Hell, and the other was that it’s based off of/is the frozen over Hel in norse mythology. Because, Teddie has ice attacks, you know? But they’re both largely the same, if not visually. In the earlier floors, there are some objects strewn around like burnt and torn up images of Teddie and the IT, Teddie and Nanako, his bear suit, and maybe one or two other objects of some importance to him. The voices that are heard at the beginning of all the early floors consist of Teddie sobbing and dealing with his inner turmoil of hating humans but getting attached to the likes of Yosuke, Nanako, the IT overall, and the like. “They’re humans.” He thinks. “They’re humans, and all humans are awful. I hate all of them. But I love them. They’re different… They’re nice to me. I don’t deserve it.” “Maybe humanity isn’t so bad after all…” “*sobbing* I’m sorry, Nana-Chan…”

You know how earlier dungeons like Yukiko’s and Kanji’s have that floor in the middle of the dungeon where you encounter the Shadows and that weird title card thing appears? That exists in Teddie’s dungeon, and on the floor right before it, the voice at the beginning of the floor is just Teddie screaming hysterically, maybe even crying. Why? Well, when you go to that next floor…

There’s Teddie. Standing in front of the hanging corpses of Nanako and Yosuke, hesitantly reaching out to them like he can’t process what he’s looking at. And when the IT calls out to him from behind him, the way he looks at them is estranging. He looks terrified, he has to do a double take because one second he was staring at Yosuke’s corpse, then the next moment, he was looking at him, perfectly alive, with the IT. They try and reach out to him, but he’s like a spooked wild animal, and he runs away to the next floor.

The later floors are now decorated with Nanako and Yosuke’s corpses, possibly even the rest of the IT, and the voices now are just Teddie arguing with himself and screaming hysterically, like he’s going insane being in such a horrible place, like he’s becoming more and more deranged with every passing moment. “This is how it should be! All those heartless monsters DESERVE to die! They deserve to hang lifelessly this! But they don’t! I don’t want them to die! I don’t think like that! But I do! But I don’t! These guys are horrendous- no, they’re my friends! THEY’RE SCUM OF THE EARTH! NO, I DON’T THINK LIKE THAT!” And so on and so forth.

When they finally reach the last floor, the deepest floor, the final circle of Hell, they find Teddie there, deranged to the point of practically being a different person. That second Shadow that was developing within him now is toying with him, messing with his head, whispering things to him that make him clutch his head and beg for it all to stop. The IT can’t get through to him now, and he either snaps, gets hostile at them for being “heartless, monstrous, evil humans,” and forces them into a fight, or that Shadow ends up possessing him (either fully, or to a certain extent), and they have no choice but to fight him and knock some sense into him. In either case, he gains his second Persona - something that will most likely be similar to Magatsu-Izanagi, not sure yet - and also, for the sake of self indulgence, it’s like he can control wether or not he is more or less like a Shadow. AKA, goopy black forearms fitted with deadly sharp claws instead of fingers.

I can’t actually remember what EXACTLY happens after the battle, aside from Teddie Goes To Prison, but here’s another battle outcome I almost forgot about that I am DETERMINED to add into the final product. Remember at the beginning, when I specified that Adachi was the only member of the first group of Persona users to survive Teddie’s slaughter? Well, at some point, he overhears the IT talking about Teddie being the killer and the TV world’s existence and decides to butt in. “Can I come along too?” He asks. “I’m a Persona user, just like all of you. You’re talking about catching the culprit here, right? The same culprit who killed Mayumi in the beginning? The same culprit who probably almost got me, then?” Something along those lines. So, he goes in with them, and would you look at that - Teddie still hasn’t forgotten his face. So, in the case of “Teddie snapping and going all hostile on them,” it’s most likely because he sees Adachi mixed in with the IT and alllll of those emotions from so long ago come flooding back… combine that with his hysteria, and boom, you’ve got a raging Teddie hell bound on taking his revenge and getting some closure before he either goes to prison or dies trying not to.

And… I think that’s it. Only thing left to mention is that at some point, right before my hyperfixation ended, me and my gf were trying to figure out a way to implement an accomplice ending and a Teddie Arcana Change, but the end of my obsession came too early in the development of both of those, so there’s not much to say. Also, in this AU, I’m thinking of making Shadows hostile because of the first group of Persona users, like how Teddie hates all of humanity almost purely because of that group. Also, small detail, he’s wearing that disguise of his during the fight - dunno how he got it, but I do wanna add it in somehow, though. This post is also already long enough, so I should stop myself here.

Speaking of that, holy fuck, thanks to anyone who’s read this entire long ass messy post. Like that is just so awesome, I commend you for it. Seriously this post took actual hours just to write down, it’s way too long for any NORMAL person to read all the way through, heavy emphasis on normal (affectionate). Asks about this AU are welcomed and appreciated, if there are any. If not, seriously literally just the fact that anyone might be reading this message at all is enough to sustain me.

#persona 4 #p4 teddie #how am i supposed to tag this as a persona alternate universe when arena ultimax exists ;-;#persona 4 au #let’s hope that tag works #p4 spoilers #yeesh almost forgot to add that

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discotreque · 4 years ago

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LwD 1.08, “Veritas”

aka GIANT SPOCK IS CANON, or: “Today didn’t have to end in eels!”

Line-for-line, this might have been the funniest episode yet. It moved even faster than “Terminal Provocations” but felt like it had twice as many jokes packed in, and holy fuck were those jokes landing for me.

(Obligatory gorgeous planet shot. It’s a little anachronistic to me to see that font used for a location chyron—those weren’t really a mainstream thing on TV before The X-Files, and while I remember them on VOY and maybe even DS9, I think TNG was too early for them—so we’ve never actually seen it used like this before!)

Anyway, I loved the way this one switched up the usual LwD format of “sitcom A-plot + sitcom B-plot + entire A-plot of a TNG episode C-plot”—though I was slightly disappointed at first that it wasn’t the Rashomon-style story I thought it was shaping up to be, I didn’t really have time to dwell on that because then we were off to the RACES.

Seriously, the jokes in this one:

The execution of the bit with the Red Alert happening everywhere except their repair bay? With the almost-subconscious setup of the klaxon quietly fading in and back out of the background SFX as the doors whoosh open and closed? While you’re still supposed to be paying attention to Mariner and Boimler arguing in the foreground? And then Jack Quaid’s delivery of Boimler’s exasperated “Rutherford!”? That whole scene was just *chef’s kiss*

Mariner doesn’t want to get kicked out of Starfleet because then she’d have to live on Earth, “where there’s nothing to do except drink wine and hang out at vineyards and soul food restaurants.” If she doesn’t want to, I will definitely take her spot.

SAMANTHAN RUTHERFORD. Still not over it.

His “rebooting” into increasingly bizarre situations with absolutely no context (“Updating Klingon fonts!” “Why do I even need tha—” *thud*) reminded me a little of the Futurama episode “Time Keeps on Slipping,” and I always like being reminded of that episode.

GORN WEDDING! (Some really fetching dresses in that scene, tbh #notascalie)

Ransom mistaking Tendi for a special-ops “cleaner” (when she was just there to sticky-roll Dr. T’Ana’s fur off the chairs, another screaming-into-my-hands moment) was comedy gold-pressed latinum. Also, I’ve decided she has no martial arts training, she’s just that good under pressure and that afraid of failure (and, obviously, still in good shape from the Academy).

Okay so my personal tastes re: bleeping regular swear words in normal dialogue are that it’s sometimes funny, sometimes just distracting—I’m getting used to it on this show, though—but that’s different from using super accurate, ultra nostalgic LCARS beeps to “censor” classified information—hilariously poorly—which is a classic trope that gets me every time. Ransom’s final “There’s no indication that the Rom... (beat) ... (bleep!) ... (beat) ...ulan High Council detected us” had me scream-laughing into my hands.

“You know who I hate? Remans.” “Oh, they’re the worrrst.”

I was expecting a whole episode about Q, but this was about the perfect amount of him w/r/t Lower Decks—and Mariner just blowing him off was easily on par with Sisko punching him out, omfg

Come on, a soccer game (with a singing ball) against anthropomorphic playing cards, on a chess board, which is actually a puzzle, that they have to solve to prove humanity’s worth, except really Q is just fucking with them—that’s straight out of a Peter David novel and I was living for it. What more do you need?

Boimler giving a rousing This! Is! Starfleet! speech—and then ending it by shouting “Drumhead!” and mic-dropping the Horn of Candor—was such a perfect microcosm of this stupid, stupendous show :D

“Creepy? This is one of our nicest Event Silos! I got married here!”

And now for some prop talk! The phaser rifles that Ransom and Tendi and [REDACTED] were carrying look like they’re of a design lineage with the ones we saw on VOY (and then late-period DS9), with the angles and proportions “modernized,” in a way the others feel distinctly of-the-90’s now, and that’s such a nice subtle touch—I love how much attention LwD pays to whatever “set dressing” is called in animation.

I was going to get into a whole Thing there, about how phasers were “de-militarized” in design for TNG, and how they’ve since regressed to resemble IRL firearms—RIP the tome of Star Trek essays in my head nobody will ever pay me to write—but honestly? I’m just delighted that this show is making me think so hard about Star Trek As A Concept. I literally feel like a kid again.

TNG and DS9 left me so hungry for post–Dominion War worldbuilding, and then VOY fucked off to the Delta Quadrant, and then ENT fucked off to prequels and the franchise got stuck there for 20 years… and sure, in my heart of hearts I sometimes wish this show had maybe 15% more chill—which is just because I’m getting old—but in so many other important ways, it feels like coming home <3

Oh, and this week’s “Am I actually, literally Beckett Mariner?” moment was when she didn’t care about classified information because “knowing things means more work.” If that’s not me filtering emails at my day job...

Next week: A holodeck hijinks episode, but it looks more VOY-style holo-hijinks than TNG-style—which is basically trashy cable movies vs. PBS, so fuckin’ sign me up.

#star trek #lower decks #lwd #star trek lower decks #amy's episode notes

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regrettablewritings · 5 years ago

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Podcasts, Youtubes, and TV Shows to Distract Yourself With Because Why Not, and Also Because I Wanna Blab About Some of These

Since I can’t go to work and horrify my coworkers/make them realize I’m a mess and/or nerd by telling them about the type of media I’m into, I’m foisting my recommendations on all of y’all who choose to read this. I frankly do not care how many people have actually heard of these things because I’m also sure there’s plenty of people who, like me, are very slow and oblivious to entertainment, or who have heard of the property but were never that convinced.

Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts

Type: TV series

200 years after a mysterious yet earth-shattering event, much of humanity has taken to living beneath the surface in communities called burrows, wherein life goes on, if effected somewhat by the bizarre fauna that exists above them (referred to as “mutes”, short for “mutant”). One burrow girl, Kipo, founds her world turned almost literally inside-out when she finds herself not only separated from her father and the only world she’s ever known, but on the surface, no less. What ensues is her trying to find her way back home with the help of a stony-faced little girl with a massive chip on her shoulder; a music enthusiast and his literal gadfly friend; and some . . . unusual allies that only an oblivious optimist like Kipo could make. All to a kickass soundtrack, a beautiful backdrop of art, and a world where animals have basically evolved into gangs under a looming threat known as Scarlemagne. If you can’t already tell, I love this series to bits and now is the perfect time for people to get into it and encourage another season of it. Just . . . don’t think too hard that whatever happened to cause the Event in the show happened in October 2020 . . .

Available on: Netflix

My Dad Wrote a Porno

Type: Podcast

This should go without saying, but this podcast is definitely meant for more mature audiences. Or somebody with a strong stomach. Not that it’ll always be easy to tell with the type of content this series gives. When Jamie Morton’s father handed him his manuscripts for his self-published books, he had no idea he was being given a pinnacle of a polished turd: It was erotica. Really, really, really bad erotica. But the ear’s trash is the heart’s pleasure with this bad girl, as Jamie enlists the company of friends Alice and James to provide commentary on “Rocky Flintstone”’s series Belinda Blinked, a drama chronicling the sexcapades of Belinda Blumenthal as she climbs the ladders (and men and women) both in and out of the cut-throat world of pots and pans sales. What follows is a goldmine of awkward metaphors, strange bedmates, and just an overall stampede of whiplashing events that somehow exceed expectations. Listen in if you dare . . . And make sure you’re in good company for it. Fun Fact, though: Daisy Ridley, Ben Barnes, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Michael Sheen, Mara Wilson, Elijah Wood are but a few well-known fans of this series! Nobody is safe . . .

Available on: Wherever podcasts can be found

Lore

Type: Podcast

Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. And what better way to be reminded of that, then to have the dulcet tones of Aaron Mahnke tell you about the lighthouse incident that the 2016 movie The Lighthouse was loosely inspired by? Suffice to say, this podcast could also be interpreted with some advised discretion, but definitely in a way that’s different from My Dad Wrote a Porno. In the centuries humankind has existed, we’ve managed to create a menagerie of beasts, both fictional and in ourselves. Lore explores all the many different kinds of events and persons and creatures we have to offer. In any given episode, we could be talking about anything from the bizarre story of a lady who convinced 18th century physicians that she was giving birth to rabbits, to something more disturbing like the life of H.H. Holmes. Or something as relatively innocuous as the relationship between gremlins and flight. Regardless of the subject, however, you’ll definitely walk away knowing something new, if bizarre. And perhaps slightly terrifying.

Available on: Wherever podcasts can be found

The Amelia Project

Type: Podcast

Congratulations: You have been made aware of The Amelia Project. If you’re not interested in this, exit the page. Now. If you continue, there’s no unhearing it. Good choice! A new interest awaits. If you don’t enjoy it, please consider the whole thing a hoax. Okay but in all seriousness, there’s no way to do The Amelia Project justice in just a simple description. The plot sounds quite simple, really: People want to disappear and start a new life, The Amelia Project is there to help – with a price. And that’s if you can actually get a hold of them! What really makes the show, however, are the people and the writing, and I’m not just talking about the almost childlike Interviewer with an obsession for hot cocoa. I’m talking about the clientele: I’m talking about the macabre-obsessed theme park owner who’s out for revenge; the cult leader who’s in way over his head; a Santa impersonator stuck in a miserable marriage with his own manager; an actual podcast character trying to outrun his creators. And obviously this would all be nowhere without the spectacular writing! I really can explain this series without blabbing on and potentially spoiling things; The Amelia Project is an experience!

Available on: Wherever podcasts can be found

LegalEagle

Type: Youtube channel

To be frank, I just like learning for the sake of learning, even if I may not always necessarily understand the topic or have any plans to use it in the foreseeable future. The big difference here being that at least this channel makes learning about the law fun and breaks it down. Headed by a certified lawyer (because what an age we live in, where professionals actually take time out of their lives to teach us common folk), there’s a multitude of series D.J. Stone uses to help break down the complex world of law, from reviewing the realism of procedural favorites (Law & Order, The Good Wife, HTGAWM, etc), to analyzing real-life situations, to even watching childhood media that has nothing to do with the law and determining how much money, say, Willy Wonka would owe in a lawsuit. In short, it is one of my worst subjects done in one of my favorite ways to learn! Plus, Stone hates business students and is perfectly willing to poke fun at law students so it’s all fun, frankly.

Available on: Youtube

Nando v Movies

Type: Youtube channel

Sometimes, movies are bad. Sometimes, they’re good. And sometimes, they could use a few adjustments in hindsight. Especially the nerdier movies where the directors may or may not have tried way too hard or way too little. And that’s where Nando comes in: Whether it’s explaining why a different villain might have worked better for a hero’s origin story movie, or analyzing how one seemingly small adjustment could’ve potentially made more sense in explaining characterization, this channel is always providing a new perspective on a movie or show you’ve probably seen and maybe weren’t necessarily too pleased with. (Or maybe you were – I enjoyed Justice League okay but I love the version he rewrote more.) Oh, yeah: Sometimes he does rewrites of movies or even series. So if you’re anything like me and you’re way into that, this is a channel you don’t want to miss out on.

Available on: Youtube

DEATH BATTLE!

Type: Youtube channel

Does anyone remember Deadliest Warrior? No? . . . How about that one time during lunch where you and your friend got into it over who would win in a death match between Superman and Goku? Good news: A buncha geeks did the math for you and have come out with the results! Specifically, hosts Wiz and Boomstick have analyzed the weapons, armor, and skills of each combatant in every episode, resulting in an ongoing series of absolute nonsense and satiation of bloodshed. The description is admittedly nothing crazy, but the amount of detail applied is honestly where it’s at: From calculating how loud Black Canary’s screams are to approximating Scrooge McDuck’s speed (I’m not kidding you), there’s actual thought put into the characters being assembled and how they might fair with their respective combatant. And it all comes together for an actual fight, often animated but always amazing. So if you’ve ever wondered if Thor could beat Wonder Woman, or if McGruff the Crime Dog stands a chance against Smokey the Bear (I’m…I’m being honest), then this is the show for you!

Available on: Youtube

Sideways

Type: Youtube channel

If there is music in that movie or show, it will be analyzed to a degree that, unless you’ve been trained in music, you would’ve probably never thought about. There isn’t necessarily much rhyme or reason to Sideways’ videos in terms of themes beyond music, but really, must they? Is it not enough that this man is screaming to the internet these wack and awesome trends he’s noticed in certain pieces associated with movies and musicals and the genius behind them? Could life not just be him explaining the symbolism of the instruments associated with the Crystal Gems of Steven Universe, or breaking down the cultures explored by way of the Black Panther soundtrack? Also, here’s a fun drinking game: Take a shot every time he mentions leitmotifs or the Dies Irae.

Available on: Youtube

Craig of the Creek

Type: TV show

In the woods of suburban Maryland, there exists a kid’s utopia: A place where horse girls are free to roam the fields, where a boy can be a king of garbage, and where children travel the sewers completely unsupervised. That is, until the dinner horn rings; then they have to go home until the next time they can return to The Creek. The show focuses on one specific trio (Craig, JP, and Kelsey) as every day, The Creek (and their own childish naivete) brings them new hijinks to experience. There’s a blissful lightheartedness to the show, in addition to a lot of creativity that feels like it was ripped straight out of your own imagination as a child (robots made from cardboard boxes, building portals using lights, etc). But beneath it all, there’s something just plain wild brewing. I don’t want to spoil anything, but CotC has some G-rated GOT shit going on the further along the series goes and I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds!

Available on: CN app, wcostream.com

And that’s probably enough for now, I think. Lemme know if you want any other suggestions, or how you’re findin’ ‘em if you take any of them up! Stay safe, stay healthy my dudes!

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popwasabi · 5 years ago

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Lockdown Lookback: Catching up on the past months’ Pop Culture

Aaaaannnd we’re back!

It’s amazing what a little pandemic can do to shake you out of your creative cobwebs but if we’re all going to die, I want to make sure all my pop cultural hot takes are up to date at least.

Many of us are already on lockdown and many major movies including “007,” “Black Widow” and ummm I guess “Mulan” are all getting pushed to the backburner as no one is leaving their God damn homes unless they’re told to!

(Didn’t realize the thing I wish I had more of in the apocalypse would be sweatpants...)

But there’s still plenty to talk about from the previous months and other hot topics I have been meaning to write about but just hadn’t found the time or energy for. Life has been hard I think for just about all of us these days thanks in no small part to this pandemic. For me personally, I’ve had two different vacations canceled because of the virus and currently working understaffed at my job which is considered essential. Not to mention my therapist is on call only at this time and both my martial arts schools have been suspended, so I can neither talk nor punch my feelings out of my system.

So, I might be just a LITTLE on edge at the moment.

(My internal monologue for most of these past few weeks, more broadly years...)

Anyways, I digress, you come here because you like to read my highly unprofessional takes on pop culture and genuinely to those who have cheered me on from the beginning thanks, you guys are my prime motivators. But anyways let’s talk about all the shit I was supposed to write about these last two and a half months.

“Birds of Prey” was a hot, but needed, mess

Earlier last month I got to see the sort of sequel to the much-maligned “Suicide Squad” in “Birds of Prey and the…waaaay too long of a title for me write here.” I had cautious optimism for it because it looked strange and off the beaten path of most comic book movies and seemed to promise at the very least a fun time at the theater but it’s still also a DCEU movie so the floor was pretty low on its possible quality as well.

In the end, the movie is kind of bit of everything; the best and worst parts of the DCEU.

In terms of the good, it’s definitely outside the box, a sort of fem Deadpool first person story as told frenetically by Harley herself. Margot Robbie is, of course, still quite great at this role and you can tell she’s having a blast as this character. The humor is mostly good and visually the bright colors and cinematography pops on each screen and on that front there isn’t much to complain about.

But as a DCEU movie it does suffer from some narrative imbalance partially due to it’s psycho storyteller but mostly, and more than likely, due to corporate editing that probably axed an entire dance number that I was honestly looking forward to from the trailers.

(Seriously, I actually wanted to see the full unedited version of whatever hell this ended up being.)

It’s definitely in the “could’ve been better” camp of comic book movies but you know what? I’m still glad it exists. You know why? Because comic book movies dominate our blockbuster culture right now and if the genre wants to survive, at least artistically, it needs some outside the box films like this. I HATED “Joker” but I appreciate that it opened the door for stranger, more unique takes on a genre that is getting increasingly more stale. This movie falls into that unique category too.

(Also, to all the faux-intellectuals and alt-right nerds making a culture war out of “Sonic” vs “Birds of Prey” *kindly* reevaluate your lives please...)

We’re at the point now where comic book movies should be getting weirder, not more formulaic, and that means swinging for the fences even if a couple don’t quite make it out of the ballpark. If it takes a few not so stellar takes on the genre for Hollywood to greenlight a truly fantastic one I’m all for it.

In any case “Birds of Prey” doesn’t quite end nor continue the DCEU’s recent hot streak but it is enjoyable enough to where I would be more than open to a sequel. It’s worth a watch.

The Mandalorian and The Witcher: Two shows about violent mercenaries and fatherhood

Both these shows are old news at this point, but I did want to talk a little about both for a bit if you would have me.

First, “The Mandalorian” which was Disney+’s flagship production to begin its streaming chapter late last year is definitely a more than welcome addition to the galaxy far, far away. It’s pretty easy to feel fairly jaded about Star Wars these days given how flat the new trilogy ended but for what it’s worth “The Mandalorian” was a good mix of nostalgia bait and something new and interesting for fans to chew on. Its production value is obviously top-notch, no doubt because of all the Disney money pumped into it, it’s well-acted and thrilling and fun from start to finish. It plays heavily on the genres that influenced the series, primarily westerns and old samurai flicks, and fans of those will certainly enjoy the homages to them all.

The series was something of a coming out party for Deborah Chow who directed two of the season 1’s best episodes. Her steady hand, eye for details and tributes to Asian cinema throughout really gave the series an extra kick at times and showed how Star Wars can evolve still. Chow is set to helm the upcoming “Kenobi” series and one can only hope that she *really* leans into the samurai genre for that show.

(Hopefully, there are some “Yojimbo” vibes in there somewhere...)

The Mandalorian’s best and worst parts though are its semi episodic nature making each episode easy to digest as a one-off but also lacking some narrative tension between each. It plays kind of like a Saturday Morning cartoon to both its benefit and detriment with bite-size easy to digest plots and dialogue for the viewers but not offering a ton of depth beyond that.

The Mandalorian himself is also kind of a Gary Stu. His armor is basically impenetrable and far and away the best killer onscreen typically, making more than a few action scenes lack real stakes and tension. Baby Yoda certainly helps at times to make him more vulnerable and puts him in precarious positions plenty of times but outside a few moments (mainly episode 2 and to a lesser extend the final episode) he’s just a little too overpowered to be a more interesting character.

But this show and frankly the Star Wars series as a whole is meant for kids, no matter what the neckbeards try to tell you (violence =/= adult), and that’s not necessarily a bad thing either. Plenty of kids productions can be both great and even sophisticated and while I wouldn’t say “The Mandalorian” is either of those it’s a good and fun kids show for the fans.

(And yes I’m aware that the books, some comics, and games have touched on more adult stuff, you weirdos. But how would you describe the overall tone and presumptive audience of the movies and TV series as a whole, guys??)

As far as “The Witcher” goes it also has a bit of an episodic style to it as well with an overarching, albeit, convoluted story that runs parallel to it. The first 3-4ish episodes can be classified as a quasi “Game of Thrones” clone leaning perhaps a little too heavily into the tropes of that series. Once the series finally starts leaning into its real identity, a dry-witted hack and slash fantasy, the series is much more consistent both tonally and narratively.

Henry Cavil is solid as Geralt of Rivia and the supporting cast of Joey Batey as Jaskier, Freya Allen as Ciri and even more so Anya Chalotra as Yennefer are all great in their respective roles delivering some great moments throughout the season.

(And lest you forget this earworm...)

“The Witcher’s” early season struggles keep it from being as tonally or narratively consistent as “The Mandalorian” but where the monster slayer beats the bounty hunter is that it has overall more compelling drama and has more to say, leaning much more heavily into the thematic greys of the plot. There are tons of problems with “The Witcher” on a story-telling level but you can definitely say it cares more about adding some depth in between the more pulpy aspects of the story which is something you can’t say as much for in “The Mandalorian.”

Of course, I’m partially overselling “The Witcher” a bit here, it’s not anywhere near “Game of Thrones” best (yet at least), and on the flipside one could argue that “The Mandalorian’s” more subtle sense of story-telling does its themes better. But when it comes down to these two shows you get somewhat similar story-telling ideas, mostly involving both characters and their smaller counterparts, in two very different genres with equally diverging conclusions to their respective seasons.

(🎵 Toss an “Oof” to your Witcher...🎵)

All in all, they’re both good and worth a watch and I think they deserve a chance to evolve and hopefully showcase more of what they have to offer moving forward.

“Parasite” wins Best Picture! Many people have some hot takes, including the president...

Last month one of my favorite films of 2019 “Parasite” won Best Picture at the Oscars. It’s a movie that is becoming increasingly relevant as elites and celebrities alike are getting front of the line testing despite being asymptomatic in the middle of pandemic and think they can assuage our concerns and dread by poorly singing “Imagine” together within the comfort of their McMansions.

It’s about as a good time as any to revisit this movie, I mean where else are you going to go during this timeline, and at a later date I’ll write something more extensive about it eventually (hopefully) but first here’s a helpful video on one particular thing that came out after director Bong Joon Ho took home the night’s top honors:

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“Cats” is still a fever dream of madness

Back in late December, I watched “Cats” for science, as I had AMC A-List and a friend crazy enough to join me. I figured it would be bonkers and unlike anything I had seen before in the worst way but even then, I don’t think I was truly prepared for what I ended up seeing that fateful night.

I remember quite vividly going to the bar inside the theater and ordering a stiff drink beforehand to numb the pain and the bartender asking “So what are y’all watching tonight?” and beginning to laugh manically like an insane asylum patient at the innocuousness of the question. Walking into the theater was like that feeling you get before getting on a particularly scary-looking rollercoaster at Six Flags but instead of the pre-ride jitters eventually subsiding to the eventual fun and joy of the ride, only a deep sense of existential dread built up and sustained itself through what felt like six hours of the most baffling thing put to screen in front of my eyes ever.

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(The music that played in my head as I exited the theater...)

Have any of you watched the Stanley Kubrick movie “Eyes Wide Shut” before? You know the scene when Tom Cruise is walking around in his mask observing the strange occult sex orgy going on around him at the mansion? That’s kind of what “Cats” felt like except way more terrifying, somehow MORE sexual, and definitely crazier.

(Is...this some type of...intepretative dance to summon an eldritch horror??)

There’s a voyeuristic terror that comes from sitting in that theater room as you watch bipedal humanoid looking felines dance to confusing songs about “Jelicle” cats (whatever the fuck that means) and all other manner of things that should NOT take human form throughout it’s near-endless runtime. A lot was made about Rebel Wilson and the disgusting roach people she consumes but NO ONE warned me about the frankly HORRIFYING mice children in the same scene!

(I am not perusing the internet to find that image again for y’all. I have enough nightmares each night...)

The saddest thing about the whole movie is everyone, save for Ian Mckellen who seemed to be acting as if a gun was pointing at him offscreen and Judi Dench who looked 100 percent like a geriatric in her digi fur, was giving the movie their fullest effort in what can only be described as a Titanic-sized level of hubris by all parties involved. This movie really needed a “Chaostician” involved in evaluating the production for studio heads and shareholders because there were definitely NOT enough people on this project wondering whether or not this film SHOULD exist...

(Dr. Ian Malcolm coming to Universal Pictures to access the film.)

What has “Cats” wrought upon this world? The universe has been clearly out of balance since this movie came out and while I’m not saying it’s director Tom Hooper’s fault, I’m not saying it isn’t either.

“Cats” is one of those things, much like The Matrix that cannot be simply described but must be seen to believe. It’s one of the worst things I have ever seen onscreen but with the right group of people and a few stiff drinks it’s certainly an experience you won’t forget. Consider it for your next Google Hangout during this apocalypse.

Anyways, that about wraps up my thoughts on the last few months. Going to try to be more consistent going forward especially given how much more time I have now to write, for better and worse. But more importantly, just want to say stay safe y’all. It’s going to be a process to get through this and while things are more likely to get worse before they get better there will be a day when this all ends and some normalcy may yet return to our life but in order for us to get there we need to remain vigilant.

So stay at home, wash your hands, and if you want to watch movies just order it online for now and we’ll just wait until aaaallll this blows over…hopefully.

Don’t panic...

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imadeletingmysocials · 5 years ago

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My Final Say On The Final Fantasy 7 Compilation:

DILLY DALLY SHILLY SHALLY!

Now let me say something: I don’t fully hate the remake, my feelings are at best mixed towards it, because of course it plays on my heart strings at moments, I grew up with Final Fantasy 7, I recognize and fall for the fanservicey recreations of PS1 moments, I just hate it’s tone and different atmosphere because I recognize this is obviously fanservicey everywhere you go and rarely comes as close to the original feel, more on that later of course, here’s what’s core: Final Fantasy 7 Remake at best feels like a compromise between the new and the old fans, with some old fans not really feeling 100% about it from what I gathered around many people I know. Everything I hear is “The gameplay is fun and engaging! but some shit is definitely silly and could have been cut” stuff like: the amount of filler, characters that honestly don’t add that much to the world building, and the saturday morning cartoon prolongation of certain moments which were straight to the point in the original, this is a remake where you get to see fast-paced deep cut moments turned into a slow agonizing over-redundant slow insertion of a knife, it’s like using a butter knife to cut a well done stake.

Again, a compromise with the fandom, THAT fandom, the fandom that scared everyone into playing Final Fantasy 7 which was at best a REALLY Good regular JRPG, and it really was like this weirld proto-cringe culture built around a cult, Final Fantasy 7 was this grimdark game about ecology, direct action, the over reach of corporate control on resources, spirituality and all that, and it was ALL REDUCED TO YAOI SHIPPING, I will never forgive you guys for reducing Final Fantasy 7 to that shit and it is one of the main reasons why the Compilation became this anime shit, I’m not even someone who unironically says “this is too anime” but that’s my attitude with a lot of the compilation, there is stuff in this compilation series that makes it all feel like a fucking parody of Dragon Ball Z when outside of that, the original was pretty grounded.

The original was so grounded that it’s still debated if Final Fantasy 7 is cyberpunk AT ALL if not dieselpunk, with the compilation and remake adding more cyberpunk and high-sci-fi aspects like China-like social credit, or VR, and they’re all ham-fistedly added additions to the series, it’s just them running with the idea of “I guess we’re considered cyberpunk now, better play the part and add these cliche tropes”, Final Fantasy 7′s world clearly has a class division when it comes to who has technology and who doesn’t, some technology in the FF7 world is old and some is new, but in the original it’s really just a select places that hold power towards technology: Like the facilities of Midgar or the Golden Saucer.

Adding a lot of these sci-fi aspects and prolonging on the midgar section of course adds plot holes: In the original, the Midgar section flies so fast it’s just one event after the other WHICH IS GOOD, not letting air to breathe in your structure keeps the plot tight, keeps the momentum and pacing good, allowing that air to breathe too much results in what I like to call: Nomura’s Awkward Silence. You’ve probably seen it in Kingdom Hearts quite a lot but Nomura is a shitty director who manages to make scenes so badly and prolonged that by the end any logical person would go: “...But? Wouldn’t that not work?”.

FF7′s Midgar was fast-paced cuz this is a group of eco-terrorists which are on a constant verge of being caught so they’re constantly on the move, plot hole nitpicky shit starts to happen when you don’t have a fast-pacing to keep most hooked and here are examples which aren’t helped with the new plot device additions:

Why doesn’t Tifa confront Cloud’s past since they now have a lot of time to catch up

Why would a terrorist group just... Hire someone and let them stay in a normal ass

Why is Avalanche just chilling around the sectors when they all live in a mass surveillance state, no really adding that mass surveillance plot device really makes everything fall apart, in the original SHINRA just IMMEDIATELY after the first bombing bombs sector 7 with absolutely no-restraint, them seeing AVALANCHE bomb one of their reactors makes them go: “Oh we can kill them all in one swell swoop and put the blame on them no problem we just giving them a false means of comfort” and the new bombing of Sector 7 REALLY does showcase my annoyance with all of the minor changes that were fine and better in the original: This is also best exemplified by how reno in the original just presses the button and is done with it but the remake prolongs this scene so much, that RENO has to fight you first??? Even if he is literally facing the fucking button??? cuz ANIME FIGHT! and then they make RUDE press the button when before they developed him as “somewhat nice guy” which only clashes even worse with the fact that he was the one who presses a button to SUPPOSEDLY kill an entire sector, well I say supposedly cuz now, there is no weight in that, Barrett doesn’t shoot the fallen sector’s walls in anger and (that’s what motivates him to go to Shinra once and for all) because actual stakes? what are that? No, everyone evacuated this time and the new NPCs are all fine :)

Throughout the whole game, they play up characters who are minor in the original but are FULL BIG FUCKIN IDOLS in the remake now, and as a result, the “bad guys who become good guys as the game on” HAVE TO HAVE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IMMEDIATELY. Fuck pacing! We need to show that the HEROES HAVE A CONSCIOUSNESS NOW! and STILL MAKE THEM DO EVIL THINGS. Like what is the point in developing your villains and showing they have a conciseness if they are still going to do bad things? In FF7 the only start developing a consciousness AFTER the bad things, like ff7 remake makes Dude somewhat decent and showcases Reeves as a nice person but they still did evil things regardless so it’s uselesss. Now I won’t say FF7 doesn’t do this and shows Reeves has his gripes but it doesn’t go

Again, BARRET HAS A FUCKING GUN FOR AN ARM, HE SHOULDN’T BE OUT IN THE PUBLIC... AT ALL, HE SIGNED HIS DEATH WARRANT WHEN HE GAVE HIMSELF THAT ARM AND DEDICATED HIMSELF TO THE CAUSE, THIS IS WHY HE ALWAYS LIVES ON THE MOVE AND ALWAYS HIDING.

Again, why did they introduce the idea of everything being a mass surveillance state if Cloud, Tifa and Barret can literally storm Shinra’s headquarters and Shinra workers are just... chilling in the lobby, it’s all empty, but in the original you had a somewhat sense of danger and the only way to progress was through going through specific corridors in a certain order or tricking Shinra workers.

Every single time the dementors appear.

Examples of the anime-transformation of the remake and making everything a lot harder to not take seriously are:

Scarlet being a comical dominatrix who like a cartoon character smacks the character when in the original she was truly like a serious fucking villain.

Aeris (or Aerith, not sure anymore) pretty much becoming a Disney Princess

Every single villain going to saturday morning cartoon levels of overreduncancy.

And of course I hate this shit, I have a connection with the original you know, if it wasn’t called a remake or if it didn’t touch the original maybe I wouldn’t have thought otherwise but because of the fact that it goes out to make these ridiculous changes feels like some sort of insult in a way. Minor inconveniences start to become major inconveniences and Final Fantasy 7′s remake is CHOCK FULL of it.

It’s the weirdest comparison I know, but the one I feel still works is: You know how Disney movies would a TV adaption? Like how Disney’s Hercules had a Hercules TV show and it went on to develop background characters you barely knew, while basically overly expanding on that interlude of the movie? Well that’s what Final Fantasy VII remake feels like, some even said that this remake feels like as if they made a MCU movie series based on the original, honestly I don’t know which one is worse, sounds pretty bad which ever way you put it.

A controversial opinion but one that never the less is true is that: Midgar was not supposed to be ANYTHING BUT A SET UP, it was just there for the sake of world building, now I guess it’s just me and a couple of friends but we aren’t part of the gang of “I didn’t play Final Fantasy 7 pass Midgar” which apparently is a thing, it goes as far as cultural video game stereotype, I’m one of the few people who played passed Midgar, and i’m one of the few people who prefer the game past that section as everything when the world begins to open starts to build on that set up Midgar introduced, like Midgar isn’t everything FF7 has to offer, it’s just the setup, Midgar is the BIG BAD, but you need to recgonize how Midgar is pretty much a plot device at best and what is more important is the villages of the planet and how each are affected by Midgar’s reach and corruption, like Red Canyon, small villages with rocket projects or Wutai (which the Compilation LOVES to set up as the other super-power against Midgar, rather than letting Midgar be the only superpower like in the original I guess).

Midgar is structured like this fast-paced action film, beat by beat, in fact following the same structural high points of an action movie. Midgar was always designed to be a 2 hour experience, like a fun roller coaster ride or romp, it wasn’t meant to be the WHOLE GAME or that prolonged.

And a lot of those things will be gone and sacrificed in the remake: For example, you cannot recreate well-placed shots and angles in the remake cuz it doesn’t have pre-background sets like the original. In doing so, you sacrifice shit and make choices LIKE THIS:

Rather than the slow-panning of the shot that results in this iconic scene:

I want to be clear here: I do not hate Final Fantasy 7 remake for it’s lack of subtlety, whenever Final Fantasy 7′s remake has the chance to be political and preachy about it, that is actually where it expands VERY well on the original (unlike the whole fucking Compilation shit or the annoying quirky NPCs they introduce which honestly don’t add much and kinda remove and detach from what’s kinda important at the matter, again the pacing fucking sucks), the original works as it is with short burst of dialog without dwelling on actual political theory (It can get annoying of course for example: Barrett in the remake every 10 seconds talks about how he wants to save the planet, while Barrett in the original doesn’t need to be that repetitive, in fact I think you can count every time in the remake he says “SAVE THE PLANET” almost as much “DARKNESS” is said in Kingdom hearts... NOMURA!!!), you know keeping it simple for all of the teenagers playing it in final fantasy 7, vague enough to be accessible.

I could go on about all of those weird changes in the remake which could have been left as it is, like almost every single side-mission, I don’t know of a single side-mission in FF7 I left thinking “Wow that was really worthwhile, thought provoking and added quite a lot to the world building!” cuz guess what, it didn’t. The children don’t add much like we get it children are not immune to SOLDIER propaganda (Cloud is literally the personification of this did we really need this), the angel of the slums shows stealing from the rich is good (like the entire game is about killing corporate people and despite Barrett feeling a lil bit remorse in his methods he never feels remorse in killing anyone related to SHINRA), like oh thanks for showcasing to me that thieves can be good people like the child I am. These are all engineered to make people who didn’t get the point in ff7, messages which feel are for children, which I guess a lot of gamers are, the dumbification of video games as a whole angers me but that’s a completely different subject, you ever notice how characters in the past didn’t talk about every single action they should be performing but every game after 2010 has to be annoying about that?

I still have mixed feelings on FF7R. Little things that are lil fanservice can be nice, but then the final fantasy 7 remake just throws the cake onto the ground as soon as it seems tasty, the best example of this would be the cutscene showing Shinra’s plan in Shinra’s headquarters, it is an EXCELLENT COMPLIMENT to the original, like the original has about the same amazing world building set up of how 2000 years ago FF7′s world was just a regular Final Fantasy world! Final Fantasy 7 is special because of that this particular world building, and compliments to that realism and tone ARE GREAT! Those are moments in which the tone of the game SHINE! It makes you go “Aw that was a nice recreation and it complimented the game fine” but then Sephiroth. You know... That one villain who isn’t supposed to be appearing every single second in the original but since the pacing is dogshit I guess he’s basically become Cloud’s little one winged angel on his shoulder that has to appear IN EVERY cutscene, I really do hate this mother fucker. I hate that Sephiroth bitch, I hate that he became more of an mascot for FF7 to the point it overshadows his role as just a pawn of a more deeper evil (JENOVA) sephiroth was nothing but the representation of soldier exploitation going wrong, and how that symbolically is connected to the end of the world and an evil very alien. Sephiroth was never supposed to be this actual character, in fact he stopped being a character when... you know.

Somehow Palmer can see Sephiroth but that makes 0 sense and is the dumbest fucking addition... Aren’t only people with Mako supposed to see him? And the idea is that Sephiroth can only gain physical form through the bodies of SOLDIERs cuz he’s more of a virus now. But you know... Sephy-kun is a star now! SO HE NEEDS TO SHOW UP EVERY FUCKING SECOND and PRACTICALLY SPOIL THE WHOLE ORIGINAL GAME, what clearer message of “we hope you played the original or else” than all of those forced flashbacks, and how funny that the original demon of FF7remake was straight forward and didn’t include sephiroth flashback but as soon as the game released they put them in! HM, I WONDER. I WONDER. That really does feel like a “haha you actually bought the game! sucker.”

But by that point I’ve basically become that fan that goes “you should read the book, I don’t like it that in the movie they did all of these little changes”, but truth be told Final Fantasy 7 remake turned me into that kinda person. Again: It doesn’t help that this is literally not a medium conversion, but a full on re-writting from the people who worked, and I don’t care what Nomura considers a “remake”, this makes the original story flow a lot worse.

“You fuckers asked for it! So here it is” says Square Enix when people were angry that FF7 was being re-released over and over again, teased with tech demos since the PS3 era! Truth be told, I was always on the fence for a Final Fantasy 7 remake, I was fine with the original, I cannot speak for everyone else but on my side it was just people going “I REALLY FUCKING HOPE THIS ISN’T COMPILATION BULLSHIT“ AND hahah AHAHAHAH well

Final Fantasy 7 remake’s structure is... AMAZINGLY WELL PUT WHEN YOU START TO SEE THAT THE LONGER IT GOES, THE MORE IT STARTS TO STRAY AWAY FROM GOD’S LIGHT, In fact I think that’s brilliant, it’s like a well made bad prank, you get to see people in real time react to this shit and it’s almost a universal experience so props to the designers for managing to do that, at first it starts building your immunity with like dementors and you’re like “why the fuck did they add this? oh well i guess I’ll just keep going” but then by the end of the game throws shit at the fan and some people are devoted to those changes saying “ah fuck it” or you know: This is dumb. I’d say that 35% of Final Fantasy 7′s remake’s content compliments the original and 65% is modern Square Enix’s shenanigans.

The rest of this thread is pretty funny also:

This might sound controversial but: When your shit is edited in the editing room, maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason it was edited out. Final Fantasty 7 Remake has this attitude of “WE GOTTA ADD EVERY SINGLE DELETED CONTENT WE COULDN’T HAVE PUT IN THE ORIGINAL, WE HAVE THAT POWER NOW TO GET SILLAY!” which is often the downfall of a lot of video games and their artistic integrity, it’s a constant thing and I’m sure I won’t be visiting it for the last time: video game directors are often these egoistical people who are left like children with this amount of power to just do dumb shit and because video games are an exceptional quirky medium, people just let bad writing and anime shit fly, I mean this is what I have always meant by video games as a medium being like b-movies and kitsch at best, you rarely see this medium be high art.

I think the best example of this is comparing to the movie medium, most importantly: George Lucas, George Lucas was a guy who because of a lot of editors their story became something that even overshadowed themselves, have you seen Star Wars without an editor? It sucks. This showcase should have killed the auteur but in the industry sometimes this is not the case, what results of that is a huge inflation of one’s ego and they start getting more and more power to direct stuff in whatever way they see fit!

youtube

The Video game medium has allowed the auteur theory to test it’s limits, I don’t know if it’s fair to blame everything on the black sheep Nomura (I mean Motomu Toriyama is as much to blame here, if not even worse, this is the guy who directed X-2, I’m sure if anything he might have done more harm) it is kinda hard to detach the directors from the product however, especially in this case when a lot of people’s gripes come from unnecessary filler, tone, and terrible pacing. That’s kind of all the directors job you know?

I detest the idea that a good tone is only set by the standards of western cinema or the soviet montage standards. You can accomplish a good and serious tone by a lot of means, it doesn’t need to be 100% serious, but I don’t want it to become as ridiculous or redundant as a low-budget shonen anime. It doesn’t help FF7 Remake case because it doesn’t go out to compliment FF7 that well. It doesn’t matter what Nomura thinks a “remake’ entitles, because regardless, the changes in this will forever be compared to the original, FF7 remake does not exist in a vacuum, it isn’t a stand-alone original game, it just feels like a weird adaptation that doesn’t fair well to the original plot structure.

Which is where I’ll start to bring this long commentary to a halt! If Nomura himself admits that FF7′s Remake is Final Fantasy VII Compilation Part 5 well all I have to say, and what has and will always be my stance of this so called “compilation” is:

The compilation of final fantasy 7 has always been over redundant filler. It’s all either so bad it’s good or so fanservicey it’s obnoxious. Every single compilation is a mixed bowl of “This is actually cool” and “this is just dumb and unnecessary”. The novels, the side-entries on flip phones, they all feel as if they come from a smug aura of “Clearly you didn’t get the plot from one game alone so we clearly have to expand on it so we can get EXTRA MONEY!”

Oh and the whole one winged angel shit (now a plot device thanks to crisis core) and the NOMURA idea of “you gotta play all of the entries to understand this shit” fucking sucks man!

Nomura games are so close to being so good, but there’s always that fucking CRINGE that appears, and this kind of shit makes me actually sincerely use the word “cringe”, cloud might as well pull a fucking keyblade in which LIGHTNING from Final Fantasy 13 is there saying how she is THE BEST CHARACTER EVER MADE whatever! Consistency and tone is dead, we get it.

Every single sequel to Final Fantasy 7 is just cashing in on the fame and it’s unnecessary, you can enjoy FF7 on it’s own. It’s feeling a LOT, A LOT like Disney’s approach to Star Wars, you didn’t have to do all of this for Star War’s simple premise. I feel like that ungrateful child who got a shitty present: You really shouldn’t have.

I mean don't get me wrong, the original has that pre-famous Square Enix comic relief, and the only time you ever got that kind of subtle comic relief again was in Final Fantasy 9, the last call-back to the series being traditional. I think it's impossible to recreate Final Fantasy 7 in the style and tone it was created in 1997, because that WAS LITERALLY before Square Enix became famous and that fame went up to their head.

That's like expecting a “Final Fantasy 6″-type game to not be made by an indie developer or a small dev team today, it's not gonna happen. An AAA developer just does not have the soul to do that today. Many people were like “What if they just did the same thing as the game but with jus priddy graphics” well given the crusty JPEG skyboxes in the remake they couldn’t have even concentrated on that alone it seems, also my answer to that is: of course they’re gonna do that. Square Enix has just enough of an ego to not let shit be simple.

I mean it’s a given right, a lot of people were angry about Chrono Cross because it wasn’t quite Chrono Trigger either (at this point Square Enix was already transitioning into Final Fantasy 8-stuff and going all over the place in terms of quality, with multiple teams developing multiple games, trying to catch the high of Final Fantasy 7, but not really seeing what FF7 did to hook so many people, namely on how FF7 is the most serious and accessible entry in the whole series that isn’t Final Fantasy 6 (although Final Fantasy 6 wasn’t as cinematic which the 90s video games loved the opportunity with the gift OF 3D!).

Also:

Bull fucking shit, I am not convinced you aren’t gonna plaster Sephy-kun flashbacks at every single moment like you have, like if you really were to do a beat per beat Final Fantasy 7 remake after that that’s just so funny.

"OH WE JUST FUCKING SPOILED THE WHOLE GAME IN THE FIRST ACT"

"BUT THE REST OF IT WILL BE NORMAL'

Like... How? Will you lower the budget for the next parts of the remake. That would legit be kinda funny, "we just wanted to make midgar really long and weird like that, thats all, the rest will be 100% a remake! The alternative universe ghosts won’t come this time.” I just cannot believe that until I see it.

Uh what should I end this long rant with uhhhh...

#Final Fantasy VII #Final Fantasy #Tetsuya Nomura #Final Fantasy VII Remake #FF7 #Final Fantasy 7 #Motomu Toriyama #long post

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takaraphoenix · 5 years ago

Note

Harry Potter for the Ask Game 😂

Thanks for playing, let’s see how much I can fill for this one... xD

Top 5 favourite characters: LUNA LOVEGOOD, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Fred Weasley, George Weasley

Other characters you like: Cho Chang, Cedric Diggory, Sirius Black

Least favourite characters:the Dursleys, DOBBY, Dumbledore

Otps: Harry/Draco/Luna, Fred/Harry/George, Neville/Ginny, Luna/Ginny, Cedric/Harry, Remus/Sirius

Notps: Harry/Ginny, if we’re gonna stretch to the prequels then definitely Newt/Tina, honestly probably a lot more but I can’t think of any right now

Favourite friendships: Harry & Luna are legit my favorite dynamic, Harry & Hermione and damn I wish I would have gotten to see that Ron & Harry friendship book-readers keep claiming but the movies really didn’t sell it much...?

Favourite family:the Weasleys

Favourite episodes: doesn’t have episodes xD

Favourite season/book/movie: The Order of the Phoenix

Favourite quotes:uuuh I got none

Best musical moment: FINALLY SOMETHING WITH AN ACTUAL MUSICAL. *^* Okay, so, quite clearly one can not pick just one. But maybe Harry Freaking Potter? I just, I love A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel a whole lot *^*

Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest: mmh, honestly, when rewatching, every time I fangirl the hardest when I first get to see Luna ^-^ (can’t believe she only joins the plot in the FIFTH movie >_

When it really disappointed you:that Luna only joins in the fifth movie like seriously :D”““ also every time I hear how Ron is actually a far more likable character in the books??

Saddest moment: WHEN THEY KILL SIRIUS. THOSE BASTARDS ;-;

Most well done character death:uuuhm yeah no. I got nothing, I don’t find the deaths very... convincing or well done and honestly, most make me actively angry because of the avoidability

Favourite guest star: David Tennant! Does that count as a guest star??

Favourite cast member: Helena Bonham Carter

Character you wish was still alive: SIRIUS BLACK. Seriously, JKR beat Harry down in so many different ways. It... It really wasn’t necessary to give him his godfather and then kill him off. The series would have worked just fine if Harry had gotten to live with Sirius past book/movie five :D”““

One thing you hope really happens: I’d love a TV show remake, to be honest? A season per book, fixing the things that they screwed up, including more character development - seriously, Luna joins in the fifth book, but what’s nearly worse is that Harry’s endgame love interest who was in it since movie 1 has had less interactions with Harry in FIVE movies than Luna did in that one movie, like c’mon. A TV show would give so many opportunity to flesh dynamics and friendships and characters out better

Most shocking twist: uuuuh that they tried to sell Snape off as a good guy?? That was shocking because I still don’t find it very convincing :D”““

When did you start watching/reading?: I started reading the series back when the first book was first released ^^

Best animal/creature: Hedwig

Favourite location: I mean Hogwarts?

Trope you wish they would stop using: beat-down protagonist :D Seriously, the double-dead parents was already a lot, the evil overlord trying to constantly murder him, the abusive aunt and uncle, the bullying cousin, the CONTINUOUS abuse like seriously they could have gotten him out of there after he joined Hogwarts, then the bullying from a teacher like what the fuq and good gods when it finally looks as though he could catch a break... Harry’s new godfather gets killed off... it’s just... so... much

One thing this show/book/film does better than others: I mean, there clearly has to be something, otherwise it wouldn’t be so... all-consuming...? But... personally, I genuinely can’t put my finger on it; it never sucked me in the same way it did with others from my generation ^^°

Funniest moments: most things the twins do :D

Couple you would like to see: I was very pleased when the movies changed things to Neville/Luna in the end, but like... I don’t really have any ships I’d WANT to see, aside from “gay it up”, because seriously

Actor/Actress you want to join the cast: uuuh I got nothing

Favourite outfit: the outfits are kind of all rather ridiculous? Probably Hermione’s Yule Ball dress??

Favourite item: the map or the cloak

Do you own anything related to this show/book/film?: no, I don’t

What house/team/group/friendship group/family/race etc would you be in?: Ravenclaw

Most boring plotline: THE FUCKING CAMPING TRIP. I swear there was no need to split that final book into two movies you coulda cut two hours of camping trip out of it, that is such a boring-ass drag it was mind-numbing

Most laughably bad moment:I... can’t think of one right now

Best flashback/flashfoward if any: were... were there flashbacks? Beyond the “look at how Harry’s parents got killed” and “look at Snape getting bullied”? Because I don’t think so and I don’t really dig either of these

Most layered character: Hermione?

Most one dimensional character: I mean thanks to the movies not really taking time to flesh most characters out... the majority, really...? Let’s say Vernon, because I think he was just as flat an abusive bully in the books

Scariest moment: okay so for me, as a smol child reading those books, absolutely Chamber of Secrets with the voices in the walls. I had nightmares and was scared of fucking WALLS for MONTHS

Grossest moment: can’t think of one?

Best looking male: Draco?

Best looking female: Luna?

Who you’re crushing on (if any): not really, no

Favourite cast moment: I don’t really care for these things ^^°

Favourite transportation: mmmh the teleportation through fireplaces probably?

Most beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise): I really don’t know

Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you:HOW THE EVER LOVING FUCK DOES FANTASTIC BEASTS FIT INTO ALL THIS SHIT. The first one was still fun, but then we get fashionable young Dumbledore to join the plot and suddenly there is ANOTHER Dumbledore who was never mentioned before and got to pose as Creepy Kid From The First One?? And why would kind, sweet Queenie mind-rape Jacob and join the bad guys and also wait did the bad wizards predict WWII was going to happen and like the bad guys yeah? Becaus ehonestly WWII is a solid call-out for humanity and where the ever-loving fuck is all of this going I have a headache, I just wanted to see a sheepish ginger collecting Pokémon magical creatures, not this hot mess

Best promo: I really don’t pay attention to these things

At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: never. I mean, I don’t dislike it - I regularly rewatch the movies, am literally right now rewatching them with my adorable Draco-fangirl girlfriend - but I never fell in love with this franchise

IN DEPTH FANDOM QUESTIONS

#Harry Potter #In-Depth Fandom Ask Game #send me asks #Anonymous

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whumptasticwednesday · 5 years ago

Text

Insult to Injury ft. Dadneto (Peter Maximoff - X-Men)

Author’s Note: Hey, ya’ll. I’ve been burning the midnight oil to get this fic out on time, AKA 2 consecutive nights of staying up till’ 3 am. I’ve had the idea for a Peter-centric Dadneto whump fic for a decent amount of time, and after receiving a lovely anonymous prompt, I decided to incorporate both my idea and theirs. Here we’ve got Peter after the events of Apocalypse, debilitated, and accidentally giving himself a nasty case of salmonella, before Erik comes to help. I’m pretty proud of this one, so I hope you enjoy it! This fic is unedited, sorry, so please let me know if there’s any glaring issues. For my next fic, I’m shifting away from X-Men for a hot sec so I can write a nice Detroit: Become Human whump fic with our favorite android son, Connor. I’ve been super excited about my plot concept, so I’m ecstatic to start writing it. Anyways, I hope you like this one, I worked very hard on it, and I hope you’re all excited for the DBH fic coming soon!

-Ash

Word Count: 6299

Warning: Emeto and decently graphic descriptions of physical illness

Setting: Post-Apocalypse/Pre-Dark Phoenix

If there's anything Peter Maximoff knew in this moment, it was that not being able to do the one thing your body was genetically enhanced to do, sucked. A lot.

It had been only a few days since the X-Mansion had been rebuilt and things all fell back into this synonymous routine as if the entire building hadn't exploded a short while ago. In Peter's opinion, it was all kind of creepy how easy it seemed for these kids to all just go back to learning when their home and school just got eviscerated in a hellfire, but he didn't think much of it.

All he could think about in this moment, was how immensely bored he was. Peter always had something going on with him; he was either thinking about his impending dad-related issues, plotting a prank, or deciding to go off and steal an entire Walmart's worth of Twinkies in the blink of an eye, there was always something.

Yet now, the rest of the X-Men were off with Charles helping cover up heat from the international press by cleaning up all the damage and destruction in Cairo and showing what Charles had dubbed: "diplomacy", which was too huge of a word for Peter to ever use in an everyday sentence; too many letters, and Peter was left back at the mansion since he really couldn't use his powers effectively at the moment, so it would be pretty useless for him to be tagging along.

Peter normally wouldn't have given a damn, maybe even excited at the prospect of being able to rig his friends' rooms with elaborate traps with Jello and staplers or something of the sorts while they weren't around, yet now, when faced with inescapable boredom that followed him wherever his broken leg did (everywhere), he was dying to have anything to do. As the team was suiting up to get on the jet to go back to Cairo, Peter had pathetically hobbled down to the X-Men bunker on his crutches, begging to be taken with. But they'd simply gassed up the plane and flew off, leaving Peter alone, and oh so very bored.

Which brings us to Peter now, attempting to create an omelette with 6 different cheeses, 8 different and poorly-diced peppers, a heaping assortment of minced tomatoes, and a sprinkling of those off-brand fruit snacks that are always better than the on-brand ones for some reason. It wouldn't be a Peter breakfast without some form of sweet, and in his eyes, it stuck to the healthy-ish theme. It had fruit in the name for a reason, didn't it?

The kid always had a massive appetite, and everyone that knew Peter knew this as well. You'd be hard pressed to find him without some snack or form of sustenance in his hand, scarfing it down like there was no tomorrow. It was all a byproduct of his enhanced metabolism. All that energy to run had to come from somewhere, didn't it? Little did he know, this super stomach of his would come to kick him in the ass in a few short hours. But for now, the silver-haired man child of a mutant was limping around the mansion's kitchen making a very... exotic breakfast for dinner meal.

Peter plopped the strange looking (decently gooey) excuse for an omelette into a large plate with some Twinkies and orange juice on the side. As he devoured his dinner, Peter thought anxiously about Erik. It had taken him 10 years to connect the dots, work up the courage, and even think of confronting the man to tell him of his true parentage, yet wimped out at the last minute, leaving the ambiguous: "I'm here for my family too." Peter groaned audibly to himself as his mind once again replayed the events he'd already replayed a million times before. It was embarrassing as all hell. Luckily, nobody that did know told Erik anything, which Peter was very grateful for.

Imagine learning about a woman you left 2 and a half decades ago actually birthing a son you had no idea existed and just now learned of... but not from him, despite several encounters beforehand where he had ample opportunities to do so. It'd make Peter feel like even more of a loser than a 27 year old who still lived in his mother's basement. But, to be fair, Peter was no longer a grown man living with his mom, he was a grown man living in a school where he was many years past the oldest enrolled student, while not teaching a single class; it was a step up from the basement, trust me.

Once finished with his omelette, Peter quickly washed his dishes and made his trek up the small flight of stairs to reach his room on the second floor. Over the past few days, Peter had learned just how high a set of stairs could be, especially when you end up falling down them on several attempts to slide down the handrail (and failing miserably while being laughed at by dozens of impressionable pre-teen children.) What a loser.

After reaching his room, particularly winded from this dinner excursion, Peter was grateful to see that he hadn't unplugged his television from the wall after his embarrassing fall in an attempt to get to the bathroom by himself, without his crutches, or the lights on. A simple recipe for disaster in nearly all circumstances, yet for some reason, the universe held pity for Peter and his debilitated state, and decided to not make his day any worse than it already was.

Peter ultimately decided to entertain himself with a good night-long play session of Pac-Man on his Atari 2600, also still miraculously undamaged from last night's fall. He booted up the inferior version of the game (seriously though, he'd have to get Kurt to help him teleport his arcade cabinet from his basement to the school, playing this one was getting a bit tiring on the eyes.) It sufficed, he thought as the TV harshly flashed on.

Now normally, Peter would have been up all night with his video games and rock music blaring in the background, yet tonight, something (besides his immobile leg) felt really off. Each distinct 'WOMP' from the console as the yellow circle man consumed the dashes and dots felt like a sledgehammer into Peter's eardrums, leaving a resonating ache at the base of his skull. He didn't think much of it and brushed it off, simply turning down his music a notch and backing away from the TV a few inches.

The next confusing sign that something wasn't quite right was the disconcerting shivers wracking his body. A chilly breeze seemed to sweep the room as if the AC was on full blast with the windows open on a November midnight, yet it was July and all the windows were closed and when he went to check if his AC unit was acting up, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. That's whack, Peter thought to himself as he plopped onto his bed, Atari abandoned on the rugged floor.

He didn't know how long he spent staring at the unmoving chandelier hanging lamely from the ceiling, but it felt as if seconds later, the room was not only freezing, but spinning, and suffocating. Everything felt way too close. Peter could feel every fiber of his shirt rubbing against his jacket, the itchy inside of his cast pressing up against the entirety of his right leg, and the presence of his goggles resting on his neck, now seeming like a noose closing in on his throat. He hastily tore off the eyewear and tossed them on his nightstand before deciding to shed his jacket and weakly throwing it across the room. Another move he regretted.

Without the jacket to keep his arms warm, the newfound seemingly frosty atmosphere felt like a icy flurry against his skin. In spite of his mind's confused wishes, Peter ripped the heavy blanket off the end of the bed and closed it around himself like a caterpillar ready to emerge as a butterfly the next time it saw the daylight. Peter sure as hell didn't feel like a caterpillar, but if the feeling of metamorphosis was a growing sense of intense nausea and cramping in the stomach, then hell yeah, he was crushing this butterfly business.

Fuck, what's wrong with me?! He thought to himself as he rolled onto his side. Peter rubbed at his eyes, hoping to clear the dizziness, yet only further irritating them. God damnit, he sighed internally as his face scrunched up in discomfort, releasing one of his hand's hold on the blanket to cradle his aching stomach.

"Is this karma for all that shit I stole when I was younger? That's just mean, man," Peter rasped to nobody in particular. He thought about it more though and responded to his own question, "Then again, I think that's pretty fair. Haha...Shit, man. Never thought I'd say this, but I think... I think I need help."

The sledgehammer-like headache was pounding with every bass drum beat lightly emanating from the sound system Peter hadn't turned off, another move he regretted. He couldn't decide if the pros outweighed the cons: hobbling through the dark to possibly remedy a source of his suffering, but relinquishing his hold on the only thing keeping him from feeling like freezing. Peter played it safe, much to his cranium's dismay.

Peter stared off towards the wall at nothing in particular as he tried oh so hard to draw his mind's focus from how terrible he felt to literally anything else. It wasn't working out so well. And so, Peter laid there, blanket tossed over himself, single leg drawn up to his chest, shivering like a leaf in a rainstorm, as nauseous as a toddler who just rode their first roller coaster, feeling like he was about to cry, and alone. What a miserable way to spend the night.

------

If there's anything Erik Lehnsherr knew in this moment, it was that he was beyond irritated that Charles wasn't at the mansion to run his own school. Despite leaving the school once he'd helped rebuild it to try and seek solitude to wrap his mind around his place in the world and everything that'd happened to him, Erik was back at the mansion once again. He was ready to lay down the foundations for his new mutant hideaway, Genosha, and needed Charles's connections to the government to help smooth over his charges and get clearance to have his isolated society where he might truly find happiness and solace. The universe had spoken, and he obviously wasn't cut out to be a nuclear family kind of guy.

Unbeknownst to him, Erik had once again meandered into a setting with his unrealized son. Also unbeknownst to him, that son was currently cooped up alone in his room, feeling like death.

Erik uncomfortably paced around the mansion, checking Charles's office, the X-Men bunker, and all the other places he might have been, yet the telepath was nowhere to be found. Erik sighed, he knew coming this late was a bargain, one, it turns out, he'd come to lose. The school itself was eerily quiet. It was if the entire mansion was empty or something. Peaceful, yet unsettling for a man who knew nothing but chaos.

Erik was about to borrow a book someone had abandoned in the foyer when he heard the muffled melodies of American rock music echoing from the upstairs floor. It must be that problematic Peter child, Erik thought to himself. From what he told himself was a civil duty to the rest of the sleeping kids in the school (but was actually his own way to cope with his curiosity) Erik decided to check up on the snarky young man to ask if he'd turn down the tunes.

As he approached the door, Erik was bracing himself for something extremely untamed. Perhaps a messy, greasy slophole of a living area, or maybe a drunk and uncontrollably obnoxious man dancing to his music in the nude. You never really knew with Peter, and Erik had come to expect the strangest out of the boy from the few genuine interactions they've had.

Erik gently tapped his knuckles against the door, waiting patiently for a 'come in', or something along the lines of those words, yet it never came. Raising a questioning yet not too surprised eyebrow, Erik knocked again, using slightly harder bangs, not wishing to make a ruckus and wake anyone else in the hallway up. Again, nothing. Although it could have simply boiled down to Peter not hearing him from his loud and abhorrent music, Erik was growing slightly irritated with the lack of a response. So with his last reserves of patience, he knocked one final time, once again listening for a signal or cue to enter. He was met with nothing yet again.

Wondering for the worst and fully expecting to meet a blackout drunk Peter when he opened the door, Erik tentatively jiggled the doorknob, which just so happened to be unlocked, and stepped inside. Thankfully, he was not met with a naked dancing or woefully drunk mutant speedster, but most would probably argue that what he was met with was quite worse. And that being a rancid stench of sick and sour nastiness lingering in the air, a poorly plopped pile of blankets draped over the culprit of the odor, and the culprit himself lying pale and flushed on the floor beside his bed, covered in his own vomit.

Erik's nose crinkled up from being met by the strongly nauseating smell of the room, reaching for the light switch on the wall to aid the sad little table lamp and glow of the TV in illuminating the room. Now he truly saw the pity-worthy situation for what it was. Peter laid in a heap on the ground next to his bed; he'd clearly trying to make it to the en suite bathroom just a few feet away. However, with his dizzy mind and immobile leg, he didn't make it very far and ended up expelling his dinner in a much less... dignified location (if you could consider a toilet bowl a very dignified location), that undignified location being all over his lap and onto his faded Pink Floyd t-shirt.

Not knowing how to really handle the situation, Erik called out a soft, "Peter?" hoping to elicit a response. Yet, just like at the door, he was met with nothing. As he approached the boy, thoughts of anxiety and panic circled through his mind. What would he say to him when he woke up? Would he be uncomfortable with Erik of all people coming to help? Would he be confused? Would he not care? He felt undeniably and inexplicably awkward. Erik shook the thoughts from his conscious as he knelt down to try and meet Peter's face.

"Peter?" he asked again. Erik tentatively reached over to tap the boy's face, which was contorted in a pinched expression of discomfort, marred further by the vomit drying in a trail down his chin.

Once Erik's hand made contact with Peter's cheek, he wanted to retract it. From the split second interaction, Erik had felt the clammy, sweaty, and scorching hot skin and was growing concerned. The slight physical prodding finally made Peter respond.

"Mom?" he asked groggily, voice cracking, "I'll put my dishes in the sink in a minute... I'm tired..."

Erik let out a harsh sigh, bending his neck in an attempt to make eye contact with the boy.

"Peter, I'm not you-" Erik was cut off.

"Yeah yeah... I'm not your maid. I know, Ma. Just... give me five."

"Peter." Erik stated bluntly yet with a hint of unease, unsure if Peter was delirious or just messing with him, "look at me, please."

Peter cracked open his eyes and blearily met Erik's stoic and collected face. He blinked a few times, slowly and deliberately, calculating who was kneeling in front of him, before letting out a weak and wheezy chuckle, "hey there, refrigerator ornament. Wassup?"

Erik rolled his eyes, responding with, "I came to ask you to turn down your atrocious music so you won't wake any of the other children who are trying to sleep. When I came in here, you were passed out on the floor. Would you like to explain to me what happened?"

"Nah... it isn't all too interesting"

"Peter, can you please act like an adult for 2 minutes? Please?"

"Oh man, the Nazi-hunting, president-killing, horseman of the Apocalypse is bustin' out the PLEASES. Look out, world, Lord of the Vacation Souvenirs has a new tactic... MANNERS!"

Peter burst out laughing at his own adolescent joke, ending in a wheezy struggle to catch his own breath. Erik couldn't tell if he was just screwing with him or genuinely needed help. This behavior seemed pretty normal for the immature mutant.

"Look, Peter, I really just need to know if you're okay. Can you answer that simple question, please?"

"Man, your tactics are workin' like a charm. I guess I'll tel-" Peter was cut off by a repulsing gag, hunching over and expelling his stomach's contents... again, this time, however, onto Erik's shirt, quickly travelling in a sad trail down onto his freshly-ironed pants. Peter's bloodshot eyes went side with embarrassment as he quickly transitioned his gaze to the floor.

Erik's face was caught frozen still as his mind caught up with what had just happened. As repulsed as he was, it wasn't like he hadn't seen worse. But that still didn't make the fact that he was just puked on any less disgusting. After audibly exhaling through his nose, Erik once again focused on the miserable man child in front of him, who was now anxiously tapping his fingernails on the hard plaster of his cast, deliberately trying to avoid eye contact.

God damnit, Peter, He thought to himself as he continued tapping, it's bad enough leaving him with a painfully ambiguous response during a battle to save all of humanity, ultimately ruining a perfectly good chance to fess up, but now look what you've done. You fucking threw up on him. Peter felt himself growing smaller as his subconscious shamed him for his uncontrollable bout of illness. It was stupid and ultimately all in his head, but it didn't make him feel any less shit about his situation.

After taking the few quiet seconds, Erik stood up, and whether it was out of pity or some subconscious moral quest, grabbed Peter by the armpits and dragged him to the bathroom.

"W-what the?" Peter asked, confused by the harsh white light of the bathroom and the sudden shift in scenery.

"Well I'm not going to let you sit in your own disgusting clothes. I have standards, you know. Can you undress yourself? I'll get us both some clean clothes."

Peter grunted in response. It meant: yeah, I think I can take off my own clothes, bro... once the room stops spinning. Erik, however, had already up and left, stripping off his own soiled shirt and rifling through Peter's dresser drawers, and taking the opportunity to flick off the television and silence the music that had been awkwardly filling the room's background space up until now.

Peter didn't have much variety in his clothing, dark jeans and band logo t-shirts were most of his dresser's arsenal. Not wishing to be clad in a Metallica shirt for the rest of the night, he dug a bit further into the seemingly endless assortment of shirts till he found a plain white short sleeve, sighing in relief. He grabbed a random shirt from the top of the assortment which just so happened to have the Journey logo on it, and set off to find new pants for the boy.

Back in the bathroom, Peter was still laying slumped against the bathtub, shivering. Everything around him had seemingly slowed to a halt, not unlike when he was running past the speed of sound, but this time deceleration just felt... wrong.

The crashing rhythm of the rock music had come to a halt, yet it didn't cease the incessant throbbing ache in his head, as if the bass riffs and the harsh taps of the snare were on a permanent loop with earbuds permanently glued to his ears. He was trying his best to prevent himself from groaning or whining as to not sound like even more of a child in front of Erik, but honestly, he didn't want his nonexistent father right now, he wanted his mom.

Peter was snapped from his self loathing by Erik's footfalls growing progressively louder as he approached him. Erik had thrown on a pair of track pants and a random white shirt. He was holding a pair of sweatpants and another shirt for Peter so he could be free of his sweat-slick and vomit-covered clothes.

"Hey, you don't get to keep those. I like those pants," Peter stated sarcastically, still trying to put up a front, although he was unsure why. He'd needed help, it was painfully obvious, so why was he still pushing his father away? Resentment? Anger? Pride? No... fear.

"Arms up," Erik instructed, preparing to take Peter's shirt off for him.

"Yo, you know I'm not a toddler, right? I can take off my own god damn shirt."

"You sure don't act like you're a day older than one, and I don't wanna risk you accidentally suffocating getting stuck in your own clothing so... arms up."

Peter sighed and did as he was told. Erik swiftly peeled the top off the boy and felt around his back, finding it clammy and warm. As if he'd just went from the tropics to Antarctica, the shirt leaving his skin exposed his skin to a whole new level of cold. The sensation ripped through his spine as his teeth started chattering. Hoping Erik had a brain underneath that skull, Peter was (im)patiently waiting for the man to save him from the frosty winds of his newly installed Arctic bathroom and slip the new shirt over him already. However, much to Peter's dismay, Erik turned on the tub's faucet, soaking a hand towel in cold water before leaning over and placing it on Peter's exposed back.

The second the frigid cloth made contact with his skin, Peter recoiled, back arching backwards, arms frantically bending to try and remove it. Erik sighed, slightly out of pity, and continued holding it down.

"Is this some cruel punishment? What did I do?" Peter pleaded, hoping to distract himself from crying by use of humor.

"You're scorching and sticky and it's just disgusting. I'm cooling you down, so relax," Erik explained. "It'll be a few more seconds, I just needed to get all the sweat off of you."

And as quickly as it had begun, the endeavor was over and Erik was threading Peter's strikingly pale and flimsy arms through the shirt holes. Peter audibly sighed, feeling like he'd just spent an hour in an industrial freezer and was now back into a normal temperature.

Erik's eyes drifted to Peter's legs, immediately noticing a flaw in his plan. How was he going to change Peter's pants with that full leg cast?

"Peter, how do you typically change your pants considering your current... situation?" Erik asked.

"It's pretty simple. I don't," Peter replied bluntly.

"W-what?"

"Well, after I got my leg set a few days ago, I changed into jeans, not wanting to be in flight suit pants for the next week of my life, and I haven't swapped since. It's like, physically impossible."

"So... you've been wearing the same (disgustingly dirty) pants all week?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Hank says I should be grateful that it'll heal in a couple days, most people you'd find passed out on their floor covered in vomit with a full leg cast would have been wearing their nasty pants for weeks."

Erik sighed, tossing Peter's soiled shirt and the sweatpants back into the bedroom before meeting his gaze.

"Alright, Peter, I'm going to set you up in bed now."

"Sounds grea-" Peter was once again, clamping his hand over his mouth, pathetically dragging himself over to the toilet to prevent throwing up all over himself again.

Erik saw his distress and lifted the toilet lid and seat, prompting Peter to start heaving into the sad and dreary porcelain bowl. Each dry or productive heave sent another pulsing wave of pain and violent nausea from his stomach to seemingly every conceivable inch of his body in a viscous cycle of suffering. Erik could do nothing but watch as the silver-haired boy wretched in agony, each heave causing his breath to hitch, caught in his throat, as another bout of sick rushed up past his lips, crashing into the toilet bowl.

Erik wanted to reach over and rub Peter's back or offer a semblance of physical comfort for the anguish he must have been feeling. He'd often do this for his daughter, Nina, whenever she had a stomach bug. Erik reached out his hand, only to quickly retract it, shaking haunting thoughts from his mind. This boy was not his child, and in no way would he ever come close to being Nina. What was he thinking?

Guilt quickly overtook the memories as Peter finished his session of sickness. He sagged limply against the side of the toilet, face still partially hidden by the rim of the bowl. When he looked up at Erik, he looked awful. Beyond awful.

Red-rimmed eyes, clearly there as Peter attempted to stop the obvious tears from spilling over, met cool yet collected ones, the former's being full of pain, not just from this embarrassment or the physical turmoil he'd just endured, but something else. Erik knew those eyes. He knew them because for so long, they were the ones he'd stared at in the mirror, day after day, for years, until he'd found Charles, only to come face to face again with those demonized eyes in the form of an immature mutant puking his guts out on his bathroom floor. They were the eyes of a young man who was lost, feeling alone, hiding a part of themselves they wanted to let go, to set free, so they could truly be happy, yet he couldn't possibly decipher what could be internally destroying the boy.

"I-I'm sorry you had to watch that..." Peter said softly as his head lolled over.

"It's fine," Erik replied with a tone to match that of Peter's.

"I'm pretty sure... that I'm done. For now?" It came out as more of a question, but at this point, Peter wasn't trusting any signal his body was sending him. Every impulse had been smudged and cloudy in his mind, and paired with the seemingly endless headache and the relentless chills racking his body from the fever, Peter was sure that if his mind were a computer hard drive, it would have self destructed out of a deadly virus slowly hacking into the hardware.

But alas, Peter was no computer, and so he was stuck with this mystery illness, cooped up in his room, unable to run, with Erik mother-hecking Lehnsherr. His fever-addled mind was barely functioning at this point, so he didn't register anything but dizzying blurred images swirling around his head and slightly-grumbled voice swimming in his ears as Erik scooped the kid up like a newlywed bride and carried him off to bed.

Peter had never been more grateful to grace the comfort of his duvet, ready to sleep. He halfheartedly grabbed at it in an attempt to cover himself and finally warm up. Erik sighed with pity, grabbing it for him and draping it over his shoulders before moving over to stand by the nightstand and awkwardly watching Peter try and get comfortable.

Despite the obvious fact that his body wanted him to sleep, Peter's mind was racing everywhere except the realm of unconsciousness. Every thought was emphasized ten-fold as it bounced around his head until the only things remaining were his want, heck, his need, to tell Erik the truth, and the hesitant and unsure anxiety lingering in the background of his subconscious that was stopping him from doing just that.

Fevers, though, as Peter was quickly learning, tended to do weird shit to what your brain was really trying to accomplish, often scrambling any message you tried to expel to the point where it may or may not have even been your true intentions. And hell, it was an even bigger gamble if you'd remember any of the dumb shit you'd done or said. It was as if the heat had boiled all the potentially embarrassing memories away, which was at least kinda nice.

With everything happening, Peter thought it best for Erik to just pack up and scoot from the premises, as not to accidentally say or do something stupid that might come back to bite him in the ass later, but Peter wasn't about to pull an asshole move on the man who'd just helped him despite not being obligated to at all.

So, instead of verbally asking, Peter did the next most "mature" thing he could have in his debilitated and helpless situation. He pretended to be asleep in a pathetic hope that Erik would leave on his own. He didn't. Peter ended up looking like he was trying way too hard to be asleep than any real asleep person, and after a few minutes, Erik caught on.

"Peter, I know you're not actually sleeping," Erik said, not putting on any sort of specific emotion.

Peter cracked one red and tired eye open, meeting Erik's gaze yet again. Peter sighed and turned over onto his side, back to the other man, bleary eyes trying to focus on anything that wasn't Erik. Sleep, a seemingly effortless task for most, eluded Peter as he let out an a low whine. This was miserable.

"Hey, Erik?"

"Yes?"

"I umm... never mind..."

"What were you going to say?"

"It's nothing... I just feel stupid since I can't even do the easiest thing on the planet."

"Is there anything I can do?"

The question struck Peter like a cold dagger to the heart, it sounded so much like something his mom would say, who was practically the only person he wanted in that moment. Peter didn't like to be weak or expose any of his fears. He preferred to be distant and reserved, to hide all that insecurity with stupid dry humor and sarcasm. His mom and his sisters were really the only ones who he'd truly been open with, and when faced with these new circumstances, finally able to reconnect with the father he never had, he was frozen in place, and after pushing people away and closing himself off for so long, not knowing what to do to reach out and truly face what he needed to.

Completely internally and externally overwhelmed, Peter let his dam of pride burst, letting his emotional flood pour out of his eyes in the form of earnest, choked sobs. He bit his lip and weakly rubbed at his eyes in an attempt to hide his distress.

Erik was taken aback, taking a step towards him, before backpedaling as fast as the initial paternal instinct had seized him. He didn't know what to do. Erik was conflicted, scared of overstepping boundaries, but wholeheartedly wanting to comfort the clearly suffering boy lying in bed in front of him.

And in a flash of instinct, an unspoken, deep-rooted, yet unknown draw towards the silver-haired boy, Erik sat down on the mattress, back meeting Peter's, and leaning over his shoulder to rub his back

Erik's hand was shaky, unsure if it should truly be there. He felt the heat radiating off Peter's skin through his t-shirt. Erik glanced down further to Peter's face, and despite the hands trying (and failing) to cover his eyes, saw it covered in a new sheen of sweat quickly mixing with his tears, pale and pasty with angry crimson patches sitting pretty as pictures on his cheeks and forehead. Everything in that moment accentuated both how awfully awkward Erik and truly terrible Peter felt.

Erik didn't even know if Peter was lucid anymore. He was breaking down into tears, shivering and being comforted by someone who was practically a stranger. Eventually, the sobs dwindled into whimpers and Erik's nerves were starting to taper off himself. The room fell into a weirdly calm silence as the two decided to not say anything. Until Peter's shaky voice cut through the room.

"Y-you know... when I was a dumb little kid, I thought I-I could outrun germs. Look at me now. I can't even cook a f-freakin' omelette without making myself sick... I never needed to cook for myself, it was always my mom, or Hostess cakes."

"..." Erik wanted to say something, anything, but he was unsure what, or if Peter would understand.

"I can't do anything right... life tosses me chances and I just fuck em' all up."

Erik soon realized Peter was no longer talking about his omelette, but something deeper.

"I just wish... you could've d-done this for me when I was still that dumb little kid. I wish for so much to be different. I'd always wanted a d-dad, and when I finally figured out who he was, I learn he'd gone off to kill the president! I-I don't know..."

"W-what?"

"I m-might not be able to outrun germs, but my entire l-life, I've outrun everything. The law, my responsibilities, adulthood... But now, the one time when I finally can't run from anything, out of all of my problems, I gotta face you of all things. N-not the way I thought this would happen..." Peter's words died out as he fell silent.

Erik wasn't sure he'd heard Peter properly. Until something in his mind clicked. Everything he's done up until now: "my mom once knew a guy who could do that..." and "I'm here for my family too..." Oh my god, he thought, I'm... I-I'm Peter's... father? Who else had he been with before his wife... Magda. Oh god.

Erik pulled his hand away from Peter's back. This caused Peter to moan and flip onto his back, staring directly at Erik, eyes cutting straight to his heart like knives.

"W-why'd you stop? It was nice..." Peter admitted shyly.

"I-I need a second, Peter. I'm sorry," Erik sighed as he pushed himself off the mattress.

Peter said nothing as his eyes drifted back to his bedspread. Disappointment lurking behind his bloodshot irises.

Erik walked off to the bathroom, closing the door behind him with a soft click. He stared up at himself in the mirror, hands gripped tightly around the basin. This couldn't be happening. Not after Nina, not again. Erik was just... terrified. Terrified of the idea of getting close again. Anyone who's ever been a part of Erik's family... had died. His parents, his wife, his daughter; he didn't want Peter to join the list of people the universe was just deemed to kill. He knew that Peter was far from dying, it was a simple fact that the kid couldn't cook and he'd fed himself something underdone. Yet, it was all happening, it was all too fast, and everything felt so damn scary.

He knew, deep down, that this was the truth. It only made sense that the Magda didn't wanna tell her son that his dad was an internationally targeted terrorist that's murdered dozens of people, and this kid had no reasons to lie about it. God... Erik didn't know how to feel, what he should do, but he did know that had a need to comfort Peter, who'd just confessed a secret he'd been hiding for who knows how long, and was now laying alone, probably feeling abandoned again, after pouring his heart out knowing full well it might be shot down.

Whether it was all intentional was yet to be seen. Again, fevers did weird shit.

Erik let out a low sigh and opened the door, finding Peter curled up on himself as best he could, softly whining, mumbling incoherently to himself. Erik stepped over and sat down on the bed again, the entire mattress dipping from his weight.

"I'm sorry, Peter. I am very happy you told me..." Erik was searching for the right words, "the truth."

" 'r welc'm" Peter mumbled as his puffy eyelids slid over his tired brown eyes.

"Is there anything you need me to do for you right now?"

"J'st... stay please. I-It's embarassin', I know, but I just... my mom used to do it..."

"Alright, Peter. I'm not gonna leave, so just try to sleep, okay?"

Peter didn't need to be told twice as his mind and body worked in harmony, finally allowing Peter to be lulled off to the realm of unconsciousness. And although he knew it wasn't necessary, Erik wished to add to the intimacy of this quiet moment, a type of moment so rare and inconstant in both of their lives, so he pushed himself up against the headboard, laying out flat on the bed, and carded his fingers into Peter's silky silver locks. And out of habit, maybe a sort of tendency he'd developed from doing it with Nina, or an obligation to share what he felt Peter deserved, he began to hum his family lullaby, ever so slowly and softly, drowning out any other thing the world wanted to toss at them. Because in that moment... Erik and Peter had found something they'd both been missing for so long, peacefulness and contentment. And for that short night, it was all they needed.

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reconhq · 5 years ago

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Do you have any advice for someone who wants to make a (very LGBTA positive) webseries of her own?.

oh boy! I sure do. I’ve actually been on a couple other projects other than Recon, all after the first season was written & mostly after the first season was shot, and ya girl has learned a lot because of and since season 1!

i am so sorry but this is going to be SO long. i am kinda obsessed with web series & digital content and it’s my actual professional career now so just… get ready. sorry 😅 i’ll add a TLDR at the end.

(p.s. this is just advice from me, Emma, and not the rest of the Recon team who may have different/additional advice, maybe someone will add on after the holidays)

write your bible before anything! depending on if you’re co-creating or just co-producing/writing, this should be done before you bring on additional folks. if you’re co-creating, this is obviously a collaborative process. when i created recon, i did it on my own. i pitched the original idea to some dear friends (one of whom makes a cameo as a security guard in ep 20!) and got their opinions, adapted from their advice, and once i had a solid format, main character, and general plot, i started on the bible. it took probably a month of fucking around before i felt ready to write a bible.

the basic components of a bible are a log line, short season overview, character breakdowns for your characters (mine are ~paragraph or two for main characters, with shorter ones for less central characters), a summary of the show’s main themes, genre and tones, and the format of the show (if you’re mapping out multiple seasons, it may be relevant to do this for each season as well as the overall show), as well as the most important part of your bible– the episode breakdowns. i’ll touch on those in a minute.

i do all my original brainstorming on paper, because i am adhd as fuck and it’s easier for me. your bible isn’t the place to brainstorm. separate them out. not saying you have to write on paper, but have a separate doc for brainstorming so the formatting for your bible can be easy to follow.

if you’re co-producing or having someone else produce your work, it makes sense to have your co-producer or producer right there with you as you work on your bible to give feedback. does this mean they’re writing it? no. is it useful as hell? yes.

my partner-in-creative-crime justice and i tend to share bibles and brainstorm docs with each other when we’re working together on a project. depending on which roles we’re playing on each project (e.g., i’m producing his podcast COSMIC under our company name but not co-creating or writing, so i mostly gave notes on his bible. we’re also working on a series called Inked, and we’re more like co-creators there, so we both write in the doc.)

your bible is the holy doc of your show; it’s what you show to any writers, producers, designers, any creative working on your show so that everyone is on the same page. it is your main reference and guiding light through the whole season; make it clear, organized, and as easy to read as possible. i personally use google docs for my bibles, and use the hell out of the outline function. highly recommend, but everyone has their own system.

break your ENTIRE story before before you write a single script, before you write your pilot, before anything. it’s part of your bible.

if you’re not super familiar with tv/screenwriting, breaking a story means figuring out the beats. the breakdown of reason s1 started as messy af writing on whiteboards, and turned into this:

this is absolutely not what your first outlines or final drafts will look like. we changed…. a ton while writing our scripts. you can see even in this sequence– episode 8 and 9 got blurred, and we barely touched on ava’s past because there wasn’t room. regardless, this doc & breakdown served as the basis for all our writers and kept us all on roughly the same page. when we disagreed, we could go back to this and sort it out from there!

find your people. two roles were crucial to me when we made recon: a mentor, and collaborators. having good people behind me was so so important; i could have never done this on my own.

i got…….. so lucky with my mentor, bernie su. he not only gave me incredible advice, read scripts, and reviewed cuts, he purchased the damn show, accounting for 75% of our funding. i feel like it’s important for me to acknowledge the luck and privilege i have here: the show would not happened without him, and i only got that chance because i live in LA, went to USC, and applied for the right job at the right time. HOWEVER, aside from the funding that made recon possible, bernie’s expertise seriously helped. after principle photography, we were left feeling lackluster, and bernie gave me advice that led me to make changes that transformed the show. having someone with experience– whether in tv, film, web series, any sort of writing– is invaluable.

while i created recon on my own, i did not develop or make it on my own. the episode breakdowns? half me, half other people (mainly justice lol). the look of the show? EP/DP christa, production designer amanda, graphic designer hal, and justice as costuming lead. i did not write season 1 on my own. i recruited friends from USC and even one from high school to write episodes i didn’t think i could do justice (no pun intended).

once you’ve found your people, trust them. there will obviously be cases where you disagree enough with someone’s creative opinions that you shouldn’t, but except in extreme cases, trust your people. try to only chose people you trust in the first place. letting go was so so so hard, but many of the best parts of recon happened because i got over myself and trusted my cast and crew. episode 16, player vs player, was justice’s baby, and i almost didn’t let him roll with the animations because i was too nervous. holy fuck, i’m so glad i trusted him. same with reflections (ep 15), written by my now-fiancé, which no one else could have written. hal was a bit unsure going in, but the episode is phenomenal. my production designer’s choices were amazing, and i had little to do with them other than being like “yes that is so cool let’s do it”

seriously. trust your people. watching bernie on artificial & emma approved trust us, his crew of mostly 20-somethings, with creative decisions taught me a huge lesson. i was 19 when he hired me, 19 when he bought the show, and he actually fucking trusted me and the rest of his team to do things. my initial reaction was what the fuck, but it worked. it also let him focus on the big picture while giving us the space we needed to feel creatively and emotionally fulfilled. trust your people.

this also applies to your actors. we had a google drive specifically for our actors to throw up ideas/backstory for their characters, and we’d read through it and give feedback and contributions. it led to better performances and characters with more depth. we also met with actors where we could to discuss their ideas for directions for their characters– video game nerd taylor came from convos with joré.

katiemichal and kat were just like, the same people as their characters, so there was less of this, but there is definitely value in casting the irl versions of your characters as them.

edit your episodes individually, then read through the WHOLE SEASON at once to edit. repeat that until you read it and it’s cohesive.

keep track of your timeline and your canon, even canon that’s not explicit in the show. there’s so much recon lore that we kept to ourselves that informs several decisions in the first season.

unless your character’s race/ethnicity (even gender) is a key part of their character or the show, cast with an open net. ava was originally a white girl name jody. ana, the actress who played her, originally auditioned for riley, and we changed the character’s entire backstory for her, which added an amazing dimension to the show we get to see in reflections (and an upcoming podcast shh). lesson fucking learned on my part– almost too late. don’t be like me.

ren, on the other hand, we were 100% sure was non-binary, and although we opened auditions to all genders, we specified from the start it was a non-binary character and we’d give priority to queer/nb actors. it was the right choice.

PRODUCTION DESIGN IS FUCKING IMPORTANT. cinematography is great, and we obviously focused on it a lot w the style of our show, but PD tells so much of your story without saying a word or taking up a second of airtime.

sound is the single most important thing on set. you can make an ugly shot work, ugly sound will bring people immediately out of the show and possibly abandon it. we fucked up scheduling for Punching Bag, and had to delay its release (it was originally episode 13, not 14), hire a sound editor, and put a goddamn disclaimer on it because we didn’t have time to get good sound because of our own mistakes. arguably my biggest regret of the season, because the script and acting for that episode is so good, and we low-key ruined it. GET GOOD SOUND.

only exception to this is probably coverage and continuity; although those can be fudged a lil more. get a script supervisor or have your AD do it so you don’t miss anything crucial. always get your masters first.

schedule more than you think you should. like, down to the 15-minute block. it won’t work, but it will work worse if you don’t. do your best to stay on schedule (hint: AD/producer on set)

trust your gut. this is your baby, and your choices should service the story you want to tell. let that be your north star, and while you should let your story evolve with time and the contributions of your cast and crew,

TL;DR: write your bible & break your season first. find a team you trust, and trust them with their choices (both cast & crew). if you can, find a mentor/someone with experience to give advice. edit your show both as individual episodes and as a whole season, multiple times. continuity is crucial, backstory is crucial, coverage is crucial, scheduling is crucial. GET GOOD SOUND. and always keep sight of the story you want to tell.

i am so sorry. this is a fucking essay.

#Web series #queer webseries #lgbtq web series #webseries #web series writing #lgbtq writers

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yoshimickster · 5 years ago

Text

Chaos Emeralds,Rings, and Power-Ups! (Sonic RE:Generations AU)

Now in the Archie comics, they made it so there were essentially as many Chaos Emeralds as there were rings. In MY AU, there may not be HUNDREDS but there WILL be more than just seven.

The idea being that there are Chaos Emeralds, Power Stones, Time Stones, Phantom Rubies, Warp Topazes ALL over the planet Mobius, all cut by ancient civilizations trying to use their power.

The Chaos Emeralds will all have been made by the Echidnas thousands of years ago, with the Master Emerald being able to depower and enhance them respectively. The Chaos emeralds ironically though, would be some of the more STABLE power gems on Mobius, as they were carved to maintain certain properties, whereas power-gems in their uncut state can be unpredictable.

Powerstones from the cartoon will also be a thing, essentially modern day Chaos Emeralds made by Sir Charles’ own experiments with Chaos energy. Also, much like Mobodoon in Sonic Underground, will be able to create a pocket dimension that the Knothole Freedom Fighters live in, that will be 3 hours ahead of the normal timeline(this time difference will have basically have no baring on the plot, and is just fun sci-fi nonsense).

Much like the games comics, Power Rings can be found in multiple zones across the world capable of being absorbed by Chaos-Mobians, as WELL as the special Super-Rings you’d find in SatAM,Sonic X and Archie comics. The super-rings would essentially be an invincibility power-up/speed power-up. THE DIFFERENCE being that the player/Chaos-Mobian would be able to activate it upon THEIR choosing, as well as said power-up not being found on levels, but obtained in the village/overworld. If I made this a game it’d honestly be a BIT hard working this in as a game mechanic without it being cheap, but I would at LEAST make it one Ring per level like in the show.

Power-ups would be shown differently, rather than them being in some random TV lying around(Seriously, IS there a canon explanation for the TVs?) they’d be in translucent multi-colored boxes floating in a fixed location for any Chaos-Mobian/player to get. The Energy Shield, Electo-Shield, and Flame Shield would be shown as like, spirits, maybe even WISPS. Extra-Lives would also look like living flame almost.

THEN-you got the Star-posts, Warp Rings and the Chaos Emeralds. Star-posts would be placed ALL throughout Mobius, and would have an ancient but biomechanical look to them, as if they were growing in the ground. Having enough rings would of course take you to the Special zone via a Warp Ring, but not EVERY Star-Post would bring you to a Chaos Emerald, as not every island has Chaos Emeralds stored in insane cosmic labyrinths made to test anyone who comes for treasure as...well its a BIG zone, come on! SOMETIMES you’ll warp to a crazy location all its own , maybe even fight a bonus-boss or something! Some Warp Rings will also be throughout the world, and will give any MYRIAD of challenges for those who go through them, with unexpected rewards.

And then finally, SUPER-FORMS AND CHAOS POWER! Super-forms will ONLY be an invincible all beat all in the FIRST game/story of my series, after that, the bad guys will get wise and be able to counter them. By that point, Super-forms will just be a game mechanic that players can use for harder enemies, OR space battles. Sonic will end up trying to master his Super form throughout the series, sometimes even activating it WRONG bringing out RAGE mode like in the Fleetway comics, only in MY story Sonic will actually then be SCARED of his power instead of brushing off the fact that he essentially goes Mr.Hyde.

Chaos Power will be as wild a source as its ever been in the general canon of Sonic. Sonic’s chaos power is similar to Shadow’s, able to manipulate space and time to go at super-fast speeds and traverse the Cosmic Interstate(oh yeah, I’m bringing THAT nonsense back!) He will also have partial electro-kinesis, usually done in short bursts like Sonic’s special move from Sonic Advance. Different Mobians will use Chaos power different, where some like Sonic can channel it through their whole bodies innately, others like Tails need to focus to channel it through their Tails for speed, or through their hands for say magic or Alchemy. I’m also NOT gonna say that chaos magic is the reason Knuckles can glide, as I’m okay with the silly reason of his hair flapping out like a hang-glider.

And...that’s IT for now! DAMN I didn’t expect this to be this long, I just LOVE lore I guess! Have a good’n folks!

#sonic #sonic the hedgehog #Sonic Re:Generations AU

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scorbleeo · 5 years ago

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Iron Fist Season 1 | TV Show Review

Summary

A young man is bestowed with incredible martial arts skills and a mystical force known as the Iron Fist.

Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3322310/?ref_=ttep_ep_tt

[Danny Rand] returns to New York City after being presumed dead for 15 years and must choose between his family's legacy and his duties as the Iron Fist.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Fist_(season_1)

Thoughts

With so much hate going around for Iron Fist, I definitely had low expectations for season 1. Boy was I wrong, I actually really enjoyed the show. Well, it could be because I had low expectations that I enjoyed the show but one big reason why I liked it was because those 13 episodes of season 1 were not in constant darkness. There is a certain light and humour that the other Netflix Marvel TV shows do not have. Let me clarify, I am not one to dislike dark or serious shows. Hell, Batman is one of my favourite superheroes and the Christopher Nolan Batman films are some of my favourite movies of all time. But there is a limit to how much I can take darkness or seriousness in a TV show. Fortunately for Iron Fist Season 1, there is enough comic relief to ease the show into something I enjoy.

Plot

However, what the writers did good in one thing, they failed in another: The ending. I am unsure of whether the writers were going for a slightly ambiguous yet obvious ending, or a cliffhanger. For example, if Iron Fist Season 1′s ending is a sentence: Despite it’s flaws, I like the show and but. You get what I mean?

Another thing. So, first things first, I watch a lot of superhero-esque TV shows. Which is why I understand that usually the entire season will have that one main villain whilst still dealing with other smaller villains. An example would be Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. You know, a show with their main cast of heroes working through their everyday lives and building the show to ultimately “face” the main villain? Let’s just put it this way, who is the main villain in Iron Fist Season 1?

If Iron Fist Season 1 was a book, the book will be a big mess. The story is all over the place, the character developments are confusing and the writing is just weak. This shows that even if the idea is good and the cast is interesting enough, if one does not put things together nicely, it will still suck one way or another.

Cast (characters, character development and cast’s acting, etc.)

I liked Finn Jones in Game of Thrones so I know I would have liked him as Danny Rand too. Sure, Danny is a pretty boring character but that does not mean I hate Jones or his character portrayal. What I had a problem with was Jones’s portrayal of Danny’s martial arts. Correct me if I’m wrong, Danny is supposed to be an extremely talented martial artist. He even defeated that dragon and became the Iron Fist. So, I was quite disappointed when I saw Jones’s version of martial arts. I get it, he did not specialise in martial arts but he could have placed more effort and had frequent trainings. Martial arts is beautiful, sharp and precise yet smooth like an ocean with no waves. Jones failed to deliver the smoothness of martial arts. Which brings me to that scene where he battled Lewis Tan’s Zhou Cheng. I could not help but roll my eyes when Danny beat Zhou Cheng even though it’s obvious who is more well-versed in martial arts.

The one character that completely took me off guard was Ward Meachum and Tom Pelphrey’s performance. I admit, I started off Iron Fist Season 1 disliking Ward. I was actually convinced Ward was the ultimate villain I mentioned earlier on. And then he had to go and prove me wrong. Pelphrey was excellent acting as Ward. Now, Ward is my favourite character from the show and I absolutely love watching Pelphrey onscreen.

The women in Iron Fist Season 1 were brilliant. I find it hilarious that Claire Temple always finds herself in the middle of them all (if you know what I’m insinuating). Colleen Wing’s a character I was shocked that I like. As for Joy...this is unfortunate because I love Jessica Stroup. Joy’s character is simply redundant. There is no depth to that Meachum sibling at all...

Despite what I just said, Iron Fist brings us a very different kind of cast. It’s...refreshing, in a way.

Conclusion

Knowing what’s the endgame for Iron Fist just makes loving this show so much more painful than it should be. But I came to the game late and now there is nothing I alone can do. I will accept it and enjoy what is left of the show. In the meantime, I will enjoy the other Marvel movies or TV Shows.

Rating: B-

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comicteaparty · 5 years ago

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February 15th-February 21st, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from February 15th, 2020 to February 21st, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

If a company wanted to publish your comic or adapt it for animation or games, how willing would you be to change the story if requested to do so?

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

That's such a tough question just because it's such a goal for so many creators, and yet a potential threat to their creativity in a sense. As always, it will depend on what exactly would be changed in order for such a project to be given approval. If it has to do with censoring LGBTQ+ content, changing race for 'marketability' purposes and the like, or erasing a specific topic integral to the plot with relation to politics- then it's a no go. There are plenty enough watered down media that doesn't stretch itself with diversity those companies can have and the subtext they pepper in to stay relevant, def something i find irksome with todays media (its 2020 guys !!) But if it's maybe cutting a chapter that acts like filler, or adding a character ( so long as it is plot relevant) i could take that into consideration! I actually take some time to imagine what Ghost Junk would be in a diff form of media and usually in those scenarios, things change to fit the way its being presented! A video game will differ more than an anime adaptation for sure, so long as the original intent and impact is kept, i would definitely consider some change!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

If I ever had the opportunity to pass my work off to a whole other team for an adaptation, I think I would take great joy in leaving them completely to it - barring a few obvious issues like race changes, gender/sexuality changes, and... changing the entire story to the point where it's unrecognizable. I love seeing reinterpretations of my work, and I understand that every adaptation would need changes of some form. My words and art aren't gospel - I'm open to any change if it improves the whole product. Whatever it takes to translate the material in the best way, which keeps the original message intact, is all good by me.

Changes in the actual comic would be harder to make - and I'd be far less comfortable with them, to be honest - but I wouldn't fight them if they obviously made the story/characters stronger. I've already added in ideas and reorganized plot threads based on reader feedback - luckily the story still has some places where it can bend. So long as a publisher took my basic story seriously, and aimed to remold it rather than remake it - I'd be down for a discussion. Hopefully a reputable publisher would know how best to sell my work, and would aim to make it as good as possible while maintaining integrity - I would try to trust them

chalcara

Comic stays mine, won‘t be changed beyound perhaps some professional line edits and polish. There’s a reason I didn’t shop it around as a graphic novel. I’d actually like that eitherway, would love to get myself a professional editor when I have the money. Adaptions can go nuts, provided the main characters stay true to their comic versions and the woman-loves-woman storyline stays in.

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

For the story to be told in another medium I would be pretty game for it to change the story a bit. Already now we are changing the story from how we made as a campaign. Makeing it more streamlined and more precise. I wanted originally that our comic could be a TV show. I come from a background of a character animator so that would make sense for me. So seeing it animated would be awesome! There would be some designs that needed to change to fit animation better.

Like Andree has this texture in his skin that needed to go away. But seeing it animated would be awesooome

Deo101 [Millennium]

I think if my Characters stay in Character, then I'm fine with changing pretty much any of the plot or world things. But the Character dynamics and who they are as people is what matters most to me, and I'm not sure I would be willing to sacrifice that. With some of my stories I'd be willing to completely let go of the reins, and with others I definitely want a tighter grip, too.

sagaholmgaard

Agree with the thing about character dynamics. My stories always stem from the characters' relationships and how they evolve, so I'd like for the essence of that to stay. Otherwise I'm pretty loose about the plot itself. Because I have an education in game development, I would totally be down for my comic being adapted into a story driven game of some sort. I'd be okay with changing the story to favor the game mechanics, like putting certain magic abilities in the focus and turning certain scenes into gameplay (like when they're sneaking around or fighting). As long as my handful of core emotional moments come across, I'm pretty happy to change things.

Tuyetnhi

I agree with the character dynamics too. I don't feel comfortable if they change the character backgrounds along with it as well for er what Krispy said for "Markability". That stuff won't fly with me. Comic stuff stay the same but for adaptations, I want to make sure it has similar story beats even if there's a change on few details. Tbh I could totally see er....a visual novel game happening in my comic since that's what my original intention was going for. still at the end I really don't intend my comic to transend other mediums since i'm planning to self publish the story someday lol.

kayotics

I’d be pretty willing to change stuff, actually. I’d want to be pretty involved in whatever adaptation was being made in this hypothetical, but I know that more people can make for stronger work. On the other hand, too many cooks can make for some pretty watered down soup, which is why I’d want to have a large role in things so some of the core stuff doesn’t get changed. But as it is, I’m not married to any ideas that exist in my comic, and am pretty welcome to changes.

DanitheCarutor

If the changes were to benefit the story than I wouldn't mind, if they were going to change everything to make it appealing to the masses than no. Definitely not if they want to mess with the characters since how they are play a major role in the comic. I've got a really specific story I'm trying to tell, so I'm very stingy on changes. If anything I'd be more open to a company making a spin-off or something not totally related to the main story, as long as it's not a complete bastardization. Other than free advertising and the brand name, I don't really see how getting published would benefit me anyway? I'm already in the process of rescanning and re-editing the first four chapters of my comic for self-publishing, if I really wanted to adapt it into an animation I would just do it myself. Along with teaching myself whatever else I needed to get as little help as possible. Sure, I have no experience but it's not like I can't learn, there are classes and free tutorials all over the internet. I've always wanted to get into animating. I can't imagine my comic being adapted into game, what would it even be? An anti-dating sim? An interactive novel? An Apollo drinking simulator?

Capitania do Azar

I WANT A BEAT THEM UP JUST RUN IN ONE DIRECTION KICK EVERYONE

eli [a winged tale]

The dream is a studio ghibli adaption but that won’t be happening I would want to vet the studio/company proposing the adaption and ensure that we are a good fit. I echo what many of you have said about the integrity of the characters and heart of the story. There are a lot of secrets that will come to unravel as the comic progresses and I hope the publisher will be accepting of them. I will be happy to have a conversation on why these structural changes are there and why I think it’s important to allow them to reach a wider audience. That said, I am also eager to see how they would themselves interpret the story and I will give creative freedom to that. Again, it’s a dream and while I would love to direct my own film, I simply don’t have the resources to do it (at this time). https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3ODQ3MzIzMTM3NjY4MDA0?igshid=15bnlhamdu3tn&story_media_id=2149085305360952847

Capitania we should just have a super smash bros of all our comic characters

renieplayerone

I think like a lot of people here have already said, Im not changing anyones race, gender identity or sexuality. Otherwise? I'd be really curious what someone else's perspectives could bring to my work if it ever got adapted. I have ideas for comics that are written like they could be movies too, but idk. Its fun trying to write thinking of other mediums

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Im pretty much in the same camp of make changes as it makes sense, but stay true to the core. In the case of a live action thing being made of my story, I would actually be super ok with a POC actor filling the role of any of the white presenting characters. Or actors with different body shapes that what I'd originally draw. More diversity in film is always good

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

outside of censorship, I would be fine with most story changes? with that said, good luck lol. there are very few scenes I think can be cut out of the story without supremely messing up later scenes. every magic ability on-screen is important in some way, a bunch of random background characters end up coming back & getting way more focus later on, etc. add filler, sure, but there's really not much you can cut out without messing up the entire story down the line.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I'm pretty open to the idea of changing some details to fit a different medium better. The big thing that I wouldn't want changed in Whispers of the Past (https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/whispers-of-the-past/list?title_no=191366) is the characters' races. Since the story explores the idea of culture-shock and cultural identity, and the races/cultures are integral to world-building, it would be stupid the change the characters' appearances/races willy nilly. And besides, we don't want what happened to Eragon or Percy Jackson when they became movies. Congratulations on completely killing a franchise But yeah, as long as races and major plot details aren't changed too much, I'm really open to adjusting things. As an example, cutting out smexy times or making the language a bit friendlier to a wide audience, fine by me. But changing Kelan to a blacksmith instead of a farmer... Why???? I would need a good reason to do something like that. (I'M TALKING ABOUT YOU, ERAGON! WHY WAS RORAN JOINING THE ARMY RANDOMLY, INSTEAD OF BECOMING A MILLER? ISN'T THE ARMY WORKING FOR THE EVIL KING WHO TAXES THEM HEAVILY? EXPLAIN THIS TO ME.) I'm actually pretty scared about the whole race thing. I mean, Hollywood also ruined The ]

if the adaptation is Bad I can always just, like, disown it lmao

Deo101 [Millennium]

clearly im the one with the ideas here B) soo

LMAO yea

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

If it was being published as a comic, I don’t think I’d be willing to change too much- though that would depend a great deal in what kind of change. Cleaning up some wonky dialogue? That would probably be fine. Censorship? Absolutely not. Changing my LGBTQ+ characters’ gender / orientation to appeal to the mainstream? Really absolutely not. If being adapted to a different medium, I’d be much more willing to change things around, but would still insist my minority characters not change their identities. But I understand that as far as plot goes, different mediums call for different approaches. I’m planning on writing my comics as novels someday, and will be taking a much different approach to them. The plots will definitely be altered a great deal to better fit being written in prose.(edited)

AntiBunny

It honestly depends on what the changes were. There's a fair amount I'd change myself. A few core things I'd certainly not change though.

In AntiBunny http://AntiBunny.net/ for instance I could see some people missing the point of Penelope's character being a pacifist and wanting to make her some kind of badass, as if the only kind of strength there is comes from violence. I wouldn't remove the question of Pooky's gender, as in order to ask the question of "what is identity" I stripped Pooky of everything including even a mental construct of gender.

Some things I would change though. Likely I would cut the first two chapters and start at the 3rd when the plot actually gets moving. So demands for a faster flowing plot I could certainly meet. I'd probably cut few extra characters from the cast to streamline things a bit.

So yes for the purposes of streamlining things I'd make changes. I wouldn't make changes that would go against the entire point of the cahracters though.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Oh, a conversation in #general reminded me of something else regarding adapting Super Galaxy Knights Deluxe R - If the comic is to be adapted with no changes at all, it'd be a legal nightmare. Off the top of my head, these are properties that have been directly stated in dialogue - - Yahtzee - Risk - Mario Kart - Settlers of Catan - Pokemon - Disney's Frozen I don't think you could technically get in trouble for any of those? It's not like anything copyrighted was shown on screen, it's just characters talking about things they've seen before. But a publisher would probably want to play it safe and avoid that. Also... the NFL might get mad at the publisher if the gang names in Cunoze City aren't changed? Like I don't ever say the team location, so technically full team names are never used... but again, it's probably best to play it safe.

Desnik

I'd be pretty flexible with changes, but if I have to take out demons to appeal to the Evangelical Christian states of America then obvs that's not going to work out

(And you wouldn't think that'd be a Thing to this day, but apparently it's been sort of this unspoken rule in book publishing since the Satanic Panic of the 80's in the US)

Some changes I'd be okay with: Adjusting ages of characters to appeal to target demographics, removing scenes that are difficult to draw, tweaking characters to be either more or less horrible depending on their role in the story

FeatheryJustice

I will be flexible to a point and the limit of this point is pretty align to my morals. If the editor tells me to include some weird things like "You must have a scene where this guy licks the curtains" I would also be like "What is the point of this scene."(edited)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

“Your protagonist must fight a giant spider in the third act.”

Deo101 [Millennium]

I mean, if you bring up giant spiders in the first act... well...

Q (Wayfinders: Off Course)

Turn it around: if your protag must fight spiders in the third act, well, time to bring in the spiders in the first..?

AntiBunny

The more I think of it, the more I realize that the most likely thing I'd be asked to change in AntiBunny is to either tone down the violence and grimdark for kids, or make it even raunchier to appeal to the "mature" (not mature at all) animation market (Seth McFarlane's audience).

My own comic keeps it rather PG-13, but there's not much market for animation in that field, at least in America. Seems like it's all either kid friendly stories where no one dies or if they do it's off screen (people get shot and stabbed in my comic) or there's the opposite with dropping F bombs every other line and filling it with sex jokes.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Hey, I mean, never say never. Off the top of my head, Futurama and the Samurai Jack revival were both western cartoons that I'd put solidly in PG-13 territory. Both shows were able to go adult when they needed to be, but they didn't take that as a blank check to go into "rated R" territory for the shock of it.

#ctparchive #comic #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #creator babble #creator interview #comic creator interview #comic tea party #ctp

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kvetas · 5 years ago

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*✿❀; general headcanons part 1 (akechi)

just some random, usually rather mundane headcanons that probably won’t fit as a theme anywhere else, yeah.

Generally refers to ‘[insert surname]-san’ to nearly everyone.

He’d make exceptions if he’s familiar enough with someone (He either generally refers to Sae as ‘Sae-san’ usually, though may attempt to jokingly call her ‘senpai’ at times) or if he’s fine with a request (So he’d refer to Sojiro as ‘Boss’ if asked, but he’d otherwise call him ‘Sakura-san’).

There’s a possibility that he’ll use different honorifics with either children or people he’s familiar with who are closer to his age. So he’d call some of the phantom thieves as ‘Takamaki-chan’ or ‘Sakamoto-kun’, for example. It’s only really just because sounds like it suits them more to him rather than any indicator of friendliness though.

And honestly, he’ll still persist at using surnames unless someone specifically requests him to be on a first name basis (or if they’re either western/literally do not have a last name) because he lacks the ability to gauge how relationships work. u_u ;;

bro will spill out his childhood drama unprompted to protag at confidant level three, especially with someone he literally just met standing right next to them, but he can’t bring himself to call someone by name?? smfh with this dude

I’m sad that the proof of justice OVA pretty much ruined my headcanon that Goro played video games as escapism growing up. But I still wanna say that if Goro did choose to play video games, he’d voluntarily play RPGs, puzzle games, and simulator games in his free time as a relaxation.

He may or may not create a Shido Sim just to torture the poor bastard as a way to vent on bad days if he got his hands on The Sims.

But he’d be willing to play any video game, even if half of the reason is just as a point of conversation.

Probably wouldn’t really scare easily on horror games. Because his life is already a goddamn horror to sit through as it is. Actually, since a lot of horror games are generally RPGs and/or puzzle games - they’re actually right up his alley.

He’d be the kind of guy who’d go “Oh, congratulations on the win. :)” but be inwardly seething in rage and already plotting 5 different possible ways to beat you after losing a game.

But this is only if it’s for a game he’s actually familiar with and got absolutely demolished on, he wouldn’t really care otherwise and would even welcome a challenge.

I feel like his hobbies were initially picked... well, to look cool, number one, but also for practical use via metaverse shenanigans. (Cycling because it’s the cheapest and fastest option to travel+gather intel but also to help his speed, bouldering for make scaling palaces easier and improve his guts, and darts to improve his proficiency.)

Though he can safely say that he genuinely enjoys these hobbies and is not actually lying through his teeth. But he doesn’t really indulge in them as much as he used to. 2/3 of the reason is because he already maxed out his guts and proficiency stats though tbh

I know that it’s common for people to believe Goro to have a preference in sweets but idk man I don’t really agree with that fanon.

Half is because he wants to be able to judge something he tastes without extra condiments and stuff possibly diluting the flavor. He has a food blog to run and reviews to write and dangit, he’s gonna write nothing but the facts!!

The other half is because he honestly isn’t picky with flavors and the guidebook even says so. Like, sure, he’d critique something to Death but he’d still eat it because you don’t waste food smfh

Even that one spicy-ass takoyaki he unintentionally ate? Like, Yeah, he clearly can’t handle spicy food too well, but he still properly ate it in my book.

Like the only exception is if it’s literally inedible. Like, ‘this is rotten!’ or ‘it fell all over the floor’ kind of inedible.

That being said, I’d say Goro’s favorite coffee blend is Columbian 100% Typica but I can’t be super sure since I’m not a huge coffee fan and I wouldn’t know for sure how it would taste

I DO agree with the fanon idea that Goro doesn’t know how to cook a whole lot (the most being simple food like. fried egg, or steamed potato, or sandwiches) and just shovels instant-made food into his mouth if he so chooses, which is literally any time he’s not trying to show off or look sophisticated.

His apartment probably has fancy, modern looking furnishings and appliances. But it looks more like a home catalogue than a teenager’s living space. (Again, out of posturing to look more esteemed than he actually feels.) Though the apartment’s size is pretty average.

He almost never gets visitors though despite all the effort, except maybe Sae for whatever reason.

The only room that actually looks lived-in is his room, the messiest thing in the room being his (long) desk since he’d generally work on stuff there.

Has a lamp, a pencil holder, a file holder, and his laptop. But also expect to see stacks of books, papers lying around, maybe an empty coffee mug or three, and tools he didn’t put away on top of it.

I can’t imagine him NOT making his own tools (lockpicks, goho-ms, etc.). But he probably had to learn how to make them through trial and error (and using google). At least he had like, two years to learn.

Of course he has a bunch of books in his house. He’s an *~~intellectual~~*, he’s gotta look the part.

Most of his bookshelves are like. Philosophy books, law books, mystery novels, school textbooks, stuff about cognitive psience, and ‘How-to’ books.

He may or may not secretly keep manga in his room.

I like to think he has a balcony. Though it’s pretty bare outside of maybe drying his clothes, he likes to contemplate about stuff out there.

He doesn’t really like staying home very much though, he only stays when necessary. Unfortunately, getting punched by depression and wanting to just lay in bed all day doesn’t count as a necessity to him, especially since he’s undiagnosed.

His fridge generally consists of takeout (either delivered from home or leftovers), beverages (like milk, iced coffee, any SP-recovering weird sodas), butter, bread, eggs, deli meat, and maybe a salad pack.

His freezer is exclusively full of frozen meals. 90% is microwaveable, while the rest of the 10% is stuff you heat up in the oven or steam it with.

His pantry is full of instant-made microwaveable food. Or stuff that doesn’t require much prep work or knowledge in the kitchen, like Mac and Cheese, Hamburger Helper, canned soup, and tuna packages.

Though he also has stuff like tea packs, hot chocolate mix, and instant coffee in the off chance he actually gets a visitor. A lot of them may or may not be past the "Best By” date.

A lot of his budget goes into skincare and hair products as a celebrity-figure that shows up on TV a lot, so predictably his bathroom is just chock full of the stuff.

GOD I WISH HIS FASHION SENSE WASN’T SO NERDY but unfortunately, he’s a kid trying to grow up too fast in order to be taken seriously and hiding the fact that he’s an orphan and didn’t have money before so we’re just gonna have to deal with his preppy grandpa fashion sense

#*( ❀❀;; gilded plumage.. )#*( ✿✿;; headcanon. )#*( ✿✿;; headcanon;; gilded plumage. )#//hi i'm jackie and i have difficulty thinking about what goro's palace would be like but i'll never shut up about what's in his kitchen #//in my defense i'm hungry

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doctorbluesmanreturns · 6 years ago

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Essay on my opinion about shock humor and gore in animation under the cut, please note that everything stated in this post is my own point of view and that I’m not setting myself up as an authority who thinks that his word is somehow what everyone should think (*cough* Nostalgia Critic *cough*) but this is a topic which I have thought about for a bit so I wanted to write about it and get my own views straightened out.

Basing your whole career on shock humor is a bad idea. It gets boring after the first time and generally you need to have more types of humor at your disposal to be able to have a well-rounded career in comedy. It’s the equivalent of jump scares in horror--they can be done well and used to great effect, but only if your film isn’t just “Jump Scare--the Movie!”

In animation aimed at adults, shock humor ABOUNDS, and there’s a stereotype that it has to do the joke of having a character get seriously injured and have it be really gory. This is something that is especially prevalent in things that have come out since the 2000s, with the idea being that in order to push the envelope of what’s acceptable on TV, we have to show more gore than ever before, and the whole underlying joke of this is:

“haha, cartoon man bleed!”

The basis of this joke is simple: since classic cartoon characters don’t usually get seriously injured (see Who Framed Roger Rabbit where the fact that the Dip can dissolve toons where nothing else could harm them is a major plot point), reversing the idea and having actually realistic harm come to them is somewhat funny because it’s unexpected.

The problem is that animation has expanded to the point where death and violence are a major part of them anyway depending on the film (look at something like The Lion King or Into the Spiderverse), and that people have done this same “joke” so many times that all of the shock value has disappeared and it’s boring.

But let’s look at classic cartoon violence for a moment and see why that works and why it’s funny, before looking at how some adult-oriented shows treat violence.

When most people think of cartoon violence they think of Looney Tunes, the series that perfected the convention. In the world of Looney Tunes, there are several rules about violence that are more-or-less consistent throughout:

1) Only the character who INSTIGATED the violence gets injured. In the Wabbit Season/Duck Season shorts, Daffy is specifically trying to get Elmer to shoot Bugs because it’s actually Duck Season (cue a ton of fake Rabbit Season signs placed all over by Daffy). Everyone has experienced something like this at some point in their life, someone going out of their way to hurt them in some way, so it’s cathartic to see Daffy try so hard to hurt Bugs only to fall into his own trap and get shot OVER AND OVER AGAIN WITHOUT LEARNING.

2) The injuries are almost never serious or life-threatening. Daffy gets shot a lot but all that results from that is his feathers are blasted off and his bill pushed into a different position on his head (and in one memorable instance, his entire head got blown upside-down somehow). This is because for the majority of human beings, seeing blood gushing everywhere isn’t funny, it’s disturbing, so while we want Daffy to get his deserved comeuppance, we also want to see it happen in a way that is more humiliating than harmful, to paraphrase Chuck Jones (who should know). Occasionally characters are killed in massive explosions but this is usually presented as an ironic twist at the end of a cartoon (the audience finally applauds Daffy after he blows himself up, but as his ghost rising towards Heaven laments, “I can only do it once!”) and they’re back to wreak havoc once more in the next one.

The problem with the “haha cartoon man bleed!” joke is that it destroys everything that makes classic cartoon violence funny in favor of shock humor. The characters who are hurt AREN’T bad people getting their comeuppance and their injuries AREN’T comparatively mild enough that even when they are the villain it’s not funny to watch. And then they just wipe away the consequences in the next scene anyway so there was no real point to maiming the character that gruesomely if you’re not going to own it and have them be dead for at least the rest of the episode.

While this specifically is what people are usually riffing off of when they have blood and gore in their cartoons, not all shows aimed at adults do this, and there are different ways to approach violence that go beyond “haha cartoon man bleed!” that more content creators should make note of.

1) In The Simpsons, some violence is cartoonish and consequence free (Homer strangling Bart for instance, or Sideshow Bob’s numerous run-ins with rakes, cacti, and other various items familiar to Wile E Coyote), while others are serious (Mr. Burns ended up in the hospital after being shot, Homer was in a coma after being blown up and also thought that he could die after eating incorrectly prepared sushi), but that tends to be based more around the tone of the event in question, so it’s flexible enough to give the writers some leeway. And in the Treehouse of Horror annual Halloween specials, the joke isn’t just that the characters are dying but that this goes against all of the rules of the world of The Simpsons and therefore the excesses that they go to are ludicrous.

2) In South Park, the tone is generally more like real life than The Simpsons, with fantastical elements stuck in for good measure (Trey Parker and Matt Stone having been inspired by urban legends surrounding the titular community that they heard while growing up). Seemingly belying this though is the running gag of Kenny’s deaths in every episode, something which Parker and Stone later abandoned because it got too tedious to try to come up with funny new ways to kill him. It was later retconned into his parents being cursed by Cthulhu so that every time he dies, not only is he reborn but everyone’s memories of him dying before are wiped clean. What Parker and Stone are good at with South Park is in using shock humor as social commentary--their whole movie is about their view of the quixotic nature of censorship and how parents will blame the creators of content not made for children when their kids see it rather than being good parents and being a part of their children’s lives, and this carries over into their treatment of violence. While their creative decisions aren’t ones that I agree with most of the time, I can still see that they are actually putting thought and care into their work, something that absolutely can’t be said for everyone in the adult animation industry.

Which leads us to

3) Family Guy and the rest of Seth MacFarlane’s oeuvre. Family Guy is what happens when you take the Treehouse of Horror segments and divorce them of the context that This Is Not Normal, and add in South Park’s shock humor as social commentary without the social commentary. The result is something where one of the primary jokes is “haha cartoon man bleed!” when the tone is more like a weird heightened reality and therefore it doesn’t “land” as that sort of joke except in the fact that it’s animated. Peter Griffin and the rest are so very clearly not “cartoons” in the way that Daffy Duck or Wile E Coyote are, so it’s basically like if you had a live-action film where people kept getting grievously injured but also erased the consequences of that for the next shot. This is the apogee of lazy writing on par with MacFarlane’s other stock joke, “haha animal and baby talk!!!”

4) In The Venture Bros., we’re basically treated to a live-action show that is animated, and violent death is a HUGE part of every single episode since the premise is “adventure series with kid sidekicks but done with real world rules”. The joke is that if people acted like characters from those old books and shows did in real life, they’re either incredibly stupid or violent psychopaths. It’s still shock humor, and it’s usually not particularly well done beyond “BLOOD!!!!!” but it still beats out Family Guy because the joke isn’t just “haha cartoon man bleed!” but rather a social commentary about our world. (The fact that their view of the world is EXTREMELY nihilistic is a topic for another day.)

5) Similarly, the “lore” of the game Team Fortress 2 has a ton of violence but differently than The Venture Bros., where morality is only found in the naive title characters and even then it’s more a product of them being too stupid to have a different worldview, most of the main characters of TF2 aren’t actually evil. They just happen to have the job of Blowing Things Up and Killing Enemies, and the comics even make it clear that in their world, there’s a difference between having that job and being an evil person. They’re also the only franchise on this list who actually do jokes featuring gore that go beyond the fact that it happened and are more akin to the “splatstick” style of Peter Jackson’s early films, which whether or not that’s something you can stomach gives them a point for more creativity.

All this is a very long way to say that people involved with the cartoon industry need to realize that expecting the joke of extreme violence to be funny in and of itself is both a bad strategy and is making it so any hacks can write a show without putting any thought into it and it gets approved because that’s what shows “do”. And creators need to realize that just because South Park or The Simpsons did something, you can’t just copy them while getting rid of the context that actually made the jokes land and expect to have something good.

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bugheadfamily · 6 years ago

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Day 7 - Fanfic Author Appreciation Week

(thank you @betty-cooper for this gorgeous gif!)

*waves* Hi everyone! @bugggghead here. Both @theheavycrown and I have been trying our hardest to spotlight every single author in this fandom but did you know there are more than we originally anticipated?!?! Did you know we have so many authors in the Bughead fandom alone that 70 just wasn’t enough?! Because we have too much love to give, we’ve chosen to do some author spotlights on the @bugheadfamily blog as well and spread AS MUCH love as we possibly can!!!

Today is the final day of Author Appreciation Week! So we will be highlighting fifteen authors today and two of their works that we recommend you check out right here!

@quirksandcaffeine (ao3)

It Happened One Night (E - 7/?)

Summary: "'How about a toast instead?' he said, raising his glass.

'Sounds like perfection,' she said, leaning her elbow onto her crossed knee and placing her chin into her hand, holding up her glass with the other.

'To tonight,' he said as he clicked her glass with his own.

They each took a sip, looking each other in the eye as they swallowed. Her eyes flicked down to his lips as he leaned into her ear. Her heart started beating harder at the smell of his aftershave.

'Go wait for me in my office,' he whispered as he kissed her on a cheek."

Gods and Monsters (E - 1/1)

Summary: "In a land of gods and monsters, I was an angel." Betty, her cheerleading uniform, and her dark side visit Jughead at FP's trailer.

@nimmieamee (ao3)

Three Wishes (E - 18/18)

Summary: Betty Cooper wants to return to a time when her mother was more consistent, Jughead was more hers, and a looming civil war wasn't breaking up her friendship with Veronica. Veronica wants to keep her friendship with Betty and for the town of Riverdale to recognize everything the Lodges have to offer. And Alice isn't being upfront about what she wants.

But at least one of them will see all her wishes come true.

Are We Dark Enough Yet? (T - 1/1)

Summary: Scenes from the town with pep! (That is, Perpetually Enraging Plots).

@cheryllclayton (ao3)

I Could Be Your Hero (T - 1/1)

Summary: After a tragic end to her relationship results in bullying and hate, Betty Cooper struggles to hold on in a world where she feels invisible...where she feels nothing except for the siren call of Sweetwater River....And after a nasty encounter, Betty makes a decision that will change her life forever...Will this once vibrant soul be lost to the icy abyss of her sorrow before an unexpected hero can convince her to live...

Til' There Was You (M - 5/?)

Summary: Betty Cooper's life has been anything but easy and at 25 she was still struggling to find herself.

Jughead Jones wasn't the type to go looking for love, but what happens when it finds you? Or more correctly, when it hits you like a ton of bricks when you least expect it....

@shirlygallagher (ao3)

What’s Past is Prologue - series (M - 9 works)

Summary: A chronicle of firsts...A tale of discovery...A story of love...~~~

In Between The Sweet Hereafter (M - 1/1)

Summary: What could have happened in that kitchen? Takes place during and after episode 13.~~~

@fictitiousoshine (ao3)

Mercy (M - 13/?)

Summary: Innocent and Naive Betty Cooper wants to run away from heinous man who has her captive for years. She seeks Toni’s help for arranging cash but Toni has different plans for her that include Serpent Prince Jughead Jones.

@kazookidissosoabuggie (ao3)

A Night To Remember (NR - 1/1)

Summary: Jughead and Betty went through a bad rough patch, something they almost couldn't fix. When they did eventually reconcile, Jughead feels terrible for what he had done to her. After he pulls a romantic stunt, the night they spend with each other turns magical instantly.

Anything's Possible with Us, Cooper. (M - 1/1)

Summary: Jughead punches somebody after they body shame her and Betty finds odd but extremely sexy.

@hbiccjsblog (ao3)

Citas Amor (T - 11/11)

Summary: Betty Cooper works for Scarlet magazine along with best friends Veronica Lodge and Kevin Keller. Veronica wants to work in fashion but has been stuck on the desk for a couple of years now. Kevin runs the social media plat forms. Betty Cooper well she's a journalist after all. It runs in her blood. After having a very heated conversation with her mum about setting her up with a boyfriend. Before there family holiday to Spain. Her Best friend Veronica Lodge suggests a fake boyfriend. Her publisher over hears the conversation and wants her to write an article about fake relationships.

Touring Flame (M - 9/?)

Summary: Betty Cooper has just been deployed to Afghanistan for her first tour of her career. She is the medical solider for the tour. Joining the army way a spur of the moment decision. If she didn't get through well at least she can say she tried. Jughead Jones was on his 4 tour in Afghanistan. He was the Head of his group. A fairly experienced soldier. He has a heart of steel. He's seen and experienced a lot. He was expecting this tour to be the same as his other tours. Expect this was different. A certain blonde pony tail, green eyes type of different.

@judgejuggie (ao3)

from pink perfection to seduce scarlett (T - 17/?)

Summary: Betty is living in her sister Polly's shadow, darkness clouding her vision, afraid to show her true colors to anyone. With a little push from a new student named Veronica Lodge, Betty joins the vixens and gains the confidence she has always wanted. Her bright smile and confidence get noticed by Southside Serpent Jughead Jones in a diner at Pop's, and Betty for the first time in her life feels something other than the darkness that's been following her around.

Of course, there will be some obstacles along the way, one by the name of Cheryl Blossom, and the other may be a gang. But Betty wants change, and she's finally ready to go for it.

love and the law (M - 5/?)

Summary: What if there was more to Betty’s vendetta against Chuck Clayton, more to her darkness? What secret is Betty working to keep buried? Can Jughead help her through? And, what else will come their way? Join this emotional, heart-breaking journey to heal and learn that love really can conquer all.

@jordansconnor (ao3)

some aces up your sleeve (M - 5/9)

Summary: In Las Vegas, the only things hotter than the summer days are the card tables on the Strip. High roller Jughead Jones lives for the heat, spending his days in board rooms and his nights at high stakes poker games, until the night a mystery girl takes the seat across from him. From that moment on, his luck starts to change in ways he may not be able to handle.

Keeping Up with the Joneses (E - 1/1)

Summary: Jughead Jones is the undisputed king of Riverdale. His grandfather is the mayor, his father owns half the town and controls Riverdale’s shady side as leader of the Serpents, and Jughead is Riverdale High’s student body president and editor of the school paper. His relationship with Betty Cooper, Southside student and new Serpent recruit, could bring it all crashing down.

@soyforramen (ao3)

Cry to Me (G - 1/1)

Summary: Quick one-shot. When Betty and Jughead find themselves stood up by a certain red-head, a little dancing goes a long way.

Persuasion comes to Riverdale - series (T - 2 works)

Summary: Years after he left without a word, an engagement throws Jughead Jones back into Betty Cooper’s life. The only question is, will she let him back in? Or, Persuasion comes to Riverdale.

@srainebuggie (ao3)

Stronger Than Me (M - 11/11)

Summary: Betty Cooper wasn’t like most girls. She was strong and independent, leather was her skin and hitting the punching bag her saving grace. Betty didn’t commit to people, she had fun. When she moves to Riverdale, she shows up at the White Wyrm looking for a job.

Jughead Jones wasn’t like most men in the Southside. He sported his Serpents jacket rarely, lived in a penthouse apartment, and was the owner of their towns infamous club, the White Wyrm. Jughead didn’t give his heart to anyone, he had fun. When a new woman moves to Riverdale, she shows up at his bar looking for a job

As Betty and Jughead spend more time together on the job, will they break their own rules and admit it’s more than just fun?

Future Bughead - series (NR - 5 works)

Summary: Jughead and Betty broke up years ago and reunite at the grand opening of Veronica's clothing store in New York, the dress she is wearing reveals a small tattoo on her ribs, when Jughead notices, he asks about it. At first her face goes red and she tries to ignore her embarrassment, but he pulls up his dress shirt and reveals his own small tattoo on his side

@sweetbettycooper (ao3)

The INXS Life (M - 8/?)

Summary: Two gangs alike in tyranny both holding two souls that are destined to be forever entwinned.

Was their love tragic or the circumstances around them or was it the events that would occur in the coming months that would make their love the most tragic of all.

Jughead feared on this afternoon in summer, of the consequences that were hanging in the stars.

She was gorgeous. Like the angel of death had come to Riverdale. Jughead new he had to have her.

Or Serpent Jughead meets Ghoulie Betty, forbidden love, Gang wars, Love, Passion.

@witty-tv (ao3)

Exhale (M - 7/?)

Summary: Anxious stoner babes Cheryl Blossom and Betty Cooper have been best friends and roommates since freshman year of college. Cheryl and Toni Topaz are seriously dating, drawing Betty and Toni’s best friend Jughead Jones together. Betty is instantly attracted to Jughead and Jughead is immediately intrigued by Betty. The two become friends, and as they grow closer, Jughead slowly but surely starts to fall for Betty - and eventually Betty shows Jughead the ways weed can help his insomnia.

@dreamer757 (ao3)

The Typewriter (G - 1/1)

Summary: Jughead goes to Betty's house after he opens her gift in 2x09.

The Sad Breakfast Club (T - 11/11)

Summary: A Breakfast Club AU where Archie, Betty, Jughead, Veronica and Kevin aren't friends, but end up spending a whole Saturday together at school.

@merrybughead (ao3)

Announcement (G - 1/1)

Summary: “I - I know it’s personal, but are you guys thinking about it?" Jughead shrugged him off. “Wait, you look weird.” Archie narrowed his eyes to study Jughead’s appearance, “Are you smiling?” “I don’t smile.” "Why are you so happy?” “Betty and I are just...Happy,” She smuggly stated. Cocking a brow to the side, he said, “Oh, I get it.” “Honestly I don’t think you do,” Jughead laughed which sent his ginger friend into laughter as well.

How were they supposed to tell their friends if they had already been guessing and hinting towards it?

Leather and Cotton - an unlikely combination (G - 1/1)

Summary: In an alternate universe where Jughead was raised as serpent king and has been attending Southside schools. Barnes & Noble, Betty's secret safe place from all the rumors and stress that school brings...until she realizes there's a certain leather clad wearing serpent that is most definitely sitting across from her. She knew men like him. They weren’t after girls like her. She's been compromised. Where the unlikely combination of leather and cotton elicits a spark between two polar opposite people.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO JOIN IN THE FUN WITH US!

Recognize YOUR personal favorite fandom authors because the more love we can spread around, the better.

Our fandom is a vast and wonderful place and everyone deserves a little recognition!

#bughead #bughead fanfiction #bughead fic rec #bughead fanfic #spread a little bughead love #bughead fandom author appreciation week #fanfic author spotlight #betty x jughead #riverdale #betty cooper #jughead jones #fanfic

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